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18 articles from 2009

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Featured Article: Classic Italian Film

10 hours ago | Screenrush | See recent Screenrush news »

With its silent superspectacles, postwar neo-realism and 1960s new wave, the Italian film industry has enjoyed three major periods of international influence. In between times, it has assimilated the technological advances and dramatic styles of foreign competitors and used them to shape such local trends as the `white telephone' film, calligraphism, giallo, the `sword and sandal' epic, the `spaghetti' Western and the dialect comedy.

Over the years, the unexpected has become commonplace. Therefore, it's no surprise to see Gianni di Gregorio, the screenwriter of the uncompromising crime saga Gomorrah, making his directorial debut with Mid-August Lunch, a charming comedy of bourgeois manners, whose unforced naturalism, social insight and deceptive wit hark back to a golden age that is recalled here by MovieMail - the best place to buy classic movies and world cinema on DVD.

After two decades of propaganda and pictorialism, Italian film went back to basics after the Second World War. »

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Strikeforce Preview: MTV's Jason 'Mayhem' Miller Will Become Middleweight Champion

6 November 2009 12:46 PM, PST | MTV Newsroom | See recent MTV Newsroom news »

Before you watch Taylor Swift hosting and performing on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, spend some time on CBS checking out "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers," an Mma event live from the Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. The main event features legendary heavyweight Fedor "The Last Emperor" Emelianenko in a match against undefeated up-and-comer Brett Rogers. The card also features another excellent heavyweight match-up between Brazilians Fabricio Werdum and Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva and an intriguing head-to-head with Gegard Mousasi and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou. It should be a fun night of fighting (if you're into that sort of thing).

But even if you're not into the sweet science of kickboxing and grappling, one particular fight is not to be missed. The wildly entertaining Jason "Mayhem" Miller — host of MTV's "Bully Beatdown" — will compete for the Strikeforce middleweight championship against friend and rival (and multi-time "Bully Beatdown" guest fighter) Jake Shields. »

- Kyle Anderson

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“Creation” Movie Poster and Trailer

3 November 2009 10:37 AM, PST | Filmofilia | See recent Filmofilia news »

Check out the poster for “Creation,” a biopic movie telling the life of Charles Darwin.

A psychological, heart-wrenching love story starring Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) as Charles Darwin, the film is based on “Annie’s Box,” a biography penned by Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family. We take a unique and inside look at Darwin, his family and his love for his deeply religious wife, played by Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream), as, torn between faith and science, Darwin struggles to finish his legendary book “On the Origin of Species,” which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.

The film is directed by Jon Amiel (The Singing Detective, Entrapment) and writed  by John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).

Co-stars Toby Jones (Frost/Nixon, »

- Allan Ford

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How Drama Died At The Filmmaker Forum

11 October 2009 8:53 AM, PDT | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »

Film Independent's Filmmaker Forum is underway this weekend, and we asked writer/director Zak Forsman to attend and report back. Here's the first of his posts. I’ve just locked picture on my first feature-length motion picture and it seems I couldn’t be entering the world of distribution at a worse time. I strolled into the DGA in Los Angeles for day one of the Film Independent Filmmaker Forum optimistic and eager. I left it determined to batten down the hatches in preparation for stormy seas ahead. Veteran producer Jeremy Thomas (Creation, The Last Emperor, Crash) keynote opened with the concession that these are tough times for filmmakers making art house cinema for “sentient human beings,” as he put it. While he rejected the... »

- Scott Macaulay

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Listen To Genius Producer Jeremy Thomas

10 October 2009 11:24 PM, PDT | Deadline Hollywood | See recent Deadline Hollywood news »

I knew there was a reason that David Cronenberg’s enigmatic film of J.G. Ballard’s Crash is one of my favorite motion pictures. So its producer, Oscar-winner Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, Naked Lunch, Sexy Beast, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Tideland, Fast Food Nation, and Creation), was the keynote speaker at Film Independent’s 5th annual Filmmaker Forum [...] »

