FilmStew.com: LatestHeadlines

Woody Harrelson's Tour of Duty

11/20/2009

Visits to Walter Reed Hospital and Fort Dix have given the pro-peace actor a whole new appreciation for U.S. troops.

"Inglourious" Treatment

05/22/2009

This year, the print media at Cannes lost the Inglourious Basterds battle to their better looking TV brethren.

"Antichrist" Gives Way to Anti-Trier

05/20/2009

Legendarily press-averse filmmaker Lars Von Trier burnishes the anti-PR at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Mariah Carey's Harlem Encore

05/19/2009

U.S. songstress reinvents herself to play supporting role in a film festival darling.

The Return of a "Bright Star"

05/18/2009

Kiwi filmmaker Jane Campion remains an empowered Cannes champion.

Some Pros and Comic-Con's

07/31/2006

In the wake of yet another four-day San Diego smorgasbord celebrating anything that can be turned into an action figure or costume, we take a look at some of the highs (Kapow!) and lows (Kaboom!).

Singer Surveys "Superman"

06/27/2006

In paying homage to the Richard Donner films, filmmaker Bryan Singer managed to include everything except the Krypton kitchen sink.

Beauty and the Regular Guy

06/21/2006

It’s not just the broad theme of Ashton Kutcher’s reality TV series. The onscreen pairing of great-looking young gals with average Joe's is a Hollywood movie trend reoccurring once again.

A Bigger "Bang"

06/05/2006

With next week’s DVD release of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang sure to finally bring this acerbic film the audience it deserves, we sample the rat-tat-tat-tat chemistry of Kilmer Kilmer, Downey Downey.

Blondes Have More Trophy Ware

05/02/2006

Officially, it was called the US Weekly Hot Hollywood Awards. Unofficially, it looked a lot like a bevy of blonde babes and the shorter male B-Listers who love them.

A Sundance Playlist

02/06/2010

A pair of 17-year-old protagonists headline our critic's list of noteworthy 2010 Sundance Film Festival offerings.

Toronto's Top Ten

09/21/2009

Among our critic’s favorites at this year’s edition are films featuring strong performances by Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson, Anthony LaPaglia and Sir Michael Caine.

Rewarding Her Festival Faith

09/18/2009

Heading into an event like the Toronto International Film Festival, a reporter always prays for rich thematic strands. Thankfully, this year’s prayer has been answered.

A Sapphic Seyfried

09/16/2009

At the Toronto Film Festival, actress Amanda Seyfried offers up not one but two same-sex narrative detours.

A Trying Triple Bill

09/11/2009

Our reporter kicks off the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival with a disturbing trifecta.

Putting On a World War II Show

03/09/2010

Before he became an influential American fashion designer, the late Bill Blass held a most unusual position: soldier-artist with the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, a top-secret Word War II outfit also known as the Ghost Army. Alongside painter Ellsworth Kelly, photographer Art Kane and the many other lesser-knowns who comprised the 1,100-person Camouflage Battalion, he was tasked with helping with some of the 21 large-scale deception maneuvers staged on the Continent during the waning days of the conflict, using weapons such as inflatable tanks, sound effects and even playacting.

Not to be confused with the First United States Army Group, a task force featured in the 1978 Ken Follet novel Eye of the Needle and subsequent 1981 film adaptation, the Ghost Army is now - finally - the subject of a documentary of the same name by Rick Beyer. Though still in rough cut form, it is scheduled to be sneak previewed on Wednesday, March 17th at the University of Michigan’s Hatcher Library, which is running a concurrent exhibit of photos and drawings supplied by the filmmaker.

Like so many filmic enterprises, the idea for The Ghost Army was born at a Starbucks where, in the summer of 2005, Beyer was introduced by a business colleague to the daughter of unit operative John Jarvie. One of the most dangerous of all the Ghost Army missions took place in September, 1944; code-named Operation Bettembourg (pictured below), it involved plugging an unmanned 70-mile breach in the Metz massing forces of General Patton by having the artist-soldiers make like 20,000 members of the 6th Armored Division.

[Photo courtesy of GhostArmy.org]

Catching Up to a Kentucky Tragedy

02/22/2010
The school bus accident that formed the basis of both the Russell Banks story and subsequent Atom Egoyan Oscar-nominated 1997 drama The Sweet Hereafter took place just over 20 years ago in the small town of Alton, Texas. Tragically though, the fatality count of 21 chilren drowned does not make it the worst such accident in U.S. history; that morbid distinction belongs to an earlier 1958 mark on the psyche of residents of Prestonsburg, Kentucky that claimed the lives of 26 children.

This February 28th, 1958 tragedy is the focus of The Very Worst Thing, a documentary screening on Wednesday, February 24th at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington after premiering last Friday in Prestonsburg to a massive audience of 1,040 people. Taking its title from the summation by local Josephine Fields that the crash was “the very worst thing to ever happen in Floyd County," Michael Crisp and Andrew Moore’s film features interviews with only one living survivor willing to talk about it on camera, relying for the rest of its talking-head documentation on eyewitnesses, emergency personnel and others.

