Here is our final group of directors whom we have categorized as The New Breed, the ones we have watched in recent years and will continue to over many years to come.
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Live From Hollywood...
Jan27
Market for Films Signals Good, Not Great, Year for Sundance
By BROOKS BARNES
"The buzz means nothing," said Robert Redford as the Sundance Film Festival opened in this ritzy ski town last week. "Wait until it's over, and see what sticks."
That's pretty much the drill for any film festival, but it is especially true about Sundance, where every movie, aggressively angling for a distribution deal, arrives with a publicist (or five) in tow. Hotly anticipated pictures fall head first into snowdrifts and obscure ones surprise and become overnight sensations once audiences (and critics) are let into the theaters.
Still, the disconnect this year between expectations going into Sundance and the results coming out has been particularly pronounced.
The two most high-profile films prefestival - "Lay the Favorite," directed by Stephen Frears," and Spike Lee's "Red Hook Summer" - both landed with a critical thud and are still looking for buyers. The buzz bubble quickly popped on the romantic comedy "Celeste and Jesse Forever," starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, with IndieWire.com listing it as an "overwhelming underwhelm."
"The Queen of Versailles," a documentary about a billionaire and his wife that spawned a defamation lawsuit before it even had its premiere, got a looks-too-much-like-reality-TV shrug. (One critic called it "Real Housewives" meets "Hoarders.") "Bachelorette," a mean girl-comedy starring Kirsten Dunst, arrived on a wave of "Bridesmaids" comparisons but was left stranded when audiences found it too, well, mean.
The Biggest Snubs And Surprises Of The 2012 Oscar Nominations
Clockwise from top left, actress Tilda Swinton, actor Michael Fassbender, actor/director Albert Brooks, and director David Fincher (courtesy Indiewire / respective studios)
by Oliver Lyttelton
As you might imagine from a many-headed beast like The Academy, it's impossible to predict exactly what the Oscars will be. Sure, precursor awards and prognosticators might make it seem like the race is done, but there's so many unknowns, so many obscure rules and wild cards, that there will always be a fair few surprises.
And while there weren't a ton of shocks in this morning's announcement, there was plenty to keep the race lively; people who only a few weeks ago had seemed like locks going home empty handed, while individuals who barely figured into the awards conversation suddenly found themselves thrust into the spotlight. As such, [on click through] you'll find a selection of the biggest snubs, and the biggest surprises, from the nominations for the 84th Academy Awards.
Click the Continue Reading at link to go to the Indiewire page to see Oliver's list of snubs and surprises.
Oscar nominations 2012: 'Artist,' Scorsese's 'Hugo' shine brightest
Oscar hopefuls clockwise from top left: 'The Help', 'The Artist', 'Bridesmaids', 'The Descendants' (courtesy LA Times / respective studios)
By Susan King
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences paid homage Tuesday morning to the early days of cinema by bestowing the lion's share of Oscar nominations on two films that are valentines to the early days of cinema. "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's heartfelt love letter to filmmaking, earned the most nominations with 11, including best picture, best director and best screenplay as well as several technical Oscars. "The Artist," the low-budget black-and-white silent movie that offers a glimpse of Hollywood during its transition to the "talkies," earned 10 nominations, including nods for best picture, best director, screenplay, actor and supporting actress.
On the acting side, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt and Viola Davis were among the performers receiving nominations, while "The Descendants" and "Moneyball" also scored best picture nods as the 84th Academy Awards nominees were announced in Beverly Hills.
With the nominations, "The Artist" was catapulted to front-runner status even though it has not been widely seen. (It has only made about $12.1 million at box office.) However, it's stealing the lion's share of critics awards as well as a Golden Globe for best picture. It earned an extra boost last week when it won the Producers Guild Award. The award is one of the more reliable predictors of Oscar gold: Over the last four years, the PGA and the Academy have agreed on best picture.
Beckinsale plays vampire warrior Selene in Underworld Awakening (courtesy BBC / Getty Images)
The fourth Underworld movie, which sees the return of Kate Beckinsale, has topped the US film chart on its debut.
Underworld Awakening made $25.4m (£16.3m) this weekend, according to official estimates.
Beckinsale starred in the first two vampire action movies in the franchise but bowed out of the third before making her comeback.
Sony's president of worldwide distribution, Rory Bruer, credited Beckinsale for the film's success.
"She is such a force. Her character - you just can't take your eyes off her. I know the character is very dear to her as well, and she just kills it," he said.
Red Tails, about the first black fighter pilots to serve in World War II - the Tuskegee Airman - entered the chart at number two.
The movie, executive produced by George Lucas, made an estimated $19.1m (£12.3m), well above expectations according to its studio, 20th Century Fox.
"I believe what George Lucas has stated all along - this is an important story and a story that must be told," said the studio's Chris Aronson.
Last week's number one, Contraband, starring Mark Wahlberg, dropped to number three with $12.2m (£7.8m).
A scene from the 1927 silent movie 'Wings' (courtesy Paramount / Reuters)
While silent movie The Artist gathers steam ahead of the Oscars, the only other non-talking picture to win an Academy Award is getting a makeover as Hollywood falls back in love with the early days of cinema.
