Posts Tagged ‘film’
15 Docs On Oscar Shortlist
Why is it that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences always makes such boring choices for its Oscar nominations? The procedure is a little different for documentary films, where they first come up with a ’shortlist.’ Needless to say, as a distributor of documentaries Disinformation would have suggested some other films, such as Robert Greenwald’s timely and compelling Rethink Afghanistan and two personal favorites of mine, Anvil: The Story of Anvil and We Live In Public. Please place your alternative lists in the comments section below. Here’s the story from Variety:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced the 15 docus shortlisted for the documentary feature Oscar. The Academy said 89 films had originally qualified for the selection.
Several titles that have already had successful theatrical runs were on…
Is This The End Of The Line For The Impartial Documentary?
It’s amazing that at least six years into the golden era of advocacy documentary filmmaking, a major newspaper with a thriving arts and culture section should feel the need to ask this question, but apparently there are some journalists and filmmakers who think any documentary film that does not try to be ‘objective’ somehow fails to deserve to even be categorized as ‘documentary.’
As the distributor of over fifty documentary films (can you believe that?!? Disinformation has been busy since our first DVD release in 2004…), here at The Disinformation Company we feel that the advocacy films we release are disseminating information and opinion to counter the mainstream and establishment views on the issues at hand (usually our filmmakers are reacting against a government or corporate whitewash). The advent of cheap…
Matrix Producer Plans Muhammad Biopic
In what sounds like a recipe for trouble, The Guardian reports on a new movie about Muslim prophet Muhammad:
Producer Barrie Osborne cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad.
Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad’s life and examine his teachings. Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as “an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam”.
Osborne’s production will reportedly feature English-speaking Muslim actors. It is backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, who have installed the Muslim scholar…
Top 5 Halloween Movies
From Nick P at Black Sun Gazette
While you’re all going to be out drinking until you piss yourselves tomorrow I’m going to be working hard for the money picking up plastic glasses and trying to keep dumb fucks from driving home shitfaced. Still, when you find yourself in the witching hour on All Hallow’s Eve, lights off, candles lit, sweetheart dressed up like a sexy barista, you’re going to want some phantasmagoria to get her jumping into your arms every few seconds. Here are some recommendations for gore, schlock, schlocky gore, and gory schlock to waste your time and kill brain cells to on what is everyone’s favorite holiday.
‘Paranormal’ Now the Most Profitable Film Ever
Daniel Frankel writes in The Wrap:
“This will definitely echo around the halls of Viacom in New York,” said Don Harris, executive VP of distribution for Paramount on Sunday, shortly after it was announced that “Paranormal Activity” would lead the weekend box office with $22 million.
Harris’ jubilation was understandable.
Set to further expand its run this weekend from 1,945 locations to around 2,400, and having grossed $65.1 million through Wednesday on a sub-$15,000 production budget, “Paranormal” has already exceeded the film it is most often compared to, “The Blair Witch Project,” as the most profitable movie of all time.
“Blair Witch’s” $248.6 million worldwide haul a decade ago – juxtaposed against its $60,000 production costs – represented an almost unthinkable 414,233 percent return on investment.
Doing the same basic ROI math on “Paranormal” (65.1…
The Audacity of ‘Precious’
Is America ready for a movie about an obese Harlem girl raped and impregnated by her abusive father? Lynn Hirschberg tells us in the cover story of this week’s New York Times Magazine:
At the Cannes International Film Festival in May, in the loud, chaotic bar at the Martinez Hotel, Lee Daniels seemed, as he often does, both ecstatic and nervous. He jumped, he slumped, his mood changing from giddy to anxious. He was the only black man in the crowded bar, a fact that he mentioned and then brushed away. He was dressed unremarkably in a loose, untucked shirt and slouchy khaki pants, but his hair, an electric corona of six-inch fusilli-like spirals, demanded notice. Although Daniels will be 50 this year, he has the bouncy, mercurial energy of a…
‘Antichrist’ Is the Most Beautiful Piece of Muddled Art You Might Never See
Great C. Robert Cargill review for Film.com:
It’s rare that I find myself truly indifferent to a film — especially a film that is so clearly and openly divisive. But that’s exactly how I feel about Antichrist: completely indecisive. I see both sides, understanding the people who love it, voraciously devouring every lyrical moment, while simultaneously getting why people hate the living crap out of it. A deliberately offensive opus of shock, this film will at some moment find something disagreeable for everybody. But unlike most films that rely upon shock, director Lars von Trier has no intention of making you laugh. Quite the contrary. He wants to make you recoil. He wants to challenge your sense of morality and taste. And he wants to make you feel, one way or another.
But…
Polanski Arrested for ’70s Sex Charge
En route to the Zurich Film Festival — where he was to enjoy a celebration of his achievements in cinema — infamous movie director Roman Polanski was arrested in connection to a decades old charge that has kept him from entering the U.S. since the 1970’s. (ITN Video)
Polanski famously fled the states following his trial for the statutory rape of a 13 year old girl in 1977. The incident occurred in his friend Jack Nicholson’s home during a time when Polanski’s friends found the director to be suffering from a deep, chronic depression following the murder of his then-wife Sharon Tate and their unborn child at the hands of The Manson Family.
Polanski famously accepted his 2003 Academy Award for The Pianist via satellite as his returning to the United States…
