&

Offers You & a Guest
A Chance to Attend a Special Screening of

Thursday, November 11th, 2010, at 11:00 pm
The screening will take place at a Manhattan Theater location.

 

Invites You & A Guest To A Special Double Feature Advance Screening

 

Monday, September 20th, 2010
The screening will take place at a Manhattan Theater location.
8:00 PM: I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE - Unrated 2010

 

10:00 PM: I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE - Original 1978 Cult Horror Classic

**To Enter Click - I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE Double Feature 

The Academy’s verdict is in: the five films still in the “Best Foreign-Language Film” race are Beaufort (Israel), Mongol (Kazakhstan), Katyn (Poland), The Counterfeiters (Austria) and 12 (Russia). India’s official submission, Eklavya – The Royal Guard is out. But not forgotten.

Bollywood annually cranks out about 1,200 films a year, with spectacles and stars that rival our biggest TomKats and Branjelinas, and now the Bombay-based industry is establishing toeholds around the U.S. So while the world’s most popular form of entertainment won’t be repped with a statue come February 24, its entry from Vidhu Vinod Chopra surely deserves consideration.

Snoop Dogg fans beware. The Tenants may not be what you'd expect from a movie co-starring your favorite Rhythm & Gangsta MC. It's a bookish drama about class, color and creativity that's as confining as its tenement setting. You may rather party at Big Momma’s House.
 
Not that The Tenants ain't got game. Director Danny Green's screen adaptation of the 1971 novel by Bernard Malamud looks for ironies in pre-chi chi Brooklyn and finds them.

With The Syrian Bride, Israeli director Eran Riklis sturdies his reputation as a filmmaker who can tell a local story with universal appeal -- Israeli audiences included. It's the sort of breakthrough that resonates with the self-proclaimed maker of "obscure Chinese or European films" who spent part of his boyhood in the U.S. and loves American movies.

 

Summary:
 
Barry Sonnenfeld sends a harassed dad and his family camping in an RV, and arrives at a PG comedy that's actually amusing.
 
Story:

Bob Munro has promised his family a Hawaii getaway, but suddenly swaps it for some old-fashioned bonding and Rocky Mountain camping in a recreational vehicle. The embattled soda exec must clinch a deal in Colorado to save his corporate neck, but he will endure everything from backed up plumbing to teetering over a rock before subjecting his loved ones to worry. Spared such news, they're free to act out in dad's mobile monstrosity. Along the way, raccoons, cascading torrents and other unity-forging indignities will remold these quirky souls into a family. Father knows best, however potholed the road to realization.

Interview with Patricia Finneran, Festival Director, 2007 
SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival

Maryland’s Silver Spring sprang to life June 12-17as Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival unspooled 100 films from 42 countries--and even tacked on an extra day. According to festival director Patricia Finneran, “We got 1,735 submissions and if there were any more I stopped counting.” Laura Blum sat down with Patricia to get the skinny on the growing fest.

Hail Steven Spielberg and his new masterpiece! So declared Time magazine, which got the first Munich interview and may have had some studio gods to appease.

But with my eyes I saw it: the flick's an Olympic bore. At two-and-a-half unnecessarily stretched hours, it's a thriller that sprawls more than it thrills.

Vigilante justice is alive and kicking in Tommy Lee Jones’ feature directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada — even if its titular character is not. Played out along both sides of the Texas-Mexico border, this Western morality tale aims to bury anti-Mexicanism for once and for all.

As ever in a Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) screenplay, Three Burials torques separate lives into a twist that keeps turning long after the screen goes dark.

MINE opens theatrical run: 
Hurricane Katrina's animal survivors have their day
Geralyn Pezanoski's fine new documentary Mine is all about what happened to the household pets -- mostly dogs -- during, after and even long after Hurricane Katrina. While the during and after sections are fairly expected, though Ms Pezanoski's mind, heart and camera, still manage to catch the odd and affecting moment, it's the "long after" section -- the film's lengthiest -- during which Mine really rivets.

In his elegant and obtuse way, Austrian director Michael Haneke expresses a dark and mysterious vision in deploying his odd period film, The White Ribbon. The White Ribbon won the Palme d'Or for best film at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Now that anyone with a laptop can make films, screenwriting smarts have never been so in demand. No wonder Los Angeles-based TV/Film Seminars & Workshops has taken its script lollapalooza to the nation, including to Hollywood East -- New York City.

So just as the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival was getting underway, four screenwriting swamis blasted into town for an intensive weekend of enlightenment that the fest's filmmakers should have been required to attend.

