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| With a slightly bigger budget and international casts, Gina Prince Bythewood - a Sundance Alumni, makes a love story about a suicidal famous singer who find a second chance in life in the form of a cop who save her. Even though is not in the same league as A Star is Born (all three version 1937, 1954 or 1976), it is a pleasure to see Gugu Mbhata Raw gives another charismatic performance after her breakthrough in Belle. |
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Beyond The Lights | Andik's Take
The Pornographers | Andik's Take
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| In The Pornographers, once again, Shohei Imamura explores the taboo subject of incest. It follows a man who is having relationship with a widower and her young daughter. He supports them by making illegal pornographic films. Because of the nature of his work, he was in constant trouble with the law and the mafia, The lead actor, Soichi Ozawa, won Best Actor Award at both 1967 Kinema Junpo Award and 1967 Mainichi Film Concours |
Friday, November 14, 2014
Intentions of Murders | Andik's Take
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| Shohei Imamura's Intentions of Murder is another woman's survival story in a harsh Japanese patriarchal society. When a neglected housewife was attack and rape inside her home, after the initial shock, she start to developed strange attraction for her attacker. When she fails to end this madness, murder might be her only way out. |
Thursday, November 13, 2014
The Book of Life | Andik's Take
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| Produced by Guillermo Del Toro, The Book of Life follows two childhood friend who falls for the same girl as the core story. With top notch voice talent of Diego Luna, Channing Tatum and Zoe Zaldana, this film is full of great life lesson such as the importance of being selfless and true love will conquer all (even though is not always true in real life, it always nice to see it again and again in movies) |
The Insect Woman | Andik's Take
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| Shohei Imamura's first masterpiece, The Insect Woman is a powerful story about survival. Tome was used, abused and betrayed by every man in her life, starting with her father in her early age. But instead becoming a victim, she becomes the symbol of strength and survival of Japanese woman with an apologetic sexual taste. It won Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay Award at both 1964 Kinema Junpo Award and 1964 Blue Ribbon Award. Official Selection 1964 Berlin Film Festival - In Competition Section. |
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
2015 Oscar Foreign Language Entry (Full List) | Spotlight | Variety
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| Wild Tales from Argentina is one of the 2015 Oscar Foreign Language category front runner http://variety.com/2014/film/news/oscars-record-83-films-submitted-for-foreign-language-prize-1201326138/ |
Selma | Reviews | Variety
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| A half-century on from Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic
voting-rights march from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol in
Montgomery, director Ava DuVernay
revisits those events with startling immediacy, dramatic force and
filmmaking verve in “Selma.” A far cry from the dutiful biopic or
ossified history lesson it could have become in lesser hands (or the
campy free-for-all the project’s original director, Lee Daniels, might
have made of it), DuVernay’s razor-sharp portrait of the civil rights
movement — and Dr. King himself — at a critical crossroads is as
politically astute as it is psychologically acute, giving us a
human-scale King whose indomitable public face belies currents of
weariness and self-doubt. Bolstered by Paul Webb’s literate,
well-researched script and David Oyelowo’s
graceful, majestic lead performance, DuVernay has made the kind of
movie that gives year-end “prestige” pics a good name, which should
equate to considerable box-office and awards-season gold for this Dec.
