Archive for January, 2008
Berlin Film Fest Offers Wide-Ranging Program
Films from as far afield as Iran and Japan will compete with strong Oscar contender “There Will Be Blood” for the top prize at this year’s Berlin film festival.
Twenty-one films are competing for the main Golden Bear award at the “Berlinale,” the first of the year’s major European film festivals — which runs from Feb. 7 to 17.
Contenders announced Tuesday by the festival organizers include Spanish director Isabel Coixet’s “Elegy,” based on Philip Roth’s novel “The Dying Animal,” and starring Penelope Cruz and Ben Kingsley; “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s oil-boom epic, starring Daniel Day-Lewis; and Damian Harris’ “Gardens Of The Night,” featuring John Malkovich.
Organizers say they do not expect the Berlin festival to be hit by the Hollywood writers’ strike, which reduced the annual Golden Globes ceremony to a news conference. “We will not have a dead carpet, but a red carpet,” festival director Dieter Kosslick said, adding that Cruz, Kingsley, Malkovich, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and others are expected in Berlin.
‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ Wins World Cinema Award
Spanish fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth has scooped BBC Four’s Pioneer World Cinema Award 2008.
The movie, which has won three Oscars and three BAFTAs, lifted the prize at last night’s ceremony at the BFI Southbank in London.
Director Guillermo del Toro flew from Paris to collect the award from actress Catherine Deneuve.
He said: “I am very humbled by the competition and the nominations so I am very happy to have won this award. I am extremely thankful because world cinema seems to be not only about geography of the world out there, but about charting the world within us.
“Very often people think that the only way to tell the truth is through reality. So I find, by my own experience, irreality is sometimes a better tool to tell the truth.”
The movie was chosen from a shortlist of five by a panel consisting of actor Christopher Eccleston, documentary-maker Nick Broomfield and actress Archie Panjabi.
It beat Oscar-nominated drama The Lives Of Others, as well as The Science Of Sleep, Climates and Syndromes And A Century.
Speed Racer – Synopsis, Movie Stills and Poster
Based on the classic series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida, the live-action “Speed Racer” will showcase the kind of revolutionary visual effects and cutting-edge storytelling that have become the benchmarks of the Wachowski brothers’ films.
Hurtling down the track, careening around, over and through the competition, Speed Racer is a natural behind the wheel. Born to race cars, Speed is aggressive, instinctive and, most of all, fearless.
FilmoFilia’s Movie Stills Gallery
His only real competition is the memory of the brother he idolized-the legendary Rex Racer – whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill. Speed is loyal to the family racing business, led by his father, Pops Racer, the designer of Speed’s thundering Mach 5.
Bond may get married in ‘Quantum of Solace’?
British actress Gemma Arterton has hinted that James Bond may get married in the upcoming 007 movie, ‘Quantum of Solace’.
The 22-year-old star told a reporter that she and Daniel Craig had been filming scenes in a honeymoon suite for the film.
The surprised journalist asked: ‘Honeymoon suite?’, prompting Arterton to reply: ‘I think I’ve said too much’.
The actress plays an MI6 agent working at the British consulate in Bolivia in the new Bond film.
It would be the second marriage for Bond – the spy got hitched in the 1969 movie ‘On Her Majesty’s Service’.
James Bond may be ready to settle down in the forthcoming ‘Quantum of Solace’.
Vaclav Havel Behind The Scenes In New Film
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel allows the world a backstage peek at his turbulent political career in a two-hour documentary to be premiered in Prague on Thursday.
The film “Citizen Havel” is based on a total of 45 hours of material gathered by Havel’s friend Pavel Koutecky, who followed the president around the world for thirteen years, starting in 1992. Shot in family video style, it shows Havel at home, writing history on the world stage, or encountering global celebrities.
“It [the movie] puts a human face on the image of Havel — the icon,” said David Dusek, one of the co-producers of the film. “Lots of people will be surprised.” Viewers get to see Havel nervous against the backdrop of political Washington, clowning around with Bill Clinton in a jazz club and showing the Rolling Stones around Prague Castle. Dusek says the movie, distributed by Aerofilms in the Czech Republic, was well received at US college screenings last year, and will compete at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 11.
Havel was a dissident playwright when he led the 1989 revolution that peacefully toppled communism. He became president of Czechoslovakia in December 1989 and served as Czech president from January 1993 after the country split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. His last term in office ended in February 2003.
‘Leatherheads’ Poster
ComingSoon.net has nabbed a first look at the new one-sheet Clooney’s third directorial effort Leatherheads.
It’s a great looking poster with a cartoonish look. Look at Clooney’s face. With that shiner, those comic book brows, and the Grecian chin, the man looks positively animated. And look at the faces on the rest of the players, all looking fierce except for John Kraksinki, who looks a little scared. In the period romantic comedy, Clooney plays a football hero who recruits a war hero (Krasinki) to come in and help bring his team into the big leagues.
Renee Zellweger plays a reporter who becomes the focus of some off-field scrimmages in the stadium of love.
Opening in theaters: April 4th.
All new posters you may find in FilmoFilia photo gallery
Stallone: no more Rambo or Rocky
Sylvester Stallone has bid sweet adieu to his two most memorable cinematic creations, Rambo and Rocky, despite the successful launch of Rambo in the US last weekend
The ageing action hero defied a mauling from the critics when his fourth, eponymously titled Rambo instalment debuted in second place in the US charts with a decent haul of a little over $18m (£9.1m).
“This is the last Rambo just as Rocky Balboa is the last Rocky,” Stallone told reporters. “I can’t go any further. It was a miracle that it even got done.”
Stallone’s comments may come as a surprise to Harvey Weinstein, however, who said on Sunday that he expected the series to continue after the film’s auspicious release.
The Rambo and Rocky films have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars around the world and are an immensely appealing prospect to the pack of executives like Weinstein that like to surround money-making ventures.
Stallone produced, directed and starred in Rambo, in which the famously monosyllabic former Green Beret dons the face paint one more time for a hostage rescue mission in Burma.