- Nikki Finke

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Newmarket Films Acquires U.S. Rights to Creation

24 September 2009 | Comingsoon.net | See recent Comingsoon.net news »

Newmarket Films announced today that it has acquired U.S. rights to director Jon Amiel's Creation , a film which focuses on Charles Darwin and his family as he struggles to finish his legendary book "On The Origin of Species," which went on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology. The screenplay was written by John Collee, based on the biography "Annie's Box" which was penned by Darwin's great-great grandson Randal Keynes using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family. The film was produced by Jeremy Thomas at Recorded Picture Company ( The Last Emperor , Sexy Beast ), with BBC Films and Ocean Pictures. Creation stars real-life couple Paul Bettany ( A Beautiful Mind , Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World ) and Academy Award... »

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Newmarket Films Picks Up Creation

23 September 2009 6:45 PM, PDT | MovieWeb | See recent MovieWeb news »

Newmarket Films announced today that it has acquired U.S. rights to director Jon Amiel's Creation, a film which focuses on Charles Darwin and his family as he struggles to finish his legendary book "On The Origin of Species," which went on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology. The screenplay was written by John Collee, based on the biography "Annie's Box" which was penned by Darwin's great-great grandson Randal Keynes using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family. The film was produced by Jeremy Thomas at Recorded Picture Company (The Last Emperor, Sexy Beast), with BBC Films and Ocean Pictures.

Creation stars real-life couple Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World) and Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream, A Beautiful Mind) as Darwin and wife. Newmarket plans to release the film in December.

In Creation, Amiel (The Singing Detective, »

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Darwin censored in the Us?

16 September 2009 | Cineman.ch/en | See recent Cineman.ch/en news »

A biopic about the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, may never be seen in the Us. Too shocking for American fundies? This is the theory posited by Jeremy Thomas, the movie producer, who was also behind many excellent Bernardo Bertolucci films, such as "Dreamers", "Stealing Beauty" and "The Last Emperor". "Creation" tells the story of the father of evolutionary theory, his struggle to find a balance between faith and reason, and his crushing depression at the death of this 10-year-old daughter in 1851. With the rights to the movie purchased by several distributors, "Creation" will premiere in the next several months around the world except in the Us, despite rave reviews from the American film press. For several decades now, Charles Darwin's scientific theories - which say that man was not created by God, but rather evolved through natural selection - have come under increasing fire from those promoting "creation »

- Constantin Xenakis (Cineman)

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Valentino The Last Emperor- September 8

1 September 2009 6:57 AM, PDT | HollywoodNorthReport.com | See recent HollywoodNorthReport.com news »

Phase 4 Films will release the DVD/Blu-ray edition of the feature doc Valentino The Last Emperor September 8, 2009. Produced/directed by Matt Tyrnauer, a correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, the film debuted at the 2008 Venice Film Festival. "...An inspirational look into the life and times of the iconic fashion designer 'Valentino', the film documents the colorful and dramatic closing act of the last true couturier's celebrated career, and revisits the story of his extraordinary life and work..." "Valentino is an exciting, inside peek into the glamorous world of fashion,. said Berry Meyerowitz, President/CEO, Phase 4 Films. "Yet at its heart, this film is about the personal and professional relationship of two men who built an empire together for over four decades." "The film has brought Valentino's genius to a broader audience, and also shows, for the first time, the man behind the legend," said Tyranauer. "Many people who »

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Michael Jackson's Screen Legacy, From 'The Wiz' To 'The Simpsons'

26 June 2009 9:13 AM, PDT | MTV Movie News | See recent MTV Movie News news »

The superstar worked with legendary directors Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and John Landis.

