- Los Angeles, 10 January: Raising questions about a recently instituted change in the way it conducts its voting, the People's Choice Awards presented Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 its trophy for favorite movie of 2004 and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ for favorite movie drama. The decision had been leaked last week on GoldDerby.com, a website that tracks entertainment awards. The website said that both Moore and Gibson had been tipped off ahead of time that they would win. It also pointed out that while previously winners had been conducted by a Gallup Poll, "which gave a more scientifically accurate reflection of the American people's choices," current voting is conducted online, allowing for political and religious groups to organize massive campaigns to support their favorite films. Other winners included Shrek 2, for best comedy film; Julia Roberts, for favorite female movie star; Johnny Depp, for favorite male movie star; Renée Zellweger, for leading lady; and Brad Pitt, for leading man. -- IMDb
- London, 11 January: The British box office rose 4 percent in 2004 to a record $1.58 billion. Today's London Daily Telegraph quoted analysts as saying that the figure was especially encouraging since the year failed to produce any runaway blockbusters. Unlike the U.S., which also saw a slight rise in overall revenue, attendance figures in the U.K. were also up, rising to 156.8 million versus 148.5 million in 2003, according to the newspapers, which cited figures from Neilsen EDI. The three top films of the year were Shrek 2 with $90.32 million; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with $86.38 million and Bridget Jones and the Edge of Reason (no figure provided). -- IMDb
 - Bangkok, 12 January: Despite the devastation and loss-of-life incurred by Thailand in last month's tsunami, the third annual Bangkok International Film Festival 2005 was expected to open as planned today (Thursday in Thailand) at several theaters, hosted by the country's Tourism Authority. The festival, produced by Beverly Hills, CA-based Film Festival Management, will feature more than 180 films, shown in several downtown Bangkok theaters over nine days. Commenting on the festival, the Bangkok Post observed that it faces the task of "establishing a meaningful niche in the film festival circuit as well as creating real significance for local filmmakers and audiences alike." However, the decision to hire a U.S. firm to produce the festival and to feature many English-language films without translation has upset many local film makers. Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who received a Jury Prize award in Cannes last year, told the Post: "This event seems to me more like a celebration of movie stars rather than a celebration of movies." But Craig Peters, head of Film Festival Management responded: "Our objective is to expose international films to the Thai community and distributors, and to expose Thai filmmakers to the rest of the world. And sure, tourism is the important part." -- IMDb
- Los Angeles, 16 January:
 The Hollywood Foreign Press Association distributed its largesse around fairly evenly Sunday night, thereby giving no film a special boost for Oscar consideration. Here are the winners for 2004 in the Motion Picture categories:
· Best Motion Picture, Drama: The Aviator
· Best Actress, Drama: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
· Best Actor, Drama: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
· Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: Sideways
· Best Actress, Musical or Comedy: Annette Bening, Being Julia
· Best Actor, Musical or Comedy: Jamie Foxx, Ray
· Best Foreign Language Film: The Sea Inside
· Best Supporting Actress: Natalie Portman, Closer
· Best Supporting Actor: Clive Owen, Closer
· Best Screenplay: Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Sideways
· Best Original Score: Howard Shore, The Aviator
· Best Original Song: "Old Habits Die Hard" (Alfie)
· Best Director: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
 - Los Angeles, 19 January: Stan Lee, who created the Marvel comic book characters The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Thing, Dr. Strange, Mighty Thor, Captain America, Daredevil, and more, must have been feeling like one of his own superheroes today as a judge ruled in favor of Lee's demand for 10 percent of Marvel's profits from the two Spider-Man movies. Lee had claimed in his lawsuit that Marvel had reneged on its agreement to give him 10 percent of the profits on movies, DVDs, merchandise and other items related to the characters he created. Following the ruling Lee said, "I am gratified by the judge's decision although, since I am deeply fond of Marvel and the people there, I sincerely regret that the situation had to come to this." -- IMDb
- Park City, 20 January:
 The Sundance Film Festival opens today with quirky comedy Happy Endings, but for 20,000 people heading to the top U.S. event for independent film, Endings is just the start of 10 days of packed screenings, star-gazing and parties. And this year, it is not just American films and filmmakers who will have a chance to showcase themselves at the Park City, Utah, festival -- but foreign ones as well. Backed by actor Robert Redford, Sundance, which runs from Jan. 20, to Jan. 30, is an essential stop for unknownfilmmakers looking to land on the marquee of independent moviemaking. Winning one of its awards, or selling a movie to a distributor, gives a huge lift to a rising star.
