Michael Moore is upset that documentaries and foreign films are being crowded out of theaters, and has decided to try to do something to change that. Moore indicated that his new year’s resolution was to sit down with heads of exhibition chains and get them to devote one screen in their multiplexes to nonfiction and foreign films.

Moore has already spoken with fellow documentary directors to join him in his initiative, including a few board members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ documentary branch.  It should be noted, however, that at this time it is unclear if the AMPAS would officially be involved.

Michael Moore credits his motivation to the declining box office performance of indie films last year, many of which were taken out of theaters before getting the chance to grow by word-of-mouth.  He says that this new initiative is simply an extension of his work in promoting fellow indie filmmakers at the annual Traverse City Film Festival.


“People want to see documentaries, but there’s a disconnect between that desire and the exhibitors out there. We’re not asking for charity,” said Moore.

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Saturday, January 19

9:00 p.m. “The Motorcycle Diaries” directed by Walter Salles

This road movie retells an episode in the early life of revolutionary Che Guevara. In 1952, Ernesto Guevara (Gael García Bernal), then a 23-year-old medical student, joined Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna) on an ambitious 5000-mile South American motorcycle trek. As Salles’s film suggests, the things Guevara saw and the people he met were essential in transforming him into the world-famous political figure of the ‘60s. Appeared at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival

Followed by:

“Oedipus” directed by Jason Wishnow

Filmmaker Jason Wishnow employs stop-motion animation and a cast fresh from the produce aisle to serve a memorable spoof of Hollywood epics in a witty retelling of the classic Greek drama. Appeared at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Runtime 08:32.

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I don’t know about you , but I believe the Berlin Festival is a big deal. First of all, it’s huge with films from 33 countries and 16 directorial debuts feature in the lineup for the Berlinale’s Forum section, which will again focus on experimental and unconventional work from young filmmakers. Young filmmakers deserve a break and a chance to make it in the business.
The 38th edition of the sidebar screens 36 films in its main program, as well as a three-film tribute to Japan’s Wakamatsu Koji. That is awesome. Paying tribute to Koji.

Please take a look at their and follow the program; it’s a big deal in the film business.

Did I mention that a Rolling Stones concert movie by Martin Scorsese and that both are participating and walking the red carpet?

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Here is a little interesting bit: Only two years old, the Asian Film Awards were announced tonight.

“Lust, Caution” and “The Warlords” received the most nominations. The Asian Film Awards. Ceremony takes place in Hong Kong March 17, 2008.

The two movies, that were also among the biggest Asian box office winners in the fall-winter so far, each garnered six nods and will compete for the best film award.

Asian Film Awards

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“Atonement” is at home as the frontrunner in the nominations for the British Academy Film Awards, nabbing 14 nominations, ahead of nine for both “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood.”Other movies competing for best film are “American Gangster” and last year’s foreign-language Oscar winner “The Lives of Others,” both of which receive five nominations.

The complete list is at BAFTA.

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For those keeping tabs on the Foreign Language nominees, the newly announced list of nine potential nominees has caused some head scratching and consternation.  Not nominated are Four Months, Three Days, and Two Hours, the top prize winner at Cannes last May, nor the acclaimed animated film, Persopolis. My own favorite film of the year, Exiled, by Hong Kong’s Johnny To failed to make the cut as well. The nominees currently are: Austria, “The Counterfeiters,” Stefan Ruzowitzky, director; Brazil, “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” Cao Hamburger, director; Canada, “Days of Darkness,” Denys Arcand, director; Israel, “Beaufort,” Joseph Cedar, director; Italy, “The Unknown Woman,” Giuseppe Tornatore, director; Kazakhstan, “Mongol,” Sergei Bodrov, director; Poland, “Katyn,” Andrzej Wajda, director; Russia, “12,” Nikita Mikhalkov, director; Serbia, “The Trap,” Srdan Golubovic, director. The nine films were selected from 63 entries.  The final five will be selected on January 20 following special screenings for Academy members.   Wajda was a past honorary Oscar winner, while Tornatore won for Cinema Paradiso and Mikhalkov won for Burnt by the Sun. Arcand’s Barbarian Invasions was a past winner as well. Based on advanced word, The Counterfeiters may be the best of the nominees.

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Penelope Cruz is to star in Pedro Almodovar’s next film, “Los abrazos rotos,” described as a “four-way tale of amour fou, shot in the style of ’50s American film noir at its most hard-boiled.”

“Abrazos” will go into pre-production next year, with Almodovar aiming to shoot in the spring, partly in Madrid.

“Abrazos” is set in the ’90s and present day. It will mix stylistic references to films such as Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place” and Vincente Minnelli’s “The Bad and the Beautiful” with signature Almodovar themes: “Fate, the mystery of creation, guilt, unscrupulous power, the eternal search of fathers for sons, and sons for fathers,” Pedro Almodovar told Daily Variety.

“Penelope will exchange the era’s aprons, cardigans and the hairdos for an updated look, but one that mixes the transparent turbulence of Gene Tierney and the mistreated, challenging beauty of Linda Darnell in Otto Preminger’s ‘Fallen Angel,’ ” Pedro Almodovar explained, talking about points of departure for the film.

He is completing the screenplay. “Like some of my other films — ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ — this film came easily, in one go,” Almodovar said.

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The Toronto International Film Festival Group announced the top 10 Canadian films of the year Tuesday.

English-language films took eight of the 10 spots on the feature list. The only two French-language films are “Days of Darkness” that closed the Cannes Film Festival and “Continental, a Film Without Guns.”

The feature list included two other Toronto prize winners: “Eastern Promises” and “My Winnipeg.”

The list also includes “Fugitive Pieces.”

I just listed some of the films; however all pictures will screen at the Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto between Jan. 25 and Feb. 5, 2008.

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Hitting theaters simultaneously in New York and Japan on November 23rd is “Midnight Eagle”, the new Japanese film from Strand Releasing.  The film will expand to Los Angeles theaters on December 7th.

“Midnight Eagle” is based off of the novel by acclaimed writer Tetsuo Takashima, and is directed by Izuru Narushima.  The film is set in the snowbound northern Alps of Japan, where a top-secret American forces strategic bomber known as ‘Midnight Eagle’ suddenly vanishes.  Carried on the bomber, however, is a dangerous, specialized nuclear warhead.  If it were to explode, the entire nation of Japan would be thrown into an unprecendented calamity far worse than the wrath the World War II  A-bombs left.

For the very first time in the history of Japanese film,  The Ministry of Defense, Ground Self Defense Forces, and the Japan Air Self-Defense Forces fully cooperated  with the film’s producers, creating some exciting camera shots.

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