Sony Pictures Classics has reportedly picked up U.S. rights to Rodrigo Garcia’s ensemble drama “Mother and Child” that features strong performances from Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Samuel L. Jackson. The film is centered around three women and the choices they’ve made concerning children, and is scheduled for a May 2010 opening.

Playing its theme of parenthood in different keys like a graceful chorale, Mother and Child features a stellar cast interpreting a story by one of America’s finest contemporary dramatists.

Annette Bening shines as Karen, a woman grown bitter by habit since she gave up her daughter for adoption years ago. Naomi Watts is her daughter Elizabeth, now a sleek lawyer with a lust for power games. She talks her way into a job at a firm led by Paul (Samuel L. Jackson, playing a rare character who doesn’t hold the upper hand). This mother and daughter don’t know each other, but their natures seem to fit together. All that’s missing is human warmth.

This comes in the form of Kerry Washington as Lucy, a baker longing for a child of her own. Passionate about parenthood to a degree that her husband, Joseph (David Ramsey), questions, she finally decides they must adopt. TIFF

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Michael Jackson’s  documentary “This Is It” was king of the box office, opening to $68.5 million at the international box office and to a more modest domestic haul of $32.5 million in its first five days.  The big opening convinced the distributor Sony to announce it is extending the film’s two-week run by three weeks in North America. Overseas, the decision to extend will be made on a territory-by-territory basis.

The indie phenomenom “Paranormal Activity” continued to pull big numbers, with the movie grossing an estimated $16.5 million for the second spot on the box office list.

Another arthouse indie film, Fox Searchlight’s “Amelia” finally moved into the  top 10 with an estimated $3 million.  Sony Pictures Classics “An Education,” had the highest location average of any film grossing an estimated $504,831 from 48 runs for an average of $10,517 and receipts of $1.6 million in its fourth week. Searchlight’s “Gentlemen Broncos,” from the filmmakers behind “Napoleon Dynamite”, opened to a not-so-impressive estimated $10,006 from two screens.

Top 10

1. “This Is It” (Sony): $21.3 million over the weekend, bringing its total since debuting late Tuesday to $32.5 million.

2. “Paranormal Activity” (Paramount): $16.5 million.

3. “Law Abiding Citizen” (Overture/Film Department): $7.3 million.

4. “Couples Retreat” (Universal/Relativity): $6.1 million.

5. “Saw VI” (Lionsgate): $5.6 million.

6. “Where the Wild Things Are” (Warner Bros./Village Roadshow/Legendary): $5.1 million.

7. “The Stepfather” (Sony Screen Gems): $3.4 million.

8. “Astro Boy” (Summit/Imagi): $3 million.

9. “Amelia” (Fox Searchlight): $3 million.

10. “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” (Universal/Relativity): $2.8 million.

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Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the North and Latin American rights to Telluride Film Festival hit, Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station. It’s based on Jay Parini’s 1990 biographical novel about famed Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and reportedly made with the support of the Tolstoy family.

The film focuses on the the film tells the story of the last days of the famed Russian writer Tolstoy’s (Christopher Plummer) life when he decides to renounce all of his wealth in the name of his new religion. His wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren), finds out that her husband’s disciple Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) might have tricked Tolstoy into altering his will and leaving the Russian people all of his assets rather than his family. Sofya grows incredibly angry and desperate to get what’s rightfully hers, but her rage only makes her husband more vulnerable to Chertov’s power of persuasion. In the middle of the battle is Tolstoy’s young assistant, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), who acts as a pawn for both sides.

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Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Lebanon for U.S. distribution.   Lebannon from director Samuel Maoz, is also a strong contender to be Israel’s submission for the Oscars.

The First Lebanon War, June, 1982. A lone tank and a platoon of paratroopers are dispatched to search a hostile town that has been bombarded by the Israeli Air Force. The mission gets out of control and turns into a death trap. Night falls and the wounded troops remain trapped in the center of a town in ruins, unable to communicate with the central command and surrounded by Syrian commandos closing in on all sides. The film’s heroes are the tank crew: Shmulik the gunner, Assi the commander, Herzl the loader and Yigal the driver, four 20 year old boys, operating a killing machine. They are not courageous war heroes, eager for battle or self-sacrifice. All they have is a terrible fear of death. Venice Fest

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Aaron Schneider’s  feature directorial debut, “Get Low” starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black, will be distributed in the US by Sony Pictures Classics.

“Get Low” which screened at the just closed Toronto Film Festival with heavy buzz, tells the true story of a hermit who lived for forty years in the Tennessee woods, played by Duvall.

Taking a leading role for the first time in several years, American legend Robert Duvall gives a performance of wisdom and nuance in Get Low. Complemented by a first-rate cast that includes Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek and Lucas Black, this classic story from a bygone era unfolds with quiet majesty.