25 Paramount release. http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-selma-1201354433/ |
2014 Hawaii Audience Award Winner | Festival | Variety
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| Taika Waititi's What We Do In The Shadows won Audience Award at 2014 Hawaii Film Festival |
Haemoo Won Best Narrative Feature in Hawaii | Festival | FBA
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| Haemoo won Best Narrative Film at 2014 Hawaii Film Festival and It is become South Korean official entry to the Oscar Best Foreign Language Selection http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/haemoo-wins-best-narrative-feature-in-hawaii |
American Sniper | Reviews | Variety
http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-american-sniper-1201354123/
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| A superb performance by Bradley Cooper anchors Clint Eastwood's harrowing and thoughtful dramatization of the life of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. |
Roy Andersson Interviews at 2014 Stockholm Film Festival | Interviews | Variety
http://variety.com/2014/film/festivals/stockholm-festival-director-roy-andersson-qa-1201353699/
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| Pictured above from left: Stockholm Festival director Git Scheynius, helmers Pascale Ferran (“Bird People”), July Jung (“A Girl at My Door”), Roy Andersson, Celine Sciamma (“Girlhood”), Bitte Andersson (“Dyke Hard”), Guy Myhill (“The Goob”) and program director George Ivanov. |
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Pigs and Battleships | Andik's Take
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| Shohei Imamura's Pigs and Battleships is about a young couple who tries to survive in a small Japanese port town after WW II. As the young man attracted to the underworld life, the young woman must decide to compromise her virtue or leave town. The film won Best Film at 1962 Blue Ribbon Award. |
Magnolia bought Gentlemen
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| Magnolia has acquired U.S. rights to Mikael Marcimain's "Gentlemen" from Wild Bunch at AFM. For the script, author Klas Östergren adapted his novel of the same name, which tells the autobiographical story of his time spent with gangsters and gals in the Swedish post-WWII era of economic boom and rampant corruption. |
2014 Top Oscar Contender by Variety
https://variety.com/2014/film/news/oscars-best-pic-contenders-the-race-is-far-different-from-2013-but-1201352621/
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| Clint Eastwood's American Sniper starring Bradley Cooper |
Stolen Desire I Andik's Take
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| One of Shohei Imamura's early films is about a young college graduate who join a troupe of traveling actors as a director, but his involvement with a married actress and her sister complicate matters. The film won Best New Director Award at 1959 Blue Ribbon Award. |
IFC Midnight bought Dupieux's Reality
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| IFC Midnight has acquired U.S. rights to Quentin Dupieux’s “Reality” following its screening at AFI fest on Saturday. |
Le Pacte takes Thomas Vinterberg's The Commune | News | Screen
Le Pacte takes Thomas Vinterberg's The Commune | News | Screen
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| The story explores the clash between personal desires, solidarity and tolerance in a 1970s commune. The ensemble cast is led by Ulrich Thomsen, Trine Dyrholm, Fares Fares and Lars Ranthe. |
My Mistress | Reviews | Screen
My Mistress | Reviews | Screen
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| There’s no lack of major talent working on Stephen Lance’s debut feature. The young director of notable short films and music videos has recruited leading French actress/beauty Emmanuelle Béart to play the title dominatrix. And he has wrangled top costume designer Angus Strathie to provide stunning latex, PVC and leather creations for her; plus there is veteran cameraman Geoffrey Simpson and editor Jill Bilcock. Béart plays Maggie, high-class, high-heeled prostitute, dab hand with a whip, who is somehow marooned in an empty gated mansion with a tangled rain forest backyard and a swimming pool. |
Endless Desire I Andik's Take
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| Shohei Imamura's first film is a slow burning but powerful study on greed. Ten years after World War II, five people set out dig up a stash of morphine buried under a butcher shop. this film won 1959 Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Director and Best Supporting Actress. |
The Hunger Game - Mockingjay Part 1 I Reviews I Variety
https://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-the-hunger-games-mockingjay-part-1-1201352024/
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| Katniss Everdeen becomes the face of a revolution in “Mockingjay — Part 1,” a tricky transitional episode of “The Hunger Games” franchise that abandons the reality-TV bloodsports of the first two movies to conjure a dour, grimly escalating vision of all-out war. Unsubtly resonant, at times quite rousing and somewhat unsatisfying by design, this penultimate series entry is a tale of mass uprising and media manipulation that itself evinces no hint of a rebellious streak or subversive spirit: Suzanne Collins’ novels may have warned against the dangers of giving the masses exactly what they want to see, but at this point, the forces behind this hugely commercial property are not about to risk doing anything but. It’s a sensible if not exactly inspired strategy, and with Jennifer Lawrence once more carrying the proceedings and director Francis Lawrence (no relation) dutifully replicating the elements of an inherently cinematic story, Lionsgate’s plans for worldwide B.O. domination look secure. |
The Gambler | Reviews | Screen
http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-gambler/5079877.article?blocktitle=REVIEWS&contentID=40296
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| Tone trumps all in The Gambler, an exercise in studied cool that’s commendably idiosyncratic, although ultimately not to any great effect. Chronicling a week in the life of a gambling addict whose mounting debts may finally prove his undoing, this character drama is more a meditation on existential despair than a traditional crime thriller. To be sure, The Gambler follows its own rhythm, sometimes delightfully, but one can’t shake the feeling that producer and star Mark Wahlberg simply isn’t the right man to portray such a weary neo-noir figure, failing to plumb the depths necessary to give this meandering film its magnetic centre. Even if not a lot happens in The Gambler, its low-key pace is refreshing, peculiar, almost subversive. |
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Interstellar
Interstellar Christopher Nolan US 2014 9/10 - As earth resources are dwindling down, scientist and astronauts join together to explore the possibility of finding a place beyond earth that could sustain life. Once again Christopher Nolan give a though provoking element in otherwise regular Hollywood blockbuster for the masses. This all star casts space opera is definitely one of the best film of the year
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