Alternative Film Guide

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences launches its 27th annual "Contemporary Documentaries" series with two widely praised Iraq War films: Alex Gibney’s Academy Award winner Taxi to the Dark Side and Charles Ferguson’s Academy Award-nominated No End in Sight. The screenings will take place on Wednesday, September 24, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission to all screenings in the series is free. Filmmakers will be present at the screenings whenever possible.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin may believe that the US invasion of Iraq was a "task that is from God," but apparently both Alex Gibney and Charles Ferguson think otherwise.

Taxi to the Dark Side revolves around the mysterious death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, exposing the United States government and military’s use of torture and abrogation of human rights. Directed by Gibney, Taxi to the Dark Side was produced by Gibney, Eva Orner, and Susannah Shipman. Orner will take part in a Q&A following the screening.

No End in Sight examines the reasons for Iraq’s descent into guerrilla warfare and anarchy following the 2003 US invasion, one of the biggest — and deadliest — strategic blunders in modern history. Directed by Ferguson, No End in Sight was produced by Ferguson, Jennie Amias, Audrey Marrs, and Jessie Vogelson. Ferguson and Marrs will both be present for a Q&A following the screening.

As per the Academy’s press release, "the 27th annual Contemporary Documentaries series is a showcase for feature-length and short documentaries drawn from the 2007 Academy Award nominations, including the winners, as well as other important and innovative films considered by the Academy that year." The first part of the "Contemporary Documentaries" series comprises 14 films that will screen on Wednesday evenings through December 3. The series will resume in March 2009 and continue through June.

All films, with the exception of those scheduled for December 3, will screen at the Linwood Dunn Theater at the Academy’s Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. All seating is unreserved. Filmmakers will be present at screenings whenever possible.

The December 3 screening will take place at the IMAX Theater at the California Science Center in Exposition Park. For directions and parking information, call (323) SCIENCE.

The Linwood Dunn Theater is located at 1313 Vine Street in Hollywood. Free parking is available through the entrance on Homewood Avenue (one block north of Fountain Avenue). For additional information, visit www.oscars.org or call (310) 247-3600.

Photos: Courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library

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Wim Wenders, Valeria Golino, VEGAS: Venice Film Festival 2008

VINYAN Photos

EMBODIMENT OF EVIL Photos

Hayao Miyazaki, Ferzan Oztepek, Stefania Sandrelli at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

Emmanuelle Béart, Claire Denis, Mario Monicelli at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

Manoel de Oliveira, Benoît Magimel at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

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VINYAN Photos

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Hayao Miyazaki, Ferzan Oztepek, Stefania Sandrelli at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

Emmanuelle Béart, Claire Denis, Mario Monicelli at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

Manoel de Oliveira, Benoît Magimel at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

Ermanno Olmi, Charlize Theron at the 2008 Venice Film Festival

Marco Pontecorvo’s PA-RA-DA Photos

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Brad Pitt, George Clooney at Venice 2008 BURN AFTER READING Premiere

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2008 Venice Film Festival - Horizons Sidebar

Ramin Bahrani Goodbye Solo — USA, 91′
Souleymane Sy Savane, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo

Julio Bressane, Rosa Dias A Erva do Rato — Brazil, 80′
Alessandra Negrini, Selton Mello

Lav Diaz Melancholia — Philippines, 450′
Roeder Camanag, Angeli Bayani, Perry Dizon

Jean-Pierre Duret, Andréa Santana Puisque nous sommes nés - France / Brazil, 90′
(documentary)

Philippe Grandrieux Un lac — France, 90′
Dmitry Kubasov, Natalie Rehorova, Alexei Solonchev

HUANG Wenhai Women - China / Switzerland, 102′
(documentary)

Mikhail Kalatozishvili Dikoe Pole (Wild Field) — Russia, 104′
Oleg Dolin, Irina Utanayeva

Mirko Locatelli Il primo giorno d’inverno (The First Day of Winter) — Italy, 88′
Michela Cova, Mattia [...] Continue Reading…

A few weeks ago, when I began watching a screener of director-screenwriter-etc-etc. Brian Pera’s The Way I See Things, I had no idea what to expect. At first, I wasn’t able to get into the film, as I wondered — with dread — if I was in for a gay version of a John Cassavetes flick. About fifteen minutes later, I went for a chocolate milk break and when I returned, I decided to start the film from scratch.
Curiously, the second time around I became immediately immersed in the story, in the lead character’s inner conflicts, and in [...] Continue Reading…

Fabrice Du Welz’s Vinyan, which was screened out of competition at the 2008 Venice Film Festival, stirred some controversy because the psychological thriller deals with the aftermath of the 2005 tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people. Starring Emmanuelle Béart and Rufus Sewell, Vinyan follows an European couple who travel to Southeast Asia in search of their young son, supposedly one of the tsunami’s victims. The mother, however, believes the boy still lives but has been kidnapped. Once there, instead of kidnappers the couple find supernatural goings-on.
Cinefantastique has given Vinyan two rave reviews. (In French.)
Screenplay by Du Welz, Oliver [...] Continue Reading…

2008 Venice Film Festival - Out of Competition Screenings

Paolo Benvenuti Puccini e la fanciulla — Italy, 84′
Riccardo Moretti, Tania Squillarlo, Giovanna Daddi, Debora Mattiello, Federica Chezzi

