AFI FEST 2009: THE ROAD, EASIER WITH PRACTICE

Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Road (top); Brian Geraghty in Easier with Practice (bottom)

Tonight, Wed., Nov. 4, at AFI FEST 2009 in Hollywood:

The Road has been getting a lot of Oscar buzz for star Viggo Mortensen, director John Hillcoat, and for the film itself, a futuristic father-son adventure drama set in a post-apocalyptic world.
In Eduardo Coutinho’s documentary Moscow, the director of a theater group in Brazil’s third largest city sets out to stage a production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s Easier with Practice sounds like an unusual road movie, one in which a book author (Brian Geraghty) traveling with his brother (Kel O’Neill) becomes emotionally attached to a sexy voice on the phone. Could his brother have something [...]

London Film Festival Awards 2009

Star of London for Best Film: Jacques Audiard’s A PROPHET
On behalf of the London Film Festival jury, Anjelica Huston stated: “A masterpiece: Un prohète has the ambition, purity of vision and clarity of purpose to make it an instant classic. With seamless and imaginative story-telling, superb performances and universal themes, Jacques Audiard has made a perfect film.” In A Prophet, Tahar Rahim stars as a prison newcomer who learns how to become that realm’s top dog.

Special mention: John Hillcoat’s THE ROAD

Best British Newcomer: Jack Thorne, screenwriter of the film THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS

Sutherland Award for most original and imaginative first feature: Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani for AJAMI

Grierson Award for Best Documentary: Yoav Shamir for [...]

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 [...]

Viggo Mortensen at THE ROAD Photocall: London ‘09

Director John Hillcoat, screenwriter Joe Penhall, actor Viggo Mortensen attend a photocall for The Road during the Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival at the Mayfair Hotel on October 16.
Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Viggo Mortensen

Viggo Mortensen

London 2009: THE ROAD, MEN ON THE BRIDGE

A handful of Friday highlights at the 2009 The Times-BFI London Film Festival:

The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, sounds like the perfect Thanksgiving movie:
"An unnamed man (Viggo Mortensen) and his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) travel alone through a post-apocalyptic landscape, ravaged by an unspecified catastrophe. Ash and soot hang in the air, it is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is grey. The sky is dark, the cities abandoned and empty, the roads littered with corpses, the countryside deserted save for marauding gangs eating human flesh to survive."
Appropriately enough, The Road opens in the US on Nov. 25. Mortensen, I should add, is a potential [...]

Oscar 2010: Early Predictions – Best Actor

BEST ACTOR

George Clooney, Up in the Air
A professional downsizer finds the frequent-flying love of his life while having to come to terms with his long-lost humanity.

Matt Damon, The Informant!
A pathological liar helps the FBI nab his employer, a dishonest agribusiness conglomerate.

Daniel Day-Lewis, Nine (with Marion Cotillard)
In this musicalized remake of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2, Daniel Day-Lewis plays the old Marcello Mastroianni role of the Italian film director trying to cope with the women in his life.

Colin Firth, A Single Man
In 1960s Los Angeles, a gay college professor is determined to kill himself after learning that his lover has died in an accident.

Viggo Mortensen, The Road
A man and his son struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.

I’d say that four [...]

Asian Festival of 1st Films Awards 2006

2006 Asian Festival of 1st Films Awards
2006 Asian Festival of 1st Films: Singapore, November 29-December 6, 2006
2006 Asian Festival of 1st Films Nominations
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

The Road portrays the lives of a provincial bus driver and his wife through four decades of recent Chinese history. Director Zhang Jiarui was ineligible in the best director category because The Road is his third feature film.
 

BEST FILM
Dombivali Fast, producer: Ramakant S Gaikwad (India)
* Fangxiang zhi lu / The Road, producer: Zhang Jiarui (China)
Journey from the Fall, producer: Lam Nguyen; director: Ham Tran† (USA)
Maskot, producers: Robin Moran and Ari M Syarip (Indonesia)
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Bagher Baccha, producers: Bishnu Dev Halder / Satyajit Ray Film & Television [...]