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15 articles from 2008

30 September 2008 6:24 AM, PDT | From ifc.com | See recent IFC news

By Michael Atkinson

The new Israeli film "Jellyfish" (2007) -- co-directed by lifemates Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, and a Camera d'Or winner at Cannes -- is both familiar and otherworldly. Israeli filmmakers, doubtlessly because of their particularly tense position in the world, of their society's fervent militarization and of the question of the Palestinians, love the everyone's-connected social-weave film, à la "Crash" (Amos Gitai has made several), bouncing amongst a variety of intersecting characters as a way to paint a portrait of the whole culture. As a sub-subgenre, it has its pitfalls, but as all of our cultures become more and more deracinative and immigrant-scrambled, it's easy to see the idea's allure. "Jellyfish," fortunately, adopts the mode but maintains modesty: a mere 78 minutes long (hallelujah), the movie is sharp and poetic on particulars (somewhat like Keret's short fiction, though Geffen is credited as the screenwriter), and is rescued from undue

Michael Atkinson

16 September 2008 6:28 PM, PDT | From GetTheBigPicture.net | See recent Get The Big Picture news

Snow Angels

Starring Kate Becknisale, Sam Rockwell, and Michael Angarano

Directed by David Gordon Green

Rated R

I was really impressed by Kate Beckinsale in Snow Angels, a slow, deliberate movie that moves inexorably towards the ending it predicts at the very beginning, despite any objections we may have to it.

Beckinsale plays Annie, a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. She's the mother of an adventurous little girl named Lila, and she's going through a very weird separation from her husband, Glenn (Sam Rockwell).

After she left Glenn, he drove off a bridge - on purpose - but came away unharmed. Needless to say, he's got some work ahead of him.

At the restaurant, Annie prods her teenage co-worker, Arthur (Michael Angarano from Forbidden Kingdom). Years earlier, Annie had been Arthur's babysitter, and he developed a massive crush. Snow Angels shows a series of relationships flying apart - Annie and Glenn,

Colin Boyd

24 August 2008 4:29 PM, PDT | From Rope Of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news

I have yet to watch Paris, je taime, but I actually just added it to me Netflix Instant Queue just yesterday and will have it out of the way very soon as the trailer for New York, I Love You has just found its way onto the Internet. Rachel Bilson, Kevin Bacon, Natalie Portman, Maggie Q, Robin Wright Penn, Chris Cooper, Shia Labeouf, Orlando Bloom, Ethan Hawke, Anton Yelchin, Olivia Thirlby, James Caan, Blake Lively, Drea de Matteo, Bradley Cooper, Eli Wallach, Cloris Leachman, Andy Garcia, Julie Christie, Christina Ricci, John Hurt, Hayden Christensen and many more. It also includes segments directed by Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman as newcomers to the game along with the big boys such as Joshua Marston, Shekhar Kapur, Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Andrei Zvyagintsev and Randall Balsmeyer. Just like Good, which I showed you the trailer for yesterday,

Brad Brevet

21 August 2008 3:02 PM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

Filed under: Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Thrillers, Fandom, Family Films, Cinematical Indie

With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Elisabeth Rappe, geeks are not the only ones who learned important lessons from watching movies this summer. Herewith is my personal, arthouse summer school summary.

Werner Herzog cast a disapproving eye on the ugliness he discovered at Antarctica's McMurdo Station ("they even have a yoga studio and an Atm!") and was skeptical about the sanity of some of the real-life characters he met, which is partly why Encounters at the End of the World was so entrancing. What I learned: Evidence for gay penguins is skimpy, but they have been known to have threesomes.

The Wackness (pictured) didn't became the breakout hit that some had hoped for, but it did showcase the talents of rising star Olivia Thirlby and director Jonathan Levine. What I learned: Never kiss Ben Kingsley in a telephone booth.

Peter Martin

19 August 2008 1:29 PM, PDT | From QuietEarth.us | See recent QuietEarth news

For a total of 312 films from 64 different countries. Wow, I wish I could go. Of the remaining announcements in 3 different sections, the most intriguing would have to be Vincent Cassel playing legendary French gangster Jacques Mesrine in Public Enemy No. 1. It's listed as a "work-in-progress" so I guess that means what will be screened is not the final cut. Another I'm looking forward to is The Lucky Ones which stars one of my favorites, Tim Robbins. It's about some returning soldiers who go on a road trip across America. Check out the full list following.

