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AFI FEST 2009: THE LAST STATION, AFTER.LIFE

Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti in The Last Station

AFI FEST 2009, Sat., Nov. 7 at the Santa Monica Laemmle Theater 4 on 2nd Street in Santa Monica.
AFI FEST 2009 comes to a close with the following screenings:

Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station, which is set near the end of Leo Tolstoy’s life, has been getting lots of Oscar buzz for its stars: James McAvoy as Tolstoy’s assistant; Helen Mirren as Tolstoy’s wife; and Christopher Plummer as the verbose author of the never-ending War and Peace.
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash’s Sweetgrass offers a look at sheepherding in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth mountain range. Apart from the sheep and the high peaks, there’s no connection to Brokeback Mountain.
Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s stop-motion [...]

AFI FEST 2009: Christopher Plummer, Viggo Mortensen Tributes

James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer in The Last Station (top); Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (bottom)

AFI FEST 2009 has selected Christopher Plummer, who’ll turn 80 next December, and Viggo Mortensen, 51, as this year’s tribute honorees.
Sponsored by the Skirball Cultural Center, Plummer’s tribute will precede the screening of The Last Station, in which he plays Leo Tolstoy, on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Mortensen’s tribute will precede the US premiere of John Hillcoat’s futuristic drama The Road on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Both tributes will take place at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
A stage, film, and television and television veteran, during the course of his 50-plus-year career Plummer has won two Tony Awards (for Cyrano [...]

AFI FEST 2009: Heath Ledger, PRECIOUS, FANTASTIC MR. FOX

Fantastic Mr. Fox by Wes Anderson (top); Gabourey Sidibe in Precious (middle); Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (bottom)

AFI FEST 2009, the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival, kicks off next Friday, Oct. 30, with a screening of Wes Anderson’s animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, featuring the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Owen Wilson, among others.
Other gala presentations include Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, starring Christopher Plummer — who’ll be the recipient of this year’s AFI FEST Lifetime Achievement Award — and featuring Heath Ledger’s last performance; Kirk Jones‘ Everybody’s Fine, starring Robert De Niro in this remake of Giuseppe Tornatore’s melodrama about a widower on his way to meet his family; and Sundance [...]

Oscar 2010: Early Predictions – Best Supporting Actor

Best Supporting Actor

Alfred Molina, An Education (with Cara Seymour, Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard)
An overprotective father worries about his wayward daughter in 1960s London.

Christopher Plummer, The Last Station (with Helen Mirren)
Initially touted as a potential best actor contender, Plummer is getting the supporting treatment for his performance as the elderly Leo Tolstoy. In that category, the veteran actor has a much better chance of landing a nomination. (James McAvoy, formerly in this list for his role in The Last Station, is now in the Oscar 2010 best actor race.)

Paul Schneider, Bright Star
John Keats‘ not too sympathetic best friend Charles Armitage Brown.

Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Apparently, nothing lovely about Tucci in this one.

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds (with Diane Kruger)
Nazi [...]

Cannes 2009: Heath Ledger in THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian:
"Heath Ledger takes a poignant final bow in Terry Gilliam’s loopy, sweet-natured but madly self-indulgent fantasia The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, showing here at the Cannes film festival out of competition. Halfway through shooting, Ledger had made a desperately sad early exit, so the director ingeniously re-invented his character as a series of personae. Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp gamely stepped into the breach.
…
"When Gilliam shoots off into his surreal wonderland, his film has a kind of helium-filled jollity and spectacle. … But the film’s convoluted curlicues are tiring, insisting too loudly on how ‘imaginative’ everything is. And when it descends into the real world – Lucy [...]

Genie Awards 2009

2009 Genie Awards
2009 Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television’s Genie Award nominations: Feb. 10, 2009
2009 Genie Award winners: Ottawa, April 4, 2009
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 

BEST MOTION PICTURE / MEILLEUR FILM
Amal – David Miller, Steven Bray
Ce qu’il faut pour vivre / The Necessities of Life – Bernadette Payeur, René Chénier
Normal – Andrew Boutilier, Carl Bessai
* Passchendaele – Niv Fichman, Francis Damberger, Paul Gross, Frank Siracusa
Tout est Parfait / Everything is Fine – Nicole Robert
BEST DOCUMENTARY / MEILLEUR DOCUMENTAIRE
INFINIMENT QUÉBEC – Jean-Claude Labrecque, Yves Fortin, Christian Medawar
MY WINNIPEG – Guy Maddin, Phyllis Laing, Jody Shapiro
* UP THE YANGTZE – Yung Chang, Mila Aung-Thwin, John Christou, Germaine Ying-Gee Wong
BEST DIRECTION [...]

Christopher Plummer Interview at TCM

Christopher Plummer, whose autobiography In Spite of Myself has just come out, was interviewed by Jeff Stafford for the Turner Classic Movies website. Below is a brief snippet:
TCM: With you being such a classically trained actor, I was curious about your opinion of "The Method" and Marlon Brando’s impact on the theatre world with A Streetcar Named Desire.
CP: Listen, to me "The Method" is usually totally misunderstood. It doesn’t mean that you have to mumble and not be heard. It means that you use it when you’re in deep trouble, when you can’t bring your imagination to work then you try and have a sense memory of your own that can help and [...]

THE INSIDER – Al Pacino, Russell Crowe

The Insider (1999)
Direction: Michael Mann
Screenplay: Eric Roth and Michael Mann, from Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair article “The Man Who Knew Too Much”
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Colm Feore, Michael Gambon, Rip Torn
 

 
"It’s old news. … We’ll be ok," says Don Hewitt (Philip Baker Hall), the creator of the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes. "These things have a half-life of 15 minutes."
"No, that’s fame," replies 60 Minutes anchor Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer). "Fame has a 15-minute half-life. Infamy lasts a little longer."
The infamous "things" referred to by Hewitt and Wallace are the scandals that erupted in early 1996, when it was revealed that CBS News had refused to air an interview [...]

ALEXANDER II – Colin Farrell

ALEXANDER Review: Part I
Fast forward to the Battle of Gaugamela (in today’s northern Iraq), where Alexander is discussing war strategies with his generals and counselors. His father murdered by a traitor (Olympias may have had a hand in Philip’s assassination) and all potential rivals to the throne murdered at his command, Alexander has become the supreme ruler of the Macedonian empire, which now stretches all the way to the border with Persia. Without a Macedonian equivalent of Freud to help him sort through his Oedipus complex, his father-son complex, his demigod aspirations, and other assorted neuroses, Alexander has turned into an overachiever who is compelled to go on conquering whichever land he finds in his way. That will keep him [...]

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