Leonard Harris, 81, TV Arts Critic; Also “Senator Palantine” In Taxi Driver
Archive for August, 2011
Leonard Harris, 81, TV Arts Critic; Also “Senator Palantine” In Taxi Driver
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Drive’s Got Lots Of New Posters
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Reading Reading The Fine Print In The Dick Clark-HFPA Golden Globes Lawsuit
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Rod Garrett, 74, Designed Burning Man
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011‘Suing The Devil’ is #2 Indie Film at Box Office – Faith-Based Movie Seeks to Expose the Devil’s Greatest Lie
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011LOS ANGELES, Aug. 30, 2011 — Suing the Devil, the highly-acclaimed film that opened in select theaters nationwide on August 26, 2011 had the second highest-grossing average of any independent film in the nation.
The film, which won 5-Dove Seal from the Dove Foundation, hit theaters in in cities across the nation, including Dallas, Houston, Evansville, IN; Springfield, IL; Columbus, OH; Jacksonville, FL; Melbourne, FL; Greensboro, NC; Burlington, NC; and Kansas City, MO.
Suing the Devil stars Malcolm McDowell, Rebecca St. James, Corbin Bernsen, Shannen Fields (‘Facing the Giants’), Tom Sizemore, Ros Gentle, and Bart Bronson. Hillsong also participated in the movie shot in Sydney, Australia.
Written and directed by Harvard alumnus Tim Chey (‘The Genius Club’ ‘Gone’), the film has been having an emotional impact that is being compared to ‘The Passion of the Christ.’
“So many people are us telling how the film opened their eyes to the devil’s tactics,” says Chey. “We had one story where a couple had a troubled marriage for 17 years. The morning after they saw the film, they restored their marriage and opened their house up for worship. Another was an atheist, who came to the front of the theater, and got on his knees after another screening. And yet another was a gang-member who accepted Christ because of the movie. Incredible.”
At a time when 65% of American Christians don’t believe the devil exists, Suing the Devil aims its guns at Satan’s strategy. “2 Corinthians 2:11 says to not be ignorant of the devil’s scheme,” Chey points out. “Yet so many Christians today are glued to their TV sets – completely clueless that 5 media companies control 85% of all content. Completely clueless.”
‘Suing the Devil’ also made the list of WIRED Magazine’s ‘Top Summer Movies That Will Rock Your World.’
Resonating strongly with audiences of all ages across the country, potent word of mouth is already branding Suing the Devil as the ‘summer film to watch.’
In the film, Luke O’Brien (Bart Bronsen), a washed-up janitor turned night law student, decides to sue Satan (Malcolm McDowell) for $8 trillion dollars. On the last day before Luke files a default judgment, Satan appears to defend himself. On Satan’s legal team are 10 of the country’s best trial lawyers (Dennis Cole, Jeff Gannon, Annie Lee). The entire world watches Legal TV (Corbin Bernsen, Tom Sizemore, Rebecca St. James) to see who will win the Trial of the Century.
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TIFF Co-Director Bailey Talks “Neighborhood” Festival
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Cameron Crowe Posts An Alternate Script Opening To Say Anything
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Italian Director Ettore Scola Announces Retirement At 80
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011“I didn’t want to become one of those old ladies who wear high heels and lipstick just to keep youthful company.”
Italian Director Ettore Scola Announces Retirement At 80
Killer Elite: The Job
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Icahns Selling Their 44 Million Shares In Lionsgate
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011VF Offers Some Chewy Angelina Quotes In Advance Of October’s Cover Story
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Art Of The Title Sequence Opens Captain America
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Will Bumble Bring A New Buzz To Fox Publicity?
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011I like Bumble Ward. I have since I met her… I don’t know… 15 years ago. I still do business with some of her former associates… and I remember the rest of them fondly. I still quote Bebe Lerner’s “movie friends” from that radical Tad Friend piece that marked the movement towards Bumble “retiring” at or near the top of her game.
I also like the family at Fox’s publicity department. I think Bumble will be the sixth person to hold that corner office in the 15 years or so that I’ve worked in conjunction with the studio. Others have come and gone, but a lot of the staff has been there for a long time already.
But as the years have passed, I don’t think the department has ever really been reimagined. Those seismic style shifts are rare.
Disney has changed and continues to change, after execs from outside of the Hollywood bubble came in to run things about 18 months ago. Mike Vollman fought to change the landscape of Paramount’s film publicity department while he was there, coming in on the heels of a lot of people getting fired after the DW pseudo-merger.
The most radical marketing department -publicity included – in the last decade was DreamWorks, pre-merger. Terry Press created a machine that was an intense, tough, funny, daring, sometimes enraged family. Part of what worked so well was that the studio was small, everyone was in the boat together, for better and sometimes, for worse. So much of the marketing and publicity job has become, at the majors, about managing the talent, that innovation has become harder to embrace.
But while the personalities have changed and new technology has changed the media field a bit, the last decade-plus at Warners, Universal, Sony, and Fox… pretty consistent in tone. Very smart people working their asses off. Occasional moments of radical inspiration. But still, it’s a big machine… throwing out the bath water without the baby isn’t easy.