By Adam Rosenberg

Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Diana Ross and Ted Ross in "The Wiz"

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

Michael Jackson's talent as an entertainer was arguably beyond comparison, yet his music was only the starting point for a career that spanned multiple mediums: film, television (including a Jackson 5 cartoon), video games, theme-park attractions and more. While his appearances in films were relatively few and far between, his magnetism translated easily to the big screen.

Jackson's first major film came in 1978, with director Sidney Lumet's "The Wiz." In the musical fantasy, adapted from L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz," Jackson starred as the Scarecrow alongside Diana Ross' Dorothy, Nipsey Russell's Tinman and Ted Ross' Lion. "The Wiz" is an urban fairy tale set in »

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Windmill Finally Tilted? Terry Gilliam to Make Quixote

14 May 2009 8:16 AM, PDT | thetorchonline | See recent thetorchonline news »

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a movie about a modern man who travels back in time to accompany the knight Don Quixote on his quests, may finally be made by director Terry Gilliam. Gilliam's efforts to make this movie are legendary. He worked on the project for years even before he first began shooting it in the early 00s,with a cast that included Johnny Depp. But all manner of difficulties plagued the production, eventually forcing it to be shut down mid-way through. Gilliam's string of phenomenally bad luck is recounted in the 2002 documentary, Lost in La Mancha. Now Gilliam, who has been working on the project ever since the earlier debacle, has teamed up with producer Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) who is negotiating for the rights to restart the project. "I'm not so much a filmmaker as someone who gets possessed by an idea and it doesn't »

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Thirteen Assassins gets the green light

12 May 2009 5:14 AM, PDT | FilmShaft.com | See recent FilmShaft.com news »

Oscar winning producers Toshiaki Nakazawa and Jeremy Thomas have teamed up to produce a remake of the 1963 classic martial arts film Thirteen Assassins.

Director Takashi Miike will be helming the picture, due to begin shooting in Japan in July this year.

I've never seen the original movie it has to be said, but I'm liking the sound of it without a doubt. The Hollywood Reporter had more to say on the picture, stating:

The Japanese director is sharpening up plans to helm the shogun-era tale about 13 assassins, an evil lord and their secret mission to take him out. But unbeknownst to them, the assassins are outnumbered 10 to one by the lord's team of crack bodyguards. Swords, sandals and blood fly.

Thomas' sales and finance arm HanWay Films is handling international sales here in Cannes. Toho has prebought rights for a theatrical rollout in Japan. The slash fest will be produced »

- info@originalsharpsays.com (Craig Sharp)

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Takashi Miike's Samurai Film 'Thirteen Assassins' Gets a Greenlight

11 May 2009 6:38 PM, PDT | firstshowing.net | See recent FirstShowing.net news »

Beloved cult Japanese director Takashi Miike has gotten the funding and producers needed to finally make Thirteen Assassins, his samurai film. Based on Eiichi Kudo's 1963 film of the same name, the film is set in the shogun era and follows 13 assassins who come together for a suicide mission to kill an evil lord. Producers Jeremy Thomas and Toshiaki Nakazawa are teaming up to fund and produce the project, both of whom have a glowing background. Nakazawa produced this year's foreign language film Oscar winner Departures, Thomas produced Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which also won Best Picture. For those unfamiliar with Miike, the filmmaker broke into the cult side of things here in the Us with crazy films like Audition, Dead or Alive, Ichi the Killer, and the original One Missed Call. He most recently directed the spaghetti western Sukiyaki Western Django, that Quentin Tarantino had a cameo in, »

- Alex Billington

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Scores That Pop from Composers of Pop

7 April 2009 9:02 AM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

[This article is part of our Radiohead Fanatic Fortnight -- check out our box set giveaway here.]

Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead's lovable multi-instrumentalist, turned heads with his score for Paul Thomas Anderson's austere critical favorite, "There Will Be Blood." Immediately upon the film's opening scene, Greenwood's orchestration inflames the parched western landscape, superheating it with a man and his struggle to extract a profit from it. Greenwood uses an array of strings to strike an incredibly enormous, unsettling chord, the effect of which is to fuse the two -- the man and that broken landscape -- as it builds into an alarming cacophony. From this, the character of Daniel Plainview is forged, without a lick of dialogue or any emotive gestures. Nor is there a particularly distinct costume or a queerly menacing haircut involved. Just wordless deliberate action in a barren place, moved expertly along by a score that seems so well-crafted for the particulars of the story that it's surprising to recall some of it was »

- Brandon Kim

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Blu-Ray Review: Criterion Continues Blu-Ray Expansion With Pair of Truffaut Classics

26 March 2009 1:20 PM, PDT | HollywoodChicago.com | See recent HollywoodChicago.com news »

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0 Chicago – The Criterion Collection continues its foray into the world of HD with one of the most beloved directors of all time, taking a film already in the collection and giving it the HD treatment while simultaneously releasing a new edition of one of his later films. The legend is Francois Truffaut and the films are “The 400 Blows” and “The Last Metro”.

The “continuing series of important classic and contemporary films” has long-included “The 400 Blows” but this marks the first time that the film has been available on Blu-Ray. Criterion just started doing Blu-Ray and they are wisely alternating bringing some of their most popular films to the format along with issuing new releases on it.

The 400 Blows was released on Blu-Ray on March 24th, 2009.

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Criterion Collection

“The 400 Blows” is actually Truffaut’s first film. Released in 1959, this classic »

- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)

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'French Connection' on Blu-ray: Original Intentions vs. Consumer Expectation

24 February 2009 1:33 AM, PST | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

When you start screwing around with classic films you are bound to piss folks off and Blu-ray has opened up the opportunity far more than anyone would have originally imagined. By presenting high-definition transfers of older films you are bound to get more film grain which opens up the question of whether or not the studio should do a little bit of Dnr to reduce the noise. This was a big beef a few had with Fox's Blu-ray for Patton as many thought it turned the film into an all-too-perfect plastic picture. I never saw that Blu-ray, but it is what I have heard. Strangely enough you will often hear complaints from the same corners complaining about too much grain. Go figure. Next you have the Lucas-effect. When George Lucas went in and re-imagined the original Star Wars trilogy he left fans in the cold and a suitable version »

- Brad Brevet

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This Week On DVD and Blu-ray: January 6, 2009

5 January 2009 11:26 PM, PST | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

DVD Links: DVD News | Release Dates | New Dvds | Reviews | RSS Feed The Tudors - The Complete Second Season I don't know what happened between last year and this year, but I re-watched the first season of "The Tudors" in anticipation of plugging in ten episode second season, but I'll be damned if I just wasn't interested and I never did. I guess it surprised me considering I loved the first season (read the review here) and have been looking forward to the second. I have a feeling if I pop it in I will finish all ten off in one stretch. Who knows... Perhaps just writing this will motivate me to do so because I did thoroughly enjoy what amounts to an R-rated soap opera the first time around and with Peter O'Toole joining the cast for the second season how could I not enjoy this one? Battlestar Galactica: »

- Brad Brevet

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Blu-ray Review: The Last Emperor (The Criterion Collection)

5 January 2009 2:26 AM, PST | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

An Italian film director sets out to recreate an epic Chinese story as an independent film and entirely in English and goes on to win nine Oscars. Sound unlikely? Well, in most cases it probably would be, but Bernardo Bertolucci did just that with The Last Emperor in 1987 as he set out to tell the story of a 3-year-old boy who became Emperor of China with 400 million people as his subjects on an unlikely path to becoming a gardener in Peking. The success of the film is almost as unimaginable as the story behind it and Criterion has set out to ensure you know Everything there is to know about this movie and its place in history with a Blu-ray edition that takes three (of the four) DVDs worth of material and places it all on one disc. Speak ill of the high-definition format no more as the thought of »

- Brad Brevet

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2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 1999

18 articles from 2009

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