Why is it I can picture a bunch of guys going up on stage and screaming "STELLA?!" ;)
CNN.com - Like movies? Try 'Movieoke' - Mar 27, 2004
I haven't had a chance to see City of God yet, but I definitely plan to. In the meantime, here's an article on Fernando Meirelles who directed it.
CNN.com - The mysterious 'City of God' director - Feb. 28, 2004
I love independent films. I tend to go for those before any popular studio film. Here's an article on independent films and Harvey Weinstein.
CNN.com - When the independents took over - Feb. 23, 2004
There's another studio that is steadily gaining on Miramax. This article discusses it and Bob Berney who is the studio's president.
Newmarket gets savvy with Oscar campaigns - Feb. 23, 2004
If you're a Roger Corman fan, you'll want to read this article.
CNN.com - Review: The real independent - Feb. 23, 2004
For those who have been missing their weekly fix of Sex & The City, here's an interview with Darren Star.
CNN.com - How 'Sex' changed the face of TV - Feb. 22, 2004
Here's an interesting article about the town used to film The Passion of the Christ.
CNN.com - Italian town hoping to reap 'Passion' rewards - Apr 12, 2004
Here's an article from cnn.com that talks to Donnie Brasco about The Sopranos.
CNN.com - Review: What the real 'Sopranos' are like - Apr 13, 2004
Here is the latest on the planned Simpsons film. . .
'Simpsons' Film Will Take Years
The eagerly-awaited movie version of The Simpsons is finally under way, but fans are being warned they will have to wait years before it hits cinemas. Yeardley Smith - who provides the voice for eight-year-old character Lisa Simpson - fears avid viewers of the show will lose interest in the cartoon family by the time the film is released, but believes it's more important for Simpsons bosses to focus their efforts on the current series rather than the movie. She says, "Animation takes forever. My wish for the show is that we go out with a bang not a pimple." Last week it emerged the new season of The Simpsons was under threat because of a pay revolt among the actors who give voices to Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and the other stars.
Independent films are one of my most preferred types of films. Here's an article from TV Guide.com that talks to John Sayles about his latest work and independent films.
John Sayles on Indie Film
by Ethan Alter
John Sayles
John Sayles is considered an elder statesman of the indie film industry, but the 53-year-old writer-director has no trouble keeping up with the younger generation. His 17th feature, Casa de Los Babys, hits DVD next week, just as he's putting the finishing touches on his next movie, Silver City (due out this fall). Set in a small South American town, Babys revolves around six American women — each of whom are anxiously waiting to adopt a child from the local orphanage. Here, Sayles tells TV Guide Online about wrangling his big casts, making movies in Mexico and the current state of indie film.
TV Guide Online: Like most of your films, Casa de Los Babys features a large ensemble cast. What draws you to this kind of storytelling?
John Sayles: Sometimes, it's the only way to examine a complex situation. In Casa, there's the personal situation that each of these mothers is in and then there's the larger social situation that they really can't think about. So, very often, an ensemble gives you a chance to explore these different areas. Also, I was thinking about how many movies there are about groups of men. Very few are about groups of women and the differences in the dynamics between a group of men and a group of women.
TVGO: Community is an important theme in the film as well.
Sayles: Yes. These women are in a country where they don't speak the language, and so they wind up becoming this kind of expatriate community, despite their differences. They spend a lot more time together there than they ever would back home. I think one of the interesting things in Casa is that you also dip into several subcommunities of the country they're in. And that was always the plan. I was interested in that Upstairs, Downstairs approach. When you're isolated from a culture in a foreign place, there's this mystery. I wanted the audience to actually have this luxury of seeing both sides of the mystery without erasing the line for the characters.
TVGO: Even though adoption is an emotional issue, Babys avoids easy sentimentality.
Sayles: The nature of the situation is that the women don't all get their kids on the same day. There's a very strange kind of accidental nature to it and I wanted that anxiety, that abruptness. There isn't a tearful goodbye; they just get their stuff and they go to the airport.
TVGO: This was your second time making a movie in Mexico after 1997's Men with Guns. Was this experience any easier?
Sayles: It's never easy to make a movie in Mexico. [Laughs] I like Mexico very much, but it's a huge country and every region is very different. Acapulco was a different story than where we shot Men With Guns. The American actresses didn't hear much English on the set, so they were kind of isolated with each other.
TVGO: You've been in independent film for over 20 years. How does it compare now to when you first started out?
Sayles: I think that independent filmmaking right now is kind of where book writing was when I wrote novels years ago. Publishers would get thousands of submissions a year and might publish one of them. And then there might be five that were actually interesting. The problem for independent filmmakers these days is getting their stuff shown rather than getting it made. There are an enormous number of movies out there, but there are only 52 weeks in the year and so many screens that show non-Hollywood movies. So there's a relatively narrow door that everyone is trying to cram through.
TVGO: What can you tell us about your next film, Silver City?
Sayles: It's a kind of a political thriller-satire, set against the backdrop of a gubernatorial campaign in Colorado. Chris Cooper plays the ne'er-do-well son of a prominent political family who is running for governor. But then a dead body turns up while he's filming an environmental commercial, and his campaign manager decides that it was probably planted there to embarrass his candidate. So a detective is hired to find out who might have done this, and the investigation circles back to the family that has been running politics in the state for a long time. Daryl Hannah is in it, and so are Richard Dreyfuss, Maria Bello, Miguel Ferrer and Tim Roth. [Laughs] It's the usual cast of thousands.
I just got back from hearing Robert Katz and Bill Weinman speak about their experiences working in Hollywood. I want to take this moment to give them a huge thanks for coming all the way back to DeKalb to speak to us Hollywood-wannabes. ;) I also want to thank them for bringing a film by Frank E. Flowers called Swallow. Everyone should keep an eye out for Frank E. Flowers in the near future. His next film is going to be called Haven and, based on what I saw tonight, it should be great! Flowers' work reminded me of the first time I saw a film by David Gordon Green at Ebert's Overlook Films Festival. That movie was George Washington and it had the same feel that I got from Flowers' work tonight. I'm now a David Gordon Green fanatic, especially after seeing All The Real Girls, so I fully expect to become a Frank E. Flowers fanatic as well. Also, I really enjoyed the editing sample Bill Weinman showed us. I tend to go too long in my writing--and I'm horrible at cutting things out--so editing is one talent I very much admire. . . and envy! ;) All in all, it was a great couple of hours spent and I thank them both.