One World Cinema

Jon Favreau, wrote, directed, and starred in what might sound like a simplistic plot, yet is very funny and feel good. Carl Casper (Jon Favreau), is the chef in a top restaurant in Los Angeles. When a famous food critic, Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), who recently sold his blog to AOL for $10 million, makes it known that he is coming into the restaurant that night, Carl wants to get creative with the menu. The owner of the restaurant, Riva (Dustin Hoffman), does not like the idea of him changing the dishes, and tells him to stick to the menu and “play the hits”. “If you went to a ‘Rolling Stones’ concert and Mick Jagger didn’t play ‘Satisfaction’ wouldn’t you get upset? Play your hits. Stick to the menu.”

Well, the food critic doesn’t like the food served on the menu and takes to twitter to blacklist the chef stating that “Carl is gaining weight and must be eating all the food that is being sent back to the kitchen.”

Carl and Ramsey start a bad mouthing war on twitter, and it goes viral.

Ramsey decides to give the top chef another chance at a better tasting meal, however, a downward turn of events sends Carl’s life into a different, yet happier direction.

Cute film that will make you hungry.

Article by Sharon Abella
http://1worldcinema.com
One World Cinema

Tribeca Film Fesival 2014:

WINNER: World Narrative Competition: Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.

The Nora Ephron Prize: Zero Motivation, written and directed by Talya Lavie (Israel). Winner receives $25,000, sponsored by Coach, Inc. The award was given by Delia Ephron, Carol Kane, Natasha Lyonne, and Tanya Wexler along with Stephanie Stahl, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Strategy, Coach Inc.

The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – Zero Motivation, written and directed by Talya Lavie (Israel). Winner receives $25,000, sponsored by AT&T, and the art award “Central Park, NY” by Tony Bennett. The award was given by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal joined by Esther Lee, SVP Brand Marketing/Advertising, AT&T.

Jury Comments: “The winner of this year’s Founder’s Award follows young women who must find their place and establish their identity in a world normally dominated by men and machismo. They do so with humor, strength and intellect. The filmmaker mirrors these same qualities. We believe a new, powerful, voice has emerged.”

“Zero Motivation” is about the daily occurrences among young and restless, female Israeli soldiers serving their mandatory military sentences on a remote base in the hot Israeli desert. They kill time playing computer games, filing paper, and chasing male soldiers.

The story starts off where one non-military girl dresses up as a soldier and sneaks on to the base to be closer to a boy that she likes. When she finds him kissing another girl, she kills herself.

Meanwhile, a blonde haired soldier, who believes she is now possessed by the dead girls ghost, starts acting like a zombie, and begins to follow around the only female virgin on the kibbutz. The virgin is trying to lose her virginity with a male soldier that is scheduled to leave the next day. The possessed zombie blonde follows the virgin around to make sure she is safe, and makes sure she makes the right decisions.

Very amusing.

Article by Sharon Abella
http://1worldcinema.com
One World Cinema

The ESPN 30 for 30 Documentary Short about the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 is a must see, as well as, the one showing at the Tribeca Film Festival 2014, about soccer great, Diego Armando Maradona, entitled “Maradona ’86.”

“Maradona ’86,” directed by Sam Blair, illustrates the highs and the lows of one of history’s iconic soccer players. Fame saved Maradona from poverty, however, success was more dangerous than he bargained for. Of the four FIFA World tournaments that Maradona played in, he lead Argentina to their 1986 victory over West Germany.

In the quarterfinal round during that same tournament in 1986, he scored both goals in a 2–1 win over England. The first goal was a questionable and controversial, unpenalized handball known as the “Hand of God”, while the second goal followed a 60 meter run past five of the players on the English team, or “The Goal of the Century”. With the recent tension between the two nations from the 1982 Falklands War, this didn’t help their pre-existing rivalry.

Maradona’s career became even more controversial when he was suspended from participating in the sport for a period of time.

Must see!

Saturday, April 26, 2014 at Tribeca Cinema Theater 1.

Article by Sharon Abella
http://1worldcinema.com
One World Cinema

The jazz performance at the end of “Keep on Keepin’ On” held exclusively for Amex card members on Saturday night, April 19, 2014, may have been in the top 10, if not the #1 event, from the highlights of the Tribeca Film Festival since it’s inception. Five beautiful jazz songs were performed by a myriad of artists, one of whom being, a student of Clark Terry’s, Justin Kauflin, on piano.

First time film director from Australia, Alan Hicks, and ‘his mate’ Adam Hart, started documenting “Keep on Keepin’ On” five years go, and the great Quincy Jones came on as a producer.