For the first time, Sundance this year is holding competitions for international films in drama and documentary categories in the same way it does for U.S. filmmakers. "This is a way of giving (foreign films) more visibility," said festival director Geoffrey Gilmore. The goal is to spotlight world cinema the way the festival has documentary films. Sundance has helped raise awareness of "docs," and the result was seen last year with the $28 million global box office of anti-fast food doc Super Size Me. "If anything, more and more, we will find the documentaries dominating the independent arena," said Mark Urman, head of the U.S. distribution for ThinkFilm.
World cinema competitions include dramas like Britain's On a Clear Day, about a middle-aged man who swims the English Channel, and South Korea's Green Chair, about an older woman's affair with a minor. Documentaries range from Finland's The 3 Rooms of Melancholia, examining the Chechnya conflict, to Australia's Dhakiyarr vs. The King, in which descendants of a disgraced Aboriginal man seek to restore his honor. A total of 120 films, about a third of them from foreign countries, will be screened, selected from more than 2,000 entries submitted. The festival reaches its dramatic climax on Jan. 29 when juries pick top films, directors, writers and occasionally actors, who are singled out for special mention. Sundance 2004 box office hits like Napoleon Dynamite ($45 million) and Open Water ($51 million) bode well for this year's marketplace, film buyers and sellers said.
- Los Angeles, 23 January:
 The Producers Guild of America, often an important barometer of Oscar® sentiment, last night named The Aviator, director Martin Scorsese's film biography of billionaire Howard Hughes, best film of 2004. In 11 of the past 15 years, the Producers Guild has honored films that went on to win the best picture Oscar -- including The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King last year. The producers are the first of three craft guilds to name their best picture for the year prior to the Oscars® on Feb. 27. Next Saturday night, the Directors' Guild will select its best film and then on Feb. 5, the Screen Actors Guild will do the same. The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has strong competition as Oscar® season enters its final weeks. Critics have hailed comedy Sideways and Clint Eastwood's tragic boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, and many Oscar® experts say there will be a tight race between the three films. The Aviator was named best dramatic picture at last week's Golden Globe Awards, but Clint Eastwood was named best director for Million Dollar Baby.
 - Los Angeles, 24 January: On Monday, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation released its list of "worst-of" contenders for the group's Razzie Awards. Leading their list was Catwoman, starring Halle Berry and Sharon Stone, with seven nominations and Alexander with six. In the Worst Actor category, Ben Stiller was nominated for five films: Along Came Polly, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Envy and Starsky & Hutch. Also nominated for Worst Actor: George W. Bush for his performance in Fahrenheit 9/11.
- Los Angeles, 27 January: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has changed its rules applying to documentaries, allowing them to qualify for Oscar® consideration even if they are shown on television, provided that they are given a minimum of 25 commercial theatrical exhibitions in 15 states. Previous rules had barred films from being considered in the documentary category if they were shown on television within nine months after they appeared in theaters. Had these rules been in effect last year, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 would almost certainly have received a nomination in the documentary category. It was disqualified when it was shown on cable TV on election eve. -- IMDb
- Los Angeles, 30 January:
 In an important pre-Oscar® film industry award, the Directors Guild of America named Clint Eastwood best director last night for his bittersweet female boxing drama Million Dollar Baby. The 74-year-old Eastwood beat out the evening's other favorite for the award, Martin Scorsese, who has been nominated six times for the DGA best film directing award -- including for films Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980) -- but never won. Scorsese's film The Aviator, a biography of billionaire Howard Hughes, has received 11 Oscar® nominations, the most of any film. Million Dollar Baby got seven, as did Finding Neverland, a drama about how Peter Pan came to be written.
"This is a surprise. ... I got to say this is a real pleasure. I am as pleased as punch," Eastwood told a black tie audience after receiving the award. Earlier in the evening, Scorsese had received a standing ovation from the Directors Guild audience, leading some to think he was the evening's favorite. This year's battle for the top Oscars® is seen largely as a contest between the two veteran directors. Scorsese has never won an Oscar® but Eastwood has a best director's Academy Award for his 1992 Western Unforgiven.
