Alternative Film Guide

Recommended reading: J. Hoberman’s old (May 2001) Village Voice article "G.I. Jane," in which he discusses Film Society of Lincoln Center honoree Jane Fonda. Brief excerpt below:

"Fonda turned down the chance to play a social outlaw in Bonnie and Clyde, but she made up for it. In the context [...]

The nominees for the German Film Academy’s 2005 Lola Awards were announced on March 23.
Nominees in the Best Film category include Hany-Abu Assad’s Academy Award-nominated Paradise Now (which was partly funded by Germany), Hans-Christian Schmid’s psychological drama Requiem, and writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s political thriller Das Leben der Anderen.
Das Leben der Anderen [...]

7th Étoiles d’Or - 2005
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

In Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Romain Duris plays a short-tempered thug with a gift for piano playing. His dilemma: How to reconcile his penchant for punching people with his talent for touching piano keys. Though not nearly as [...]

Brief Obit: Science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, 84, whose novel Solaris was made into a film by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972, died today of heart failure at a hospital in Krakow. According to the Associated Press obit, Lem was one of the most popular science-fiction writers working in a language other than English. His books have [...]

Versatile Hollywood director Richard Fleischer, at his best handling action films and suspense thrillers, died yesterday of "natural causes" at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills. He was 89.
Fleischer began his directorial career in the mid-1940s, handling several entries for the short film series Flicker Flashbacks. Initially [...]

56th German Film Academy Awards - Lola 2005-2006
The 56th German Film Academy’s Lola Award winners were announced at the Palais am Funkturm in Berlin on March 23, 2006.
The 56th German Film Academy’s Lola Award winners were announced at the Palais am Funkturm in Berlin on May 12, 2006.
There’s a Golden Lola for Best Film and [...]

Via the Canadian Press: "Canada’s National Film Board is working with both the government and private sector in Brazil on a series of initiatives, including the advancement of digital cinema, documentary co-productions and the training of promising young filmmakers.

"In an agreement signed Thursday, NFB chairman Jacques Bensimon said the [...]

Il Caimano / The Alligator, Nani Moretti’s cinematic attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - who’s found himself embroiled in more corruption scandals than many a mafiosi - has opened in Italy this week. In the cast: Silvio Orlando, Margherita Buy, and Michele Placido.
A very confusing article on AGI says that Moretti’s film is, [...]

Press Release:
UCLA and Outfest Announce Public Symposium and Film Screening Highlighting the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation
LOS ANGELES, CA - The UCLA Film & Television Archive and Outfest, a leading showcase for diverse, international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) film and video, recently partnered to create the Outfest Legacy Project for [...]

Generally, I post my “Can’t Miss” warnings days after the must-see movies have been shown on television. I’ve decided to try something different this time around. I’m sending this “Can’t Miss” warning nearly a week before the two must-see films are aired on Turner Classic Movies. They are:
The social melodrama The Red Lily (1924), directed [...]

Press Release:
Academy Film Archive Receives $100,000 for Film Preservation
Beverly Hills, CA —  The Andrew J. Kuehn Foundation has presented the Academy Film Archive with $100,000 for film preservation, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ President Sid Ganis has announced.
The grant will be used to preserve two feature films by Academy Award®-nominated [...]

Via the BBC: "A US film distributor has signed a deal to release The Road to Guantanamo, about three British Muslims held at the detention camp, in the US and Canada.
"Roadside Attractions will distribute the film by British director Michael Winterbottom, said Screen Daily.
"Co-president Howard Cohen said the movie would leave viewers ‘thinking about Guantanamo [...]

Focus / Kimberly French
Recommended reading: Brian Whitaker’s The Guardian article "Brokeback desert":
"It is a pity Brokeback Mountain isn’t showing in the Arab world, because it resembles current reality there."
…
"‘Brokeback Mountain is a film which has nothing positive about it,’ said Dr Abdullah al-Amiri, a prominent member of parliament in [...]

