August 30, 2006
WTC film donates $2.6 million to 9/11 charities
The producers of "World Trade Center" have stuck to their promise of donating ten percent of the film's opening weekend box office to various 9/11-related charities. $1.3 million is going to help build the September 11 memorial. This donation raises the private money available to build the memorial to $132.3 million. Construction on the memorial began this year, and officials say it will open in 2009 with a final cost of more than $650 million.
The other $1.3 million will be split equally among three September 11-related charities -- Tuesday's Children, a services organization for children who lost parents on September 11; the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, created by a September 11 family group; and the New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.
August 25, 2006
Jake Gyllenhaal to portray Lance Armstrong
It's not so much of a rumour as an unconfirmed fact that Jake Gyllenhaal will play cycling legend Lance Armstrong in a movie about his life. The seven-time Tour de France winner let the casting choice slip during an interview with US sports network ESPN. Lance revealed Matthew McConaughey had been considered for the role but the movie's producers decided to go with Gyllenhaal instead.
In addition to his cycling accomplishments, Armstrong survived a battle with cancer after being diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996. He returned to record seven consecutive Tour de France victories from 1999 to 2005. He also founded The Lance Armstrong Foundation, which teamed with Nike to produce the ubiquitous "Live Strong" yellow rubber wristbands that have raised millions of dollars for cancer research. Live Strong has become the foundation's primary slogan and has inspired many people to survive cancer.
August 24, 2006
TIFF update
The 31st annual Toronto Film festival will attract more star power than usual this year with Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Lopez, Reese Witherspoon and Sean Penn among the Oscar winners and Hollywood heavyweights expected to attend. Liam Neeson, Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman, Peter O'Toole, and Anthony Hopkins are also expected to make appearances at some point. If you want a complete list, check out this canada.com posting.
However, the festival is not just about celebrity sightings but also powerful films and this year is no exception. The festival will include Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (the film has a four hour runtime), which tells the story of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In total 352 films from 61 countries will be shown, up from 335 last year. You can read the press release which lists all of the films to be screened here.
One other film debuting at the festival that I am looking forward to is Babel, which stars Brad Pitt and Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett. The film tells they story of a tragic incident involving an American couple in Morocco that sparks a chain of events for four families in different countries throughout the world. In the struggle to overcome isolation, fear, and displacement, each character discovers that it is family that ultimately provides solace. Babel, in the spirit of last year's Oscar winning Crash, is a take on cultural diversity and a powerful examination of the links and frontiers between and within us. The trailer is below:
August 16, 2006
Covert casting on new Jolie film
There was plenty of buzz when it was announced that Angelina Jolie would portray Mariane Pearl widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl. The Wall Street Journal reporter was abducted and killed in Pakistan, four months before his wife gave birth to their son, while researching a story about Muslim fundamentalists. Mariane's 2003 memoir, "A Mighty Heart," chronicled the events surrounding her husbands death and Jolie made headlines last month when she announced that she would star in the film adaptation.
The role of Daniel Pearl was left uncast or so many thought as it was not mentioned in the initial press about the film. It has now been revealed that Pearl will be played by actor/writer Dan Futterman, best known for his Oscar-nominated screenplay for "Capote." Apparently, the casting was kept under wraps because Futterman just returned from a closely guarded shoot on location in Karachi and Islamabad. Director Michael Winterbottom and a skeleton crew went to Pakistan undercover, hoping to be mistaken for a documentary or news crew. Futterman, who agreed to be interviewed only after he returned to the U.S., told the Washington Post, "It was important to shoot in the actual places where things happened."
The announcement of Angelina Jolie as the lead was considered controversial for a couple of reasons. First, insiders had expected Jennifer Aniston to play Mariane Pearl and according to rumours Aniston apparently thought she would too. It was Aniston who had convinced Pearl's wife to grant the film rights to the production company Plan B, which she and Brad Pitt had started together. Ironically, Aniston agreed to give Brad ownership of the production company as part of their divorce settlement. Pitt then cast his new squeeze Jolie in the lead role, jilting Aniston once again. You can read about the second issue over at BET.com
The film also ran into trouble while shooting in Karachi. Police picked up four security guards who were in police uniforms and posing as police officers in front of the Sindh High Court. A senior Saddar Town police officer said the filmmakers had not acquired permission from the police department. The Pakistan Penal code forbids the use of the police uniform by unauthorized persons.
