Tomas Alfredson’s “Lat den ratte komma in” (Let the Right One In), centering on the first love between a young boy and the vampire next door, won the feature prize as the Tribeca Film Festival named the winners of its seventh annual competition.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Steven Soderbergh’s two films Che bio and Clint Eastwood’s”The Changeling” look like crowd and judges favorites at 61st Cannes Film Festival, meaning the U.S. has a contention for the Palme d’Or.
Soderbergh’s involvement appears to be a last-minute decision.
According to Variety, for much of this week, there seemed genuine uncertainty as to whether he
As made know earlier this year, Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” world premiers at the Croisette, hopefully Sunday May 18. It suppose to be this fest’s must-attend, highest-glam event.
Variety, also, reports, out-of-competition, DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda,” an adventure, comedic chop-soc tooner, promises another Hollywood red-carpet cavalcade.
Also non-competing, as is Woody Allen’s custom, is the Spain-shot “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
Clint Eastwood’s “The Changeling,” a 1920s-set kidnap thriller, with Angelina Jolie.
Popularity: 1% [?]
The dates for the 2009 Oscars have been revealed today, and feature a slight shift from its regular time table. The Oscar nominations will be announced on Thursday, January 22, and the ceremony will be held on February 22. Traditionally the nominations are announced on a Tuesday, but due to the presidential inauguration on January 20, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences decided to push back the date.
Ballots for the 81st annual Academy Awards will go out on December 26, and will be due back by 5pm PT on January 12. Nominations will be revealed on January 22, and final ballots will be mailed out January 28. The final polls will close at 5pm PT on February 17.
The Nominees Luncheon will be held on February 2, and the Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards will occur on February 7. The Academy Awards will be held at the Kodak Theater on February 22, and will be broadcast live on ABC. Because the Academy Awards have also been pushed back, it is expected that the Razzies will also likely be pushed back. The Razzies celebrate the worst in showbiz, and traditionally announce their nominations one day before the Oscar nominees are revealed, and have their awards ceremony one day before the Oscars.
Popularity: 1% [?]
There has been plenty of untimely deaths so far this year, but last night saw the death of one of Hollywood’s biggest actors, Charlton Heston. He had spent his later years battling with Alzheimer’s Disease.
After enlisting in the US Air Force, Heston started his career on the stage, appearing in Broadway plays as well as getting several TV roles. His transition to cinema came directly through theatre, starring as Marc Antony in the 1950 version of Julius Caesar. He returned to the same role 20 years later when directing Antony and Cleopatra.
Heston is mostly known for playing larger-than-life historical and Biblical figures. The most important role of his early career was as Moses in the Cecil B Demille epic The Ten Commandments. The image of Moses parting the Red Sea will always be associated with Heston’s face. In 1960 Heston starred in another period epic, this time in Ben-Hur, which earned a Best Actor Oscar, as well as numerous others for the film.
Heston was also known for appearing in gritt, noir-ish thrillers. The best of which was Orson Welles’s astounding Touch of Evil. Heston played Vargas, a Mexican police officer on the US border, battling hoods and dirty cops, his idealism getting him and his wife into trouble. It is this role in which I will always remember the actor.
After his Oscar, Heston continued to play historical characters, from El Cid to John the Baptist, to Michaelangelo. But in 1967 Heston started a new phase of his career, and gained a new type of audience. Planet of the Apes became an instant classic, and everyone recognises the “you filthy apes” and “damn you all to hell” snarls of the film (Heston went on to parody them in Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of the film). Heston went on to star in The Omega Man (recently remade into I am Legend), and Soylent Green, a film which proposed that the government solved overpopulation by serving people as food.
While Heston’s later career failed to make much of an impact (films like Earthquake are not really remembered now), he did appear in the popular soap Dynasty, as was considered good enough to star in a spin-off series called The Colbys, which ran for almost 50 episodes.
Heston made brief appearence in films during the 90’s, but his career was overshadowed by his political views, which were known to be very conservative (despite being for civil rights long before “it became popular”). He was upset at the notion of Ben Hur being potentially homosexual after writer Gore Vidal revealed it. He was President of the National Rifle Association, a role that caused much negative attention, especially Michael Moore’s popular documentary Bowling for Columbine. The film depits Heston is a negative light, to say the least, as an insensitive man.