Real To Reel

Paris, Not France Adria Petty, USA

World Premiere

Polls show that in certain demographics, more people identify the name Paris with "Hilton" than with "France." Gaining intimate access to the glamorous and chaotic day-to-day life of one of the world's biggest icons, director Adria Petty explores the businesswoman and the human

14 August 2008 3:56 PM, PDT | From QuietEarth.us | See recent QuietEarth news

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced a whole load of films, including many world premiers, to be added as part of their lineups. Some of the more interesting looking ones are Lance Daly's Kisses about two Irish kids who run away from home and deal with the dark underside of Dublin. Another film I'm definitely interested in is Scott McGehee and David Siegel's Uncertainty which stars one of my personal favorites, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's about a couple in love who find out she's pregnant and they flip a coin from where it apparently follows both possible storylines, but with the same disastrous consequences. Also screening will be Fabrice du Welz's Vinyan (trailer here) which is about a couple who lost their son in a Tsunami and won't give up looking for him. In the Discovery program, the stop-motion animation $9.99 which is about a man seeking the meaning to life.

17 July 2008 11:59 PM, PDT | From GetTheBigPicture.net | See recent Get The Big Picture news

The Wackness

Starring Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, and Olivia Thirlby

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Rated R

Sometimes it's the strangest relationships that can be the most rewarding. Felix and Oscar, Harold and Maude, Martin and Lewis, Laurel and Hardy, Gnarls Barkley. The Wackness provides us the most dysfunctional friendship of 2008, but it's one the characters and the audience are both the better for exploring.

Recent high school graduate Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) attends therapy sessions with Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley). At the end of each session, Luke pays his doctor with dime bags of pot. It's a win-win situation; Luke gets the help he seeks and gains a customer, and Dr. Squires gets the high he wants and, for 45 minutes, a friend he needs.

Squires lives a pretty vacant life. He's in a loveless marriage (to Famke Janssen) and he doesn't get along very well with his step-daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby from Juno). Luke,

Colin Boyd

12 July 2008 7:14 AM, PDT | From Rope Of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news

Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck wheel around the marijuana cart posing as a snow cone cart

Photo: Sony Pictures Classics Fueled by not much more than online fanboy joy over a film they mildly connect with, The Wackness is impressive only as a piece of teenage "where do I fit in the world?" questioning, but outside of that it isn't all that interesting. This film just tends to sit there and go through the motions as each and every turn in the plot is foreshadowed prior to anything ever taking place. None of it is a mystery as you follow the slovenly open-mouthed protagonist on his daily jaunts selling weed while the world he inhabits is crumbling all around him. Josh Peck isn't a newcomer to films although it may seem that way considering he has never broken out and astounded audiences. Starring as Luke Shapiro, he has just graduated

Brad Brevet

4 July 2008 10:35 AM, PDT | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

In addition to the slew of blockbusters that have taken over the multiplexes for the Independence Day holiday, the critically praised The Wackness, starring Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck, Mary-Kate Olsen and Olivia Thirlby is opening in limited release today (Friday) to largely enthusiastic reviews. Rafer Guzmán in the Newsday indicates the movie "is less a story than a series of moments -- some funny, some poignant, all memorable." Comments Claudia Puig in USA Today: "The writing and filmmaking style are often poetic, and the dialogue, steeped in '90s phrases, sounds believable. ... The Wackness is both darkly funny and life-affirming, in an offbeat and offhanded way." Some critics suggest, however, that the movie was contrived primarily for the film-festival crowd and like many festival competitors is overloaded with preadult angst. Although set in New York in 1994, Jan Stuart notes in the Los Angeles Times, the movie "is ultimately less evocative of pre-Sept. 11 Manhattan than it is of post-Sept. 11 Park City, Utah, where the film had its Sundance debut." And Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News concludes that the film is ultimately a disappointment. The film, he writes, "occasionally stumbles into charm but more often is just wayward and hazy."

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3 July 2008 9:07 AM, PDT | From ifc.com | See recent IFC news

By Matt Singer

Many movies wax nostalgic for the good old days; "The Wackness" is the only movie I can think of that's nostalgic for a time occupied by people who are themselves nostalgic about their own good old days. Though writer/director Jonathan Levine's wistful coming-of-age film wants us to miss New York City as we knew it in 1994, the characters are all pissed off: their marriages are falling apart or their high school careers (and, thus, their lives) are coming to an end, and the new mayor is cracking down on drug use.