The Academy Awards are announced on Feb. 27 but before then several industry groups like the Directors Guild announce their awards. The Aviator was named best picture of the year by the Producer's Guild last week. While important barometers of how Academy members are thinking in the run-up to the Oscars®, the craft guilds awards are by no means infallible. Fifty of the last 56 winners of the DGA award have gone to win Oscars®, but two of those failures were in the last five years. In the DGA's other major film award for the evening, the prize for best documentary went to Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni for their tale of nomadic life in Gobi desert, Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel (The Story of the Weeping Camel). Among the documentaries it beat for the award was Michael Moore's controversial anti-Iraq war film Fahrenheit 9/11, which has fared poorly this awards season. It received no Oscar® nominations. -- Reuters
- Park City, 30 January: Ira Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue, starring Rip Torn, was the surprise winner of the American Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival Saturday, while the Audience Award went to Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow. In the documentary category, Eugene Jarecki won the Grand Jury Prize for his Why We Fight, an appraisal of the military-industrial complex. Jarecki's brother Andrew, the founder and voice of Moviefone, won the same award two years ago for Capturing the Friedmans
 - Amsterdam, 31 January: The Amsterdam Filmmuseum announced today that the 83-year-old movie Beyond the Rocks (1922), the only film ever to costar film legends Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson, will be screened at the second annual Filmmuseum Biënnale on April 5, then released in Dutch theaters on May 26. A date for a U.S. release has not been set. The film, which has been fully restored and given a score by composer Henny Vrienten, had been lost for more than 75 years when a copy was discovered in the collection of a Dutch movie collector following his death. -- IMDb
- Tokyo, 1 February: For the second consecutive year, box office revenue in Japan has set a record, rising to $2.03 billion in 2004, up 3.8 percent over 2003, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan said Monday. Ticket sales were driven in large part by local films, in particular Hayao Miyazaki's animated Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl's Moving Castle), which alone earned $192 million. Revenue from domestic movies rose to 37.5 percent while revenue from Hollywood films declined 3.1 percent. Ticket sales were up 4.8 percent to 170 million. -- IMDb
- Los Angeles, 5 February:
 Modest wine country comedy Sideways staged a surprise knockout over favorites Million Dollar Baby and The Aviator by winning the top prize for best ensemble acting at the Screen Actors Guild awards this evening, an important pre-Oscar test. Hilary Swank won the best actress award for her performance as a gritty boxer in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby, and Jamie Foxx was named best actor for his pitch-perfect performance as soul singer Ray Charles in Ray. Veteran actor Morgan Freeman took the best supporting actor award for playing a gym manager and washed out fighter in Million Dollar Baby, and Cate Blanchett won best supporting actress for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. The SAG awards are a major test on the road to the Oscars® because actors are the largest single group voting for the Academy Awards. Experts said The Aviator or Million Dollar Baby would have had front-runner's status for the best-picture Oscar®, Hollywood's highest award, if either had won. But the same might not be able to be said of Sideways, a modest comedy that has garnered several critics awards but is not the kind of showy film that wins the Oscar®. The film was released by News Corp.'s Fox Searchlight Pictures. -- Reuters
 - Beverly Hills, 7 February: Organizers of the 77th Annual Academy Awards have come up with a novel way to keep the Oscars® (relatively) short and sweet this year: in-audience trophy presentation. Yes, in an attempt to keep the interminably long award show running at a faster clip, producer Gil Cates has announced some major format changes, including handing some of the lower-profile statuettes to winners at their seats rather than having viewers wait for the largely unrecognizable behind-the-scenes folks to make that long trek to the stage. "The concept this year is to minimize the line between people onstage and in the audience," Cates announced at the annual nominee award lunch Monday in Beverly Hills. Not to mention minimizing the face time for the top sound-editing guys and makeup mavens.
Another strategy Cates intends to employ is to gather all of the nominees in several categories onstage and then hand out the Oscar, again to avoid that hike to the stage. Of course, Cates was quick to point out that the new rules will not apply to every category. As has become routine, Cates did urge all potential winners to keep their acceptance speeches quick and issue blanket thank-yous in lieu of reading long lists of names. The ceremony will also feature a new, more interactive set that will jut into the crowd, as well as cameras all over the Kodak Theater to show more of the celeb-filled audience. "It's very complicated," Cates said. "And I guess it could be a complete mess. But I don't think so."
