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While sights of red balloons may be a bit scary as of late, this one is bound to excite! “The Red Balloon,” a student thesis film for New York Film Academy, is currently casting several roles, including the lead child role. The film takes place in a world where everybody is born owning a yellow balloon, except for one girl, born with a red balloon and feels the spite from the world as a result. A young female actor, aged 6–10, is wanted to play the red balloon girl, a quiet, naive, and sensitive girl. There is also a supporting role available for a young male actor, as well as background roles for talent to portray classmates of the girl. Additionally, there is one supporting role available for a female actor, aged 22–40, to play the young girl’s mother. Auditions will take place on several dates from Oct. 7–15, with a rehearsal following in Burbank,...

Michel Gondry has made a charming and inventive — in his typically lo-fi way — short film for Apple that shows off the video capabilities of the iPhone 7. With elements of The Red Balloon, Toy Story and, I’m sure, memories Gondry has revisited from his own childhood family vacations in France, the short follows a family on their annual summer sojourn, a trip that winds up leaving the youngest child’s prized red tricycle along the side of the road. Impressively, the short doesn’t try to fake some kind of crazy bokeh, or indulge in trick macro shots. No, like […]...

One week a month, Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres. This week: With the Academy Awards a few days away, we look back at some of the unlikeliest Oscar nominees, picking a different major category every day.

The Red Balloon (1956)

From the mid-1950s through the early 1970s, Hollywood often looked to Europe (especially France and Italy) as the cutting edge of movie style. It was during this period that the award for Best Original Screenplay became an unofficial arthouse category at the Oscars, earning nominations and even wins for all sorts of movies whose modern equivalents one couldn’t imagine getting nominated today, like Blow-Up or any of the three Alain Resnais films that received nods in the 1960s: Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year At Marienbad, and the less famous La Guerre Est Finie. (What, no love for Muriel?) Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman...

‘Toni Erdmann’ (Courtesy: Tiff)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

It’s not too often that foreign-language films get recognized for anything at the Oscars beyond the best foreign-language film category — but it does happen. And, believe it or not, it happens more for best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay than many other categories. A prime example of that is Toni Erdmann, Germany’s submission this year that is proving to be a cross-category threat, which could score a nomination — or a win — for its writing.

The story of Toni Erdmann — which has a solid Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% — follows a father who is trying to reconnect with his adult daughter after the death of his dog. It sounds simple enough but, of course, the two couldn’t be more unalike. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and where it won the Fipresci Prize. Since then, it...

Episode Links Past Wish List Episodes Episode 63.9 – Disc 3 – Top Criterion Blu-ray Upgrades for 2011 Episode 110 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2012 Episode 136 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2013 Episode 146 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2014 Episode 154 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2015 Episode 169 – Criterion Collection Blu-ray Upgrade Wish List for 2016 DVD to BluRay Wish Lists Aaron: The Shop on Main Street Pickup on South Street Arik: Cleo from 5 to 7 Berlin Alexanderplatz Mark: Taste of Cherry Sisters David: Do the Right Thing Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters Ld to Blu-Ray Wish Lists Aaron: Blue Velvet (Announced as Ld Spine #219 but never released) Early Hitchcock Box (Sabotage, The Secret Agent, Young and Innocent, The Lodger, The Man Who Knew Too Much) Arik: A Night at the Opera Singin’ in the Rain Mark: 2001: A Space Odyssey The Producers David: I Am Cuba Letter From an Unknown Woman...

Milestone wraps up its ‘Project Shirley,’ an in-depth study of the independent director of The Connection and Portrait of Jason. Practically all of Shirley Clarke’s small and experimental films are here from the early 1950s forward, plus a wealth of biographical film.

The Magic Box: The films of Shirley Clarke, 1929-1987

Blu-ray

The Milestone Cinematheque

1929-1987 / B&W + Color

1:37 flat full frame / 502 min.

Street Date November 15, 2016 / 99.99

featuring Shirley Clarke

Produced by Dennis Doros & Amy Heller

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some disc boutique companies license ready-made movie classics for home video, and some slap whatever odd-sourced items can be had into the Blu-ray format and call it a restoration. Although the general tide for quality releases is rising, only a few companies will invest time and effort in historically- and artistically- important films lacking an obvious commercial hook. Milestone Films has been consistent in its championing of abandoned ‘marginal’ films,...

The Code. . Shelley Birse has taken out the top prize at this year.s Awgie Awards, winning the Major Award for the second season of ABC cyber-thriller The Code..

The first season of The Code also took out the Australian Writers. Guild Major Award in 2014. This year.s award makes it the only series to have been recognised by two Major Awards for both of its seasons. The Code also received the Awgie Award for the Television: Miniseries — Original category.

Overall, more than 25 Australian writers —.from radio, television, film, theatre and interactive media — were honoured at this year.s Awgie Awards, held in Sydney on Friday evening.

Andrew Knight and Osamah Sami.s Ali.s Wedding took out the award for most outstanding script for an original feature, while Shaun Grant and Craig Silvey received the award for most outstanding feature adaptation for Jasper Jones.

Samantha Strauss was honoured for her original telemovie,...

It seems very strange to me that it took until 2016 for me to meet David Lowery face to face. Not because I expect I should meet every single working filmmaker. That’s just silly. I’ve met a staggering number of writers, directors, actors, and people working at every other level in film and television over the years, but there are are plenty of people I’ve never run into, and I’m fine with that. With David, though, I have a history. You see, he used to be a spy for me. More accurately, he was a regular reviewer at Ain’t It Cool under the name “ghostboy,” and his beat was the festival circuit. I edited dozens and dozens of his pieces over the years, and I came to rely on him as a guy with a very strong sense of what he does or doesn’t like,...

“I look back at childhood as an adventure,” director David Lowery says. In his latest film, what he calls “a Pete’s Dragon for a new generation,” he’s aiming to recapture that sense of wonder for audiences who may not have ever seen the 1977 movie. Last week, Disney invited me to the studio’s El Capitan Theatre in the heart of Hollywood to check out an early presentation of the new remake, including a look at some new footage and a conversation with Lowery and star Bryce Dallas Howard.

The director showed us a few quick scenes from the film that gave us a wide sample of the kinds of things he does in the film, from establishing the character of Howard’s pragmatic forest ranger and her more precocious father (an old storyteller, played by Robert Redford with a twinkle in his eye); to a big truck chase sequence teased in the trailers; to joyous scenes of Pete (Oakes Fegley) and his dragon Elliot playing, soaring through the sky, and hanging out together in the woods. The visuals look outstanding — the dragon riding is miles ahead of what we’ve seen from Dany on Game of Thrones so far — and there’s also a soulful tone here that should be an interesting break from the bombast of typical summer movie fare.

