The 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, April 20-May 1, 2011
April 2, 2011 § Leave a comment
Are you a film student studying in another state, a 20-30 something living in the suburbs deep in diapers, crayons, and Cheerios, or are you just a film fan living outside the New York metropolitan area, and unable to physically attend this years 2011, Tribeca Film Festival? Effective April 12, 2011, TRIBECA (ONLINE) will offer a variety of full length features, shorts and discussions that will be streamed during the festival to your own home computer or laptop. http://www.tribecaonline.com. Although the experience is virtual, you still have to act quickly and reserve your seat, and unfortunately, the Full Length Features and Shorts are only available in the US.
Here are some of the FRENCH, CHILEAN, ISRAELI AND US Full Length Features available for ONLINE STREAMING.
Article by Sharon Abella
New Directors/New Films March 23-April 3, 2011
March 25, 2011 § Leave a comment
12 days, over 25 films, and 2 great venues!
If you worshiped the 90’s alternative grunge scene, thought Kurt Cobain was the sh!t, and admired the strength of Courtney Love’s band, “Hole”, then “Hit So Hard”, P. David Ebersole’s rockumentary about the life and near death experiences of the redheaded female drummer, Patty Schemel, is one NOT to miss. “Hit so Hard” recently premiered at Austin, Texas’ annual SXSW music/film interactive, however, ALL FOUR OF THE ORIGINAL BAND MEMBERS OF, “HOLE”, WILL BE REUNITING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER 10 YEARS, THIS MONDAY, MARCH 28th AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, AS PART OF “THE MOMA + THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER’s “NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS 40 FESTIVAL”. Once again, that is Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson, Melissa Auf der Maur, and Patty Schemel live this Monday, March 28th, at 11 West 53rd Street at 6pm. So brush up on your “Pretty on the Inside”, “Live Through This”, and “Celebrity Skin”, and get your tickets while you still can. http://www.newdirectors.org
Article by Sharon Abella
“Fair Game” Director, Doug Liman
December 5, 2010 § Leave a comment
The acclaimed film director of “The Bourne Identity”, “The Bourne Ultimatum”, and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, as well as Executive Producer of the hit television series, “Covert Affairs”, Doug Liman, discussed his political thriller, “Fair Game”, which is currently out in movie theaters, and is a MUST SEE for EVERYONE this Holiday Season!
“Fair Game” stars, “the greatest working actor, Sean Penn, as former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, and Naomi Watts, who gives the performance of her career”, accurately states Doug. Naomi Watts plays the role of real-life, former undercover US CIA Operations Officer, Valerie Plame Wilson. “This was my first time since “Swingers” to have my two first choice actors say ‘yes'”, he added.
When asked if he has a fascination with spy themed projects, Doug replied, “there is something interesting about people who lie for a living”. Valerie Plame Wilson, was a covert officer in the CIA’s counter-proliferation department for eighteen years, and was working in the Mid-East, post 9/11, where she recruited spies, as well as, searched for information on whether there were or were not Weapons of Mass Destruction. This based on a true story, becomes even more intriguing as Valerie is ALSO married to a former Ambassador to Niger, Joe Wilson, who, in 2002, was sent by the State Department to Africa to investigate intelligence reports which suggested that the Iraqi government was actively trying to purchase ‘Yellowcake’, enriched uranium, from them. With two small children to raise, Joe, admits to Valerie that he doesn’t appreciate not knowing her whereabouts, and whether she is “lying in a ditch somewhere”. Joe later writes an Op-Ed piece in “The New York Times”, basically stating the fact that there was no sale of “Yellowcake”, and, therefore, the suspicions about an Iraq-Niger uranium deal had no basis, contradicting the President’s claims. It is soon thereafter that Valerie’s CIA cover was exposed by a White House press leak, and her eighteen year career with the CIA was over, and she and her family, along with her overseas contacts, were left vulnerable.
- Question addressed to “Fair Game” Director, Doug Liman: “Do you think Ambassador Joe Wilson had any idea of the ramifications of his actions by writing the Op-Ed Piece titled, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”, in The New York Times?”
Answer: Doug Liman: “I am sure he was expecting to be attacked himself, but I don’t think he was expecting that they would go after his wife. That’s the kind of thing evil people do in the movies, and NOT in real life. This was a massive attack on Valerie Plame Wilson, an unprecedented attack on civil liberties by The White House, with the attempt to discredit Joe Wilson, stating that he wasn’t qualified to make an accurate statement about “Yellowcake”. In fact, he was qualified, and he did find out the truth.”
In a “60 Minute” piece with Valerie, when asked about whether she thought if her husband’s article in the NYT would jeopardize her career”, Valerie stated, “it’s called living your cover. He had first hand information, that was in stark contrast to the lie the 16 words that appeared in the President’s State of the Union Address. He wasn’t supposed to say anything?
The four top officials allegedly in connection with the public disclosure in Valerie Plame Wilson’s classified CIA status, were Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, VP Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, friend of George W. Bush, Carl Rove, and White House Spokesman, Ari Fleischer. Scooter Libby was charged with one count of Obstruction of Justice, two counts of making false statements, and two counts of perjury in his testimony before the grand jury. His jail time was removed and he was not charged with revealing Valerie’s identity. He was fined and disbarred.