Clark Terry is a jazz musician (trumpeter) with a career spanning over seventy years. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and wanted to play the trumpet so badly, that he made one himself out of a lead pipe (mouthpiece), and a funnel (bell). His neighbors couldn’t stand the noise that the makeshift horn made, so they collected $12.50 and bought one from the pawn shop. His first big break was when he was hired by Count Basie, and then as the first black staff musician at NBC. He went on to play with and/or teach some of the jazz greats, including Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dizzie Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, and Quincy Jones. In fact, Quincy Jones was Clark Terry’s first student, and Clark left the Duke Ellington band to join Quincy Jones eleven years later. He has been inducted into the Jazz at Lincoln Center Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, and rewarded with the 2010 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has two Grammy certificates, and three Grammy nominations.

Clark or (C.T.), believes in mentoring and giving back to the community. He stated, “my dreams of playing the horn came true, and now it is my turn to make others’ dreams come true.” C.T. has taken countless students under his wing, one of whom, mentioned earlier, is Justin Kauflin.

Justin lost his vision from exudative retinopathy when he was in the sixth grade. Knowing he was unable to play video games or basketball anymore, he sat down at the piano and fell in love with it. While practicing to be a jazz pianist, he said to his mother, ‘I wish something bad would happen to me so I could play the piano like the famous jazz musicians.’ His mom would hesitantly say, ‘Honey, you just lost your sight, isn’t that bad enough.’ and Justin replied, ‘Naw, what these guys went through is much worse.’

C.T. has had diabetes for over 60 years, and as a result, has been losing his vision too. Justin and Clark could relate to one another in that regard.

Clark Terry’s advice,

“You have to have a desire to excel.”

“You have to want to play better than everybody else.”

“Other students don’t study themselves. You have to know your shortcomings and work on them.”

“Whatever you are doing, do it well.”

“Find your own voice.”

“Don’t copy.”

“If someone believes in you, it makes you believe in yourself more.”

Article by Sharon Abella
http://1worldcinema.com
One World Cinema

“Human Capital,” in Italian with English subtitles, is set in Italy and France, stars two of Italy’s finest actresses, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (Carla), and Valeria Golino (Roberta Morelli), and is part of the World Narrative Competition.

Divided into four chapters, all the shots are reshot from a different characters perspective, their lives intersect, they all know one another, and they are all in crisis; exploring feelings of loneliness, being a social outcast, losing wealth, gaining wealth, failure, relationships, cover up’s, extortion, and integrity.

It begins with an average middle class man (Dino), who owns a real estate agency, and would like to buy into (Giovanni) a wealthy tennis partners’ hedge fund. Dino signs away 700,000 Euros that he doesn’t have, with the intentions of making a 30-40% profit, meanwhile, his significant other (Roberta), tells him that she is pregnant.

Six months later, Dino and Roberta are at a gala, where Dino’s daughter’s boyfriend, Massimiliano, is competing for an award. Massimiliano is also the hedge fund owner’s son. Roberta is expecting twins, and begins to have contractions at the dinner table and needs to leave for the hospital asap. Roberta’s car keys are handed off to Serena (the real estate agent’s grown daughter), who was instructed to drive Roberta’s car home. Massimiliano loses the competition, and goes out partying afterwards to drown his sorrows in alcohol, meanwhile, a bicyclist gets hit by a car on the road and is found severely injured in a ditch. Now it becomes a whodunnit, as many of them were out on the road at that time for different reasons.

How much are human lives from different classes worth?

Very interesting. Very well done, and EXTREMELY well acted.

So far, the best Narrative I have seen.

“Human Capital” is playing THREE more times.

4/21 at 10pm
4/22 at 6pm
4/27 at 2:30pm

Article by Sharon Abella
One World Cinema
http://1worldcinema.com

The entire show was OFF THE CHARTS, but especially “BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND,” as they rocked out “E Street Shuffle,” “The River,” and “Kitty’s Back”.

The 5 hour Induction will be condensed down to 2 hours and shown on Saturday, May 31, 2014 at 9pm EST on HBO.

The manager for James Taylor, and Linda Ronstadt, Peter Asher, got the evening started, followed by Peter Gabriel, who stated he “followed his heart, and that is what made his life interesting.’ ‘Let imagination guide you, and surround yourself with brilliance.’ ‘What you are is where your heart is.’

He played “Digging in the Dirt” from 1992’s “Us”, “Washing of the Water,” along with Chris Martin, and “In Your Eyes” along with “The King of Senegal,” Youssou N’Dour.