In other Oscar® news, ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have reupped their deal to keep the show on ABC through 2014, adding six years to their current contract. By the end of the new term, ABC will have aired a whopping 38 consecutive telecasts and 56 of the 61 of the televised Academy Award ceremonies. The 2005 Oscar® show will take place Feb. 27 live on, yes, ABC. -- Full story, E! Online
- Venice, 10 February:
 Academy Award®-winning animator and director Hayao Miyazaki, often described as the Walt Disney of Japan, has been selected to receive the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement this year. Miyazaki, whose films include My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away (which won the Oscar® for Best Animated Feature in 2003), and the recent hit Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl's Moving Castle), will be the first animation director ever to be so honored by the festival. Previous directors who have been honored with the award include Federico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick. -- IMDb
 - New York, 11 February: Opening in theatres across the US this weekend -- Hitch, starring Will Smith in the title role as a male matchmaker; and, Disney celebrates the Valentine's Day weekend with Pooh's Heffalump Movie.
- Los Angeles, 11 February: Despite the severe punishment meted out last year to a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who turned over his Oscar® screeners to a friend, who in turn posted them on the Internet, there are even more Oscar® screeners turning up online this year than last, the Los Angeles Times reported today. The newspaper said that screeners for all five films nominated for best picture are currently available for online downloading. Contributing to the wholesale piracy, the Times said, is that some studios did not ask members who received the screeners to sign a pledge not to share them or warn them of the potential consequences if they did. Some studios also chose not to go to the expense of having the screeners "watermarked" so that they could be traced to the source. -- IMDb
- London, 12 February:
 The Aviator soared this evening at the British Academy Film Awards, taking four prizes including best film. The abortion drama Vera Drake won three, including best director for Mike Leigh. The Aviator -- which has 11 nominations for the Feb. 27 Academy Awards -- had led the field with 14 nominations. But members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts scattered the prizes widely. While Aviator director Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio went home empty-handed, the film won a best supporting actress award for Cate Blanchett, as well as prizes for production design and best hair and makeup. Imelda Staunton won best actress for her wrenching performance as a 1950s Cockney housewife who performs illegal abortions in Vera Drake. The film also took the costume design prize. Jamie Foxx was named best actor for his uncanny depiction of singer Ray Charles in Ray; the film also won the award for best sound. British star Clive Owen was named best supporting actor for Closer.
The British awards, known as BAFTAs, have become an essential pre-Oscars® stop since they were moved in 2000 from April to a February date, preceding the Academy Awards. A clutch of Hollywood stars -- including DiCaprio, Keanu Reeves, Richard Gere, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell and model Claudia Schiffer -- braved the rain and cold to walk up the red carpet in London's Leicester Square, watched by hundreds of fans.
The Ché Guevara road movie The Motorcycle Diaries won two awards -- best foreign-language film and best music. Another double winner was fractured romantic comedy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which took BAFTAs for editing and for Charlie Kaufman's original screenplay. The prize for best adapted screenplay went to Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor for the wine-tasting comedy Sideways. My Summer of Love, Pawel Pawliowski's bittersweet tale of romance between two teenage girls, was named best British film. The Orange Film of the Year prize -- the only award decided by the public -- went to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. -- AP
- Hollywood, 16 February: Four Hollywood organizations representing stunt men are banding together to petition the movie academy to create a new Oscar® category, best stunt coordinator, the New York Times reported today. The groups are Stunts Unlimited, Brand X, the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures and the International Stunt Association. In a joint statement that the groups plan to release next week, they wrote: "Stunt performers are the only faction of the movie industry that must literally risk their lives for the sake of their art. ... The talent and expertise that is required of a stunt coordinator to be both creative and safe is enormous and highly deserving of academy recognition." However, John Pavlik, a spokesman for the academy, told the Times: "Stunt groups have asked for categories in the past. The board of governors has looked at it in the past, and is reluctant to add categories." -- IMDb
- Berlin, 19 February: A film that transports Georges Bizet's famous opera "Carmen" to the South African townships and translates the libretto into the Xhosa language won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival Saturday. Rank outsider U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha was the first South African movie to compete for Berlin's Golden Bear award, and its victory underlines the renaissance of African films. Also showing in Berlin this year were Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April, films shot in Africa that deal with the horrors of the 1994 genocide. The Berlin award comes hard on the heels of an Oscar best foreign film nomination for Yesterday, a South African film about an HIV-positive woman.
Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tagen (Sophie Scholl - The Final Days), a film about a heroine of the German resistance during World War II who was executed by the Nazis, took Silver Bear awards for best actress (Julia Jentsch) and best director (Marc Rothemund). The best actor Silver Bear went to Thumbsucker star Lou Taylor Pucci, who appears along side Hollywood star Keanu Reeves in the film. -- Reuters
- Los Angeles, 19 February: The Writers Guild of America selected the comedy Sideways as the best adapted screenplay of 2004 and another comedy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as the best original screenplay of the year. At the WGA awards ceremony tonight, the award for Sideways was claimed by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor and the award for Eternal Sunshine, by Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth. Both scripts are also nominated for Academy Awards. -- IMDb
- Los Angeles, 22 February: Chris Rock will receive only union scale for hosting the 77th Academy Awards telecast, syndicated columnist Liz Smith reported today, noting that all the other Oscar® hosts before him were likewise paid only scale. "It's mostly for the exposure and the honor of it," Smith observed. She also noted that Rock and the presenters do receive a lavish "gift bag" for their services. This year's is worth an estimated $30,000, she said. -- IMDb
- London, 24 February:
 The British film magazine Empire has named Mel Gibson's Braveheart the worst Best Picture Oscar® winner, maintaining that writer Randall Wallace's dialogue for the film "has all the thudding subtlety of a parody." Runner-up was 2002's A Beautiful Mind, which was faulted for its "willfully dishonest screenplay." In third place was Cecil B. De Mille's 1952 "tawdry circus spectacle" The Greatest Show on Earth. The 1942 winner, How Green Was My Valley, apparently made the list primarily because it beat out Citizen Kane and The Maltese Falcon that year. -- IMDb
- Los Angeles, 28 February: The Oscars® presentations came off as predictably as a fixed fight Sunday, with Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby winning for best film, best director (Eastwood), actress (Hilary Swank), and supporting actor (Morgan Freeman). Jamie Foxx won for best actor in Ray and Cate Blanchett won for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator.The writing awards were captured by Sideways writers Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor for best adapted screenplay, and by writer Charlie Kaufman for his original screenplay, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Incredibles won for best animated feature, while Spain's Mar adentro won for best foreign film. -- IMDb
- Paris, 1 March: A long-shot film swept France's César awards, beating out the favorite in every category. L'Esquive (The Dodge) won for best film, best director (Abdellatif Kechiche), best script, and best female newcomer (Sara Forestier). The favorite, Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement), starring Audrey Tautou, which had been nominated in 12 categories, failed to pick up a single top award. The best foreign film award went to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray.
- Manchester, 4 March:
 Sarajevo-born film director Emir Kusturica, who won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985 for When Father Was Away on Business and in 1995 for Underground, has balked at demands by British censors that he cut a two-second scene in his latest film showing a cat pouncing on a dead pigeon. In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, Kusturica railed, "I am not cutting my film for this jerk. Was he brought up by pigeons or something? ... I just don't get it. The pigeon was already dead, we found it in the road. And no other censor has objected. What is the problem with you English? You killed millions of Indians and Africans, and yet you go nuts about the circumstances of the death of a single Serbian pigeon. I am touched you hold the lives of Serbian birds so dear, but you are crazy. I will never understand how your minds work." -- IMDb
- New York, 4 March: Features scheduled for general release this weekend -- Be Cool, another installment in the Chili Palmer saga, starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Vince Vaughn; The Pacifier, with Vin Diesel as a bodyguard hired to protect the five kids of a recently deceased government scientist; and The Jacket, a fantasy thriller with Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
- New York, 11 March: Both the critics and box office analysts are hedging their bets on 20th Century Fox's animated Robots. Forecasts for its weekend take range from $25 million to $60 million, an enormous spread. The unknown factor, the Hollywood Reporter suggested today, is how strong an audience pull the rival family film The Pacifier might exert. (The Vin Diesel starrer showed a considerable amount of strength not only last weekend, when it surprised analysts by placing first at the box office, but also during midweek, when it continued to dominate.) Also opening this weekend is the Bruce Willis/Kevin Pollak action thriller Hostage. And, Chan-wook Park's international award-winning Oldboy shows at the Cleveland International Film Festival.
- Paris, 15 March: Sofia Coppola has won approval from the French government to film scenes for her biopic Marie-Antoinette in the palace of Versailles, the French daily Le Parisien reported today. The newspaper said that production of the film, which stars Kirsten Dunst in the title role and Jason Schwartzman as her husband, Louis XVI, began in Paris last week and is due to be completed in 11 weeks. Filming at the palace has been closed to the press, according to the French wire service, Agence France Presse, which did not indicate whether the palace had also been closed to tourists.
