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12 articles from 2008

8 September 2008 7:17 AM, PDT | From ifc.com | See recent IFC news

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

The Toronto Film Festival is in full swing, and so this week on the IFC News podcast we argue over two of the films screening there: Spike Lee's World War II drama "Miracle at St. Anna" and Mike Leigh's North London comedy "Happy-Go-Lucky."

Download now (MP3: 25:53 minutes, 23.7 Mb) Podcast feeds: [Xml] [iTunes]

[Photo: "Miracle at St. Anna," Touchstone Pictures, 2008]

Alison Willmore

5 September 2008 1:20 PM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Toronto International Film Festival, Posters

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Happy-Go-Lucky (click image to enlarge), directed by Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies). The film, which premiered in Telluride and is currently screening at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, stars Sally Hawkins as an eternally optimistic teacher living and working in North London. Apart from the exclusive clip we debuted on Cinematical earlier in the week, Kim had this to say about the film: "All in all, I quite liked Happy-Go-Lucky; it's certainly one of Leigh's more mainstream-friendly films, and will appeal to moviegoers beyond the dress-all-in-black, gloom-and-doom cinephile crowd, while still retaining enough of the Leigh touch to satisfy most of the purists."

Happy-Go-Lucky will arrive in theaters with a smile on October 10.

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Erik Davis

2 September 2008 10:32 AM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

Happy-Go-Lucky, the newest film by director Mike Leigh, has been getting high praise at the Telluride Film Festival for Sally Hawkins' performance as Poppy, a primary school teacher with an optimistic nature. In this clip (see below), Poppy is taking a driving lesson from Scott (Eddie Marsan), a tightly wound driving instructor who's Poppy's polar opposite. The scenes between Poppy and Scott are some of the best and funniest in the film; this one will give you a little taste of it. Happy-Go-Lucky plays at the Toronto International Film Festival before opening in limited release October 10. You can read our full review of the film from Telluride right here.

Filed under: Comedy, Telluride, Fandom, Toronto International Film Festival, Trailers and Clips

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Kim Voynar

31 August 2008 8:03 PM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

With his latest effort, Happy-Go-Lucky, director Mike Leigh takes a departure from the dark mood evoked by most of his films with a charming little tale about an eternally optimistic school teacher, Poppy (Sally Hawkins, previously seen in smaller roles in Leigh's films Vera Drake and All or Nothing), who breezes through life, always seeing the glass half full. Poppy is one of those people who never seems to get down about anything. She smiles at surly strangers, strikes up conversations with people who'd clearly prefer to be left alone, and puts a positive spin on everything.

When her bike is stolen, Poppy shrugs it off and decides to take driving lessons; her driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan, also a Leigh alum from Vera Drake) is Poppy's polar opposite. Some of the film's best moments are when she's interacting with Scott and we have the dramatic tension of his simmering

Kim Voynar

31 August 2008 4:03 PM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

One of my favorite things to do at Telluride is talk to people in line and on the gondola about what they've seen, what they've loved, and what they've hated. The folks who come to Telluride tend to be smart folks who love film, and I always have some fascinating conversations here.

I'm hearing strong positive buzz so far for I've Loved You So Long, Hunger, Flame & Citron, The Good, the Bad and the Weird, and Happy-Go-Lucky, all of which will play Toronto. Folks here are enamored of Sally Hawkins, who plays the lead in Happy-Go-Lucky; sadly, she broke her collarbone while shooting a stunt for her latest film, and isn't here in Telluride, but she will be at Toronto.

Hearing mixed response to American Violet (I haven't seen that one, but you can read Gene's review) and Adam Resurrected; the latter is the newest from film master Paul Schrader,

Kim Voynar

28 August 2008 3:33 PM, PDT | From Cinematical.com | See recent Cinematical news

Last year was great for American independent cinema; this year, not so much. The lineup for the 35th annual Telluride Film Festival has been announced, and only two U.S. filmmakers made the cut -- Paul Schrader (Adam Resurrected) and Tim Disney (American Violet). In addition, David Fincher will be there to screen his cut of Zodiac and to accept the festival's Silver Medallion.

According to Michael Jones at Variety's festival blog, the scarcity of U.S. films is simply the result of not very many homegrown films being submitted. Some likely candidates, like Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler and the Coens' Burn After Reading, chose to focus on other festivals. Other contenders, like Revolutionary Road, Milk, and W., aren't done yet. The writers' strike and the big studios' ongoing financial problems with their art house divisions also contributed to the dearth of American product.

