Testy Foreign Language-Exchange Mars Academy Love-Fest
May, 04, 2013 4:04 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, dawn hudson, hawk koch, oscarsSaturday’s unprecedented three-city meeting of more than 1,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was a first for the Academy – and a virtual love-fest aside from tensions over foreign language nomination process and the larger issue of tranparency.
“I was very excited and moved by the amount of love in the room,” said AMPAS president Hawk Koch told TheWrap on Saturday afternoon, less than an hour after wrapping up the simultaneous meetings in Beverly Hills, New York and Emeryville in the Bay Area.
That love, though, did not extend to the entire program, which included at least one exchange about the Academy’s foreign-language system...
Academy Changes Rules, Will Let Everyone Vote in Foreign-Language Category
May, 04, 2013 11:25 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Best Foreign-Language Film, oscarsThe Academy has changed the rules in the Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Documentary Short Subject categories, allowing all members to vote in the categories for the first time without attending special screenings.
The announcement came at the first AMPAS-wide membership meeting, a presentation and forum that took place simultaneously in Beverly Hills, New York City and Emeryville in the San Francisco Bay Area.
AMPAS also announced a similar change to the rules in the Best Documentary Short category. TheWrap had revealed that change in March.
Also read: Oscars Overhaul Short-Documentary Rules, Plan to Expand Doc Branch
The Academy will now send its members screeners of all nominated films in the five...
Read MoreLottery Winner Turns 'Mini-Mogul' With String of Little Movies
May, 03, 2013 10:33 am | Comments On #Cynthia Stafford, independent film, indies, Lanre Idewu, Movies, the brass teapotIf Megan Ellison shows what a very, very rich person with a yen for moviemaking can do, Cynthia Stafford is determined to show what a “a mini-mogul” who got her funding from a big lottery win, can do.
In the last few months, as Ellison, daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison, has counted the profits and losses from such high-profile films as Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and John Hillcoat’s “Lawless,” Stafford has seen three of her own films come to the market.
With a smaller fund and less experience in the business, the former single mother of five from Hawthorne, Calif., has...
How Deepa Mehta Overcame Protests to Film Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children'
May, 03, 2013 9:25 am | Comments On #deepa mehta, independent film, indies, Midnight's Children, Movies, Salman rushdieSalman Rushdie’s novel “Midnight’s Children” is a sprawling book that its author has described as a “love letter to India” -- a chronicle of the country’s birth and occasionally troubled history as experienced by a boy born at the stroke of midnight as the country gained its independence on Aug. 15, 1947.
The novel’s scope made it difficult to adapt into a film, and so did the notoriety of its author in the Islamic world: A planned BBC miniseries version of the book in the 1990s was canceled because of anti-Rushdie protests from the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, where it was going to be filmed.
But Deepa Mehta, the Indian-born,...
School of Visual Arts Leads Student Academy Awards Finalists
May, 01, 2013 11:15 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, School of Visual Arts, Student Academy AwardsThe School of Visual Arts in New York City leads all schools in this year's Student Academy Awards competition, which has been narrowed down to a list of finalists released by the Academy on Wednesday.
Five films produced at the school made the list of 34 U.S. films and nine foreign films, which will compete in five separate categories for the Student Oscars. Up to three winners in each category will be chosen and announced at a later date, although the level of prize each has won – gold, silver or bronze – will not be revealed until the Student Academy Awards ceremony on Saturday, June 8 in Beverly Hills.
NYU placed four films on the list of finalists, while USC, CalArts, the Ringling College of Art and Design and the University of Texas at Austin each had three.
Florida State University and the American Film Institute produced two finalists each...
Read More'The Way, Way Back,' 'The Spectacular Now' to Highlight L.A. Film Fest
May, 01, 2013 10:06 am | Comments On #film festivals, independent film, Los Angeles Film Festival, Movies"The Descendants" writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's "The Way, Way Back" will serve as the closing-night attraction at the 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival, Film Independent announced on Wednesday.
Also on the slate for LAFF: James Ponsoldt's "The Spectacular Now," Nicholas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives," Ryan Coogler's "Fruitvale Station" and a 20th anniversary screening of Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused."
Although past LAFF lineups have included special screenings of such blockbuster offerings as "The Avengers," "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" and "Despicable Me," this year's slate for the most part focuses on independent films and favorites from festivals like Sundance. Additional films and programs will still be announced, though.
The...
Read MoreSofia Coppola's 'The Bling Ring' to Close Seattle Film Festival
April, 30, 2013 10:00 am | Comments On #Emma Watson, film festivals, Movies, Seattle International Film Festival, Sofia Coppola, The Bling RingThe North American premiere of Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” will serve as the closing-night attraction at the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival, a 25-day event that draws more viewers than any other U.S. festival.
“The Bling Ring,” which will have its world premiere at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section, stars Emma Watson and tells the story of a group of L.A.-area youngsters who broke into a string of celebrities' houses.
The film will close SIFF on June 9, almost four weeks after the festival opens with Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing” on May 16....
Read MoreColin Firth & Emily Blunt: 'Arthur Newman' Is Not Just Indie, It's Subversive
April, 26, 2013 11:22 am | Comments On #arthur newman, Colin Firth, Emily Blunt, independent film, indies, Movies“If you don’t have a life, get someone else’s,” is the tagline on “Arthur Newman,” a black comedy about identity from first-time feature director Dante Ariola.
It stars a couple of people with lots of history inhabiting other people’s lives: Oscar-winner Colin Firth as the title character, a middle-aged man who fakes his own death so that he can give himself a different name and a different life, and “Looper” star Emily Blunt as a fragile young woman with her own secrets.
The film premiered at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival, and is being released on Friday by Cinedigm -- with an unusual tie-in with the peer-to-peer site BitTorrent, which made the first 10 minutes of the movie available to users.
...
Read MoreCannes Adds Jim Jarmusch, Claude Lanzmann Films
April, 26, 2013 8:14 am | Comments On #cannes film festival, film festivals, Jim Jarmusch, MoviesJim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” has been added to the main competition lineup at the Cannes Film Festival, Cannes organizers announced on Friday.
The Jarmusch film, a vampire romance starring Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska and John Hurt, is one of five new movies added to the Cannes slate, and the only one to join the main competition.
Jarmusch's first film, "Stranger Than Paradise," won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1984 as the best debut film at the festival.
Other additions include an out-of-competition screening of “Shoah” director Claude Lanzmann’s “Le Dernier des Injustes” and Un...
Read MoreNicole Kidman, Ang Lee and Christoph Waltz Join Cannes Jury
April, 23, 2013 9:35 pm | Comments On #cannes film festival, film festivals, MoviesActors Nicole Kidman and Christoph Waltz and directors Ang Lee, Lynne Ramsay and Cristian Mungiu will join Steven Spielberg on the Cannes Film Festival jury, Cannes organizers announced on Wednesday morning in Paris.
Others on the heavyweight panel include Indian actress Vidya Balan, Japanese director Naomi Kawase and French actor/director Daniel Auteuil.
The nine-person jury, one of the most impressive (and English-heavy) in years, will be presided over by Spielberg, whose participation was previously announced by the festival.
The jury's awards will be announced on May 26, the closing night of a festival that kicks off on May 15. Films in contention for the top prize include Alexander Payne's "Nebraska," Roman Polanski's "Venus in Furs," the Coen Brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis" and Steven Soderbergh's HBO movie...
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Description
Steve Pond, author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show, has been covering entertainment for more than two decades. He also writes on the awards circuit for TheWrap, in his column "The Odds."