Read on for six things we learned about the new movie that you should know before you see it.

Bryce Dallas Howard Wanted This Job Because It Wasn’t A Straight-Up Remake

Howard, coming off Jurassic World in which she also starred opposite some large CG lizard creatures, said she actively chased this role as soon as she found out Lowery’s take on the material.

“Before I read the script, I had heard it was not a straight-up remake, and that was [why I said yes]. Because I love [the original] Pete’s Dragon — I have the little board book for my kids and I read it to them constantly — and with me loving it, I didn’t want it to just be a copycat. We’ve seen a lot of those, some of them are great, some of them don’t work, but I felt like the story and the themes within the original film was what the charm of that movie was…I think what has centered that film and what has made that film last was the central idea of friendship with an imaginary friend when you have no family. And then, voila, it’s not such an imaginary friend. So when I heard it wasn’t a straight-up remake, I was like, ‘yes, I’d love to be a part of that.’ Also, I can’t help it — I’m a parent and I want there to be beautiful films out there that have innocence, are timeless, and have really beautiful values without being didactic.” The Setting Was Key For The Film’s Success

Lowery, who co-wrote the script with Toby Halbrooks, talked about how the idea of setting the movie in modern day never appealed to him. He’s always aiming for a timeless feel in his films, and it seemed like he found an excellent way to achieve that:

“The movie is set somewhere vaguely in the Pacific Northwest. We never quite say where it is, we never quite say when it is. Sometime vaguely in the past. If any of you have seen my other movies, you know I really love to do the whole ‘timeless’ thing, and this movie definitely plays into that.I feel when you have a movie that has a fantastical concept in it, you can accept it more easily if it has the veil of time being over it. To set something in the past, you’re a little more accepting of the idea that there might be magic there that you might have overlooked in your own past. I also find that the movies I return to and the ones I love the most — there are films about a specific time and place, if you want to see a historical epic, great, I’m glad they’re so specific — but there are other films that endure because they don’t root themselves in a specific time and they don’t say ‘this is a film about here and now.’ I didn’t want this film to feel contemporary, because I felt if it was contemporary, if someone pulls out an iPhone, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Ok, that’s an iPhone 4. This was made in 2010.’ And then you put that against a dragon and you kind of get this weird disparity that doesn’t quite work. So by setting it in the past and not making a big deal out of it — we never put a title card that says this is what year it is. That was part of the look of the film, the production design that we did. You pull some cars from the early ‘80s, pull some cars from the ’70s, kind of make everything congeal into this cohesive whole that doesn’t have a literal date on it but feels just yesterday.”

The era wasn’t the only important factor — finding the perfect place to shoot their forest sequences was a big deal. Turns out New Zealand had exactly what the production was looking for. Lowery explained:

“I just like things to be real, that’s just me, I’m always going to gravitate toward that. So when we were planning this, I was like, ‘Look, if we’re going to have a CG dragon, let’s make everything else real and use as little green screen as possible.’ So we went to New Zealand because it’s set in a slightly elevated, more magical version of the Pacific Northwest, and New Zealand has plenty of magic, had the forest we needed, had the weather we needed, and Weta Digital was there, which was very convenient.”

They’d go as far as to drive two hours into secluded forest every day to truly capture “the best version of being out in the woods.” It certainly shows; the footage we saw had a quiet, ethereal feel to being outside, and it truly did feel like we were seeing a place that hadn’t ever been inhabited by humanity.

The Dragon Had To Be Furry

Lowery spoke about how important it was to treat Elliot as a legitimate character, one who can emote and isn’t just a CG beast lumbering through the woods. The dragon is one half of the film’s most important relationship, so he had to be handled carefully in the design stage, and avoiding scaly dragons like the ones on Game of Thrones was a big priority for the filmmakers:

“One of the things we wanted to do with this movie was really sell the idea of friendship between a child and a creature, which really comes down to your favorite pet as a child or the relationship you have with a dog or something like that. The really close bond you have with an animal. We really wanted to try to hit home the heart of that, but with a creature that’s twenty times the size of a normal household pet…Even though he is a dragon — a magical creature that can turn invisible — we really wanted to treat him like a character, and really let that character come through.The very first hook I had when I met the producers of this film, we didn’t even have a pitch yet, but I was like, ‘I want the dragon to be furry.’ And that’s because I love my cats and I was probably petting my cat and saying, ‘I wish this guy was twenty feet tall’ or something. (laughs) They really are based on my cats. They have their own Instagram account if anyone wants to follow them. They’re 2orangeguys on Instagram. I was like, ‘Look, if you put a Game of Thrones dragon in this, he’s going to be scaly, kind of cold, he’ll be cool, but I want this to be the kind of dragon you really want to give a hug to and that I want to give a hug to and snuggle up with.’ There’s no reason dragons can’t be furry. I went through the design process of figuring out what design choices would break the idea of being a dragon. There are certain things we found we can’t do. When we tried to do different things with the wings, it started to feel like a chimera, or other various mythical beasts. A sphinx, sometimes. But if you kept the wings, kept the tail, kept the ridges on the back, you can kind of have fun with the rest of the design and it still feels like a dragon. The fur was an integral part to the design for me. That made the character.” Lowery Used an Unorthodox Method to Confirm He Had The Perfect Pete

When it came to finding the right Pete, Lowery knew he wanted a child actor that didn’t have the polish of an actor you might find on stage or on a Disney Channel show. “I wanted someone who was a little unvarnished and not perfect, who didn’t have that sort of trained quality,” he said. “I often find that if a ten-year-old can cry on cue, that is an amazing skill that I am envious of, but usually that’s not what I’m looking for.” His casting director did a worldwide casting search, and when Oakes Fegley walked in the room, Lowery knew he’d found his star. But he cemented that decision in an unusual way: he asked Oakes to build something with the chairs in the room, and he just sat back and watched. If Lowery and Howard’s stories about the young actor are accurate, Oakes sounds like a totally relaxed, normal kid, not at all pretentious or corrupted by weird stage parents, so when he started stacking a trash can on top of some chairs and Lowery could see him working things out and adjusting little details, he knew for sure he’d found his Pete. “He had a sensitivity, but also a resilience where you believe he could survive in the conditions his character has survived in,” Lowery said. “He’s really tough and scrappy, but also so quiet and sensitive, the perfect balance.”