For the past forty years, Felix Bush (Duvall) has lived as a hermit deep in the Tennessee woods. His clothes tattered, his manner rough and his expressions buried behind a massive white beard, he’s an unnerving figure when he stalks into town with his mule, shotgun in hand. Some say he’s killed men with his bare hands.

One day Bush walks into the local funeral parlour and announces to Frank Quinn (Murray), “’Bout time for me to get low. Down to business. I need a funeral.” More importantly, he wants a funeral party, an event that will draw all his friends and enemies to his shack in the woods for a final reckoning – and he wants to throw the party while he’s still alive.

Based on a true story, Get Low has the feel of a classic American tale. Its style evokes westerns both old and new. There is something of Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller in director Aaron Schneider’s storytelling, and something of Gordon Willis and Conrad Hall in the film’s richly lit and composed images.

The beauty of the cinematography serves as a backdrop to resonant performances from each actor. Lucas Black more than holds his own as the undertaker’s sidekick, playing against Murray’s sly rhythms with upright sincerity. Taking the role of Felix’s former lover, Spacek is pure pleasure to watch in her scenes with Duvall. To see two veteran actors responding to each other with such heart and such presence is an all-too-rare treat.

And for Duvall, Get Low marks a welcome return. Always a minimalist, he is now at the stage where he can do so much more onscreen with so much less. His every moment here is a lesson in living before the camera. It stands with his best-ever performances.  TIFF

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You can watch Heath Ledger’s final big-screen performance, in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” when it arrives in theaters Dec. 25, 2009 after its debut at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Sony Pictures Classics release stars Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law , Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield and Verne Troyer.

The film “tells the story of Dr Parnassus and his extraordinary ‘Imaginarium’, a travelling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom. Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. Long ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr Nick, in which he won immortality. Many centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on condition that when his first-born reached its 16th birthday he or she would become the property of Mr Nick. Valentina is now rapidly approaching this ‘coming of age’ milestone and Dr Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr Nick arrives to collect but, always keen to make a bet, renegotiates the wager. Now the winner of Valentina will be determined by whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr Parnassus promises his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man that helps him win. In this captivating, explosive and wonderfully imaginative race against time, Dr Parnassus must fight to save his daughter in a never-ending landscape of surreal obstacles – and undo the mistakes of his past once and for all…”

via

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Sony Pictures Classics has grabbed the U.S. and Latin American rights to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Micmacs,” which will debut at the upcoming  Toronto International Film Festival.

“Micmacs” is described  as, “a fantastical comedy about a video store clerk with a bullet lodged in his brain. Knowing he could drop dead at any time, he bands together with an odd collection of outsiders – a mechanical genius, a con man and a contortionist among them – to devise a plan to take down the weapons manufacturer that made the bullet.”

The French film which stars Dany Boon, Dominique Pinon, Andre Dussollier and Yolande Moreau is set for a French release on October 28th.

via

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Sony Pictures Classics will distribute “A Prophet,” now screening in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. “A Prophet” has topped various critics polls, making it a favorite to win the coveted Palme d’Or trophy.

The French-Arabic-Corsican-language thriller, directed by Jacques Audiard is set in a prison, where 19-year-old inmate Malik (played by Tahar Rahim) is tested by a Corsican gang and learns to survive.

Condemned to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena cannot read nor write. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts. He is 19 years old. Cornered by the leader of the Corsican gang who rules the prison, he is given a number of “missions” to carry out, toughening him up and gaining the gang leader’s confidence in the process.  But Malik is brave and a fast learner, daring to secretly develop his own plans…

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Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

On the first day of the Cannes Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics snapped up the U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to the historical thriller “The White Ribbon,” directed by Michael Haneke, and the Jan Kounen’s closing night love story “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.”

The White Ribbon

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is set in 1920s Paris and charts a passionate affair between the fashion icon and Russian émigré. The film is based on Chris Greenhalgh’s book Coco And Igor and stars Chanel model Anna Mouglalis alongside Mads Mikkelsen. The White Ribbon  is set just prior to the start of WWI, where the quiet life of a small German village is mysteriously eroded by a series of inexplicable events.

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Sony Pictures Classics has picked up North American rights to the documentary “Tyson,” which will have its North American premiere at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. The film is the first of NBA all-star Carmelo Anthony’s Krossover Productions. In the film, Mike Tyson examines his own life in and out of the ring with a candor, eloquence and vulnerability that is by turns poignant, funny and never less than brutally honest.  Read more …

“The Necessities of Life”

IFC Films has snapped up the US rights to the Canadian film “The Necessities of Life.” Set in 1952. An Inuit hunter named Tiivii, who suffers from tuberculosis, ends up in a sanatorium near Quebec City, far from home and his loved ones. Read more …

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