I guess the grass . the grass, man . is always greener. Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is an enterprising high school senior who makes up for his parents' employment fuckups by dealing pot around his Upper East Side neighborhood. His aesthetic, much like the movie itself, is pointedly old school: cassettes instead of CDs, Nintendo instead of Sega Genesis.

Matt Singer

1 July 2008 8:33 AM, PDT | From ifc.com | See recent IFC news

By Stephen Saito

Jonathan Levine calls "The Wackness" a "second first film." In a way, he's speaking for his whole cast. While Levine is making his debut as a writer after helming the much buzzed-about (but still unreleased) teen horror comedy hybrid, "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane," he hired an eclectic cast for his latest film that includes Nickelodeon staple Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby ("Juno"), Method Man, Famke Janssen, Sir Ben Kingsley, and in case you hadn't heard, Mary-Kate Olsen. It's an unusual ensemble for an unusual coming-of-age story of a teen (Peck) who forms an unlikely friendship with a psychologist (Kingsley) by trading marijuana for therapy in 1994 New York. It's clearly a personal story for Levine, but it's not an autobiographical one, though both he and Peck both sweated out sticky summers in Manhattan, listening to Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" a generation apart. Now, the two have

Stephen Saito

30 June 2008 12:05 PM, PDT | From screeninglog.com | See recent screeninglog news

Jonathan Levine’s indie comedy “The Wackness” picked up the audience award for best narrative feature Sunday at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival. The film stars Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen and Olivia Thirlby, and focuses on a young drug dealer who falls for his psychiatrist’s daughter.

The audience award for best international feature went to James Marsh’s “Man on Wire,” a British documentary about tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s daring but often illegal stunts.

But “Man on Wire” failed to collect the audience award for best documentary feature, which went to Sacha Gervasi’s “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” a film about a Canadian rock band that never made the big time.

The festival also presented two awards sponsored by Target. Darius Marder’s “Loot” took home the best documentary award, while Sean Baker’s “Prince of Broadway” won best narrative feature.

Other winners included Jennifer Lawrence

Franck Tabouring

24 June 2008 9:04 AM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Actress Olivia Thirlby is considering boycotting new movie Pineapple Express after she was fired from the film.

The 21-year-old Juno star was dropped from the stoner comedy at the last minute and replaced by Amber Heard - and she's annoyed.

Thirlby says, "I don't know if I'm going to see it. I got cast as Seth Rogen's girlfriend. And I'd been rehearsing with them for a little while and they called me up and were like, 'Actually we're going to re-cast your role.' So I'm minorly, minorly ticked off."

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5 May 2008 5:20 AM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Director Brett Ratner ran into trouble when producing his contribution for forthcoming movie New York, I Love You - because authorities in the city enforced strict rules about filming in the famous Central Park.

The film is made up of six-minute segments, all telling different stories about New York and filmed by different directors - including actresses Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, who both make their directorial debuts.

Ratner - who has directed blockbusters including the Rush Hour film trilogy and X-Men: The Last Stand - opted to produce his segment for the film in the city's famous green space.

But he admits the short, which required actress Olivia Thirlby to swing from a tree in the park, nearly didn't get made because of overzealous authorities.

He tells the New York Daily News, "You can do what you want in Central Park, unless you're doing it for a film. Then, you can't touch anything. Olivia weighs about 80 pounds, but we weren't allowed to have her hanging from a tree.

"We had to buy a dead tree from a prop house and bring it to Central Park. We also couldn't walk on the grass, so we had to get a crane to stand the tree up on concrete, then put grass and mulch around it, so it looked real. It was insane."

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10 April 2008 2:52 AM, PDT | From Digitalspy | See recent digitalspy news

Orlando Bloom, Hayden Christensen and Ethan Hawke are among the stars lined up for New York, I Love You.

The movie, which comprises 12 short films from different directors, is currently shooting across the city's five boroughs, reports Variety.

Olivia Thirlby (Juno), Rachel Bilson, Kevin Bacon, James Caan and Gossip Girl's Blake Lively also star.

Natalie Portman is appearing in one of the shorts as well as directing a separate segment. Scarlett Johansson, Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Allen Hughes, Fatih Akin, . . .

Beth_Hilton_imdb_@digitalspy.co.uk (Beth Hilton)

15 articles from 2008