Stop-motion vet Mike Johnson, who co-directed the Oscar nominated CORPSE BRIDE with Tim Burton, is headed back to London to replace director Sylvain Chomet on Universal Pictures 3D-animated feature, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX.
Taylor Jessen reviews five short films Fable by Daniel Sousa, Arrest Assured by Michael McCormick and Robert Taylor, Sunday Party by Sirirat Thawilvejakul, No Room for Gerold by Daniel Nocke, Never Like the First Time! by Jonas Odell, and. Includes QuickTime movie clips!
The Christian Game Developers Conference is the only gathering with the purpose of encouraging game developers, in both software and traditional mediums, to apply Christian principles to their industry. Some developers are involved in creating games made specifically to glorify God. Others work for secular companies and are Godly influences at their place of employment. But wherever they are, they need encouragement to stand up for morality and truth in an industry that can often be fighting these ideals and the CGDC is a great place to get that encouragement.
Mobifest is Canada's first and only mobile film festival. Sponsored by Palm Canada, MobiFest aims to bring fame and notoriety to the emergent art of mobile or "pocket" films. This international competition is open to all filmmakers over the age of 16. The only submission criteria is that films must be shot and created specifically for the "small screen"
Van Eaton Galleries is hosting
TV broadcasting over the Internet (IPTV) will be a major focus in a keynote address by Mr. Peter Price, the President of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, at the US IPv6 Summit Conference in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Reston, Virginia, Dec. 6-9, 2005.
Studio B Prods., one of Canadas leading animation studios, is opening up their doors to scholarship winners. The winners were chosen by their portfolios from their respective first and third year animation programs. Three $2,000 scholarships and the opportunity to work with Studio B during a four-week paid internship program were awarded to:
* Capilano Colleges Lauren Airriess from Salt Lake City, Utah working in the Design & Storyboard Department on GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE and RICKY SPROCKET SHOWBIZ BOY.
Focus Features has acquired the world rights to Laika Ent.s stop-motion feature, CORALINE, based on the book by Neil Gaiman, reports VARIETY.
The film features the voice of Dakota Fanning as a young girl who walks through a secret door in her new house where she discovers an alternate version of her life.
Laika supervising director Henry Selick is adapted the script and will co-helm alongside Mike Cachuela. Pandemonium Films head Bill Mechanic is producing with Laika's Mary Sandell. They Might Be Giants will provide the songs.
Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films have grabbed the right to GAME BOYS, an action spec by Tom Ropelewski (LOOK WHO'S TALKING NOW) and Evan Katz (TVs 24), according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Jerry Bruckheimer will produce.
The tale follows two thirtysomething videogame addicts whom are recruited by the Department of Homeland Security to lead a geek army set to battle creatures that have emerged from a videogame they have mastered.
New Line Cinema has obtained domestic rights to writer-director Michel Gondry's next project, BE KIND REWIND, starring Jack Black, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Gondry's partner in Partizan Prods., Georges Bermann, is producing.
Animation studio Dygra Films has opened an in-house international sales arm, headed by Tania Pinto Da Cunha, VARIETY reports.
The new arm will focus on Dygra productions, starting with its CG toon, THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST, set to delivery in early 2007. Next up will be the family comedy, HOLLY NIGHT!, due for Christmas 2007.
Dygra's A MIDSUMMER'S DREAM, which opened last summer, will continue to be handled by Lumina Films.
Focus Features, the art house division of Universal Pictures, named company veteran James Schamus as its sole ceo.
The new title for Schamus, who co-produced the Oscar-winning BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, follows the recent promotion of David Linde from co-head of Focus to co-chairman of Universal Pictures, sharing that job with Marc Shmuger. Previously Schamus and Linde had run Focus together.
Iridas has sold two seats of FrameCycler DI to Framestore CFC. The application provides disk-based, full-resolution playback; conform of Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) for online review of the editors' work; primary color grading for look development; and Iridas' new ReviewLink technology for interactive review session from multiple locations.