August 14, 2006
FOX to sell films at MySpace.com
News Corp. (the parent company of Fox) unveiled their plans to sell downloads of 20th Century Fox movies and TV shows through the popular social networking site MySpace.com and other Fox Interactive Media websites. There is plenty at stake for Fox Interactive Media, which bought both the MySpace and IGN Entertainment businesses for approximately $1.2 billion US last year.
The download service is expected to launch in October and will offer Fox movies such as "X-Men: The Last Stand" for $19.99 US and FOX TV shows such as "Prison Break" for $1.99 US per episode. Movies will be available when they're released on DVD and shows will go online 24 hours after they air. Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn would not indicate whether they will court content from Fox's rival studios, many of which are already advertising their shows and films on MySpace profile pages. He was quoted by Reuters as saying "The more we can diversify, the more it bodes well for our business."
Unlike CinemaNow, Movielink, Apple's iTunes store or other movie download sites, Fox appears to be banking on impulse purchasing to sell video content. MySpace users who find their way to the profile page for "24" can then purchase and download episodes from there. One of the IGN sites, Rotten Tomatoes, is a movie review site and will provide another possible tie-in to the download service.
Fox will start testing the service on IGN's Direct2Drive.com, which already has users that pay to download video games and its infrastructure has powered recent download trials involving "American Idol" songs and "24" episodes on other Fox websites. The catch is that all the video can only be downloaded and played on computers or devices that run Microsoft Windows Media Player. The service will limit playback to two Windows computers, each with one portable device.
August 13, 2006
Disney stands behind new Gibson film
Depsite his run-ins with the law and controversial anti-Semitic remarks, the Walt Disney Co. will distribute "Apocalypto," a Mayan-language film by actor-director Mel Gibson. The announcement shoots down the media and Internet reports that had speculated that family-oriented Disney wanted to sell distribution rights of the film to another studio to distance itself from the controversy.
However, Disney's backing for the actor-director is in sharp contrast to the reaction of the ABC television network, which is part of the Disney family of companies. Shortly after his arrest, ABC decided to scrap plans for a mini-series on the Holocaust that was to be filmed by Gibson's production company.
Disney had no role in producing Apocalypto, which is a thriller set in an ancient Mayan settlement and told in the Yucatec dialect with subtitles. The film is cast with previously unknown actors and it was expected that Gibson would lead the publicity campaign for the film. In light of his recent arrest, the strategy will likely change. The story of the film will be told through the eyes of a Mayan man, his family and village, and Gibson has been quoted as saying that it will touch on universal themes about "civilizations and what undermines them." The film is currently slated for a December 8th release.
August 09, 2006
Burnable Film Downloads from CinemaNow
CinemaNow has launched a new service that offers consumers in the United States a first: the ability to legally download copy protected movies and other video content and burn it to DVD for playback in a standard DVD player. Content initially available for the “Burn to DVD” service includes selected movies and videos from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, MGM Worldwide Digital Media, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, EagleVision and Sundance Channel.
Some of the films available for download including Scent of a Woman featuring Al Pacino and Barbershop, with Ice Cube. CinemaNow is offering films starting at $8.99 each and include printable DVD label and cover art. CinemaNow's film downloads can be transferred to DVD only once and the quality will be slightly lower than an official studio DVD. CinemaNow currently has license to distribute only a relatively small number of older film titles, but Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony's home entertainment division, told the Associated Press, "It's a test of the distribution and security architecture," and hinted that studios would license more content once the system is vetted and the studios gain some confidence in its reliability.
A rival Web movie download service Movielink has said it has licensed technology from Sonic Solutions that will allow its customers to burn movie downloads to DVD, though it did not specify when the service will be operational.
August 03, 2006
10 Things I Hate About Commandments
I love parodies and this is a great one. Take the Charlton Heston/Yul Brenner classic 10 Commandments and repackage it as a high school movie. Brilliant!
Check it out over at YouTube.
Also worth viewing are:
Brokeback Mountain meets Dumb and Dumber
Must Love Jaws
Rick James (a mashup of LOTR and Dave Chapelle clips)
and a couple of movies with recut trailers to give them a new feel:
Wizard of Oz
The Shining