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| Away from Him by Richard Horgan |
1/5/2009 4:04:15 PM |
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After a couple of shorts, French writer-director Laurent Vinas-Raymond will present this year a full-length drama that seems destined to draw comparisons to the 2006 award winner Away from Her. Much like that Sarah Polley feature length directorial debut, J’ai Oublié de te Dire (I Forgot to Tell You) centers around an elderly person suffering from Alzheimer’s and has recruited for this delicate part a legendary actor who kicked off their career in the 1960’s.
As luck would have it, Omar Sharif’s birthday (April 10th) is just four days ahead of that of Julie Christie (April 14th), although he is today 77 to her 67. And there’s no doubt that if Sharif nails the role the way Christie did, he will have a leg up on most other 2009 awards season contenders. |
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| Pondering 2001 and 2012 by Richard Horgan |
1/4/2009 10:52:17 AM |
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In his lengthy April 1999 essay “Alchemical Kubrick 2001: The Great Work on Film”, author-filmmaker Jay Weidner takes late film critic Pauline Kael to task for failing to grasp that Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey was in fact a monumental distillation of the tenets of Hermetecism, an ancient religious and philosophical movement that connects to today’s controversial Kabbalahsect. Needless to say, Weidner has since heard from thousands of readers; some angrily dismiss his Kubrick theories while others say it has allowed them to see the movie in a whole new light.
These days, the forward-looking cinematic year that is most on the minds of Weidner and his wife-creative partner Sharron Rose is not 2001 but rather 2012. The duo’s talking heads documentaries 2012: The Odyssey and Timewave 2013, available on DVD and screening January 7th and 15th respectively at Loveland, Colorado’s Rialto Theater, are all about the ominous date of 12/21/12, when the end of the Mayan Calendar may well usher in a whole new level of human experience. |
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| A Topsy-Turvy Ticket by Richard Horgan |
12/30/2008 3:28:57 PM |
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When the cast of the currently shooting drama Ticket Out came together, chances are that both producer Chris Noonan and director Doug Lodato looked to co-star Ray Liotta as the biggest marquee name draw. But that was before the megahit adaptation Twilight turned Billy Burke (pictured below) into a separate household name, via his portrayal of the father of lead character Bella (Kristen Stewart).
Set in Kentucky but shooting, because of state tax incentives, in nearby Iowa, Ticket Out casts Burke as an abusive, bad guy husband who comes chasing after his ex-wife (Alexandra Breckenridge) after she flees with the kids he has been awarded custody of. Along the way, as she tries to get from the U.S. to Canada, she relies on the assistance of a helpful friend (Liotta) who also happens to be an undercover FBI agent. |
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| Playing the Over-Under by Richard Horgan |
12/29/2008 9:58:46 PM |
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This Christmas break, Loyola Marymount University film student Joe Wilka is back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to share yet another low-budget opus with the hometown crowd. Scheduled to screen tomorrow night (Tuesday, December 30th) at 7:00 p.m. at the West Mall 7, Under the Influence is the latest in a long line of efforts made by the aspiring writer-director and his pal Jason Reisch.
Though the pair has graduated from short films to feature-length efforts, the budgets remain pretty much the same. Their latest - a 90-minute high school comedy about four teenage buddies sharing a hectic Friday night - was made for the princely sum of $2,000. Admission tomorrow night is $5, so a full house could go a long way towards helping Wilka and Reisch break even. |
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| Presenting the Parsnip by Richard Horgan |
12/26/2008 10:36:25 PM |
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Not only is Dawn of the Parsnip by all indications the first short or feature-length film to include the word “parsnip” in its title. It’s also the first cinematic endeavor named after the carrot-like vegetable to gain a theatrical showing.
Tomorrow, Saturday December 27th, at 2 p.m. local UK time, the 12-minute horror spoof will be screned for an invitation-only crowd at a Cineworld Multiplex in the northwestern port city of Runcorn. The movie theatre chain offered up the slot after reading about the filmmaking efforts of local teenagers Ryan Davies, Jakub Boote, Ellis Gayle and Danny Sim. |
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| A Real-Life Natural by Richard Horgan |
12/22/2008 11:13:47 PM |
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There were two remarkable things about the day back in 1975 when 18-year-old Brenham, Texas phenom Ricky Hill appeared in the final game of a three-day baseball tryout camp organized by legendary scout Red Murff. One was the fact that Hill was the designated hitter for both elite teams; the other was his overall contribution to the box score.