Disney has moved THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN from Dec. 14, 2007, to summer 2008, to avoid direct competition with Columbia Pictures fantasy, THE WATER HORSE, which is slated to open Dec. 8, 2007, reports THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Both are produced by Walden Media. The move also gives NARNIA director Andrew Adamson and his crew extra time, according to Walt Disney Studios svp of publicity, Dennis Rice.
Massive Software's artificial life-driven animation system has been adopted by CIS Hollywood to produce digital visual effects for Warner Bros. POSEIDON.
CIS Hollywood acquired single license of Massive to complete a number of POSEIDON shots that required realistic digital characters. These included establishing shots and other sequences showing people in passageways, as well as shots of crewmembers, waiters and cooks in the ships galley and a large party scene.
Stan Winston is collaborating on the first-ever book to reveal all the behind-the-scenes secrets of his groundbreaking and hugely influential artistry and effects work.
Titan Books of London will work closely with Stan Winston and the artists of the Stan Winston Studio on the new book, tentatively titled THE WINSTON EFFECT: THE ART AND HISTORY OF STAN WINSTON STUDIO, written by CINEFEX editor Jody Duncan.
E3 has come and gone, but managing editor Rick DeMott reports this week on the latest gaming achievements, trends, issues and concerns that were voiced at the various E3 conferences. Meanwhile, Peter Plantec reports on the cross-pollination and growing U.S. presence that occurred last month at fmx/06 in Stuttgart, Germany. Were covering features and shorts this month, so Renee Dunlop interviews Kyle Jefferson and Cameron Hood about directing FIRST FLIGHT, the first 3D-animated short from DreamWorks Animations Glendale campus.
AWN has launched the latest free video lesson in its exclusive video learning series taken from Hollywood Camera Work: The Master Course In High-End Blocking And Staging, a comprehensive and ambitious six DVD training series for animation and live action directors. The newest lesson cover focal length, which is primarily thought of as being about picking lenses that give us the right shot size, and fit the characters into the set. However, the primary reason to pick a lens is really to control the Compression of Space.
Representing the archetypical 1970s disaster film, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE starts poorly, but makes up for it with just enough thrills to make it a good entertainment.
With a large all-star cast, the beginning peeks into the lives of the characters. Rev. Frank Scott (Gene Hackman, HOOSIERS) is a rebellious preacher on his way to Africa. He believes that God doesn’t want us to play the victim, but be the hero in our lives. Det. Lt. Mike Rogo (Ernest Borgnine, MARTY) is a loud-mouthed cop, who is married the younger and beautiful former prostitute Linda (Stella Stevens, THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE). James Martin (Red Buttons, THE LONGEST DAY) is a lonely health nut, who befriends the scared singer Nonnie Parry (Carol Lynley, THE CAT AND THE CANARY). Acres (Roddy McDowall, PLANET OF THE APES) is a waiter, who works on the ship and serves as the survivor guide through the levels of the ship. Belle Rosen (Shelley Winters, LOLITA) is an over-weight woman, who panics easily and is married to the caring Manny (Jack Albertson, WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY). Susan Shelby (Pamela Sue Martin, TV’s DYNASTY) is a pretty teen, who is taking care of her intelligent, but pushy, little brother Robin (Eric Shea, 1968’s YOURS, MINE AND OURS). Capt. Harrison (Leslie Nielsen, NAKED GUN) is the stoic head of the ship, who tries desperately to save the vessel when the giant wave comes racing toward them.
This film is the oddest title on Robert Altman’s resume. Based on the legendary comic strip character created by E.C. Segar, this musical has an oft-kilter feel that’s hard to put a finger on.
First and foremost, the casting is perfect. Robin Williams (HOOK) is wonderful as the muttering sailor man, who is looking for his long-lost Pappy (Ray Walston, TV’s MY FAVORITE MARTIAN). He arrives in Sweethaven, a seaside town built on a hillside, which is a magnificent feat in production design. Bluto (Paul L. Smith, MIDNIGHT EXPRESS) is a bully who runs the town for the never-seen commander. His Taxman (Donald Moffat, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER) wonders the streets collecting taxes for every move anyone makes. Bluto is engaged to the ditzy and clumsy Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall, THE SHINING), but she doesn’t seem to want to marry the large Bluto, running out on their engagement party.
