So, right before 2012 ended, Training Day director Antoine Fuqua piped up from Capri, Italy to assert that Spike Lee should not have publicly criticized Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained for the movie’s spaghetti-western-style depiction of slavery. And to that I can only say, “Huh?” If ever there’s a movie made to be publicly, loudly — and heatedly — debated, it’s QT’s anti-slavery epic.
If you were offline for the holidays, here’s a recap of the situation: As Movieline’s Brian Brooks reported on Dec. 27, Lee declared that he has no intention of seeing Django Unchained. “I can’t disrespect my ancestors,” the Red Hook Summer director told Vibe magazine. He further elaborated via Twitter that “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust.”
Enter Fuqua, who took issue with the noisy way that Lee’s expressed his criticism. While at the Capri, Hollywood Film Festival in Italy, Fuqua told The Hollywood Reporter told the publication: “That’s just not the way you do things….If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don’t do it publicly.” (Fuqua further defended Tarantino, albeit without actually having seen Django.)
For starters, I have to say that the idea of Spike Lee quietly and politely expressing his opinion — about anything — is pretty funny. Lee is a New Yorker, and a filmmaker who has succeeded precisely because he has no reservations about giving voice to controversial ideas, whether verbally, in written form, or through his preferred medium of film, that the average person and a lot of establishment filmmakers would be afraid to tackle.
But…
Full Story »The Batman finale was the most watched movie trailer on YouTube, though it actually placed only third overall. Also in Thursday’s round-up of news, the Palm Springs International Film Festival sets its lineup including opening and closing titles; Sundance unveiled its competition juries; and release dates are set for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Ten and Paramount’s Anchorman sequel.
The Dark Knight Rises Most Watched Movie Trailer in 2012
The film ranked highest of any film related trailer, placing third followed by Skyfall (4th), Ted (5th) and Hunger Games (6th). The top two spots in the rankings, based on how many times a cop was viewed, how long people stayed on the clip and how many times people searched for a clip instead of clicking on an ad, were two video games: Activision’s Call of Duty Black Ops 2, Deadline reports.
Blancanieves to Open Palm Springs Film Festival
The film, directed by Spanish filmmaker Pablo Berger, is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairytale, will open the Palm Springs fest January 3. The festival will close out January 13 with Paul Andrew Williams’ Unfinished Song starring Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave. As usual the festival will host a large number of Best Foreign Language Oscar contenders. In all the event will screen 180 films from 68 countries, Deadline reports.
Sundance Film Festival Sets Juries
Sundance Institute named its 19 members in five separate juries for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Former Fox head Tom Rothman, filmmaker Ed Burns, Waiting for Superman filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, 1998 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Liz Garbus (The Farm: Angola, USA), director Brett Morgen (Crossfire Hurricane) and Participant Media exec Diane Weyermann.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Action Thriller Ten Set for January 2014
Schwarzenegger stars as…
In Friday’s round-up of news briefs, Joss Whedon’s follow-up to his box office splash The Avengers will be counter-programming next Summer. Also, Universal will sue the planned porn version of Fifty Shades. Stephen Colbert is going Hobbit next week. The Academy is accommodating its paper ballot-oriented members. And jailed Innocence of Muslims filmmaker gives his wishes for the controversial video.
Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing Set for June
The Avengers director’s modern take on the play by William Shakespeare will hit theaters June 7th via Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate. The distributors call the pic a “dark, sexy and occasionally absurd view of the intricate game that is love.
Fifty Shades of Grey Porn Rip-Off Spurs Lawsuit
Universal claims the upcoming porn Fifty Shades Of Grey: A XXX Adaptation is a “blatant trademark infringement” on its rights to the best selling novel of similar title, written by E.L. James. “The first XXX adaptation is not a parody, and it does not comment on, criticize, or ridicule the originals. It is a rip-off, plain and simple,” Universal said. Universal and Focus picked up rights to the novels in March for $3 million, Deadline reports.
