Review: Django Unchained

Review: Django Unchained

 

by Cecily Witcher

Django Unchained is a shootem-up-bang-bang western-style movie that strives hard to convey the feeling of being in the 1800’s during the period when slavery was the law of the land in some parts of the USA. The film is set in the South where a slave, Django, (played by Jamie Foxx) ends up partnering with Dr.King Schultz, a white German bounty hunter (played by Christoph Waltz.) Shultz is looking for the Brittle Brothers as they have a huge bounty on their head and are wanted “Dead or Alive.” Django promises Schultz that he will lead him to the brothers if he will help him find his wife, a German-speaking slave named Broomhilda (played by Kerry Washington) from whom he was separated during a slave trade.

Rome Film Festival to Honor Director Quentin Tarantino

Rome Film Festival to Honor Director Quentin Tarantino

The 7th Rome Film Festival (Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma) will honor director Quentin Tarantino with the Career Achievement Award. The American director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, winner of an Oscar® for Pulp Fiction, the author of Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill:Vol.1, Kill Bill:Vol.2 and Inglourious Basterds, will receive the award on January 4th on the occasion of the gala screening of the new film he has written and directed, Django Unchained, starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo Di Caprio, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. […]

Isabella Rossellini, Hélio Oiticica And Richard Foreman In The Forum Expanded Program at 2013 Berlin International Film Festival

Isabella Rossellini, Hélio Oiticica And Richard Foreman In The Forum Expanded Program at 2013 Berlin International Film Festival

The 8th Forum Expanded film program of the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival will feature the work of Isabella Rossellini, Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, and Richard Foreman. Isabella Rossellini returns to the festival to showcase her new work,  Mammas, described as the continuation of the Green Porno series of short films, which she presented at the Berlinale in 2008. Once again, the actress and director takes on a broad range of different animal roles – this time round in order […]

2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival to Screen Foreign Language Oscar Shortlist and Canadian Films

2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival to Screen Foreign Language Oscar Shortlist and Canadian Films

The 24th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will screen eight of the nine films selected to advance in the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards® and in partnership with Telefilm Canada will screen 12 Canadian features.  The 24th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) is scheduled from January 3-14, 2013. The foreign language films on the Oscar shortlist, listed in alphabetical order by country, are: Amour (Austria), Director Michael HanekeWar Witch (Canada), Director […]

KOCH, documentary about NYC Mayor Ed Koch opens in NYC on February 1 and LA on March 1

KOCH, documentary about NYC Mayor Ed Koch opens in NYC on February 1 and LA on March 1

KOCH, a documentary by Neil Barsky chronicling the former NYC Mayor Ed Koch opens in NYC on February 1 and in Los Angeles on March 1.  The film had its World Premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival, and will have its West Coast Premiere at the 2013 Palm Springs Film Festival
 
Former Mayor Ed Koch is described as the quintessential New Yorker. Still ferocious, charismatic, and hilariously blunt, the now 88-year-old Koch ruled New York from 1978 to 1989—a down-and-dirty decade of grit, graffiti, near-bankruptcy and rampant crime. 

With KOCH, first-time filmmaker (and former Wall Street Journal reporter) Neil Barsky crafts what is described as an intimate and revealing portrait of this intensely private man, his legacy as a political titan, and the town he helped transform. The tumult of his three terms included a fiercely competitive 1977 election; an infamous 1980 transit strike; the burgeoning AIDS epidemic; landmark housing renewal initiatives; and an irreparable municipal corruption scandal. Through candid interviews and rare archival footage, KOCH thrillingly chronicles the personal and political toll of running the world’s most wondrous city in a time of upheaval and reinvention. 

Race For Foreign Language Film Oscar Narrowed to 9 Films

Race For Foreign Language Film Oscar Narrowed to 9 Films

Nine films will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards®. Seventy-one films had originally qualified in the category. The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:      Austria, “Amour,” Michael Haneke, director;      Canada, “War Witch,” Kim Nguyen, director;     Chile, “No,” Pablo Larraín, director;     Denmark, “A Royal Affair,” Nikolaj Arcel, director;     France, “The Intouchables,” Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, directors;     Iceland, “The Deep,” Baltasar […]

Taye Diggs, Melissa George, Julia Stiles Among Actors Featured in 2013 Slamdance Film Festival Special Screenings

Taye Diggs, Melissa George, Julia Stiles Among Actors Featured in 2013 Slamdance Film Festival Special Screenings

Slamdance announced their Special Screenings Program for the 19th Annual Slamdance Film Festival and the official launch of the Slam Collective. The Special Screenings Program presents a variety of films featuring cast members Taye Diggs, Melissa George, Julia Stiles, Sean Young, Larry Fessenden, Mike Epps, Sanaa Lathan, and Forest Whitaker, among others.

One of this year’s Special Screening selections, Jug Face, was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2011 Slamdance Screenwriting & Teleplay Competition. The Slam Collective features seven Slamdance filmmakers from five continents coming together to make I Want To Be An American, Slamdance’s first documentary feature. In the spirit of the Surrealist parlor game of chance Exquisite Corpse, each filmmaker makes a documentary short film based on imagery forwarded on by the previous filmmaker in the chain. The composite story forms a global independent filmmaking experience. The Slam Collective will World Premiere at Slamdance Film Festival, January 21st, 2013 and then online.