The filmmakers worked closely with Jackie Branham-Hall, author of a 2004 book about the bus crash entitled Portrait of a Disaster. Banham-Hall’s connection to the crash is that as a child, she was sick that day, thereby missing school and the need to make the trip; in director Crisp’s case, he is related to several of the children who perished and moved away from the area as a child in 1955.

Echoing the crash sourced by Banks and Egoyan, the exact cause of the Prestonsburg plunge into a swollen river remains unknown. Crisp plans plan to eventually submit The Very Worst Thing to film festivals and even at this late date, is still hoping that some enterprising archivist will materialize with elusive local TV news footage from the crash site.

[Photo courtesy of The Very Worst Thing Facebook page]

Getting a "Handle" on Michigan Moviemaking

02/18/2010
Michigan’s obscenely entincing tax incentives for filmmakers are in the news a lot these days, but not all of those making movies in The Wolverine State are doing so under the auspices of runaway savings. Case in point: Rebel Pictures, Michael McCallum and Anthony E. Griffin’s Lansing outift; founded in 1999, the company is set to unveil its second feature, Handlebar, on Sunday, February 21st, at the Celebration Cinema.

Clocking in at 70 minutes and shot over a scant two weekends, the farcical mafia comedy may be a tad on the feature-length light side, but it marks the continuation of a journey that began at the same Celebration Cinema in January of 2007 with the launch of Fairview Street, a more serious offering starring McCallum in the title role of a paroled ex-con. McCallum sports the titular handlebar moustache in this new film, and is already at work with partner Griffin on the 2011 comedy-drama Lucky.

The duo promise to have some exciting news regarding Handlebar at Sunday’s premiere, though they hasten to add on Facebook that it involves neither an unplanned pregnancy nor a call from Steven Spielberg. Their newest offering can also be purchased online as a $20 DVD, complete with three Audio Commentary tracks and the 2007 Griffin-McCallum short Nice Guy Blues.

[Photo courtesy of HandlebarMovie.com]

Shifting Gears in Potomac

02/17/2010
Writer-director Michael Merino is certainly far from a household name, but in the last few years he’s managed to make a heist film (The Deal), some suspense horror (502) and some slasher horror (The Milkman). Now, to his credit once again, he’s raised several hundred thousand dollars in financing for Our Last Supper, a change-of-pace drama set to roll from late March through early April on location in the wealthy equestrian enclave of Potomac, Maryland.

The film, about five male friends in their late 30s who gather for an annual catch-up steak dinner, also marks the first time Merino, a one-time L.A. acting hopeful, is taking a co-starring role in one of his productions. In a way, the story sounds a little bit like it could be a sequel to fellow Maryland native Barry Levinson’s 1982 classic Diner, wherein a group of lifelong friends grow older to face a different set of issues such as caring for a sick parent and ageing out of a sports profession.

The rest of the Our Last Supper cast - Kris Arnold, Ken Arnold, Regen Wilson and David Jon Wilson - reflects an even mix of repeat MCMFILMS collaborators and first-timers. Merino meanwhile already has a couple of other projects in pre-production: The Haunting of Pearson Place and The Razorman.

[Photo courtesy of MCMFilms.net]

A Dwindling Slice of Paradise

02/08/2010
The words Te Henua E Nnoho are a lot harder to pronounce than An Inconvenient Truth, but the message of this new Kiwi documentary is in many ways far more incontrovertible than the slide show arguments presented by Al Gore in his Oscar-winning documentary. The title comes from the Polynesian words "There Once Was an Island," and sure enough, that is the very imminent reality faced by inhabitants of the tiny southwestern Pacific atoll of Takuu in Papua New Guinea profiled in this Grand Prize winner at the recent 2010 Pacific International Documentary Film Festival.

Shot during the winter of 2006-2007 and in the last few months of 2008, Te Henua E Nnoho shows how residents Satty, Endor and Teloo must struggle with the very real effects of global warming, man-made or otherwise. Producer Lyn Collie and director Briar March were initially inspired by the writings of Richard Moyle, an Auckland, New Zealand anthropologist who has been visiting and studying the island for two decades. Onscreen, that scientific perspective is taken up by oceanographer John Hunter and geomorphologist Scott Smithers, who work with the local trio to quantify what is occurring.

Permission to shoot had to be secured from Takuu’s tribal chief, and the challenges of production were augmented by the fact that there is no electricity on the island. Te Henua E Nnoho will make its U.S. debut February 15th at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Montana, where it will no doubt continue to make a big splash.

[Photo courtesy of ThereOnceWasanIsland.com]

Battling Bad Sundance Buzz

01/29/2010
Mark Ruffalo's debut feature, Sympathy for Delicious, is a blast and far better than the bad buzz suggests.

The "Backyards" Beat

01/27/2010
Music takes on special emphasis in Judy Berlin director Eric Mendelsohn's second feature 3 Backyards.

That '40s "Show"

01/27/2010
As the USO prepares to celebrate its 69th anniversary next week, actor Wilmer Valderrama reveals how it also proved to be his pathway to meaningful dramatic work.

Two Oscar Winners, One Oscar Nominee and No Takers

01/24/2010
Lack of financing nearly did in Get Low, but the all-star production made it to the finish line and a berth at Sundance.

Stinging the Paparazzo

01/22/2010
Hard to say if TMZ or RadarOnline would fall for it today, but this A-list maneuver definitely worked back in 1975.