Stephen Colbert Unveils ‘Hobbit Week’
A big fan of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy series, Colbert said he will have stars from the big screen adaptation for an entire week on his Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report. He will welcome as guests Sir Ian McKellan, who plays Gandalf, on Monday, December 3; Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins, on Tuesday; director Peter Jackson on Wednesday; and Andy Serkis, who plays Gollum, on Friday, THR reports.
Innocence of Muslims Filmmaker Wants Video to Remain on YouTube
The jailed filmmaker of the controversial video which caused riots throughout the Islamic…
If Quentin Tarantino’s demonstrative hand gestures don’t distract you too much, here’s an interesting clip in which the Django Unchained director discusses the influence that crime novelist Elmore Leonard had on his formative years as a screenwriter and filmmaker, as well as his appreciation of actress Pam Grier. Rolling Stone posted this exclusive video, which is part of the bonus material included in Tarantino XX, a 10-disc Blu-Ray box set that collects the eight movies from the first 20 years of his career: Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, both Kill Bill films, Death Proof and Inglourious Basterds.
In what appears to be a Film Independent Q&A on Tarantino’s 1997 film Jackie Brown, which was adapted from a Leonard novel, the filmmaker explains that he used to read the writer’s books and “adapt them into movies in my mind,” asking himself: “How would I turn this into a movie?” He adds that engaging in that mental exercise, “years before I could ever afford to make a movie, really..helped me with my structure.”
There’s also a curious moment at the end of the clip where Tarantino talks about wanting “to be Josef von Sternberg” to Pam Grier’s “Dietrich.” While I appreciate Tarantino’s appreciation of Grier’s talent, I think that line says more about him than her. Von Sternberg made the little known Marlene Dietrich a star when he cast her in The Blue Angel and then worked with her for five more films. Grier was hardly an unknown when Tarantino began working with her. Thanks to her roles in Coffy and Foxy Brown , Grier was already a cult icon. Tarantino merely reminded us of that. He also didn’t exactly make her a star.
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In the last couple years, Alexander Skarsgård has taken on roles ranging from controversial Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s Melancholia to Peter Berg’s Battleship, but now it looks like the 6′ 4″ heartthrob may be heading to the dense foliage of the tropics.
The Swedish-born actor has risen to the top of the contender list to star in David Yates’ Tarzan for Warner Bros., Variety said. The film still is awaiting the official go-ahead from studio brass, but a late summer shoot is expected.
Come summer, Skarsgård may don the character of John Clayton III, aka. Tarzan. The story follows the “re-assimilated” Clayton who is asked by H.M. Queen Victoria to team with mercenary George Washington Williams to save the Congo from a warlord who controls a rich diamond mine.
Samuel L. Jackson is a possibility to play Williams who is a Civil War vet who wants to repair his name following his involvement in a massacre of Native Americans.
Yates officially committed to the project last week, which, given all the colonial subtext, risks running afoul a sensitivity issue or two. Yates directed the last four installments of the Harry Potter franchise.
Toronto premieres Disconnect and What Maisie Knew will be Skarsgård’s next starrers.
[Source: Variety]
Also in a Monday afternoon round-up of news briefs, doc filmmaker Werner Herzog eyes a fiction project for his next directorial; Robert Zemeckis set for a Chicago Film Festival award; The Austin Film Festival names its winners and the Toronto International Film Festival sets its 2013 dates.
Hugh Grant Joins Romantic Comedy
Grant will star in the untitled romantic comedy that begins shooting in New York next April. The story revolves around a witty Englishman who wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Years later he is washed up and broke. He takes a job teaching screenwriting at an East Coast school. He’s not thrilled by the idea of teaching, but thinks he could make the moves on young co-eds. But then he finds romance with a single mom. This will be the fourth collaboration with writer/director Marc Lawrence.
Toronto International Film Festival Sets 2013 Dates
The 2012 event boasted 147 world premieres with over 300 attending filmmakers, according to TIFF. The festival said its 38th edition will take place September 5 – 15.
Sparrows Dance and Informant Top Austin Film Festival Winners
Noah Buschel’s Sparrows Dance and Jamie Meltzer’s Informant took the Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature prize at the 2012 Austin Film Festival. Narrative short went to Bryan Buckley’s Asad, while See The Dirt by Chelsea Hernandez and Erik Mauck took the doc short award.