I don’t want to see anyone at Fox fired or replaced. But I am deeply interested in whether Bumble will push her new team in some new directions, in terms of how the thinking about movie publicity works.
It’s a different world out there now. The value of publicity waned for a while there… just too many marketing dollars defining the marketplace. But with the industry trying to pull back on those marketing dollars, simple awareness becoming less challenging, but actual calls to ticket-buying action on titles that are not pre-sold seeming harder and harder, it feels like it might be time for publicity to reemerge as a dominant force.
But not so much by doing what’s always been done.
I can only assume that Oren wanted Bumble because she will think out of the box… and because he believes she can manage the pressures of this job. Maybe a former personal publicist knows how to manage the personals in a new way.
Should be interesting. We should get a sense of where things are – or aren’t – going by sometime in November.
BYOB 82911
Monday, August 29th, 2011
David “Honeyboy” Edwards Plays “Gamblin’ Man” (3’15″)
Monday, August 29th, 2011From “Lightnin’ in a Bottle.” (2004)
Honeyboy Edwards, 96, Believed To Be Oldest Living First-Generation Delta Bluesman; Played With Robert Johnson
Monday, August 29th, 2011Harmony Korine And Anthony Dod Mantle For Mahindra
Monday, August 29th, 2011Adweek does not care for the Indian conglomerate’s anthemic spot. (The Mahindra Group also has alliances with the Sundance Institute, which began in January.) [Via Filmmaker.]
CRAZY HORSE, FREDERICK WISEMAN’S LATEST, TO OPEN THEATRICALLY ON JANUARY 18, 2012 AFTER PLAYING IN VENICE, TORONTO AND NEW YORK FILM FESTIVALS
Monday, August 29th, 2011CRAZY HORSE, FREDERICK WISEMAN’S LATEST, TO OPEN THEATRICALLY ON JANUARY 18, 2012 AFTER PLAYING IN VENICE, TORONTO AND NEW YORK FILM FESTIVALS
Zipporah Films and mTuckman media dance again on documentary about famous Parisian cabaret club
New York, NY (August 28, 2010) – Zipporah Films announced today that it will once again work with Michael Tuckman and mTuckman media to release Frederick Wiseman’s latest documentary, CRAZY HORSE.
The film will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 31st and will also be featured at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York International Film Festival. CRAZY HORSE will then open theatrically in New York City at Film Forum on January 18, 2012, followed by a national rollout to theaters across the country.
CRAZY HORSE joins LA DANSE – THE PARIS OPERA BALLET and LA COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE OU L’AMOUR JOUÉ to make a trilogy of Wiseman films about iconic French institutions.
Frederick Wiseman spent ten weeks with his camera exploring one of the most mythic places dedicated to women: The Crazy Horse. Over the years this legendary Parisian cabaret club, founded in 1951 by Alain Bernardin, has become the Parisian nightlife ‘must’ for any visitors, ranking alongside the Eiffel Tower and The Louvre.
Wiseman’s impeccable eye allows us to enter into this intriguing international temple of the Parisian club world and to discover what makes the Crazy Horse tick: elegance, perfectionism and a grueling schedule (with two shows a night and three on Saturdays, seven days a week).
CRAZY HORSE follows the rehearsals and performances for a new show called “DÉSIRS,” staged by Philippe Decouflé, a celebrated French choreographer, as well as the backstage preparations of the dancers (make-up and costume fittings) and also the various issues involved in the planning of the show and the administration of the club. The show DÉSIRS is an artistic, modern, humorous and colorful spectacle that is the pinnacle of ‘nude chic.’
Following the successful runs of LA DANSE and BOXING GYM in each of the last two years, CRAZY HORSE is Wiseman’s 39th film in a career that began in 1967 with TITICUT FOLLIES. Critic Philip Lopate has called Frederick Wiseman “the greatest American filmmaker of the last 30 years.” Zipporah Films, Inc. is the distributor of Wiseman’s films. For over forty years, he has created an exceptional body of work consisting of films devoted primarily to exploring contemporary life as it is expressed in institutions common to all societies (schools, hospitals, the military, police, prisons, courts, public housing, theater, ballet, and many other topics). For more information, please visit http://www.zipporah.com.
CRAZY HORSE at:
Venice Days – Venice Film Festival – http://www.venice-days.com/filmsearcheng.asp?idfilm=7
Toronto International Film Festival – http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2011/crazyhorse
Vancouver International Film Festival – http://www.viff.org/e-blasts/viff-2011/2011-08-09-PR.html
San Sebastian Film Festival – http://www.sansebastianfestival.com/in/pagina.php?ap=1&id=2093
Doclisboa 2011 – http://www.doclisboa.org/2011/
New York Film Festival – http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/crazy-horse
BFI London Film Festival – http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/
Tokyo International Film Festival – http://www.tiff-jp.net/en/
Film Forum – http://www.filmforum.org/comingsoon.html
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