 
The Region 1 Capote DVD has been out since
March 21. Extras include:
 
 
 

Photo Gallery

Interactive Menus/Chapter Search

Commentary by Bennett Miller

Commentary by Philip Seymour Hoffman

Commentary by Dan Futterman

On Truman Capote

Extended Behind-The-Scenes

Documentaries of Dissent
Tiburon (Calif.) International Film Festival Winners
Brokeback Mountain on DVD
Lights, Camera, Action: Future Filmmakers for International Aid
Janet [...]

Press Release:
Beverly Hills, CA — Fast food, oil, politics, press, retail giants, sexual abuse, war and filmmaking will be among the topics of discussion at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Documentaries of Dissent, Part II on Friday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Hosted by Los [...]

The winners at the 5th Annual Tiburon (Calif.) International Film Festival were announced on March 17.
Li Shaohong’s Sheng si jie / Stolen Life, the story of a young Chinese woman whose new life in the big city turns sour rather quickly, was chosen Best Film, while the Best Director award went to Vladan Nikolic for [...]

Brokeback Mountain out on DVD on April 4:
Special features include a profile of director Ang Lee and interviews with screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal discuss their rodeo and wrangling training.
The Brokeback Mountain DVD is expected to sell for $29.98. The film, which will still be [...]

An e-mail I received earlier today:
Premiering today, the Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) launches Lights, Camera, Action: Future Filmmakers for International Aid. This free contest asks America’s college and university students to develop a 30 second television public service announcement (PSA) to rally support for appropriate international disaster relief.
Students will have until May [...]

Janet Gaynor Centennial Tribute includes screenings of Street Angel, directed by Frank Borzage, and starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. UCLA will also have a Janet Gaynor retrospective, with screenings of about 20 Janet Gaynor films, including A Star Is Born by William A. Wellman, Servants’ Entrance by Frank Lloyd, Sunrise by F. W. Murnau, and Lucky Star by Frank Borzage.

Via Xinhuanet: South African actress Terry Pheto (Tsotsi) may play Nelson Mandela’s daughter, Zinzi, in Bille August’s Goodbye Bafana, based on Mandela’s memoirs about the unlikely friendship that developed between prison warden James Gregory and South Africa’s future first black president.
Joseph Fiennes (as Gregory), Dennis Haysbert (as Mandela), and Diane Kruger are scheduled [...]

Sean Smith in Newsweek: If you think Sharon Stone’s movies have been revealing over the years, you should check out her lawsuits. In June 2001, the actress sued the producers of Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction for $100 million because they had failed to make the movie and (more to the point) failed to pay [...]

© Suzanne O’Neill
In his (French-language) analysis of the Jutra ceremony, Radio Canada’s Michel Coulombe complained that the Jutra organizers wasted the occasion to properly honor 74-year-old veteran actress and director Denise Filiatrault (Mado, Ma vie en cinémascope), for her extensive film career played only a small part [...]

As expected, Jean-Marc Vallée’s blockbuster C.R.A.Z.Y., the story of a gay youth growing up in the Quebec of the 1960s and 1970s, won 13 Jutra Awards, Quebec’s top film prize, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Marc-André Grondin), and Best Screenplay (Vallée and François Boulay). Additionally, C.R.A.Z.Y. won a special award as the Most [...]

Oleg Cassini, the costume designer for the rich and famous - including the (early 1960s) U.S. president’s wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and his own wife (1941 - 1952), actress Gene Tierney — has died of undisclosed causes on Long Island, N. Y. He was 92.
Cassini, born in Paris (as per the New York Times obit) [...]

2006 SXSW Film Festival Awards
2006 SXSW Film Festival: Austin, March 10–19, 2006
 

Set in New Hampshire, Andy Robin and Gregg Kavet’s Live Free or Die follows a deluded gangster wannabe who dreams of becoming a real thug. In order to achieve his goal, he gets a dim-witted friend to help him out.
 
JURY AWARDS
Best Film: [...]