Lowery Was Heavily Influenced By Foreign Films

Movies that are about children can often talk down to them or even have disdain for them, but Lowery took a lot of inspiration from foreign films about how to make sure the movie treated kids with respect and talked to them as equals:

“There is a great legacy of films about children, whether they are films like E.T., The NeverEnding Story, The Black Stallion, or other films like Ponette, the French film about the girl who lost her parents is really important to me. The Red Balloon is a wonderful story capturing the imagination of childhood in a very specific way. I could list off all the foreign films that I love that do a good job of that, but I think it’s important to think of those movies because I know a lot of teachers who show The Red Balloon in their classes to kindergartners because it’s the kind of thing kids respond to. Same with Miyazaki stuff, which I think is important to show kids. Obviously there’s a ton of great entertainment for children, but I love things that let kids see the emotional side of themselves.” You Won’t See (or Hear) References To The Original Film

When asked whether we’d hear an homage to the music of the ’77 film, Lowery gave perhaps the most refreshing answer of the day:

“No. We do have a song in the movie and you’ll find out how it plays into the plot when you see it, but we don’t [have any homages to the first movie]. I really wanted to sort of avoid the winks and the nods, not because the original is not great, but because I wanted this to really exist in its own realm. The best thing is for audiences who love the original to see this and say, ‘This is a great new film about a boy named Pete, and Elliot.’ And if kids haven’t seen the original, this will be the first time they’ve seen it. And there won’t be that moment where all of the adults go, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and the kids look over and go, ‘What? I don’t get it. What is it?’ So we avoided that. We talked about it, we talked about having references, but ultimately felt it was the purer tactic. I’ve seen a lot of remakes that do that and it always takes me out of a movie because it’s a little wink.”

As someone who thinks references like that can be distracting and often obnoxious, I find it incredibly promising that Lowery has the confidence in his movie to try to have it stand on its own as much as possible. Even with seeing the extra footage we saw, it’s still tough to tell whether this movie is going to be a new classic, a whiffed remake attempt, or somewhere in between, but at least it won’t be a deep dive into nostalgia for another film. (Nostalgia for childhood? Yes. For another movie? No.)

In any case, Lowery’s enthusiasm is certainly evident, and regardless of how the film turns out, his heart is clearly in the right place here. His vision for the film sounds great, so I’m hoping he’s able to translate that vision to audiences in an enjoyable way. “I want you to get a sense of the scope and action and fun and adventure this movie has,” he beamed before showing off a new clip, “because ultimately it really is an adventure.” The adventure begins when Pete’s Dragon flies into theaters on August 12, 2016.

Oddball.

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Australian family film Oddball, starring Shane Jacobson, is set to open the 2016 Tiff Kids Festival.

Australian feature film Blinky Bill: The Movie and short films Riceballs, Junction, Cinema Dhors, The Trophy Thief and The Supermarket will also be premiering at the festival, which is now in its 19th year. .

Oddball is a comedic feature based on a true story about a chicken farmer, his granddaughter and their mischievous dog saving fairy penguins from extinction in an Australian seaside town..

The festival wraps with its closing night film, the Canadian premiere of Little Door Gods, an animated 3D film from first-time feature director Gary Wang that was inspired by Chinese folklore..

The festival features a total of 139 films, comprising 28 features and 111 shorts hailing from 35 countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Philippines, France, India, South Korea, and many more.

All screenings and events take place at Tiff Bell Lightbox...

The extent to which Pixar touts a focus on originality and creativity — or “originality” and “creativity” through whatever means they measure those two qualities — makes it easy to forget their extensive history of reference points. Because you (probably, hopefully) don’t have enough time to go through every title and parse the finer points, allow a video essay from Jorge Luengo Ruiz to break down a significant number of them. In ranging from the obvious — he left this note: “I don’t have include A Bugs’s Life because it is a special case. Whole the plot is a tribute to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai” — to the rather clever to those I might not cite as specific callbacks (Fargo? Scarface? The Apartment? The Red Balloon?), this melange creates one of the more interesting bits of Pixar-related work I’ve seen in some time.

Of interest, too, is a nifty bit...

By Patrick Shanley

Managing Editor

Earlier this year, Hungarian film Son of Saul won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, which centers on a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz who longs to give the body of his son a proper burial, was the country’s official entry for best foreign film award to the Academy and is quickly distancing itself from the pack as the frontrunner.

Saul does not appear to only be relegated to the foreign film category, however, and its chances at an original screenplay nomination seem likely, despite the short length of its script (roughly 50 pages). While the film is short on dialogue, its subject matter may resonate with Academy voters and its tone and setting are ground well-tread by former Oscar winners.

If the film manages to earn a nom for best original screenplay it will be far from the first foreign language entry to do so,...

Perhaps the most important part of filmmaking isn’t an unforgettable script, an original, raucous character or shooting the entire thing during magic hour (looking at you, Terrence Malick). There are elements often forgotten which bring entire tales together, can symbolize them as a whole, and change the course of cinematic history. This is an ode to the constantly-looked-over-yet-mysteriously-obligatory part of filmmaking — the prop. In his astute, aptly-edited 10-minute video essay, Rishi Kaneria focuses on the myriad importances of film props: how they are used, what they represent, and how something so simple as the use of a color or fruit (oranges, for instance, in “The Godfather”) can change the way we look at, or what we remember from a film. Kaneria floats through the history of cinema — everything from “The Bicycle Thief” (and the titular bicycle) to “Citizen Kane” (oh, Rosebud) to “The Red Balloon” (need I say more) — carefully exemplifying the significance of.

It was a winner right out of the starting gate, an instant classic that's still a pleasure for the eyes and ears. Carroll Ballard and Caleb Deschanel's marvel of a storybook movie has yet to be surpassed, with a boy-horse story that seems to be taking place in The Garden of Eden. The Black Stallion Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 765 1979 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date July 14, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Clarence Muse, Hoyt Axton, Michael Higgins, Ed McNamara, Doghmi Larbi, John Karlsen, Leopoldo Trieste, Marne Maitland, Cass-Olé. Cinematography Caleb Deschanel Film Editor Robert Dalva Supervising Sound Editor Alan Splet Original Music Carmine Coppola Written by Melissa Mathison, Jeanne Rosenberg, William D. Wittliff from the novel by Walter Farley Produced by Fred Roos, Tom Sternberg Directed by Carroll Ballard

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Francis Coppola divided audiences with his war epic Apocalypse Now, but in the same...

Other winners include Son Of Saul, The Assassin, Chronic, The Lobster, The Measure Of A Man, Carol and Mon Roi.Scroll down for full list of winners

Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan has won the Palme d’Or at the 68th Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).

Review: Dheepan

Critics had predicted that Todd Haynes’ Carol or Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin would take the top prize, while momentum appeared to shift to Laszlo Nemes’ Son Of Saul when it picked up the Fipresci prize. Even the bookies favoured a different title, pegging Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster for the prestigious honour.

But while they each left the Lumiere Theatre with one prize apiece, it was Dheepan that claimed the top honour.