Wings, a First World War aerial dogfight epic made in 1927, won the first Oscar for best picture. Paramount Pictures, which is celebrating its centenary, has restored the film and presented it with live organ accompaniment at the headquarters of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, ahead of a Blu-ray release on Tuesday.
William Wellman, a veteran First World War fighter pilot, directed Wings, giving 1927 audiences a view of the world most had never seen.
With cameras affixed to the flimsy bi-planes, a crew of flyers created dogfights featuring death-defying aerial stunts that continue to amaze viewers today.
"The thing about Wings that's so exciting is that it was the Avatar and the Star Wars of its day. It was a stateof-the-art action film," said Academy archivist Randy Haberkamp.
Liam Neeson doubted future of 'The Grey' during frigid B.C. mountain shoot
By Victoria Ahearn
Filming in hip-deep snow and extreme winds on a remote mountain in Smithers, B.C., had Oscar-nominated actor Liam Neeson worried about the future of his latest project, "The Grey."
"Beautiful, beautiful place, covered in snow, minus 30 degrees on our first day, and I remember thinking after we did our first scene, 'We are never, ever going to finish this film,'" the Irish star said in a recent telephone interview from Manhattan, where he lives.
"It was just unbearably cold, and we were on a mountain top too and there was quite a bit of wind. Cameras, equipment occasionally seized up because they just couldn't handle the extreme cold. But we got through it and I'm stunned.
"I was with our producer last night and we were looking at each other and saying, 'My God, can you believe we did this?' And we shot it in 39 days, too, which is incredibly fast."
Opening Friday, "The Grey" stars Neeson as John Ottway, a troubled sharpshooter hired by an Alaska oil refinery to keep wild animals from attacking workers at the plant.
When John and an oil drilling team survive a plane crash in the remote north, they struggle to protect themselves from the harsh conditions and a giant pack of blood-thirsty wolves surrounding them.
"I'm at pains to point out — real wolves, in general, will do anything to avoid mankind, but ours are movie wolves," said Neeson, 59, noting director and co-writer Joe Carnahan screened Steven Spielberg's film "Jaws" for the cast and had them read copies of James Dickey's wilderness survival thriller "Deliverance."
"They're kind of almost mythological, you know, the way Steven's shark, Great White was, in 'Jaws.' Yes, it was a Great White, but it was also something else, you know?"
Based on the short story "Ghost Walker" by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, "The Grey" co-stars Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie and James Badge Dale.
Actress Stephanie Sigman in a scene from 'Miss Bala' (courtesy Reuters)
By Iain Blair
In a ripped-from-the-headlines story, the new movie "Miss Bala," which opens in limited U.S. release on Friday, tells the harrowing tale of a small-town Mexican beauty named Laura who inadvertently becomes involved with a violent drug lord.
Directed and co-written by Gerardo Naranjo and executive produced by Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" fame, the film takes a cold, hard look at Mexico's devastating drug war and its effect on the country and people.
Naranjo and Luna talked to Reuters about making the film and its message.
Click the Continue Reading at link to read the interview with Reuters
Sundance 2012: Docs about struggling billionaires and a mysterious musician get pickup
Documentary subject Jacqueline Siegel at the opening night premiere of the documentary "The Queen Of Versailles."
(courtesy Reuters)
by Anthony Breznican
Two documentaries have been scooped up in snowless Park City as the Sundance Film Festival goes into high gear.
The Queen of Versailles, about a billionaire couple who [were] in the midst of building the nation's largest single-family home - 90,000 square feet - when the financial markets collapsed in 2008, was acquired for North America by Magnolia Pictures.
The subjects of the movie, Jackie and David Siegel, took umbrage at festival guide descriptions of how badly the downturn hit Siegel's time-share business, and David filed suit against filmmaker Lauren Greenfield and Sundance just prior to the festival. Curiously, however, Jackie Siegel still turned up for the premiere, which EW's L.A. bureau chief Jon Barrett described as Real Housewives on steroids.
Magnolia, which distributed last year's Sundance doc Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times, plans to release Versailles in the summer.
Meanwhile, the musical-mystery doc Searching For Sugar Man also found a home, landing with Sony Pictures Classics. The film is about two South African fans who go in search of a musician who known only as Rodriguez, who flopped decades ago but became a sensation in their country. Long believed dead, several bizarre myths surrounded the man, but the truth remained largely unknown. Sundance's official guide described it as a story about "the greatest '70s U.S. rock icon who never was."
Ewan McGregor Got Hurt Doing What to His Haywire Costar Gina Carano?
Gina Carano and Ewan McGregor, stars of the new action-thriller Haywire (image courtesy WireImage)
by Marc Malkin
You gotta hand it to Ewan McGregor.
He suffered one injury while making the new action thriller Haywire, but he's not embarrassed to say what really happened.
Sure, he could claim he hurt his hand doing some sort of crazy stunt, but no...
"The only time I got hurt was when I punched Gina Carano in the head by accident," McGregor told me at the Golden Globes.