It looks like a fantastic foreign lineup,

Eric D. Snider

28 August 2008 1:10 PM, PDT | From Rope Of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news

Vera Farmiga (left) and Kate Beckinsale in Nothing but the Truth

Photo: Yari Film Group One film already being discussed for Oscar this year is Rod Lurie's Nothing but the Truth starring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, David Schwimmer, Vera Farmiga, Edie Falco, Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, Noah Wyle and Harry Lennix. The film centers on female newspaper reporter (Beckinsale) who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source. Schwimmer will play Beckinsale's husband, who initially supports his wife's decision not to name names but as time goes by begins to resent her for choosing a principle over her family. The actors alone conjure up thoughts of nominations and the film may end being Yari Film Group's first major attempt at some hardware since The Illusionist was nominated for cinematography at the 2007 Oscars. I have added six new pictures to the gallery which now has

Brad Brevet

23 August 2008 10:37 PM, PDT | From screeninglog.com | See recent screeninglog news

Laurent Cantet’s French drama “The Class” ("Entre les murs"), a film based on François Bégaudeau's book about life in a junior high-school classroom, took home the Film Critics Award Thursday at the 2008 edition of the Norwegian International Film Festival at Haugesund.

Cantet's film won several prestigious awards at festivals all over the world in the past months. After winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, "The Class" also picked up the One Future Prize at the 25th Munich Film Festival.

The Ray of Sunshine Award went to Mike Leigh's dramedy "Happy-Go-Lucky," about the ups and downs in the life of a London teacher. The film stars Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan and Andrea Riseborough.

Meanwhile, Thomas Vinterberg's "A Man Comes Home" ("En Mand kommer hjem") won the festival's audience prize. The comedy follows a famous opera singer who returns home to find his hometown drowning in chaos.

Franck Tabouring

20 August 2008 10:09 PM, PDT | From Rope Of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news

Sally Hawkins is getting a little bit of early Oscar buzz for her role in Happy-Go-Lucky and after I watched the international trailer for the film I couldn't help but think of Lady Tottington from Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. For some reason the two characters seem to have the same kind of vibrant attitudes. The film was written and directed by Mike Leigh (Vera Drake and Topsy-Turvy) and may not actually be that bad, but it does look a bit too quirky for Oscar. And I don't mean Diablo Cody "honest to blog" quirky, I mean legitimately quirky, Cody's dialogue was more annoying than quirky. Give it a peek and see what you think, Happy-Go-Lucky hits limited theaters on October 10.

Brad Brevet

12 August 2008 3:16 PM, PDT | From AwardsDaily.com | See recent AwardsDaily news

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P97wbtckTEY Awards Daily friendlies Nathaniel Rogers and Kris Tapley have been tuned in to Sally Hawkins and Happy-Go-Lucky for weeks.  Today’s expanded announcement of the Nyff line-up finally pounded the film’s potential through my thick skull. Kris is betting on Happy-Go-Lucky for his newly minted “Juno slot“© (but let’s not hold that against it).

Ryan Adams

8 August 2008 5:00 PM, PDT | From firstshowing.net | See recent FirstShowing.net news

Miramax has debuted the trailer for Mike Leigh's new comedy Happy-Go-Lucky. This cheerful little film is about the boisterous and carefree Poppy, played by the bright up-and-coming actress Sally Hawkins, and the lack of romance in her life. Apparently Happy-Go-Lucky is a film festival sensation, but I haven't heard of it until now, so I'm not sure how big of a sensation it was. However, it is the latest from British filmmaker Mike Leigh, of films like Life Is Sweet, Secrets & Lies, Topsy-Turvy, and Vera Drake. I think the fact that the title card in this trailer is pink and sports cherries might mean that this is not exactly a guy's movie... by any means. However, if you're brave enough to watch it, you're more than welcome! Watch the trailer for Happy-Go-Lucky: [flv:http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/firstshowing/Happy-Go-Lucky.flv http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/firstshowing/Happy-Go-Lucky.jpg 598 248] You can also watch the Happy-Go-Lucky trailer in High Definition on Apple Happy-Go-Lucky is both written

Alex Billington

7 August 2008 3:58 AM, PDT | From Rope Of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news

Photo: Sony Pictures Classics In preparing for the upcoming Oscar season I had to add a couple of new movies today. The first was Happy-Go-Lucky from Mike Leigh (Vera Drake) and the other is an Israeli animated film called Waltz with Bashir and visually it looks a lot like A Scanner Darkly, but tonaly it seems to be capturing a bit more of the realistic side of things much in the way Persepolis did last year when it made some waves, but the difference with Waltz with Bashir is that it doesn't seem to have any of the "humor" aspects Persepolis had. Personally I was not a fan of Persepolis. It felt like one big giant story crammed into a very short film. It just didn't work for me and the humor I mentioned above is in quotes because I also didn't find it all that funny. However, there is

Brad Brevet

12 articles from 2008