Wow — this is a surprise. We, like many others, had heard that Magnolia would be releasing this film. According to this Indiewire report, Steven Soderbergh’s Che will open theatrically in December for a one-week Oscar qualifying run and then will play in January through IFC In Theaters, its day and date platform.
New York-based film critic Godfrey Cheshire was attending a Christmas gathering with his family in North Carolina when he received some surprising news from his cousin Charlie. Midway Plantation, the ancestral home of their extended family since the 1840s, was to be transplanted to a new location. In the name of progress, the city of Raleigh was expanding a highway and strip malls. If the plantation house and its surrounding buildings were not moved, the deterioration of the surrounding environment would be so drastic, future generations would not want to live there. Charlie’s decision sparked controversy within the family, with […]
Paul Krik, whose Able Danger opens tomorrow in theaters in four cities, including New York’s Pioneer Theater, gave us a list of his favorite conspiracy films. Two days ago we ran his list of Hollywood conspiracy thrillers. Here is his list of independent 9/11 films. Mohammed Atta and the Venice Flying Circus – Reporter Daniel Hopsicker is on the ground in Venice, Florida, where the terrorists all trained – gumshoeing, knocking on doors, asking questions, turning over stones. His interview with Mohammed Atta’s girlfriend and the time he humped her feet while she slept is absolutely mind-blowing. To say nothing […]
Paul Krik, writer/director of Able Danger, opens his independent conspiracy thriller in four cities on September 11. (In New York, you can see the film at the Pioneer Theater.) Krik was kind enough to give Filmmaker two lists of his favorite films. In this first part, he lists his favorite conspiracy movies. In the second, he’ll list his favorite films about 9/11. In general a conspiracy movie for me has to do with exposing. Chinatown – Greatest movie ever. Goebbel says, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The […]
VENKATESH CHAVAN IN DIRECTOR CHRIS SMITH’S THE POOL. COURTESY VITAGRAPH FILMS. Chris Smith is an interesting conundrum, a filmmaker who brings a narrative verve and energy to his documentaries and approaches fiction films with the delicate restraint and remove of a documentarian. A graduate of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s film program, Smith first appeared on the scene in 1996 with American Job, a low-key narrative feature loosely based on the work experiences of the film’s star and co-writer, Randy Russell. During the editing of that film, he met Mark Borchardt, an oddball wannabe horror filmmaker who became the subject of Smith’s […]
During this election season I recommend taking a break from the cable talking heads and reviewing some of the independent media that has been produced over the last couple of years about American foreign policy. One of the best documentaries is Charles Ferguson’s Academy Award-nominated No End in Sight. As Ray Pride report at Movie City Indie, Ferguson is streaming the film free on YouTube. Pride reports: No End in Sight is being made available free to the public to reveal the facts about the Bush Administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq to voters concerned with the issues of national […]
Everyone’s talking about small screens — what it’s like to watch movies on mobile devices like cell phones and iPods. Mark Cuban’s musings about the Olympics and The Dark Knight, however, lead him in the opposite direction: Of course it would also not be a stretch to place the biggest screens in existence in open air locations where huge gatherings and related events can take place. Would families pay 50 bucks for a day of Olympics fun outside on 100 acres? Olympicsalooza anyone ? Why should it be any different than all the events that take place SuperBowl, or NBA […]
A couple of weeks after organizations for the disabled attacked Tropic Thunder for an epithet used in the movie, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is objecting to the title of Alan Ball’s new film, Towelhead, which opens next month. But Eric D. Snider at Cinematical argues that the film’s title shouldn’t be considered offensive as it can’t be separated from the intentions of the film itself: I think CAIR’s objections could be remedied by simply watching the movie. Over the course of it, the girl (played amazingly by Summer Bishil) comes to feel empowered and confident in who she is. […]
Nick Dawson’s Web Exclusive Director’s Interview this week is Azazel Jacobs, whose third feature, Momma’s Man, opens tomorrow. Of the movie, which details a few days in which a young, recent father, Mikey, travels home to his parents (played by Ken and Flo Jacobs, the director’s real-life parents) and is not able to leave, having become entangled in the crosscurrents of nostalgia for his childhood, Dawson wrote: …the film is particularly resonant and moving, as well as being funny and tender, and Ken and Flo Jacobs both give surprising, strong performances, despite never having acted before. But it is ultimately […]
Celebrated and influential film critic Manny Farber died yesterday at the age of 91. At Movie City Indie Ray Pride has a lovely, well-linked remembrance, which opens like this: Manny Farber, painter, brilliant writer, indelible critic and all-round original whom some aped and few grazed, died in his sleep last night at the age of 91. He had retired from writing and teacher and devoted himself to painting and drawing. To cite Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, which early Preston Sturges savant Farber would likely not frown upon, “What a life!” Glenn Kenny also has a long piece on […]