The drama centres on a Tamil freedom fighter (Antonythasan Jesuthasan, one of three non-professional Tamil leads) who, near the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, flees to Europe with a makeshift family hoping to claim asylum...

Above: the November/December issue of Film Comment is upon us, featuring pieces on Interstellar, Inherent Vice, and Adieu au langage. The full program for BAMcinématek's 6th annual Migrating Forms festival has been announced. Soon-Mi Yoo's Songs From the North will be the opening film (check out our interview with Soon-Mi here), and Notebook contributor and friend Gina Telaroli's Here's to the Future! has its world premiere on December 13th. The full details can be seen here. The first reviews are in for Clint Eastwood's American Sniper. Here's Justin Chang's take for Variety:

"Although Steven Spielberg was set to direct before exiting the project last summer (just a few months after Kyle’s death in Texas at the age of 38), “American Sniper” turns out to be very much in Eastwood’s wheelhouse, emerging as arguably the director’s strongest, most sustained effort in the eight years since his...

Alongside a photo of Taylor Swift standing on a New York City sidewalk holding a bunch of red balloons, Us Weekly included the caption, "Taylor Swift carried 12 red balloons for some reason while walking through NYC." For some reason? Well, we're sure she had a good one. Maybe it was one of these?11. Some not-so-subtle shade to Katy Perry's failed Song of Summer entry, "Birthday." (Thank you, Dan D'Addario.) 10. Her next music video is an almost-shot-for-shot remake of The Red Balloon. 9. She's on her way to a birthday party, and she will not be overshadowed. 8. Because inflaters gonna flate-flate-flate-flate-flate. 7. Peer pressure. 6. Up. 5. Because she just saw this viral video and was super into it. 4. It's an homage to the red balloon emoji. 3. She's emulating this Sex and the City promo video? Taylor just moved to NYC, and while she's more of a Shoshanna, that...

There are people out there who have never seen The Princess Bride. They walk among us, holding down jobs, contributing to society, and generally living happy, semi-fulfilled lives. But whisper a perfectly-timed “mawage” in their direction during a wedding, and the resulting blank stare or awkward chuckle will expose an inconceivable pop-cultural blind spot. Someone failed them when they were growing up.

In many ways it’s too late for them, but we can still save the next generation. The 55 Essential Movies Kids Must Experience (Before They Turn 13) is a starting point. This isn’t a list of the 55 “best” kids movies,...

As we continue to move forward through the list, let us consider: how do you define an original screenplay? In theory, everything is based on something. Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine is basically a modern A Streetcar Named Desire. But, somehow, Jasmine is classified as an original screenplay. When a film is wholly original, nothing like it had been done before, and others have tried to copy it since. Plenty of original screenplays (some in this list) take on tired genres, but flip the script. But the ones that really catch the audience by surprise are the ones that feel imaginative, creative, and different.

40. Spirited Away (2001)

Written by Hayao Miyazaki

That’s a good start! Once you’ve met someone, you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return.

No writer/director on this list may be more fantastical than the great Hayao Miyazaki,...

Youth In Revolt (and More): Cousins Channels Marker

It should be no question that Mark Cousins’ vast knowledge of film history is integral to his own filmmaking process, with his previously lauded endeavor, the epic 15 hour personal tour of cinematic lineage in The Story of Film: An Odyssey posing as a definitive screen history of uncomparable expansiveness. But his employment of film history is not just an implementation of influence. Rather, it is the subject he can not seem to tear himself from. This time around his focus falls on the cinematic depiction of youth in cinema, why they have become unfathomably integral to so many great works of art and how they continue to have our attention on the big screen. Like its predecessor, A Story of Children and Film takes us around the globe and through time to highlight cinematic greatness with the same brilliantly insightful wit,...

Rolf de Heer on location for.Charlie's Country with David Gulpilil

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Rolf de Heer's Charlie's Country, Warwick Thornton.s The Darkside and Rowan Woods' The Broken Shore will have their world premieres at the 2013 Adelaide Film Festival, which runs October 10-20. Among the other world premieres unveiled today by the Aff.s new CEO/ Director Amanda Duthie are the Adelaide-shot features One-Eyed Girl and 52 Tuesdays and the documentaries All This Mayhem, Muriel Matters and Sons and Mothers. Duthie ticked off an impressive list of 166 titles from 48 countries, including 28 world premieres, 47 Australian premieres and 34 South Australian projects. The line-up features 14 works including seven features which were supported by the Aff.s investment fund. As announced, the fest will open with John Curran.s South Australian-shot Tracks, the true story of Robyn Davidson.s solo 2,700 km trek via camels across the Australian desert in 1977, accompanied by her dog Diggity. Curran,...

It seems as though opening movies on the weekend isn't enough for the studios during the competitive summertime marketplace. Two films this weekend actually were released on Tuesday night (We're The Millers and Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters) to get a jump on their share of the box-office pie. In addition to several wide releases, there's a new Woody Allen comedy and one of the year's best documentaries hitting town. But first, let's take a look at some of the unique repertory screenings that are happening around town over the next week.

Austin Film Society launches their Films Of Johnnie To series tonight with a 35mm booking of The Mission at the Marchesa. That will play again on Sunday night and there are three more Hong Kong classics on deck in the weeks ahead. The Essential Cinema Pre-Code Stanwyck series packed the house last week for a rare look at early talkie Mexicali Rose.

Do you know what "Tonto" means in Spanish?  Apparently in Disney it means "Native American Jack Sparrow," because Johnny Depp's character in The Lone Ranger is a carbon copy of the colorful captain from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Strange, kooky demeanor, operates based on mysterious motives, always has a plan, scorned by his peers, works alone, manipulative, always making trades -- all these traits describe both characters.

There are many other ways director Gore Verbinski appears to have been working from his own notes on the Pirates series: fight choreography like swinging from a rope around a pole, a character playing with a watch much like Sparrow played with a compass, both characters end up in jail cells early in the movie, characters fight atop trains on parallel tracks reminiscent of ships, one of the bad guys likes to dress in women's clothing. If all that weren't enough,...

In theaters September 6th, here’s the new trailer for Populaire.

Spring, 1958. 21-year-old Rose Pamphyle lives with her grouchy widower father who runs the village store. Engaged to the son of the local mechanic, she seems destined for the quiet, drudgery-filled life of a housewife. But that’s not the life Rose longs for. When she travels to Lisieux in Normandy, where charismatic insurance agency boss Louis Echard is advertising for a secretary, the ensuing interview is a disaster. But Rose reveals a special gift – she can type at extraordinary speed. Unwittingly, the young woman awakens the dormant sports fan in Louis. If she wants the job she’ll have to compete in a speed typing competition. Whatever sacrifices Rose must make to reach the top, Louis declares himself her trainer. He’ll turn her into the fastest girl not only in the country, but in the world! But a...