Regardless of his dubious political beliefs, Heston will be an actor remembered for his passion and presence on screen, and as the man said himself: “If you need a ceiling painted, a chariot race run, a city besieged, or the Red Sea parted, you think of me.”
Popularity: 2% [?]
I don’t watch soap operas because I don’t have cable, and I have better things to do during the day.
This is a milestone for a soap opera to be at the top of the ratings for 1000 weeks in a row. Soaps have been having a hard time keeping and finding a mainstay audience. But it looks like “Young and the Restless” is doing just fine. The CBS daytime drama has been on top since the final weeks of the Reagan administration — that says something wonderful about the show.
Variety reported that the soaps genre as a whole has been hit by declining ratings over the years, but “Y&R” remains its bellwether program. Sony sudser, which celebrates its 35th year on the air later this month, just achieved a major milestone by winning the ratings race in households for an amazing 1,000th consecutive week.
Michelle Stafford, who plays Phyllis Summers Abbott, is a wonderful person. I am happy for her success and the show’s success.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Over two million votes were cast for the final nominees of the 2008 CMT MUSIC AWARDS, putting country superstars Brad Paisley and Sugarland in the lead with four final nominations. Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift and Trace Adkins share the designation of three nominations each. 2008 CMT MUSIC AWARDS host Billy Ray Cyrus marking his first nomination for the tear jerking “Ready, Set, Don’t Go.” Joined by his daughter, Miley (Hannah Montana fame), together they will host the show.
The 2008 CMT MUSIC AWARDS continues to be the genre’s only fan-voted awards show and will air live from Nashville’s Curb Event Center at Belmont University on Monday, April 14 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on CMT and CMT.com.“Voting for the 2008 CMT MUSIC AWARDS is at an all-time high, making the awards more competitive than ever,” said Brian Philips, executive vice president and general manager, CMT. “With superstar performances like those from our top nominees Brad Paisley and Sugarland and exciting new categories, this year’s show promises to be a night full of surprises.”
Fans can now vote online at CMT.com through Friday, April 11 to determine the night’s winners. The final nominees for VIDEO OF THE YEAR will be announced at the beginning of the show, and fans can vote at CMT.com, as well as via mobile phone, throughout the live broadcast, Eastern and Central Times only, to determine the night’s big winner. Log on to CMT.com to view streaming clips of nominated videos.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Lists of 100 Italo films were announced as the cultural treasures. Unveiled in Rome on Thursday, but not without controversy, until producer Grazia Volpi, according to Variety, cried out, “Where are Lina Wertmueller and Liliana Cavani?”
Volpi has a point. These two Italo directors are awesome. I remember seeing one of Wertmueller films “La Fine del Mondo Nel Nostro Solito Letto in Una Notte Piena Di Pioggia” over 30 years ago. It was fabulous.
Besides the obvious directors such as Federico Fellini’s “La dolce vita,” Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City,” Vittorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” and Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers,” the list includes less-conventional entries such as Marco Ferreri’s “The Ape Woman” about a woman affected with hypertrichosis.
As far as number of films, Fellini leads the list with seven, followed by Luchino Visconti with six, and De Sica, Francesco Rosi and Mario Monicelli with five works each. The list also includes four by Rossellini and three by Michelangelo Antonioni, reported by Variety. Venice Days aims to make these works more readily available to the country’s younger generations. Tough rights issues however still stand in the way.
Popularity: 1% [?]
The NETFLIX NOW PLAYING channel features exclusive content from awards season and more. Go to…
Jim
iny Glick (aka Martin Short) interviews Ellen Page of Juno
Popularity: 1% [?]
The inaugural ShoWest/NATO Freedom of Expression Award goes to Director-producer Ang Lee and Focus CEO James Schamus. Both have collaborated on films like “Lust, Caution” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Both receive the honor presented on March 11 at the Opening Day Luncheon, which shines the spotlight on independent and specialty films, at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Christopher Nolan, who directed 2005’s “Batman Begins” and the upcoming ”The Dark Knight,” will be honored as director of the year at ShoWest 2008.
Nolan broke his teeth directing debut 1999’s “Following” and drew attention with his second feature, 2001’s “Memento.”
“Memento” is a fabulous movie. I just love it — very unique, full of twists. I’ll never look into the mirror with out thinking about tattoos.
Nolan will be honored March 13 with gala set to close the exhibition confab.
Popularity: 1% [?]