Aptly dubbed The Screenwriters' Summit, the April 29-30 2006 event convened Michael Hauge, John Truby, Linda Seger and Syd Field for two morning-to-night marathons of craft analysis in peak form. The event, the first of its kind in New York, filled the DGA theater with screenwriters, producers, directors, creative executives and movie wannabes from all over the world.

Michael Hauge, author of such bibles as "Writing Screenplays That Sell," kicked off the proceedings with a four-hour meditation on six-stage plot structure. Delving into the inner and outer wellsprings of character motivation, he mapped the ideal hero's journey from "Identity" to "Essence."

Said New York-based Robert Bruzio, a long-time Hauge client whose screenplay was selected for last year's Independent Feature Project market, "he helps you build conflicts that allow you to elicit the emotions that you're intending to build." Bruzio's screenplay--about a baseball star who went to prison for killing someone--now has an A-list director attached.

The next four-hour block belonged to John Truby, familiar to both novice and advanced writers alike as the creator of Blockbuster screenwriting software. It's safe to say that attendees who doubted the validity of such software prior to his session emerged wild-eyed converts, such was the aha! factor of his insights into the anatomy of successful screenplays by genre.

Noting that "95 percent of writers screw up at the premise," Truby admonished, "premise is the most important decision you'll make" on the grounds that "every other decision flows from it." He advised writers to summarize their story in one sentence, with "some sense of inciting event, main character and outcome."

Truby has worked with the Hollywood pantheon of writers, producers and directors, but declines to mention names. "That's why they pay you very nicely, so you won't discuss the fact that they've actually hired you," deadpanned Truby. "They want the illusion that everything came out perfect in one fell swoop, and it doesn't work that way." Comforting words indeed to writers like the weekend's Summiteers, who seemed to know from sweat and tears.

For a change of pace, the evening brought a live pitchfest anchored by creative producer and "King of the Pitch" Robert Kosberg. Courageous participants lobbed their movie and television ideas and were either waved off stage with annotated thank yous or encouraged to follow up with formal submissions. For the few lucky ones who scored the latter, they stand to join an eventual production as a writer, producer or, at very least, as an idea-maker who's paid to stay away.

Anthony Puleo was one of the few lucky ones. His pitch for "Going Guido," a comedy about "a sexually challenged teen who enlists help to lose his virginity to transform him into an Italian lady's man," hit Kosberg as just the sort of high concept romp that studios and production companies are clamoring for. "It's pretty unbelievable, actually," grinned Puleo. "I don't want to get too overwhelmed, but just to get a read is definitely worth the weekend, right?" Puleo hadn't originally planned to take the stage. "But I got hazed by Michael Hague in the morning!"

Anthony Gioseffi, on the other hand, got the gong. "Still, it felt great," he said gamely. "You gotta do it as a screenwriter." Gioseffi pitched a Sci Fi fantasy "set on another planet where competing technology is so advanced they wielded computers to create magic." Replaying his moment, Gioseffi said, "At first I had him. Then he started looking down. I knew I didn't have him." At least Gioseffi and anyone else with a Hollywood dream can have another shot at Kosberg through bobkosberg@nashentertainment.com

Sunday morning got underway with Linda Seger--author of such mega-sellers as "Making a Good Script Great" and "From Script to Screen"--beaming her brights on themes, images and image systems with character creation as the main POV. Based on the developmental stages elaborated by Erik H. Erikson in his classic "Childhood and Society," she detailed key issues that might bedevil a character at a particular age, and the negative consequences likely to be carried over to the next stretch of life if unresolved. Seger advocated mining these psychological theories not only for the dramatic motivations enacted on screen, but also for the backstories that may help a writer better know his/her characters more generally.

As Seger pointed out, screenwriters must enter their main characters' heads asking, "Do you want to make something of it?" She continued, "In drama the answer is always yes." Accompanying her lecture with clips, she unpacked the filmic images that have served great screen characters across a broad swath of genres, and showed how--together with dialogue--these images can help telescope themes of character and story.

At the coffee break, Seger waxed enthusiastic about joining forces with her workshop colleagues for such an intensive bootcamp. Not that it's the first time they've shared the marquee; each gives a hit-and-run seminar at the annual Screenwriting Expo--a three-day blitz in October that rains down more than 300 sessions on Los Angeles.

"But this kind of stunt is unusual for me," she said. "Most of my seminars are two days and sometimes up to two weeks. I presume we're not contradicting each other." She added, "When I team-teach, it's carefully worked how we build on one another's topics. This time I don't know what they're doing!"