The Cannes Film Festival organisers continue to place growing importance on cinema heritage with a wide-ranging selection devoted to film history and film restoration. Among the gems on offer is Mark Cousins’ A Story of Children and Film, a follow-up to The Story of Film. The documentary investigates cinema and childhood as seen through 53 movies - such as Et and The Red Balloon - from 25 countries.

With Kim Novak attending a gala show of the restored print of Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock, many other cinema legends (to be confirmed) will be there to accompany their titles.

In honour of the 50th anniversary of Jean Cocteau’s death, La Belle Et La Bete (1946) will be screened as well as Opium (2013), a musical comedy directed by Arielle Dombasle.

Euzhan Palcy’s film, Simeon (1992) will be shown in honour of the 100th birthday of French poet, author and politican Aimé...

Odd List Aliya Whiteley Feb 19, 2013

Covering 85 years of cinema, Aliya provides her pick of 25 stylish, must-see French movies...

I’m going to kick this off in best New-Wave style by pointing out that we should be praising each great director’s body of work rather than showcasing favourite movies in a list format; after all, France came up with the concept of the auteur filmmaker, stamping their personality on a film, using the camera to portray their version of the world.

Yeah, well, personality is everything. So here’s a highly personal choice, arranged in chronological order, of 25 of the most individualistic French films. They may be long or short, old or new, but they all have one thing in common – they’ve got directorial style. And by that I don’t mean their shoes match their handbags.

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928)

There are no stirring battle scenes,...

For those of you who have dreamed of watching your favorite classics on the big screen with your family, the new Film Forum series, Film Forum Jr. is just the ticket. Starting this Sunday, January 6, and running through March 31, families and early rising film fans of every ilk will have the opportunity to view silent films, foreign classics, and many gems from the golden age of Hollywood, thanks to the generosity of The Cordelia Corporation. Programmed by Bruce Goldstein, the series runs a total of thirteen Sundays and starts promptly at 11:00Am. Best of all? All tickets cost only $7 dollars, a great incentive to ready your brood for a morning matinee at the movies. The series kicks off with Albert Lamorisse's classic, The Red Balloon. Film Forum Jr. allows audiences to experience these film classics the way they were meant to be seen (even with a ...

In the tradition of Pixar films, before Wreck-It Ralph plays a wonderful short that was included in the Fantastic Fest animated shorts program, Paperman. Directed by John Kahrs and produced by John Lasseter, Paperman draws inspiration from the classic film The Red Balloon, and in fact includes a red balloon to drive the point home. However, this is a more adult tale than the 1956 children's fantasy. A chance encounter on a train station platform leads a young man to the girl of his dreams in a whimsical and touching film that encompasses a similar range of emotion to the opening few minutes of Up.

Lasseter is also executive producer on Wreck-It Ralph, opening this weekend. An adventure worthy of the man who brought us Toy Story and a logical successor to that trilogy, Ralph was directed by Rich Moore, who made some of the most-loved episodes of Futurama, The Simpsons,...

My Saturday at aGLIFF Polari began with the Family Films shorts program. This kid-friendly screening included three fantastical tales -- two of them new and one a timeless classic.

First up was The Maiden and the Princess, one of the most delightful shorts I've seen lately, about a girl in need of a different kind of fairy tale and a rogue storyteller determined to see that she gets it. Familar faces David Anders and Julian Sands topped the cast list of this short directed by Ali Scher who co-wrote with Joe Swanson.

Deflated, the second short in the program, is a local production by writer and director Dustin Shroff. A young boy is forced by convention into choosing the one green ball from a store display when the one he really wants, like all the others, is pink. Deflated was not only short, sweet and to the point, it was...

There was plenty of discussion across the movie blogosphere following last week's announcement that Vertigo had dethroned Citizen Kane as the greatest film of all time according to Sight & Sound's decennial poll. In addition to revealing the top 50 as determined by critics, they also provided a top 10 based on a separate poll for directors only. In the print version of the magazine, they have taken it a step further by reprinting some of the individual top 10 lists from the filmmakers who participated, and we now have some of them here for your perusal. Among them, we have lists from legends like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino, but there are also some unexpected newcomers who took part including Richard Ayoade (Submarine), Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know) and Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene). Some of these lists aren't all that surprising (both Quentin Tarantino...

by Steve Dollar

Shorts—as in short films—have become a peculiar manifestation of film festival culture. Almost any festival you go to will have multiple shorts programs on the schedule. And guaranteed, the filmmaker you meet who wins the short-film prize will be back soon with something special, whether it's the guy who made Hesher (see the Down Under zombie mash note I Love Sarah Jane) or the guy who made Beasts of the Southern Wild (anticipated by Glory at Sea). I don't really know under what circumstances they are exhibited anywhere else outside the institutional/museum/repertory world. Nonetheless, YouTube and Vimeo appear to be terrific bounties for short-film surfing and many an auteur's DVD bonus features would be sorely lacking if they didn't include available and relevant short exercises that laid the groundwork for the masterpiece at hand.

Josh and Benny Safdie had the bright idea of...

Here's the latest in Austin and Texas film news.

Austin-based director Richard Linklater's latest film Bernie opened on Friday in limited runs in New York, L.A. and Austin (at Violet Crown). The Austin Chronicle reported the result: the best opening weekend ever for a Linklater feature. Needless to say, Bernie killed at the box office with more than $30,000 estimated per screen ($90,400 total).IndieWIRE reported that Dallas filmmaker David Lowery is set to write and direct the Rooney Mara (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Ben Foster, Casey Affleck flick Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Lowery's short film Pioneer (Jette's article) won the Grand Jury Award at SXSW 2011 and his feature debut, St. Nick (Jette's article), was a 2007 Texas Filmmakers Production Fund recipient. Ain't Them Bodies Saints, a project of the 2011 Creative Producing Labs and Creative Producing Summit at Sundance, tells the story of a 1970s outlaw who escapes from prison...

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol pulled in an incredible $650 million-plus at the worldwide box office, making it the most successful film of the action franchise. But it was almost an impossible mission to pull off for The Incredibles director Brad Bird, who chose the Tom Cruise tentpole to make his live-action feature debut and transition from animated films.

"We were kind of shootin' from the hip," the Oscar winner tells ETonline, revealing that he was working in a production environment that "in some ways is exhilarating and in other ways is completely frightening."

Cruise Calls Death-Defying 'M:i-4' Stunt 'Tricky'

"You were feeding the beast; the money was going to be spent whether you knew what you were doing or not, so you had to rush ahead of the train and lay down tracks," he explains of the mega-budgeted project.