For those not familiar, Carano is a mixed martial arts champion who makes her big screen debut in Haywire (out tomorrow) as a former federal agent on the run from assassins. The Steven Soderbergh-directed flick also stars Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas.
"I had a series of three punches, but the third one...for one reason or another I connected really hard on the side of her head," McGregor said. "She was the one who got straight up and said, 'Are you OK?' She was asking me if I was OK! But she was right because I almost broke my friggin' hand!"
George Lucas Wants to Retire and Make Art Films. Sure He Does.
Director George Lucas (courtesy Getty Images)
By Gilbert Cruz
"I'm retiring. I'm moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff." So says George Lucas in a New York Times Magazine profile timed to the Friday release of his new film Red Tails. Apparently, George Lucas doesn't want to make blockbusters anymore (though calling Red Tails - a film about the Tuskegee Airmen produced and financed by the mogul - a blockbuster is quite a stretch). Apparently, George Lucas doesn't want to deal with Star Wars or any of its demanding fanboys anymore. Apparently, George Lucas wants to make "experimental films."
Sure he does. But he won't.
For years now, Lucas has been parroting the same line - that what he really desires is to make art films like they ones that made him fall in love with cinema in the first place. Tone poems and visual collages and non-narrative short films. That he has yet to deliver anything of the sort despite being one of the richest and most independent men in Hollywood is surely some sign that he prefers to externalize his dreams rather than actualize them.
Click the Continue Reading at link to see Time's compilation of some quotes from the last 20 years suggesting that Lucas has tried this route before.
George Clooney at the 2012 Golden Globes (image courtesy NBC / AP)
By SHEILA MARIKAR
"The Descendants" and "The Artist;" "Iron Lady" and "The Help" -- they all took home trophies at Sunday night's Golden Globes, and it's more than likely you'll see them among the list of Oscar nominees come Jan. 24.
But Sunday night was more than just about the race for more gilded trophies. Ricky Gervais cut into the celebrity crowd, if not as crudely as last time. Meryl Streep cursed. George Clooney joked. Historically, the Golden Globes are the night Hollywood lets its shellacked, chignon-pinned hair down, and the latest ceremony was no exception.
Backstage, all pretense evaporated. Sofia Vergara declared she wasn't wearing underwear. Kelsey Grammer announced he's expecting twins. Octavia Spencer kicked off her heels and (lovingly) bashed Christian Louboutin.
Click the Continue Reading at link to read the comments that ABC heard backstage at the 2012 Golden Globes.
The Twilight Saga May Survive Beyond Breaking Dawn
by Larson Hill
The Twilight Saga may survive beyond Breaking Dawn now that the popular teen film franchise is at Lionsgate following the studio's purchase of Summit Entertainment.
On Friday, following the official purchase of Summit Entertainment by Lionsgate, Jon Feltheimer, chief executive of Lionsgate Entertainment, hinted to The Los Angeles Times that fans could see more of The Twilight Saga characters played by Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner.
"It's hard for me to imagine a movie that does $700 million-plus doesn't have ongoing value," said Feltheimer. "It's an amazing franchise that they have done a great job of maintaining with absolutely no deterioration." Since Lionsgate now has the popular Stephenie Meyer series under its roof, Feltheimer was upbeat about the future of The Twilight Saga. "So the simple answer is, 'Boy, I hope so.'"
REVIEW: Meryl Streep is the only watchable part of 'The Iron Lady'
Meryl Streep as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 'The Iron Lady'
By Justin Craig
Margaret Thatcher sits in her quaint kitchen with her husband Denis. She serves him a poached egg and together they lovingly bicker. The two look worn, years of public service taken a toll on the former British Prime Minister. Cut from a close up of Thatcher to see the full range of the kitchen. Now she is sitting alone and -- lost. She slowly comes to the realization Denis has been dead for years. Dementia has conquered the Iron Lady.
As Thatcher sits in denial, thinking she is speaking with her husband we too are watching something that isn't – a good movie. Instead there is only a great performance by Meryl Streep. But Streep's sensational portrayal of Margaret Thatcher masks the aimlessness of the "The Iron Lady." The script and story are as scattershot as old Maggie's memories. An incredibly weak screenplay is comprised of lengthy passages with Thatcher milling about or remembering trivial bits and pieces of her life -- like seeing "The King and I." The film has sparked some controversy by portraying the brash and bold Thatcher as a feeble, senile old woman.
"The Iron Lady" may not be a very good film, but Streep gives the performance of a lifetime. She disappears completely into the Margaret Thatcher persona and leaves absent any trace of an actor doing a job. The Oscar-winner alone saves "The Iron Lady" from being a dull, possibly insulting biopic. A less talented actor would make the film barely watchable.
The film covers snippets of Thatcher's life, from her entrance into politics as a young conservative woman standing in the face of male adversity to fighting unions to the war in the Falklands to her modern day senility. There are countless moments of Thatcher's life that could make a truly compelling story but the film is so flimsy and aimless and takes no pointed perspective that the whole shebang feels like a missed opportunity.
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