Hill was an astonishing eleven for eleven, belting out two singles, five doubles, a triple and three home runs. These exploits now form the basis of The Hardest Hitter, a prospective 2009 indie sports drama whose producers are currently scouting locations in places like Macon, GA. |
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| The Smallest Girl in the World by Richard Horgan |
12/19/2008 4:11:04 PM |
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If you want to catch a glimpse of 2009’s most remarkable impending movie star, set your DVR to record The Learning Channel’s re-broadcast of the documentary Incredibly Small: Kenadie’s Story this Sunday, December 21st at 8 p.m. For not only is (now) five-year-old Sault St. Marie, Canada resident Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley one of the very few people in the world to be afflicted with Primordial Dwarfism; she is also the only one of that small group of sufferers to headline her own fictional feature film.
Because of her profound growth delay, Bromley currently weights 14 pounds and stands at 2’ 7", though her miniaturized features are in all in perfect proportion to her small stature. After watching the aforementioned TLC documentary, Dutch filmmaker Rita Horst decided that Bromley would be perfect for the lead role of Viegeltje in her fantasy movie Iep! (Cheep!), about a half-bird, half-human little girl who is nursed back to health by a pair of bird watchers. It took a while, but Horst was finally able to convince Bromley’s parents to give the OK. |
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| An Inconvenient Holiday by Richard Horgan |
12/18/2008 10:47:34 PM |
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The first environmentally conscious Santa Claus story has Jolly Old St. Nick reaching out to children all over the world to help him tackle Global Warming and has been praised by Academy Award winner Al Gore. The second, simultaneously published offering has it the other way around, with a young Michigan boy writing to Santa for environmental assistance, and has already been optioned for the movies.
Welcome to the nascent yet fast-evolving trend of getting the Global Warming message across to young children via books such as, respectively, When Santa Turned Green and Santa Goes Green. This Christmas, they’re available in bookstores for $15.95; in another three to five years, an adaptation of the latter will likely be hitting theaters and the DVD circuit courtesy of Seastars Partnership, a new Hollywood production company run by former Disney executives Suzy O’Hara and Penny Milliken. |
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| Rolling Out the Columbia Red Carpet by Richard Horgan |
12/17/2008 9:41:10 PM |
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Here’s a motion picture preview release track you don’t run into every day: a world premiere in July aboard an international space station and some glitzy screenings on December 16th in Columbia, Missouri. That’s because the two major forces responsible for indie action flick The Red Canvas, Ken Chamitoff and Adam Boster, are respectively the brother of an astronaut and a native of the Midwestern city.
The title of the film refers to a mixed martial arts cage-fighting event that our hero, Johnny Sanchez (Ernie Reyes Jr.), must compete in for cash after being released from prison. At this summer’s Action on Film International Festival in Pasadena, Reyes Jr. won Performer of the Year, while co-star John Savage claimed Best Supporting and the film itself was voted Best Feature. |
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| A Mother’s Catch-22 by Richard Horgan |
12/16/2008 4:25:12 PM |
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This past weekend in Miami, there were a couple of screenings of the short film 22 Weeks, an incendiary look at one of today’s most controversial issues: abortion. Based on an April, 2005 report by WorldNetDaily, the drama tells the true story of Angele, a Florida woman who sought to abort her 22-week pregnancy. Instead, she gave birth to the child in an Orlando abortion clinic restroom and went on to resist staff attempts to claim the baby, cradling “Rowan” through an all-too-brief 11-minute lifespan.
As you can imagine, even though the film takes an apolitical stance with regards to abortion, this is not an offering that can be easily booked into venues. One of the ways director Ángel Manuel Soto Vázquez is trying to foment grassroots support is by using the website Eventful.com, whereby people can “request” that 22 Weeks come to their city. At press time, for example, 88 residents of Kansas City, 61 folks from Dallas and 51 would-be audience members in L.A. are among those who have clicked through with their votes. |
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