For such a crackerjack, tightly paced film, it's amazing how the 54-year-old filmmaker delivered a truly coherent narrative...

As a little girl I loved going to the Studio Drive In in Culver City where we lived.

My older sister and I would get into our pajamas, my little baby brother would be in the car seat for babies in the front seat between the driver and the passenger. We brought out own fried chicken ot eat for dinner. We'd go get popcorn or bonbons or a Holloway sucker (the best!) at the concessions stand ahead of the movies or at the intermission if we were still awake and we'd watch a double bill – usually a western and or a comedy.

When we got older and at the age of 16, we all got cars of our own. Mine was a 53 Ford convertible repainted royal blue. Groups of us would go to the Olympic Drive In and would sneak others in in the trunk.

When I was really little my father and mother would take my sister and me to the movies. I was always making my father take me to the bathroom. That started my habit of sitting on the aisle. As a film buyer it was known as the acquisitions seat, but to my mind, the quick getaway was to the Ladies Room. And as a three or four year old, I was always asking my mother and sister, "is this real?" I was so literal minded as a child I could never figure out why the song said “Let Freedom Ring”. How could Freedom Ring? A ring was jewelry. Ring like a bell…but Freedom is not a bell. Moving on…

We saw this Bob Hope film. He was a gambler. And he put a gun into his mouth. Instead of shooting his brains out, he took a bite and it was chocolate. That really threw my literal mind into a loop. What was real? How did that happen? The movie was called Sorrowful Jones. The joke was something I had a hard time understanding. The same with the silents which we saw at the Silent Movie Theater. Laurel and Hardy were always hitting each other and falling; Charlie Chase was always in trouble as was Charlie Chaplin. I never understood what was funny about all the accidents, falling down, hitting each other and would have terrible anxiety attacks at the silent movies. I liked movies like Francis the Talking Mule. That was funny to my childish mind.

For those wonderful Disney cartoons like Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood or Peter Pan, my father would take us to Beverly Hills and we would stand in line for the Fine Arts Theater. At the corner was a shoe store which only sold sample sizes (4 ½). I would admire their high heeled shoes and couldn’t wait for the time that I would be older and could wear them. Fortunately, when my foot hit the 4 ½ size, I was in high school and so I could buy the shoes for all the formal dances we attended.

Fine Arts Theater

Every Saturday my sister and I, and later my brother would go to the ten-cent Saturday afternoon matinee at the Meralta with a newsreel, previews, cartoon, and a main feature. The Meralta introduced me to The Dream of Wild Horses.[1]"Meralta" was derived from owners' Pearl Merrill and Laura Peralta's surnames. They lived above the new plush theater. But the movies there were mostly horror and genre. My brother always went there for the latest horror film.

Meralta Theater, Culver City

If we didn’t go to the Meralta, we’d go to the Culver. When we were looking to meet other kids from other schools, we'd go to the much fancier Culver Theater.

The Culver had great films, like Little Women, Gone with the Wind, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, How to Marry a Millionaire, River of No Return, There’s No Business Like Show Business, Easter Parade, A Date with Judy (My sister’s name!), The Three Musketeers, Words and Music, Force of Evil, Neptune’s Daughter, Adam’s Rib, Showboat, An American in Paris, Lili, Giant, Rebel Without a Cause. Looking at this list, except for the Marilyn Monroe movies which 20th Century Fox owned and the two James Dean films which Warner Bros. owned, all of the films were MGM films. That makes perfect sense because Culver City was a company town.

The Culver also had “loges”. These were fancier red velvet seats with ashtrays above the large aisle you would find on entering the theater and choosing your seat – below unless you went up to the loge. There teenagers would "make out" and bad girls and guys would smoke (Excuse my racism, but as a Jew growing up in a working class wasp neighborhood, I learned these kids were either Pachucos or white trash.) Not that we were such good Jewish kids...there weren’t any Jewish kids that I knew of who went to the movies. My friends were my school friends, and they were all white working class kids. If people weren’t working for Hughes Aircraft, they were in the crafts at MGM. We had one bit actor living down the street named Cameron Mitchell. And it was a pretty racist neighborhood…anti-Semitism was learned at home and in Sunday Schools where kids invited me (called a Christ Killer) to learn about bringing Jesus into my heart and there were no blacks that I ever saw. The Pachucos lived in another neighborhood and we’d see them in the movies, shopping or at the middle and high school next to my elementary school. Asians? There might have been a Chinese restaurant, but I don’t recall seeing Asians in school or at the theater or shopping.

Jewish kids made up my group of friends when I got to junior high and we had moved to Beverlywood from Culver City; 90% of the school was Jewish. Our parents would still drop us at the movies and we would go to Saturday matinees at the Picfair on Pico and Fairfax which eventually burned down around the time of the Watts Riots, or to the Lido on Pico.

The Picfair Theater burned down in 1965.

We’d see Academy Award winning films at the Pickfair. We'd cry at Carousel, Oklahoma, Midnight Lace, Peyton Place, Imitation of Life. Great films! Or we'd sometimes go to the other theater in Pico called Lido. It was just so boring. Maybe they showed Marty there or Country Girl and I wasn't up for slow drama.

For really fancy movies which held premieres, like Around the World in 80 Days, we would go to the Carthay Circle Theater. Of course I’d go in the days after the premiere itself. Rarely – though sometimes we’d go to the Hollywood palaces, Grauman’s Chinese, The Egyptian or Pantages Theaters on Hollywood Boulevard. The best thing about Grauman’s Chinese was the ladies room with a room filled with mirrors and little alcoves to sit and put on lipstick. They even had lipstick blotters, white heavy weight paper shaped like your lips to blot the lipstick.

In 1959 The Fine Arts Theatre 8556 Wilshire Boulevardin Beverly Hills showed Room at the Top, (‘The Most Daring Film in a Decade’), and it played there for over six months. I was in the 10th grade and went to see it. I liked it but am not sure how much I understood.

In high school we discovered Le Chein Andalou and the Coronet and Baronet theater where Charles Laughton had played in Brecht's premiere play Galileo produced by John Houseman. Sometimes they didn't have enough foreign films (like one about a woman who turned into a panther at night) and they'd show psychological teaching films like "Folie a Deux" when madness is shared by two, in this 20 minute short it was a mother and daughter. They'd show films on Schizophrenia, etc. and it made me want to study psychology. We saw all of Bergman, Renoir and saw La Strada and La Dolce Vida. When I moved back east and went to Brandeis then movie going got great! Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds. After that I saw every Wajda film and even knew how to pronounce his name. But after Man of Marble or Man of Steel I started to get disinterested. I have no idea what theaters we went to in Cambridge or New York except for the Bleecker Street Theater where we’d often go for the weekend.