Around the ‘net…
Stephen Colbert to Appear in Hobbit Trilogy
The Colbert Report host will have his big screen acting debut with a small role in an upcoming Hobbit pic. Details about his role are not known, but he will not appear in the first of the films, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Fans will have to wait for the next installment in…
Pop superstar Kylie Minogue may be an unlikely figure to appear as a tragic figure in French filmmaker Leos Carax’s surreal Holy Motors, but given the numerous twists and turns the Australian-born singer has had, first gaining notoriety in what now seems like a former life as a soap star, the ever adventurous performer is always seeking out the new. So, Holy Motors is a perfect pit-stop. Describing this sensually unnerving and stimulating adventure is simply boarding a fast train to hopelessness, it’s a day-long ride through Carax’s imagination. But to give some sense of the film, which had its U.S. debut at the recent New York Film Festival and is slowly heading into theatrical release this week, Minogue is one character in a series of “appointments” for Monsieur Oscar. In her moment, she gets to do what legions of her fans love – she sings. But even for a crooning vet like Kylie, even that was a new experience.
“Leos is enigmatic and in your face. A very different energy that I liked and was intrigued by,” Minogue told ML during the recent New York Film Festival. “I was looking to do acting, but I wasn’t knocking on doors. It was kind of unexpected.”
Minogue met the publicity-averse (or is he?) filmmaker through French filmmaker-actress Claire Denis. A pop sensation whose stardom has been compared to Madonna on the world stage, she has taken a comparatively less high profile role in her adulthood acting gigs. She played the green fairy in Moulin Rouge in 2000 and in Anthony D’Souza’s Blue in 2009. And, she will next be seen in indie filmmaker Bradley Rust Gray’s Jack and Diane .
“I was living in NYC and trying to stay a year in…
Full Story »Only weeks ahead of its world premiere as the opening film at AFI Fest comes a glimpse of Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren starrer, Hitchcock. Like the festival’s closing night counterpart, Lincoln, the title will no doubt be an awards-season heavy-weight.
The legendary filmmaker and his wife Alma Reville (Mirren) take the focus in the Sacha Gervasi-directed feature, which is set against the backdrop of filming Hitchcock’s Psycho in 1959. The trailer opens with Hopkins talking about violence and horror and he’s just a man “behind the scenes with a camera.”
Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Vera Miles, James D’Arcy, Danny Huston and Toni Collette also star in the film, which spans from the time of Wisconsin murder Ed Gein, the inspiration for Psycho’s Norman Bates character, to the release of the lauded film in 1960. Hitchcock and Reville’s marriage comes under strain due to the filmmaker’s determination to complete the film.
Fox Searchlight, which will release Hitchcock beginning November 23rd, will likely have a multiple Oscar-nominated pic on its hands if the trailer is any indication.
What do you think?
Thirty-four years after he fled the U.S. after being convicted of having sex with a teenager, the now 47 year-old who was at the center of the firestorm is writing a memoir that promises to reveal more details about the encounter that has lead to Roman Polanski’s virtual exile in France.
Samantha Geimer has entered a deal with Atria Books for penning the book, The Girl: Emerging from the Shadow of Roman Polanski, which the Simon & Schuster label will release next fall, according to A.P. The publisher said the book will provide “insight into many dimensions of the story” yet to be revealed.
The scandal was at the center of documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich’s 2008 film Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. The film , which won two primetime Emmy Awards, examines the circumstances that led the Oscar-winning filmmaker to flee the U.S. and the controversial trial that preceded it. In 2009, he was placed under a surprise house arrest in 2009 when he arrived at a Swiss airport to accept a Lifetime Achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival that year. Swiss authorities eventually freed him after declining to extradite him to the United States.
In 2003, he won an Oscar for Best Director for The Pianist in absentia. His other Academy Award-nominated films include Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby.
Polanski fled the U.S. in 1978 just before sentencing for unlawful sex with Geimer who was 13 at the time. Now 79, the filmmaker has a travel restriction in 188 countries, but travels throughout France, which does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.
[Source: A.P.]