Syd Field took over from Seger in the afternoon before they doubled up for the evening's grand finale. Author of "Screenplay," "Going to the Movies," and other bookshelf staples, Field talked about his extensive development experience and how he came to conclude that screenwriting is "a craft that can be learned."

Drawing an analogy between film and natural elements, he likened the relationship between character and structure to that of an ice cube and water. "An ice cube has a definite crystalline structure…yet when it melts, how can you differentiate between it and water? You can't." Hence his observation, "Character is the be-all and end-all of your story that is held together by structure."

Field geared his comments to a more elementary student, which may have delighted any audience members who were overwhelmed by the floodlet of sophisticated wisdoms that came before him, but clearly met with a few grumbles from the more accomplished chorus.

Nonetheless, the loud consensus was that New York's inaugural Screenwriter's Summit was well worth the time, travel and treasure ($500 for the whole shebang, with pro-rated fees per segment), to hear these screenplay royals discuss different aspects of their craft. As aspiring writer Dave Ricci put it, "They complemented each other beautifully."

For further information, email the event's producer, TV/Film Seminars & Workshops, at contact@screenwriterssummit.com

Screenwriters' Summit NY 2006
April 29-30 2006
DGA Theater
New York

This year's New York Film Festival opened with George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck, an entertaining film with strong performances but limited by its unwillingness to challenge the prejudices of its intended audience.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu by Cristi Puiu utilizes real time to powerful effect.

The Dardenne brothers continue their investigations into contemporary proletarian life with L'enfant, which again suggests an anti-idealist remake of a film by Robert Bresson — in this case, Pickpocket.

Avi Mograbi's Avenge But One of My Two Eyes is a serious, highly intelligent, and cinematic essay on Zionist racism.

Steven Soderbergh's Bubble is an intriguing departure for this uneven director, with convincing non-professional performances.

Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale further confirms the director's talent for original dialogue and eccentric characterizations, abetted by his remarkable cast.

A new film by the relatively unknown Dorota Kedzierzawska is always welcome; her I Am  does not confound expectations.
Bennett Miller's Capote is a sensitive, tradition-of-quality enterprise featuring a tour de force — if slightly studied — performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Park Chan-Wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is either a bold experiment in cinematic form or a lurid, exploitation drama; this viewer remains undecided.

This viewer also wonders whether Lars Van Trier's Manderlay, a sequel to Dogville, is not a mere outrageous political provocation or, alternatively, if it succeeds ultimately as an audacious, Brechtian parable.

Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto, the festival centerpiece, is sustained by its central performance (Cillian Murphy), energetic wrtiting, and creative mise en scène.

Jean-Paul Civeyrac's Through the Forest is a captivatingly enigmatic foray into the fantastic.

Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Who's Camus Anyway? also confused this viewer: was it a subtle meditation on contemporary alienation or a sluggish, overly conceptual failure?

Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times is the work of a master; no more need be said.

Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now  relies on conventional filmmaking but tells a powerful story well.

Michael Winterbottom's ebullient Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story reimagines Laurence Sterne's classic novel in cinematic terms; his attempt is engagingly offbeat.

Patrice Chéreau moves from strength to strength with his mesmerizing Conrad adaptation, Gabrielle.

Alexander Sokurov's The Sun is a difficult work by a great artist; it demands to be reseen.

The festival revived Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger in a new print; it remains a strong, intellectual thriller.

The festival closed with Michael Haneke's mysterious Caché which further ramifies the exploratory criticism to be found in the director's other works.

Special events this year included: stimulating dialogues with the Dardennes brothers, Michel Winterbottom, and Patrice Chéreau; a screening of an obscure, early Graham Greene film, The Green Cockatoo; Shinya Tsukamoto's unsettling horror video, Haze; and an exciting video transcription of a performance of a modern Kabuki play, Nezumi Kozo.

This year's sidebar was a tribute to 110 years of films from Shochiku studios with a generous selection of titles, most presented in outstanding prints.

Views from the Avant-Garde featured a new work by Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, a revival of Andy Warhol's Blue Movie followed by a lively appearance by Viva, a screening of The Grandfather Trilogy by Allen Ross, an excellent Larry Gottheim program, a gorgeous Heinz Emigholz selection, and new (and some old) work by many other major and good, minor artists.

A documentary about Iraq’s procurement of nuclear weaponry, Stealing the Fire had opened in New York just over a year after 9/11, a mere hop from Ground Zero.