For dates we’d go up the street (Beverwil) to Beverly Hills to the Beverly Theater or the Beverly Canon. There they had programs printed for the movies (The Young Lions). Afterward we’d go to Blum’s[2] for their crunchy cake or Wil Wrights Ice Cream Parlor for ice cream sundaes.

And a theater we would always forget except when some exceptional foreign film was showing there, was the Vagabond, way down on Wilshire Blvd. toward downtown.

[1]Wikipedia: The 1953 children's film Crin-Blanc, English title White Mane, portrayed the horses and the region. A short black-and-white film directed by Albert Lamorisse, director of Le ballon rouge (1956), Crin-blanc won the 1953 Prix Jean Vigo and the short film Grand Prix at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, as well as awards at Warsaw and Rome.[10] In 1960 Denys Colomb Daunant, writer and actor for Crin-blanc, made the documentary Le Songe des Chevaux Sauvages, "Dream of the Wild Horses". It featured Camargue horses and slow motion photography, and won the Small Golden Berlin Bear at the 1960 Berlin International Film Festival.[11]

[2]Blum's was a pink spun sugar fantasy come to life. It had a gift shop. It had shocking pink banquettes. It had surly waitresses. And it had cake. Not those plastic looking, multi colored and tasteless layered cakes offered in cafes around Union Square. No. They had Blum's Famous Coffee Crunch cake. (This legendary cake is so memorable that Nancy Silverton has included a recipe for it in her latest cookbook.)

Blum's was partly a restaurant for the ladies who didn't work and spent their days going downtown to shop, meet friends and get home before the children came home from school. (http://www.culinarymuse.com/2005/10/blums_where_are.html)...

The saying goes: If Hollywood is really the movie capital of the world, then Oscar night is the world’s biggest wrap party, and like all parties, each event comes with unwelcome guests, embarrassing situations, strange fashions and controversial moments. In fact, controversy and the Oscars seem to go hand in hand and despite the fact that the Academy Awards are, for the most part, an elegant and tightly controlled affair, some very strange things do occur. Let’s take a look back through the history of the Academy Awards, and some of it’s strangest and more controversial moments – which sadly were also the most memorable.

Shadow Dancers

For the 2007 ceremony, producers hired the dance troop Pilobolus to recreate famous images from that year’s most popular films.

Political Rants

Richard Gere was last asked to present in 1993 when he interrupted the ceremony to give a long speech attacking...

It’s probably a dereliction of my sworn duties as a dilettantish semi-pro occasional pretend critic to characterize this new Steven Soderbergh joint entirely in terms of genre slop cinema—there’s a prominent visual cite to Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, for god’s sake—but I was still pretty pissed that nobody in my sparse, 50-and-up weekend evening art movie crowd was moved to stand up and scream “she’s going haywire!!!” This thing whisked me back like nothing else to days of sitting in a friend’s basement at age 13 with rented Don “The Dragon” Wilson vehicles on VHS, or maybe a good Godfrey Ho/Cynthia Rothrock feature—at one point there’s a fight in a dry cleaners where Gina Carano starts up a conveyor belt and I almost had a stroke thinking someone was going up on a hook like in Undefeatable, though I...

Buster Keaton, Bugsy Malone and the Wizard of Oz are captivating children at film clubs across the UK

Black and white images flicker across absorbed young faces as timeless stories unfold. To the delight of the education charity Filmclub, classic films are captivating children as young as seven.

In the past year, a quarter of all the films watched by its members have been pre-1979 movies and some, such as The Electric Edwardians (1900), date right back to the birth of cinema.

Launched in 2008 by film director Beeban Kidron and educationist Lindsay Mackie, Filmclub (@filmclub) helps schools set up film clubs and supplies a huge range of thoughtfully curated films.

Libby Serdiuk, aged 10, was "pleasantly surprised by The General (1926):

"I had never watched a film without sound or colour. Before I knew it my eyes were glued to the screen! The stunts were exhilarating to watch, Buster Keaton was mind blowing,...

Rise of the Planet of the Apes; The First Movie; Super 8; Mr Popper's Penguins

One of the most interesting aspects of this year's traditional pre-Oscar shenanigans has been the growing campaign to earn a supporting actor nomination for Andy Serkis for his typically entrancing performance-capture work on Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Fox, 12). Having previously lent thespian credibility to this emergent artform with key roles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Gollum/Sméagol) and King Kong (the beauty behind the titular beast), Serkis continues to bridge the gap between acting and technology as the beating heart of British director Rupert Wyatt's intelligent series reboot.

Subtly mutating the bold slave uprising motif of J Lee Thompson's 1972 oddity Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the most controversial instalment of the original series), this casts young simian Caesar as the accidental byproduct of a vivisective experiment to test a new,...

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade organizers have been trying to convince Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland) to create a balloon for the event since 2004. The director finally agreed, and was only limited by two design rules, to stay away from something skinny and pointy. Today we have a look at the balloon, called "B.Boy," that has the following backstory: He was created from the leftover balloons used in children's parties at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Forbidden from playing with other children because of his jagged teeth and crazy-quilt stitching, B. retreated to a basement lair, where he obsesses over Albert Lamorisse's film 'The Red Balloon' and dreams that he, too, will be able to fly someday. Burton was in New York with Helena Bonham Carter and his child to witness the event and the unveiling of his balloon. Check some photos of B.

Those fans of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade got a little treat from filmmaker Tim Burton yesterday when the annual parade debuted a new float designed by Burton, which took to the skies over a beautiful day in Manhattan in all of its patchy blue glory. The character, named B., even comes with his own backstory, which we shared with you recently in another post on the float. "B. was created, Frankenstein’s monster-style, from the leftover balloons used in children’s parties at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. Forbidden from playing with other children because of his jagged teeth and crazy-quilt stitching, B. retreated to a basement lair, where he obsesses over Albert Lamorisse’s film The Red Balloon and dreams that he, too, will be able to...

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Thanksgiving has always been one of those ‘lesser’ holidays for me. Not because it didn’t have historical (albeit questionable) or emotional significance, but mostly that it fell between the two holiday juggernauts of the year. I mean, I’ve always liked turkey and all, but with Halloween and Christmas you generally had a lot more to distract you from the fact that you’re spending time with your family. Clearly, this is why the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was conjured into being and why it remains such a staple today. And this year more than ever I am anticipating the fun frolic of whimsical characters like Snoopy, Woody Woodpecker, Mickey Mouse and …Tim Burton?

The gothic filmmaker famous for Alice In Wonderland, Sweeney Todd and Beetlejuice has designed a new balloon to be featured in next month’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. ”It’s such a surreal thing that...

New York — Filmmaker Tim Burton has designed a floating freak show of a balloon for this year's family-friendly Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

With pointed teeth and jagged stitching across his face, B. is the Frankenstein of balloons.