When asked about Scooter Libby, Doug stated, “Scooter Libby threw sand in the eyes of the investigators and made it impossible to continue their investigation. Because of him, we will never know the truth. Scooter Libby is a convicted felon with friends in high places. The President wouldn’t pardon him, just commuted him.”
Article by Sharon Abella
Up close with “Babel” and “Biutiful” Director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
November 12, 2010 § Leave a comment
World Premiere: “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
November 5, 2010 § Leave a comment
A nice complement to Thom Zimny’s documentary, “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town”, comes the World Premiere of “Darkness on the Edge of Town”, a concert film performed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in December, 2009, at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park, NJ. Bruce and the band performed the entire 1978 album, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”, just for themselves with no audience.
MAX WEINBERG: “This was my first time seeing the film. I hadn’t seen the film yet. I think Thom really captured how hard it is do that. I was fascinated by Bruce’s eyes. I’ve never seen that view of him from the front like that.”
THOM ZIMNY: “I wanted to capture the interplay. Bruce and I talked about what we wanted to achieve. I held on to a feeling, and Bruce had the idea of bringing the camera in closer to make the audience feel like they were part of the “E Street Band”. I studied the album and tried to focus on individual parts. I have an amazing cinematographer, William Rexer, and we really looked at each individual song.”
Q: “When is every album going to be filmed like a concert?”
MAX WEINBERG: “There will be many more opportunities to do this. There is such vitality with the “E Street Band”. Thom captured the grit of what it is like to play. He captured the concentration and the difficulty to get the right moment. He did that so well. That is what the “E Street Band” is all about, capturing THAT moment. I would love to see the film again. It was amazing to watch the contribution. You internalize it, the songs become part of your life blood. When we rehearsed “Candy’s Room”, it was called “The Fast Song”, if you remember Barry White records, I think that’s what I was thinking. It’s really a privilege to play that music. Each night we play, it is like the first time we’ve played. That is the beauty of the E. Street Band. When you are playing, that’s not the mix you hear when you are in that moment. We have to make each song sound like it is the first time we’ve ever played it. The group is sensitive to what everyone one else does. Drum and bass players always talk about locking in, and we just naturally ‘lock in’. Even when we are rehearsing in Bruce’s living room, it’s as if we are playing Giants Stadium. My 36 years has been an unbelievable privilege.”
THOM ZIMNY: “It was a great Saturday afternoon. There was this calm. There would be this amazing “Candy’s Room”, and when I first got the footage, there was this communication between Bruce who would turn to Max, and Max, who was behind Bruce. There was this constant interplay, and camera shots that would try to capture this interplay between singer and drums, and bass and drums.”
Q: Will there be any more new material?
MAX WEINBERG: “If Bruce has anything to do with it, there will be many more albums. We would rehearse from 2-7 pm everyday at Bruce’s house. I don’t know when he ate or slept because he always had new material for us to work on. I had a tape recorder, and I would tape the rehearsals in order to remember the new material. ”
There is a box set that comes out next week, and for any Bruce Springsteen fans, you will need to take the week off, because there is so much material in there, that you will need to take the entire week off.
I would like to go back on tour. As many may know, I have free time now. I am working on 31 night performances and just did “The Stand Up for Heroes” event last night at the Beacon Theater. We had 12 horns behind us, and played, “Prove It All Night” and “Kitty’s Back”. I would like to go back on tour on the sooner side of ‘sooner than later’. When Bruce calls, I’ll be ready. We played “The Stone Pony” six weeks ago, and then the “Stand Up For Heroes” event last night. We still do it the old fashioned way.”
THOM ZIMNY: “I would like to thank Bruce for allowing me a lot of freedom and his ability to trust me and give me what a filmmaker needs, and that is time, time to explore and edit. A portion of the proceeds of the film will go to ‘The Danny Federici Melanoma Fund”.
MAX WEINBERG: “I think Danny would be very happy to know that the music lives on. Danny really put that boardwalk sound into the music.”
Article by Sharon Abella
Rome International Film Festival, October 28-November 5, 2010
October 8, 2010 § Leave a comment
If you find yourself in Rome towards the end of October to the beginning of November, 2010, then maybe one of the 146 Films and Documentaries being shown at the Auditorium Parco della Musica at the Rome International Film Festival, will be of interest to you.
Of the Sixteen films in competition, judged by the International Jury comprised of Sergio Castellitto, Natalia Aspesi, Ulu Grosbard, Patrick McGrath, Edgar Reitz, and Olga Sviblova, four are Italian, while two are American.
1. “Una Vita Tranquilla” by Claudio Cupellini starring Toni Servillo
2. “La Scuola e Finita” by Valerio Jalongo starring Valerio Golino
3. “Gangor” by Italo Spinelli, and
4. “Io sono con te” by Guido Chiesa
Two American films in competition include,
1. “Last Night” by Massy Tadjedin starring Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, and
2. “Rabbit Hole” by John Cameron Mitchell starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart and Dianne Wiest
Official Selection films out of competition include,
“Crime d’amour”, a pilot of the series, “Boardwalk Empire” by Martin Scorsese, “The Kids Are All Right”, “Let Me In”, and “Il padre e lo straniero”.
Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, and Federico Fellini are just a few of the masters in the long life of Italian Cinema who have helped form the film industry to make it what it is today. Come celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Fellini classic, “La Dolce Vita”, as this iconic film has been newly restored with special help from the laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata at the Cineteca in Bologna, in association with the Film Foundation, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale, Pathe, Fondation Jerome Seydoux-Pathe, Mediaset, Medusa Film, Paramount PIctures and Cinecitta Luce, and will make it’s world premiere at the Auditorium Parco della Musica on October 30th!
Article by Sharon Abella
The New York Film Festival, World Premiere of “Social Network”
September 25, 2010 § Leave a comment
“Waiting for Mark Zuckerberg”
Article by Sharon Abella
Ironically, Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary, “Waiting for Superman”, a film about America’s failing school systems, opened the same week that co-founder of “Facebook”, Mark Zuckerberg, is about to have his reputation tarnished as a result of the way he was portrayed in the film “Social Network”. Just days before the film’s premiere at “The New York Film Festival”, Mark donated $100 million to the Newark Public School system. At the same time, at the premiere of “Waiting for Superman”, Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, American social activist and educator, Geoffrey Canada, and Chancellor of Washington D.C.’s Public School system, Michelle Rhee, discussed the need for reformation in our nation’s failing schools, the need for better leaders, finding ways to remove lackadaisical, tenured teachers, to make teaching a more prestigious career that is valued and respected, as in countries like Finland, to make public schools the same caliber as charter schools, and, above all, the importance of putting the children first.
“Social Network”, directed by David Fincher, is based on the book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal”, and proclaims that, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”. Well, if you are a fast talking, fast thinking, pretentious, computer programming genius, who wants to set himself apart in order to get into exclusive social events, meanwhile, relates to inanimate objects and algorithms better than human beings, this is in fact the case. When Mark Zuckerberg decides to create a site similar to “Hot or Not”, Harvard classmates approach him with the idea of making “Harvard Connection”, an online community for Harvard students. Mark fine tuned that idea, went out on his own, and made, “The Facebook” instead. When “The Facebook” becomes an Ivy League success, his classmates decide to bring him to federal court on charges of intellectual property theft.
The question remains: Should Mark Zuckerberg have been sued for theft if he was the one with the capabilities to make a “Hot or Not” like site, and the social network phenomena, “The Facebook”? It might make more sense if sites like “Hot or Not”, “MySpace”, and “Friendster” were suing Mark instead.
When it comes to relationships, the highly intellectual, fast thinking, mover and shaker falls short when he insults and offends the girl he likes, gets star struck by the wrong kind, and betrays his best friend, burning every Golden Gate bridge in his path. Ironically, a man with 500 million friends is left with none.
“Dating you is like dating a stairmaster”.
“You are going to think girls don’t like you because you are a computer nerd, but it will be because you are an @&&hole.”
“I can beat him up myself. I’m 6’5”, 220 pounds, and there are two of me.”
Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Executive Producer, Kevin Spacey, Beastie Boy, Adam Yauch, Faye Dunaway, and Wes Anderson, in attendance. After party held at “The Harvard Club”.
New York International Latino Film Festival July 27-August 1, 2010
August 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
Bienvenido to “The 11th Annual New York International Latino Film Festival”, presented by HBO! Get out of the hot sun and into a cool theater by supporting international filmmakers who will be showcasing dozens of films at SVA and Chelsea Cinemas from July 27 to August 1st. While “The Dry Land” starring America Ferrara and Wilmer Valderrama will open the NYILFF this Tuesday, July 27, films entitled “Accountable” to “Yanindara” and over 100 others in between, will guarantee something for everyone.
“Restrepo”
August 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
“The Man Who Will Come”/ (L’Uomo che Verra) Interview with Italian Director: Giorgio Diritti
August 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
WINNER OF *BEST FILM* and *BEST PRODUCER* at the 2010 David Di Donatello Awards!
“L’Uomo Che Verra” or “The Man Who WIll Come”, is the second full length feature film by acclaimed Italian director, Giorgio Diritti. “The Man Who Will Come” is so powerful, beautiful, and well-researched, it is even shot in a rare form of Italian dialect, known as the Bolognese Apennines, which, today, is spoken by very few, all of whom are older than 60 years of age, even the Italian actors had to be taught to speak the dialect.
Set in a hillside town of Bologna, the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in 1944, “The Man Who Will Come”, accurately depicts the actual tragic murders of 770 civilians by German troops occupying Italy after the fall of Mussolini. Although the film is fictional, yet based on real events, you will be emotionally touched by the character, Martina, an eight year old outcast, who hasn’t spoken a word ever since her newborn brother died. Poor Martina is confused as to who and why the Germans are wreaking havoc on their small, unsophisticated, rural town, and while trying to make sense of it all, observes human suffering inconceivable to mankind.
One World Cinema 