Going in I was expecting a shlock-fest, but I should have known better with Joe Dante (GREMLINS) as the director and John Sayles (MATEWAN, LONE STAR) as the writer. Honestly, the film is a Roger Corman JAWS rip-off, but it’s a good one.
Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman, THE SWARM) lives in a cabin and drinks most of the day, pinning over the break-up of his marriage. Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies, SSSSSSS) is a young detective, who is looking for a young couple that has disappeared into the woods. She ropes Paul into helping her look for the kids at an old seemingly abandoned military outpost deep in the woods. There they unknowingly release mutated piranha into the river, which leads to a summer camp and new lake resort.
Coming out in the same year as screen classics like THE GOLD RUSH and BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA doesn’t match the quality of those films, because it’s not trying to be those films. What the film succeeds in doing is taking a fairly simple story with thin-characters and lifting the material to another level with iconic imagery and action. The film isn’t about emotional subtlety, but grand notions. You could say it’s one of the first truly great popcorn flicks.
Much of its success lies in the hands of Lon Chaney (LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH) as the Phantom. Having done his own make-up, Chaney creates one of the greatest character design feats in cinema history. Because the face of the Phantom has become an icon of pop culture, the lead up to the big reveal is not nearly as shocking as it was in 1925, however we still anticipate it with eagerness. The filmmakers (created director is Rupert Julian, uncredited directors have included Ernst Laemmle, Edward Sedgwick and even Chaney) knew exactly how to play that moment. They even filmed it with flare, having the camera go out of focus like its scared of the Phantom’s hideousness and to enhance the skull-like look of the creature.
Arthur Penn is best known for his revolutionary BONNIE & CLYDE. NIGHT MOVES is a thriller/neo-noir that finds a way to use the actions of a genre to embody its main character.
Gene Hackman (THE CONVERSATION) plays former pro-football player turned private eye Harry Moseby. The character has an internal need to figure everything and everyone in his life out. However, for as much as he wants to believe he is in control of his investigation, the mystery is playing itself out around him with or without his involvement.
His wife Ellen (Susan Clark, PORKY’S) owns an antique shop and wants Harry to join a real agency. She’s also having an affair, which Harry discovers one night when he goes to meet up with her at a movie she is attending with friends. Instead of confronting her, he confronts her lover Marty Heller (Harris Yulin, TRAINING DAY) as if he needs to collect all the info before confronting the perpetrator.
I love W.C. Fields, so I had to see this film. It’s really not a W.C. Fields film, but more of a Mae West flick though.
West (SHE DONE HIM WRONG) plays Flower Belle Lee, a hussy in the Old West who gets kicked out of town for romancing a masked bandit. She is unable to return to respectable society until she marries. On the train out of town, she meets Cuthbert J. Twillie (Fields, THE BANK DICK), who she thinks is loaded, but is really a conman. She goes through a sham marriage with him and when they arrive in the next town he ends up being made sheriff. While in town, Flower Belle is courted by the shady bar owner Jeff Badger (Joseph Calleia, GILDA) and his rival — the town’s newspaper owner Wayne Carter (Dick Foran, TV’s LASSIE).
This Cannes Film Festival winner and Oscar nominee is a quiet, observant film about the good and bad of Christianity. Set in 18th Century South America, Jesuit priests aim to convert the Guaraní Indians to Christ. As the startling opening sequence displays, not all approaches were successful.
Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE) succeeds with a peaceful approach, spurred by love and respect of the Guaraní, whose very existence is threatened by the war raging between the Spanish and the Portuguese. Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert DeNiro, GOODFELLAS) is a mercenary, who kills and enslaves the Guaraní. Then a tragedy makes Mendoza rethink his ways and repent for his sins by serving the people he once murdered. The Guaraní had an advanced culture before the Jesuits arrived, but the beautiful missions served as their protection — for it kept them safe from the rule of the warring European powers.
