movies – praag.org

Lesbians, Transgenders, Pedophile Priests will top Oscar Nominees

Get ready. This is going to be an interesting year at the Oscars.

The movies that are getting into position for Best Picture nominations are not “Driving Miss Daisy” material.

One of the leading candidates is “Spotlight,” Tom McCarthy’s exciting telling of how Boston Globe reporters unmasked 90 pedophile priests. The film has an all star cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Liev Schreiber. They will all be contenders in the Best Supporting Acto race.

“Carol” is a love story about two lesbians in 1952 New York. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are the lovers, and their work is exceptional. Director Todd Haynes, the actresses, and cinematographer Ed Lachman will all be up for awards.

“Grandma” stars Lily Tomlin as a hippie grandmother, pot smoking lesbian who’s trying to help her granddaughter raise enough money for an abortion. Tomlin is absolutely sterling, and leads my list of potential Best Actress nominees.

Then there’s the transgender section: Eddie Redmayne plays a man who becomes a woman in “The Danish Girl.” Redmayne is absolutely spot on as he makes the transition with his loyal– and unusually understanding– wife (Alicia Vikander) by his side. Tom Hooper’s movie is exquisite.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if five of the eight or nine Best Picture nominees include “Spotlight,” “The Danish Girl,” “Carol,” “Grandma,” and “Spotlight.” Whoever hosts the Academy Awards is going to have a lot of fun summarizing these films. Really, only Billy Crystal could pull off a proper parody of “The Danish Girl.”

Other potential Best Picture nominees will be less cutting edge sexually: “Bridge of Spies” from Steven Spielberg, “Steve Jobs” from Danny Boyle, Robert Zemeckis’s “The Walk,” Ridley Scott’s “The Martian,” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Hateful Eight” don’t involve gender issues.

Source: Showbiz411

The Killer language takes Cannes

This year’s Cannes Film Festival was greeted with consternation when a commonality was noticed across many of the festival’s in-competition selections: the Killer language, English.

Though there are only two American filmmakers in competition for Cannes’ Palme d’Or and no British directors, this year’s festival is littered with Europe’s elite filmmakers working in a language not their own. On a continent that has warily watched English become a kind of de facto common language, fears flared that contemporary European cinema was being lost in translation.

The Guardian said that an “Anglophone virus” was rampaging.

Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino will on Wednesday premiere his second English language film, “Youth,” with Michael Cain and Harvey Keitel. Four other notable names in international film – Norway’s Joachim Trier, Italy’s Matteo Garrone, Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos and Mexico’s Michel Franco – are all making their English language debuts. And Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villenueve, an Oscar-nominee for his French language “Incendies,” premiered his English language drug war thriller “Sicario” on Tuesday.

As the festival has unspooled, many directors have defended their decision to switch languages

Directors are eyeing the American market and big money, say some:

“If you want to go to the American market maybe you need to have a film in English, but I still think all the great directors make films in their own languages,” said festival director Thierry Fremaux, who said English functions like “the new Esperanto.” ”I’m not sure if it’s a trend. We’ll see.”

8 South African films to be screened at Cannes film festival

Music mockumentary Stone Cold Jane Austen will be one of eight South African films screening at the Cannes Film Festival later this month.

The films form part of the Marche Du Film programme which takes place from May 12 to 21, the film market business side of the Cannes Film Festival.

Writer/director Jon Savage is surprised that his film has made it onto the line-up. “It’s not a very traditional film. It’s a feature film in the style of a mockumentary. My film is going to Cannes, I’m going, too.”

Crowdfunded Stone Cold Jane Austen was shot over a three-and-half-year period and features Rob van Vuuren, Savage and Kurt Schoonraad as the only fictional characters in the story of an English rock band wanting to break into the lucrative Afrikaans rock market.

“All the Afrikaans stars from Fokofpolisiekar to Kurt Darren are in it, either as people supporting the idea, or not,” said Savage.

The film has been picked up by Nu Metro Theatre for local release on May 22.

Three of the films which will screen at the film market were produced by Cape Town production company ZenHQ Films.

Action crime thriller Dias Santana, is the country’s first South African-Angolan co-production between ZenHQ Films and Giant Sables Media Entertainment and was written and directed by Chris Roland and Maradona Dias Dos Santos.