The 2013 Slamdance Film Festival will take place January 18 – 24, 2013 in Park City, Utah, at the Treasure Mountain Inn: 255 Main Street, Park City, UT 84060.
 
SPECIAL SCREENINGS PROGRAM:

2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival Announces Lineup of Opening, Closing Films, Film Premieres and Films From Emerging Directors

2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival Announces Lineup of Opening, Closing Films, Film Premieres and Films From Emerging Directors

Blancanieves

The 24th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) announced its complete line-up including Galas, Premieres and New Voices/New Visions.  The Festival will launch on Thursday, January 3 with a screening of the Foreign Language Oscar submission from Spain Blancanieves directed by Pablo Berger and wraps on Sunday, January 13 with the US premiere of Paul Andrew Williams’ Unfinished Song starring Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave.  180 films from 68 countries, including 61 premieres (3 world, 21 North American and 37 U.S.), will unspool at the Festival, running from January 3-14 in Palm Springs, California.

GALAS
The Festival will open with the screening of Blancanieves (Spain/France), the Best Foreign Language Oscar submission from Spain.  Directed by Pablo Berger, Blancanieves is the spectacular silent movie adaptation of Snow White, where the daughter of a famous bullfighter is mistreated by her wicked stepmother.  When she runs away and joins a band of dwarfs, her natural bullfighting talent is discovered, but her stepmother plots to bring her down.  The film stars Maribel Verdú, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Pere Ponce, Sofía Oria,  Macarena Garcia, Ángela Molina, José María Pou and  Inma Cuesta.  Berger will attend the film screening.

Closing the Festival is The Weinstein Company’s Unfinished Song (UK), directed by Paul Andrew Williams and starring Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton, Christopher Eccleston and Anne Reid.  Marking its US premiere, the film is about a curmudgeonly pensioner who takes his ailing wife’s place in their unconventional local choir, with hilarious results.  Terence Stamp will attend the film’s screening.

Ed Burns, Davis Guggenheim Among Jury Members for 2013 Sundance Film Festival

Ed Burns, Davis Guggenheim Among Jury Members for 2013 Sundance Film Festival

 

Academy Award® winning director and producer Davis Guggenheim,  Ed Burns and  director Brett Morgen are among the 19 members of five juries awarding prizes at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, January 17-27 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. Short Film Awards will be announced at a ceremony on January 22 at Park City’s Jupiter Bowl, with feature film awards announced at a separate ceremony on January 26.

Members of the Alfred P. Sloan Jury will be announced in January.

Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster to Open the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival

Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster to Open the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival

The international premiere of The Grandmaster by Chinese director and president of this year’s jury, WONG Kar Wai, will open the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival. The Grandmaster is an epic martial arts drama set against the tumultuous backdrop of 1930’s China and inspired by the life and times of the legendary IP Man (Tony LEUNG Chiu Wai), mentor to Bruce LEE. The plot encompasses themes of war, family, revenge, desire, love, and memory. The all-star cast headed […]

The Times of Harvey Milk Among 25 Films Added to National Film Registry

The Times of Harvey Milk Among 25 Films Added to National Film Registry

The Times of Harvey Milk

The Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today named 25 motion pictures that have been selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Spanning the period 1897-1999, the films named to the registry include documentaries, early films, and independent and experimental motion pictures. 

Among the documentaries named to the registry are “The Times of Harvey Milk,” a revealing portrait of San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official; “One Survivor Remembers,” an Academy Award-winning documentary short about Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissmann Klein; and Ellen Bruno’s documentary about the struggle of the Cambodian people to rebuild in the aftermath of Pol Pot’s killing fields.

Independent and experimental films include Nathaniel Dorsky’s “Hours for Jerome,” Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” and the Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Test film of 1922. Among the cinema firsts are “They Call It Pro Football,” which has been described as the “Citizen Kane” of sports movies; and the 1914 version of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which features the first black actor to star in a feature-length American film. The actor Sam Lucas made theatrical history when he also appeared in the lead role in the stage production of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1878.

2012 National Film Registry

Amour, The Master Lead Nominations for London Critics’ Circle Film Awards

Amour, The Master Lead Nominations for London Critics’ Circle Film Awards

Amour

Michael Haneke’s Amour and Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master lead the nominations for the 33rd London Critics’ Circle Film Awards, each with seven nods.  

Amour received nods for Film of the Year and Foreign Language Film, the Director and Screenwriter awards for Haneke, Actor for Jean-Louis Trintignant, Actress for Emmanuelle Riva and Supporting Actress for Isabelle Huppert.
 
The Master picked up nominations for Film of the Year, Director and Screenwriter awards for Anderson, Actor and Supporting Actor for Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman respectively and Supporting Actress for Amy Adams.

Documentary films, The Imposter and Berberian Sound Studio were nominated in the British Film category, the former film also receiving nominations in two additional categories. Indie film Beasts of the Southern Wild is also a nominee for Film of the Year

The 33rd annual edition London Critics’ Circle Film Awards will take place on Sunday January 20, 2013. 

33rd CRITICS’ CIRCLE FILM AWARDS NOMINATIONS IN FULL