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen Burn After Reading — USA, 95′
George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton

Claire Denis 35 Rhums — France / Spain, 100′
Alex Descas, Grégoire Colin, Nicole Dogue, Mati Diop

JIA Zhangke Heshang aiqing (Cry me a river) (short film) — China / Spain / France, 19′
Tao Zhao / Hongmei Wang

Minoru Kawasaki Girara no gyakushu / Samitto kiki ippatsu! (Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit!) — Japan, 98′
Natsuki [...] Continue Reading…

Wendy Ide reviews Claire Denis’ 35 Shots of Rum in The [London] Times:
"Four days into the Venice Film Festival, and the programme feels as though it has been temporarily hijacked by hubris and bombast. With a spectacularly inept thriller (Barbet Schroeder’s Inju, La Bete Dans L’Ombre) and an incoherently hallucinatory gangster movie (the unwatchable Plastic City by Lu Lik-wai) on offer, the audience is more than ready for something intimate and meaningful, a film that doesn’t play like an assault with a blunt weapon. Claire Denis’ exquisitely understated 35 Shots of Rum couldn’t have come at a better time. [...] Continue Reading…

Veteran "trash" filmmaker-actor José Mojica Marins’ Encarnação do Demônio / Embodiment of Evil (literally, "The Devil’s Incarnation"), one of the out-of-competition screenings at the 2008 Venice Film Festival, features the latest cinematic incarnation (bad pun intended) of Zé do Caixão ("Coffin Joe"), a demonic character that starred in a handful of Brazilian movies of the 1960s and 1970s, including Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver / Tonight I’ll Take Possession of Your Corpse (1967) and O Estranho Mundo de Zé do Caixão / The Strange World of Coffin Joe (1968).
(According to Felipe M. Guerra at Boca do [...] Continue Reading…

Tropic Thunder ruled the North American box office for the third consecutive weekend with US$11.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Ben Stiller’s R-rated action comedy easily protected its No. 1 spot from this week’s four new releases, lifting its domestic total to $83.8 million. Distributed by DreamWorks, the film centers on a group of actors as they fight for survival in a dangerous jungle.

Debuting in second place with only $9.7 million was 20th Century Fox’s science-fiction adventure Babylon A.D., which stars Vin Diesel as a mercenary escorting a young woman (Mélanie Thierry) from Mongolia to [...] Continue Reading…

Via Agence France-Presse:
"The 65th Venice film festival has produced no standouts since it opened on Wednesday, with reactions to the first crop among the 21 movies vying for the Golden Lion ranging from lukewarm to hostile.
"The Burning Plain by Guillermo Arriaga of the United States disorients the viewer with flashbacks that cannot be identified as such until much later in the film, a device the reviewer in leading Italian daily Corriere della Sera branded as ‘gratuitous.’"
…
"As for the French literary-erotic thriller Inju, the Beast in the Shadow [top photo], the daily La Repubblica was scathing, asking ‘How did such [...] Continue Reading…

Photos: © Fondazione La Biennale - Foto Asac
Click on the images to enlarge them.

Hayao Miyazaki, whose Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is up for a Golden Lion

Actor Valerio Mastandrea, director Ferzan Ozpetek, of A Perfect Day, which is up for a Golden Lion

Isabella Ferrari, star of Ferzan Ozpetek’s A Perfect Day

Director Ramin Bahrani, actor Souleymane Sy Savane, whose Goodbye Solo was screened in the Horizons sidebar

Veteran Stefania Sandrelli, who has a supporting role in A Perfect Day

 
Emmanuelle Béart, Claire Denis, Mario Monicelli at the 2008 Venice Film Festival
Manoel de Oliveira, Benoît Magimel at the 2008 Venice [...] Continue Reading…

Photos: © Fondazione La Biennale - Foto Asac
Click on the images to enlarge them.

Director Fabrice Du Welz, actress Emmanuelle Béart of Vinyan, which was screened out of competition

Tariq Tapa (right), director of Zero Bridge, screened in the Horizons sidebar

Serena Grandi, Pupi Avati, Francesca Neri, Alba Rohrwacher, whose Il Papa di Giovanna is up for a Golden Lion

Claire Denis, whose 35 rhums was screened out of competition

Co-director Patrick-Mario Bernard, actor Cyril Guei, co-director Pierre Trividic, actress Dominique Blanc, whose L’Autre is up for a Golden Lion

Mario Monicelli, 93, whose short Vicino al Colosseo c’è Monti was screened at [...] Continue Reading…

In The Guardian, Simon Callow reviews Ever Dirk: The Bogarde Letters, a collection of letters written by Dirk Bogarde and edited by John Coldstream, former books editor at the Daily Telegraph:
"The collection of letters (a mere eighth of his surviving epistolary output, and who knows how much was lost and destroyed?) reproduces all these effects. It is charming, enraging, funny, touching, baffling, but is also unexpectedly substantial, a sort of apologia pro sua vita — though, old trouper that he was, he firmly embraces the pro’s mantra: never apologise, never explain. The tone is startlingly different from the [...] Continue Reading…

 
Marco Pontecorvo’s Pa-ra-da, the story of a street clown who taught acrobatic skills to street children in 1990s Romania, was screened at the 2008 Venice Film