Critically acclaimed Afrikaans fantasy romance Die Windpomp and the politically incorrect action comedy Bordering on Bad Behaviour are their other two films. Die Windpomp will screen as The Windmill and is currently available online or on DVD while Bordering on Bad Behaviour is doing the international film festival rounds and will release locally later this year.

Here is the official trailer for Stone Cold Jane Austen.

Source: Cape Argus

International movie audiences ‘racist’ – leaked Sony email

An unnamed producer wrote in an email to Sony chairman Michael Lynton that films with black actors — using Denzel Washington in The Equalizer as an example — don’t perform well because the international audiences are “racist,” according to documents found in the Sony hack.

The producer suggested that the two-time Oscar winner should not star in big-budget films as the international audience will not accept him in a leading role because of his race.

“I believe that the international motion picture audience is racist — in general pictures with an African American lead don’t play well overseas. When Sony made Equalizer they had to know that Denzel opens pics domestically, however the international gross would be somewhat limited,” the producer wrote in an Oct. 27 e-mail.

Lynton wrote back asking if he was saying The Equalizer “shouldn’t have been made or that African American actors should be excluded?”

“No, I am not saying ‘The Equalizer’ should not have been made or that African American actors should not have been used (I personally think Denzel is the best actor of his generation),” the producer responded. “Casting him is saying we’re ok with a double if the picture works,” the producer wrote, using a baseball analogy.

Washington is “reliable at the domestic [box office], safe, but has not had a huge success in years. I believe whenever possible the non event pictures, extra ‘bets’ should have a large inherent upside and be made for the right price. Here there isn’t a large inherent upside,” the producer wrote.

The producer also wrote that he or she hoped the statement wasn’t “inappropriate or provocative.”

The Equalizer grossed about $191 million worldwide. Approximately $90 million was earned overseas. The producer said this figure would have been higher if a black man wasn’t in the lead role.

According to the emails, a sequel to the movie was set for 2017, but would be “a double, with a remote chance of a home run.”

Calls to Denzel Washington’s publicist were not immediately returned. – buzzfeed.com

Get ‘diverse’ or else, British govt tells filmmakers

On screen, at least one lead character must be ‘positively reflecting diversity’

Movie companies have been told they must meet new targets for ethnic minority, gay and female characters on screen to be eligible for future funding from the British Film Institute.

The BFI, Britain’s largest public film fund, announced a “Three Ticks” scheme to ensure diversity in films and behind the scenes as it set out new rules for funding.

Under the system, to be implemented in September, films must “tick” at least two of three criteria: on-screen diversity; off-screen diversity and “creating opportunities and social mobility”.

The BFI, which allocates lottery funding and invests more than £27 million in film production, sales and distribution, supports about 30 new projects a year. It backed The King’s Speech and Philomena.

The new rules will compel filmmakers to place “diverse” actors and subjects at the forefront of their projects, as well as ensuring minority workers are represented on set and in the crew.

On screen, at least one lead character must be “positively reflecting diversity”, with the story more likely to receive funding if it “explicitly and predominantly explores issues of identity relating to ethnicity or national origins, a specific focus on women, people with disabilities, sexual identity, age and people from a socially disadvantaged background”.

Among the films the BFI has praised for content include Suffragette, the story of the battle for women to gain the vote, and Pride, about gay activists supporting the miners’ strike. It will ask filmmakers to ensure that at least 30 per cent of supporting and non-speaking characters are also “diverse”.

Off-screen, at least two heads of department must be from diverse backgrounds, as well as a range of “key creatives” including the director, screenwriter, composer and cinematographer.

The third category requires companies to offer paid internships and jobs to “new entrants from diverse backgrounds” and to help them progress.

“Three Ticks” is likely to raise fears about compromising scripts’ authenticity, with period dramas less likely to naturally represent “diverse backgrounds”.

A spokesman for the BFI insisted all films would have the opportunity to meet the criteria, with even those not fulfilling them onscreen able to “tick” the other two sections.

Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, praised the initiative as helping to “raise the bar”, adding that he would like to see all television, film and performing arts companies following the BFI’s example.

Amanda Nevill, the CEO of the BFI, said it was “vital” to reflect British society in order to stay relevant and said the announcement “is just the beginning”.

Last month, the BBC announced it would ensure one in seven actors and presenters will be either black, Asian or ethnic minority in the next three years.

At the time, critics including Philip Davies, the Conservative MP, called it “absolutely ridiculous” political correctness, saying that all recruitment “should be done on ability”. – Daily Telegraph