Posts Tagged ‘The Times’

 

January 31st, 2010

Infidelity and vengeance intersect at the core of Malcolm Venville’s debut feature-film, “44 Inch Chest.” Expanding this weekend to New York, Washington D.C. and additional California venues, with more openings in the coming months, the film is written by the “Sexy Beast” screenwriting duo Louis Mellis and David Scinto. “44 Inch Chest” reunites “Sexy Beast” co-stars Ray Winstone and Ian McShane in a cast which includes John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Joanne Whalley, Stephen Dillane, and Melvil Poupaud. Steven Berkoff makes an appearance in a part which, undoubtedly, will not be spooky in the slightest.

Bob Grimm of Tucson Weekly believes “Jesus needs to step in and stop all these lame biblical films.”

Exploring themes of family and identity, the documentary “Off and Running” from director Nicole Opper has been crisscrossing North America at festival screenings for almost a year. Subtitled “An American Coming of Age Story,” the film focuses on a Brooklyn family with an inquisitive, adoptive teenaged daughter.

Dunno Y . . . Na Jaane Kyun promises Bollywood’s first gay kiss, reports The Times.

One Film Wonder: One of the most illustrious acting teachers of the 20th century, whose students are a roster of Hollywood’s greatest movie icons — James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman, et al.– Lee Strasberg appeared in only 8 films as a credited cast member during a film career spanning 44 years. A foremost exponent of “Method Acting,” he co-founded the Group Theatre in 1931 and became director of the Actors Studio in 1951. In 1974, at the age of 73, he played Hyman Roth in “The Godfather: Part II” and received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. Following his unexpected success, he made several films in the decade, including “…And Justice for All,” “Boardwalk,” and “Going in Style.” But Strasberg’s delicate performance as the intelligent and honor bound Roth resonates most strongly, especially as he counsels Michael Corleone, played by former student Al Pacino, that “this is the business we’ve chosen.”


October 30th, 2009

The tireless Clint Eastwood returns in December with “Invictus,” which chronicles the five years from Nelson Mandela’s release from prison to his prominent role as President of South Africa to unify South Africa through the hosting of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Morgan Freeman portrays Mandela and Matt Damon plays Francois Piennar, the victorious South African team captain.

Mark Macaskill of The Times discovers that “Robert Carlyle fans can buy a role in his new film.”

Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and Kodi Smit-McPhee appear in November in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” directed by John Hillcoat, who helmed 2005’s vastly impressive “The Proposition.”

“Antichrist” star Charlotte Gainsbourg reveals to Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle that “on the balance, all the naked things and the sex scenes were nothing compared to the grieving scenes.”

One Film Wonder: In 1980, South African director Jamie Uys made “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” which centered on Xi, a Saho bushman in the Kalahari Desert, who discovers a soft drink bottle and embarks on a journey to discard it. As “The Gods Must Be Crazy” was financed with South African government funds at a time of an international embargo, the film was marketed as a Botswanan film. Describing the work as a “highly popular and distorted film,” Canadian anthropologist Richard Lee noted in his book “The Dobe, Ju/hoansi” that “The Gods Must Be Crazy” inaccurately “tried to portray the Ju/’hoansi as pristine hunter-gatherers ‘untouched’ by civilization.” The film became a world-wide sensation. In North America, interest began in midnight movie houses, with the movie earning expanding distribution in 1984 and grossing more than $30 million.

Xi was portrayed by N!xau, a San, one of the indigenous peoples living in the region classified presently as South Africa and Namibia. Born circa 1944, he was paid a reported few hundred dollars for his performance in the film. For the 1989 sequel, “The Gods Must Be Crazy II,” he negotiated a purported salary in the hundreds of thousands. N!xau appeared in only 4 other films, each one of them a sequel in the “The Gods Must Be Crazy” franchise; the last three, which were not directed by Uys, were set in Hong Kong and filmed in Cantonese. A herdsman, he returned to Tsumkwe in the Otjozondjua region of Namibia to live on his farm with his family. N!xau died in 2003.


August 21st, 2009

In October, Freestyle Releasing will deliver Katherine Dieckmann’s “Motherhood” starring Uma Thurman and Minnie Driver.

Courtney Young assays “Tyler Perry’s Gender Problem” in The Nation.

Rupert Everett stars as Head Mistress Camilla Fritton in “St. Trinian’s,” the latest film adaptation based on the cartoons of Ronald Searle, which comes to American screens in October.

Ed Potton of The Times discovers “The World According to Don Cheadle.”

One Film Wonder: In 1986, famed saxophonist Dexter Gordon starred in Bertrand Tavernier’s poignant “Round Midnight” as expatriate saxophonist Dale Turner searching for redemption in 1950s Paris. It was a portrayal of art closely imitating life. A Bebop pioneer, Gordon lived and worked in Europe after an earlier bedevilment by drug addiction but returned to America in the 1970s to tour to rapturous acclaim. Gordon appeared in only two other films in his lifetime — an uncredited role as a “saxophone player” in 1955’s “Unchained” and in a 1968 flick titled “I Love, You Love” from experimental Swedish director Stig Björkman — but earned an Academy Award nod as Best Actor in his third, which features appearances by notable jazz musicians such as Bobby Hutcherson, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, who won an Oscar for Best Original Score.


April 17th, 2009

The talented Kelly Macdonald riffs on Marge Simpson, T. Rex and “Back to the Future.”

Ben Walters of The Guardian tags along “When John Waters met the art grannies.”

Thanks to “The Soup” for championing the ingenious and audacious Green Porno shorts devised by Isabella Rossellini and co-director Jody Shapiro for the Sundance Channel. The entire stunning catalogue is located at the network’s site.

“Sugar” is the newly released, acclaimed baseball feature from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the directing tandem behind 2006’s superlative “Half Nelson.” Scott Foundas of LA Weekly takes them out to the ball game while Justine Ciarrocchi at Screencrave chats with the directors and lead actor Algenis Perez Soto.

One Film Wonder: In 1984, John Hughes introduced the first of his series of smart, enduring teen comedies and Michael Schoeffling, a physical ringer for James Dean and Matt Dillon, seemed destined for stardom after his buzzworthy turn as Jake Ryan in “Sixteen Candles.” Seven years later he was out of the industry and now reportedly runs a hand-crafted furniture business in Pennsylvania. Coincidentally, the heartthrob’s most iconic scene involves a table.

The clip is dubbed in Spanish, and an English language version can be found here. But you really can’t disagree that it isn’t el final perfecto.