A Burton-created backstory distributed by Macy's says the balloon boy was "stitched together from rejects of old birthday party balloons." The parties were thrown for children at a London hospital. But B. wasn't allowed to join in the fun. Instead he watched the French short film "The Red Balloon" repeatedly.

B.'s only dream was to fly and make a child happy – just like in that movie.

Now B. will get his chance at November's parade through Manhattan.

Burton has directed several films, including "Edward Scissorhands," "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas."...

The New Yorker's Richard Brody sets up Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre, "set in the port city in the present day, where Marcel Marx (André Wilms) — a former writer, now an itinerant shoe-shine man — provides refuge for Idrissa Saleh (Blondin Miguel), a boy from Gabon who arrived clandestinely in a ship container and is being hotly pursued by the authorities. The probings of the black-clad police inspector Henri Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) recall the sinister ways of the Vichy regime, as the hunted boy evokes Jewish wartime refugees, and the solidarity of the shopkeepers and laborers who protect him reflects a bygone but heartwarming class unity (as well as the comforting myth of a nation of resisters)."

"What is truly remarkable about Le Havre," finds Michael Sicinski, dispatching from Toronto to Cargo, "is Kaurismäki's clear, unfussy depiction of a bedrock of humanist decency within French society, wherein people don't think twice about helping the immigrant,...

“Love is a willingness to sacrifice.” ~Michael Novak

The latest from Wilfred was a step back towards toward more traditional situational comedy. Don’t assume that’s a bad thing, though. Straight up comedy is just as good as dark comedy. “Sacrifice” features Ryan at last questioning what he’s doing with himself. Why does he bend over backwards for a woman he can’t have, looking after her dog and getting her dry cleaning? He should be looking after himself! He then meets Cinzia. She’s our typical European free spirit, and while still a caricature of sorts, she’s easily the most realistic guest star to date. When the two meet, she proves her worth by quoting a line from the book Ryan is ready, “Never underestimate the power of a dream.”

Cinzia invites Ryan to go with her to Italy, and while you never once believe Ryan will leave,...

Hold your jokes about Hollywood's newfound obsession with board games to the end if you will, because we've got some serious news to share about Risk. The Sony Pictures film has found its screenwriter in John Hlavin, an experienced scribe who has written for The Shield, penned Underworld: New Dawn and wrote the original buzzed-about script The Gunslinger.

Risk, of course, will be based on Hasbro's war game of the same name. Fun Fact: The game itself was created by Albert Lamorisse, the director of famed French artsy-fartsy children's film The Red Balloon. If the new Risk movie turns out to be anything like the game, we'll excitedly buy a copy of it and then let it gather dust on a shelf as all of our friends refuse to waste a full Saturday playing it.

How about we skip Risk and go right to the Warhammer movie?

Deadline describes Risk...

As Kung Fu Panda 2 kicks off the children's film season – and with The Smurfs lurking at the other end – just try to remember the excitement of your first cinema trip

I doubt many people reading this will need reminding, but in mid-summer the average British cinema can be a uniquely loud and grotesquely sticky place. In the thick of the horror, however, something vital will be happening – the wonder of untold children having their first experience of the big screen. Remember this, should you be accompanying one to the movies in the weeks ahead, and hold it close to your psyche as you grind your teeth through Cars 2, Spy Kids 4 or, lurking at the end of the holidays like a dumpy blue Manson family, The Smurfs.

Although for the moment the schools remain in, the kids' film season has its de facto opening today with the release of Kung Fu Panda 2,...

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With exclusive contributions from Le Divorce costume designer Carol Ramsey, Jill Burgess, creator of Everything Just So, analyses the film’s distinctive sartorial presence; specifically how a Hermès ‘Kelly’ bag can be elevated from status symbol to movie character.

In the 2003 Merchant Ivory movie Le Divorce, based on the novel by Diane Johnson, Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) travels from Santa Barbara to Paris to visit her pregnant sister Roxeanne (Naomi Watts), who is subsequently abandoned by her unfaithful husband Charles-Henri de Persand (Melvil Poupaud). Isabel becomes involved with an older married politician, Edgar Cosset (Thierry Lhermitte), uncle of Charles-Henri, thus further complicating matters in this comedy-drama of impeccable manners.

During her Parisian stay, Isabel makes a thorough costume transformation from casual California girl to glamorous soignée French mistress. Crucial to...

It looks as though we are getting another board game turned into a feature film! Sony Pictures has hired John Hlavin to write the script for a feature film based on the Risk board game. Deadline reports that the project is a co-production from Hasbro Entertainment and Overbrook Entertainment, and that it's planned as a contemporary global action thriller. The film is being produced by Brian Goldner, Bennett Schneir and James Lassiter.

Hlavin has written a number of scripts and is best know for his work on The Shield. His original script The Gunslinger for Warner Bros. was on the Black List. Audiences will see his work on the script for Underworld: New Dawn next year from Paramount, and a heist script for Steve Zaillian's Film Rites and DreamWorks. The board game was created in 1957 by Albert Lamorisse, the French director of The Red Balloon. It was initially called...

Screenwriter John Hlavin has been set by Sony Pictures to write Risk, a contemporary global action thriller based on the venerable board game. Pic is a co-production between Hasbro Entertainment and Overbrook Entertainment, and the producers are Brian Goldner, Bennett Schneir and James Lassiter. Hlavin has written on The Shield, and his original script The Gunslinger for Warner Bros made the Black List. He scripted Underworld: New Dawn for Paramount, which will release early next year, and turned in a heist script to Steve Zaillian's Film Rites and DreamWorks. Risk was created by Albert Lamorisse, the French director of The Red Balloon in 1957. He called it La Conquete du Monde (The Conquest of the World). It was brought to the Us by Parker Brothers two years later as Risk. Will the fact it was invented by a moviemaker keep Deadline commenters from sarcastically demanding new projects like Gnip Gnop: The Movie,...

Chicago – Throughout his extensive work as a film columnist, author and journalist, Robert K. Elder has been drawn to exploring both the universality and striking diversity of the human experience. In his books, Elder is intent on capturing specific moments within the lives of his subjects, while discovering their universal truths through their juxtaposition.

Elder’s latest book, “The Film That Changed My Life,” is no exception. The book compiles one-on-one interviews with thirty directors about the pivotal moviegoing experience that altered their sense of cinema (and sense of self). Filmmakers and film buffs alike will undoubtedly find the book to be a compulsive page turner. John Woo discusses his idolization of James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause,” while Frank Oz gushes about his love of Welles in “Touch of Evil” and Atom Egoyan recalls the moment he first stumbled upon Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona.”

On June 11, Elder will...