Chris Martin’s induction speech for Peter Gabriel was very witty and clever.
It was a play on words with the Bible, and went something to the effect, “I turned to the Bible and an angel of the Lord appeared, Phil the Collins asked and ‘who are you angel?’ ‘I am Gabriel, I am bringing you good news, Ye should be in ‘Genesis’, and after leaving ‘Genesis’ you will create, “Peter Gabriel 1,” “Peter Gabriel 2,” “Peter Gabriel 3,” “Peter Gabriel 4,” “So,” “Us,” and “Up.”

American guitarist, Tom Morello from “Rage Against the Machine,” and “Audioslave,” is currently touring with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and had the honor of introducing ‘Kiss’.

Tom stated how when he first saw ‘Kiss’ his ticket said ‘a partial view’ on it, which he misunderstood to mean that ‘the band was going to reveal some new secret corner of their artistic souls. In reality it meant that my seat was behind a pole. Still, that concert was the most exciting, cathartic, loudest and most thrilling two hours of live music I’ve seen to this day. All four guys were great lead singers, and made him and many others love rock and roll. “What Elvis was to the Beatles, Kiss was to us, influencing everyone from “Metallica,” “Lady Gaga,” “Pearl Jam,” “Alice in Chains,” and “Lenny Kravitz.”

Tom continued on by stating, “What if you wandered into a dive-y club in your hometown and saw Kiss in all their glory, crashing the place to the ground? One guy belching fire and spraying blood past his gargantuan tongue? A guitar player so incredible, his axe billows smoke and shot rockets? A frontman flying back and forth across the joint like a superhero Tarzan? All of them, in frightening, horror-movie sexified Kabuki makeup, wearing high healed platform shoes. The place blowing up with explosions and heavy duty, liberating rock & roll? What would you say if you saw that? You’d say, ‘That band’s fucking awesome!’ and that they are the “fierce-some foursome.”

This speech was absolutely hysterical and had be giving the rock and roll sign with both hands and wanting to rock and roll all night, and party everyday, only to quickly find out that they would not be playing as they were unhappy that the Induction committee would not allow all the band members, past and present, be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Peter Criss stated it was good to be back home in Brooklyn, giving thanks to their first manager, Bill Aucoin, Casablanca Records, Neil Bogart, and being male breast cancer free for the past seven years, and how early detection saved his life.”

“In or out of makeup, I’ll always be the ‘Catman'”.

“It’s all KISS-TORY.”

Ace Frehley stated when he was 13 years old, he picked up the guitar and knew he was in for something big, then he was exposed to the Summer of Love. Ace shared how he was sober and alcohol free for the past 7 1/2 years, and that what people don’t understand is that most addicts are born that way, and it is not due to a lack of will power, ‘try using willpower when you have diarrhea.'”

The rare performance by Yusuf/Cat Stevens was one I will always remember.

Art Garfunkel joked how “Bridge of Troubled Water” had to get made so that “Tea for the Tillerman” could arrive, and how this bearded Hamlet who turned his back on money and world acclaim, walked away from it all and moved to Rio, and sought awareness as Yusuf Islam.” Yusuf stated, “I wanted to look elsewhere for my fulfillment.”

Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens shared, “The first thing that inspired me was my sister’s record collection, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and the best pop song ever, Bach, Leonard Bernstein’s, ‘West Side Story,’ the grandfather of Blues, ‘Lead Belly,’ Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, the Beatles (inspired us all), and Bob Dylan.

He thanked his wife (who is his biggest fan), and the all mighty who made us all, saying, “There is only ONE, and how within this strange Rock and Roll fraternity (that I still belong to), I don’t drink, or smoke, or throw tv’s out of hotel rooms, how I only sleep with my wife, and how the Rock and Roll Hall of fame made a brave decision to still induct me into it’s Hall of Fame. Peace!

He played, ‘Father and Son,’ ‘Wild World’ and ‘Peace Train.’

NOW, I have to say, the tribute to Linda Ronstadt brought me to my knees. She unfortunately did not make it as she suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, and no longer travels, however, Glenn Frey, Carrie Underwood, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, and THE Stevie Nicks sang, “Different Drum,” “Blue Bayou,” “You’re No Good,” “It’s So Easy,” and “When Will I Be Loved.”

Stevie Nicks shared how when she first heard Linda sing “It’s So Easy,” she said she knew that “that is what I want to do. I didn’t look as good in cut off’s as Linda, but I knew that that is what I wanted to do.”

The harmony was so beautiful.

Then came Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band induction speeches,

Daryl Hall and John Oates who joked ‘Aren’t you glad there are only two of us’, and the remaining members of Nirvana, Dave Grohl with Krist Novoselic, along with Courtney Love, Joan Jett, Kim Gordon/’Sonic Youth’, Annie Clark of ‘St Vincent’, and Lorde.