Throughout the five years it took John S. Friedman and Eric Nadler to film their investigation, its implications would have given peace lovers pause. But now, amid war talk over Iraq and looming threats of terrorism, it’s impossible to watch Stealing the Fire without thinking, “hell.” Prepare to cuss, just don’t miss this rousing howdunit.
 
Stealing the Fire takes as its protagonist Karl-Heinz Schaab, a German technician nailed for hawking classified nuclear blueprints and knowhow to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. While Schaab is the blue-eyed face of this treason, Friedman and Nadler round up a gang of German corporations for a judgment as well.
 
The opening segment of the film follows Schaab on a legal goose chase culminating in his court trial in Munich, in 1999. Along the way we meet a dizzying array of advocates and detractors in several countries, from Brazilian army brass to captains of German industry with Nazi connections. While these talking heads shoot in and out of the frame with Brownian motion, the exercise does just what the filmmakers set out to do:  tell the elusive story of how countries score illicit nuclear arsenals through concrete names and events. 
 
The idea of casting Schaab at the center of the narrative came to Friedman and Nadler while tracking the findings of U.N. inspectors in Iraq. It’s a device that does the job, if not always to full satisfaction. 

Schaab offers himself up to the camera for spins around town, homey moments with the wife, jokey outtakes with his lawyer and even scenes at his trial. Yet as a vehicle of the filmmakers’ larger investigation, Schaab, the “50 percent criminal, 50 percent victim,” remains at large. It’s tough to get a fix on this man without qualities, and we’re not sure we want to. 

But then surely this is one of the lessons of Stealing the Fire. Schaab is everyman, tempted by filthy lucre, out for himself. The same goes for corporations. “Exports über alles,” as German journalist Hans Leyendecker comments in the film. 

For its second act, the documentary sends us back in time, where the ironies of history are on inglorious display. Friedman and Nadler are big on context (check out their earlier works on nuclear proliferation and post-Cold War perils, not to mention Max Ophuls’ Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, which Friedman produced). In Stealing the Fire, they’re hot on the money trail of German companies that profited from the Holocaust and that persist in banal evils today — such as supplying the wherewithal for nuclear mass destruction to countries you wish they wouldn’t. While by no means the lone damnable firm in Germany or elsewhere, the multinational Degussa takes the limelight in this 95-minute probe. 
 
Through more and less effective voice-over, dramatization and archival footage, we delve deeper into the Nazi past. We learn that, in Degussa’s cozy wartime collaboration with the SS, it plumped its coffers by appropriating Jewish-owned companies, by recycling the precious metals taken from Jews (including yanked teeth in concentration camps), and — through one of its subsidiaries — by producing Zyklon-B for ethnic cleansing in the gas chambers. 

The kicker? Degussa was the company that came out with the ultracentrifuge, the technology that Schaab thieved for Bagdad. Back to the future, we learn the centrifuge is the magic wand enabling the extraction of weapons-grade uranium-235. Popcorn, anyone?
 
Despite the dense downer of much of the film, Friedman and Nadler are not without a sense of humor.  The punch line of the film is that Schaab, the first man to be openly tried and convicted in the West for atomic espionage in more than 50 years, is judged guilty but given a juvenile delinquent’s five years’ probation and a laughable $32,000 fine. The German government, we’re told, preferred to play down the whole stinking mess. 
 
Based on several sources, the film wonders if German officials didn’t turn the other way as the technology exports set out for Saddam Hussein. Khidhir Hamza, formerly in charge of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, gives his own testimonial. “Germany was an open field to us…no security, no hassle, unrestricted, uncomplicated,” he said in the film. “Without the Germans, there would be no centrifuge program.” 
 
Stealing the Fire stockpiles scads of such explosive comments. In their fervor to detail the workings of the weapons underground, Friedman and Nadler sometimes dwell on logistical and scientific minutia at the viewer’s loss. Curiously, the filmmakers seem to upend their strategy when, toward the close of the film, Jonathan Schell swans out to pronounce that the real story resides at a far loftier level. All that close-up sleuthing, for naught?
 
Whatever its overindulgences, Stealing the Fire is important viewing for anyone who plans to be conscious in these troubling times. Scientists say centrifuge technology could help Iraq get weapon-grade fissile material and clear its biggest hurdle to building a bomb. 

As you watch Stealing the Fire, you may find yourself hoping more than ever that Scott Ritter was right to insist that Iraqi nuclear proliferation just wasn’t a problem.