Rock on!

One World Cinema
http://1worldcinema.com

“The Covenant House’s” “Sleep Out” Young Professionals edition, took place last night, Friday, March 21, 2014. In five cities across North America, approximately 400 young professionals raised $250,000.00 while raising awareness for homeless teenagers by sleeping outside on the pavement in the facilities parking lot on cardboard boxes and sleeping bags.

“Sleep Out”

FACT: There are approximately 1.6 million homeless teens across the US yearly. 40% of the homeless population is under the age of 18.

INFORM: Teach teens, who may be going through unfortunate circumstances, that there ARE OTHER OPTIONS besides the streets.

LEARN: “Covenant House” was established in 1972, serves over 400 homeless youth daily and 6,150, annually. When a teen arrives at their door, they are accepted inside. Whether they were kicked out of their home, abused by a family member, or just coming in out of the cold, and off the streets or out from the subway system.

The attempt is made to reunite the teens with their families, and if that is impossible, they may be transitioned to long term living programs, with the intention for them to gain independence. The “Covenant House” also offers services to homeless pregnant women, and mothers with children, providing health services, counseling, employment training, and parenting skills. The program provides a full day nursery for infants and toddlers while their parents attend school, vocational training, or are at work.

LOCATION: “The Covenant House” is located on 41st and 10th Avenue in NYC.

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So, with that being said, here is the documentation from my experience at the “Covenant House’s” ‘Sleep Out’ event held on Friday night, March 21, 2014 from 7pm to 7am on Saturday morning, March 22, 2014.

Friday at 5pm: Two hours before the event: As I was walking through Times Square heading West on 42nd Street, I was looking around at the urban setting and at the people and thought about how even the Elmo actors have anger management issues and are frustrated with life. I thought, this is not going to be like camping in the woods (albeit, a different type of peril), this is going to be different. At 4am when the bars close, people get rowdy, and this could potentially be dangerous. I was wondering if I was going to be able to sleep at all, or would I be up all night. Rather than talking myself out of it, I thought, go and check it out, and if you don’t feel comfortable, you can leave.

So, I went into the bathroom of a coffee shop, put my leggings on under my 40 degree running pants, and headed over to the center. Now that warm attire was addressed, how about safety and security? I looked around and saw that there were many facilities that are open 24 hours; pharmacies, hotels, bars, and urgent care centers, all within a few block radius. This made me feel better.

When I arrived, I registered my name and asked how safe it was. After hearing “we have never had any incidents, the security guards will be at the entrance all night, and the police will be making extra rounds,” I began to feel less nervous, signed the waiver, and was given a badge. The volunteers and staff seemed very professional, kind, upbeat and positive, much like many other people I have worked with in other social service arenas. The negative thoughts were instantly placated.

7pm: The sleepers were directed inside to a warm conference room, catered with trays filled with sandwiches, veggies and cheese, chips and non-alcoholic beverages, and restrooms.

7 to 8:30pm: Registration, networking, music, social media centers, and dinner. Gratefully, another young professional female “sleeper” approached me and we started discussing our experiences of getting dressed for the event, how we both walked over straight from work (so we arrived a little early), and other NYC events we have participated in and/or fundraised for, for example, the NYC Triathlon, the NYC 1/2 Marathon, and Midnight and Color Runs. She was well prepared wearing cargo pants with many pockets, and many layers underneath. She gave me her extra pair of earplugs, saying I would need them. I never thought of using earplugs, so I was gracious. Soon after, people from her Team “Cushman and Wakefield” arrived and were all very personable and cool. We discussed how we heard about the event, whether we had done it last year, whether we would be able to sleep or not, if we are able to sleep on airplanes, our experiences fundraising, how nice the event is, about the center, the bravery of the teens, and how great the turnout was. So far, so awesome. It was one big party and social gathering. They made the event very comfortable and very fun.

8:30-9:30: Introduction by the staff, about the center, how the night will unfold, the amount raised, gratitude and prizes for the top fundraisers.

9:30-10:30: We broke off into groups for a special project and met with some of the youth living at the center. We introduced ourselves, and learned about their life circumstances, how they found out about “The Covenant House”, what brought them there, and what their experiences have been like. Due to confidentiality laws, we are unable to discuss them, their situation, or photos, however, I was impressed with how brave, intelligent, good natured, and motivated they seemed to be.

10:30-11:00: Each group shared their projects with the other small groups. Our groups assignment was to make a poster representing “Healing”. We cut out photos and phrases from magazines which gave us healing thoughts, and pasted them on to a poster board. The women definitely dominated making the poster, while the men in our group were only allowed to draw a small basketball as their contribution. It was very funny.