- Hong Kong, 28 March: At ceremonies that featured many of Asia's top screen performers, the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards honored Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle as the best film of 2004, while the two stars of 2046, Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi, won the acting awards. Derek Yee won for best director for his One Nite in Mongkok. In a night that commemorated 100 years of Chinese cinema, the late Bruce Lee was named "Chinese Film's Bright Star of the Century." The award was accepted by Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee Keasler. -- IMDb
 - New York, 18 March: Horror films have had a good ride at the box office this year despite receiving their usual downpour of negative reviews. The Ring Two, directed by Japanese horror master Hideo Nakata, is probably no exception. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times concludes that despite "Mr. Nakata's track record and the radiant presence of its star, Naomi Watts, The Ring Two is a dud." Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun begins his review by asking, "Remember mood rings? The Ring Two is a mood movie -- a bad-mood movie." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post admits that he was utterly baffled by the film. It "appears to have been written on a large piece of blank paper by chickens with their feet dipped in ink," he writes. On the other hand, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times argues that the "charm" of The Ring Two "is based on the film's ability to make absolutely no sense, while nevertheless generating a real enough feeling of tension a good deal of the time." And David Hiltbrand in the Philadelphia Inquirer found the film to be "unusually atmospheric" and although "subtler and slower-moving" than most American horror films, it is nevertheless "nightmarish, in the true sense of the word." -- IMDb
- Hollywood, 1 April:
 Oscar® organizers have sued several companies and 50 unknown parties for selling tickets for Hollywood's biggest award show, fetching up to $30,000 a pair from fans longing to rub shoulders with Leonardo DiCaprio or Hilary Swank. The suit, which involves three pairs of resold tickets, was filed last week by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It seeks to bar agencies and individuals from selling tickets to future Oscar® shows and asks for damages that include a return of profits. The lawsuit and the resale value of the coveted Oscar® tickets shows the lengths to which celebrity watchers go to mix with Hollywood's elite.
David Quinto, a partner at the academy's law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, said he had heard of tickets going for as much as $40,000 a pair. To bar people who have bought the nontransferable tickets from resellers, Quinto's staff is stationed outside the Oscar® show to clear up issues if guest identification does not match a ticket. Security officers usher out illegitimate holders. "When you show up, you better have an I.D., or you're escorted off the red carpet," Quinto said, adding that every year there are a "couple of dozen" disputed tickets. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, names ticket resellers Musical Chairs, VIP Getaways and Stubhub Inc., as well as 50 "John Does," including a Sharon Oren, who claims to be Sharon Osbourne's limousine driver. Filing a lawsuit against a "John Doe" allows the Academy to add defendants later if it identifies those it holds responsible, a spokeswoman for the Academy said.
According to the lawsuit, VIP Getaways' Craig Banaszewski recommended an academy investigator buy the $30,000 pair and then put on the hard sell. The price would only go up next year, "probably to $30,000 per person," the suit quoted him as saying. A lawyer for Musical Chairs said he had not seen the suit and declined to comment. The other named defendants either did not return calls or could not be reached. Quinto said the academy began closely policing ticket reselling after the 1991 Gulf War, when security officials grew concerned about potential terrorism. -- Reuters
- New York, 1 April:
 Two vastly different new movies will be competing for box-office attention over the weekend, Beauty Shop, a female/African-American comedy starring Queen Latifah that opened on Wednesday, and Sin City, a male/comic-book thriller. Analysts give Sin City the edge to win. But it is not a clear winner with critics, who are vastly at odds. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, while praising some of the film's stylish images, suggests that Robert Rodriguez, and the Sin City graphic novel creator Frank Miller, who collaborated on the film, have failed to bring the comics' characters to life. "When stuff goes blam, you jump like someone who's landed on a whoopee cushion. But then you just sit there, wrap yourself in the dark and try not to fall asleep," she writes. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal describes his reaction to the movie this way: "If there's a single scene that epitomizes the sensation that overtook me slowly but inexorably, it's the one in which Clive Owen's character ... sinks slowly into a tar pit." Dan DeLuca in the Philadelphia Inquirer also admires the film's visual presentation, but concludes, "Sin City ultimately comes off as an exercise in cold-blooded stylishness, uninvolving and overlong at 2 hours and 6 minutes." Likewise, Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times concludes that the movie is mostly style and little else. "This isn't an adaptation of a comic book, it's like a comic book brought to life and pumped with steroids. It contains characters who occupy stories, but to describe the characters and summarize the stories would be like replacing the weather with a weather map," he says. Nevertheless, he acknowledges, the movie succeeds as "a visualization of the pulp noir imagination, uncompromising and extreme. Yes, and brilliant." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe puts the emphasis on the brilliant, writing that "Sin City is the first great Hollywood joy ride of the year ... a stunning, visceral piece of work -- cheap thrills polished to the level of high art." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post describes the movie as "a dessert from hell ... pure outlaw art" and a blood descendant of The Wild Bunch and Kill Bill. He concludes: "Two hours and six minutes has never seemed so much like two and six-tenths seconds. It's pure pulp metafiction." And Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune bestows 3 ½ stars on the film, but warns: "Sin City is an evil place, full of awful people, an obsessive movie full of monomaniacal tough guys. Yet when Miller and Rodriguez move it into gear, noir lives." -- IMDb
- New York, 8 April:
 He stands tall, looking ready to kick your ass. But Hong Kong actor-director-writer-producer Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer) is also just as likely to dance a jig and make funny faces. He's a one-man comedy parade. In the seriously cuckoo Gung fu (Kung Fu Hustle), Chow knocks himself out to please and also to sneak in a little social satire. Set in China in the 1940s, the movie takes deft notice of how the poor are exploited in Pig Sty Alley. Chow stars as Sing, a wanna-be gangster who's willing to step on the underdog to impress the notorious Axe gang, whose members hack up a rival before doing a musical number in top hats and tails. You get the picture. And if you don't, join the hustle. Nothing is safe from Chow, who spoofs the CGI tricks of The Matrix, turns his characters into live-action cartoons and then, miraculously, makes it all ring true. Does the plot spin out of control? You bet. But dumb fun this smart is a gift. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- Los Angeles, 9 April:
  The legendary Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which once was the reigning studio in Hollywood, has officially been sold to a consortium headed by Sony Corp. of America. On Friday, Sony and its partners -- which include Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Comcast Corp. and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners -- paid $12 per share for MGM and assumed $1.9 billion in debt as part of a deal valued at $4.8 billion. The acquisition closed nine days after the European Commission gave its blessing to the transaction, which first was unveiled in September. According to the agreement, MGM will continue to operate as an independently owned motion picture, television and home video company under the control of the consortium -- albeit on a greatly reduced scale -- with Sony taking over the distribution of MGM films and TV episodes as well as its home video library. About 250 of its 1,400 employees, mostly connected to the library, are expected to stay with MGM. -- Liza Foreman, Hollywood Reporter
- Paris, 12 April: France's Culture Ministry has decided that films partly financed by American film companies may qualify for state subsidies so long as they are filmed in the French language and produced in France. The decision comes after the movie Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement), filmed in France, with a French cast and crew, was denied a share of the film subsidy fund because it was co-financed by Warner Bros.' French subsidiary -- while, on the other hand, Oliver Stone's Alexander, made in English and in North Africa, received a subsidy because it was co-produced by the French film company Pathé and because Stone is half-French. According to the London Independent, Dimanche director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was so incensed at the government's decision that he began referring to Stone as "Oliver Caillou." (Caillou is the French word for stone.) In its report, the Independent observed, "Behind the row lies the difficulty of operating a system of national subsidies in an increasingly international industry. The large French movie production companies muddy the waters by occasionally making thrillers in English for a more global audience." -- IMDb
- Los Angeles, 18 April: Sony Pictures Entertainment is expected to announce at the National Association of Broadcasters convention today that it will convert its entire library of movies and television shows to the digital format. Ascent Media Group of Santa Monica will be performing the transfers using Hewlett-Packard technology. The fact that HP computers rather than those from Sony itself will be used is certain to raise eyebrows in the industry. Today's Los Angeles Times quoted Sony Pictures exec Jeff Hargleroad as saying that the move is designed to help the studio respond faster to the demand for digital versions of its movies and TV shows. The Ascent system, which will store the product on high-capacity hard drives will also hold descriptions of scenes, making searching easier than in the past. Ascent exec Vikki Pachera said that for example, a filmmaker will be able to search the library for scenes with the Eiffel Tower in them. -- IMDb
- Seoul, 18 April:
 Korea has emerged as a leading producer of motion pictures for the world market, with 194 movies exported to 62 countries in 2004, according to the Korean Film Council. The government body said that the films earned $58.3 million in overseas markets, with Japan accounting for $40 million of that amount. The Bangkok Post observed today that in the past year, "it has become the norm that at least one new Korean film opens in Thai theaters almost every weekend." The newspaper went on to comment: "In a stunning achievement, Korean cinema of recent years has managed to reconcile the classic dilemma of the movie industry: it has offered both commercially successful titles ... as well as heavier stuff that has become film festival faves." -- IMDb
 - London, 20 April: The film of Douglas Adams' cult novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy finally opens today after 26 years in the pipeline. The cast, from John Malkovich to Bill Nighy, is set to turn out in force for the red carpet premiere in London's Leicester Square. Martin Freeman, who starred in hit TV comedy "The Office," plays journeyman Arthur Dent, while Mos Def plays Dent's best friend, Ford Prefect. Zooey Deschanel plays Trillian, girlfriend of Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed three-armed ex-hippie President of the Galaxy, played by Sam Rockwell. Stephen Fry provides the voice of The Guide. Directed by Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, the film tells the story of tea-drinking earthling Arthur Dent, who wakes up one morning with a bad hangover to discover that his house is being demolished and Planet Earth is scheduled for destruction to make way for an intergalactic highway. His best friend, Ford Prefect, then reveals that he is actually an undercover alien researching the Hitchhiker's Guide and is determined to use Arthur as a guinea pig in his research experiment. Arthur has no choice but to tag along on a trip around the galaxy and throughout the experience remains unable to get a decent cup of tea.
Prior to his death in 2001 at the age of 49, Adams had been working on the screenplay. Adams was notoriously uninterested in deadlines and the film had languished in development for two decades. When he died, the project was put on hold again, but was later resurrected by his friend and business partner Robbie Stamp. The book was conceived on a starry night in 1971 when Adams, then a 19-year-old hitchhiker, lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, clutching a borrowed copy of Hitch Hiker's Guide to Europe by Ken Welsh. Staring at the night sky, he decided the world needed a guide to the galaxy. -- Reuters (Use this link to Jamie Russell's rave review from BBC Film.)
Cannes, 20 April:  The Cannes Film Festival, which gave its top Palme d'Or prize last year to Michael Moore's hotly debated documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, announced a slate of 20 films that will compete in this year's festival that appeared to be devoid of controversy. At a news conference in Paris, Thierry Fremaux, who headed the group that selected this year's competing films, said, "This year, there is a return to a certain classicism, the great authors, many of whom have already been in the competition." They included Gus Van Sant of the U.S., David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan of Canada, Lars von Trier of Denmark, and Wim Wenders of Germany. French director Dominik Moll's Lemming was chosen to open the festival on May 11. It is also one of the 20 films in the competition. Tommy Lee Jones's directorial skills will be assessed at Cannes with the debut of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, in which he also stars. Out of competition, George Lucas will be giving international critics a first look at Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith on May 15, and Woody Allen will be presenting his latest film, Match Point. (Lucasfilm also said on Tuesday that it plans to show all six Star Wars films at a London marathon screening at Odeon Leicester Square, the U.K.'s largest movie theater, on May 16.) -- IMDb
 Los Angeles, 22 April: Film critics have found much to admire about Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter, starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, but their overall reaction is one of reserved dissatisfaction. Mostly the film is criticized for its apparent effort not to offend. A. O. Scott in the New York Times observes that such a movie "is conventionally described as a political thriller, but The Interpreter is as apolitical as it is unthrilling. A handsome-looking blue-chip production with a singularly impressive Oscar pedigree, it disdains anything so crude, or so risky to its commercial prospects, as a point of view." Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times reacts similarly. "While it would be a mistake to devalue the qualities director Sydney Pollack and stars Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn bring to this complex political thriller, that's not the same as saying it is completely successful," he writes. Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe observes that the movie is supposed to be about "the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black Africans, whose murders [Kidman's character] is forced, alas, to interpret. Kidman becomes the face of genocide, and I'm dismayed to report that atrocity has never looked so lovely." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post takes note of the fact that the script was reworked by five writers (apparently not collaboratively). "While superficially intelligent, this Hitchcock-inflected thriller ultimately plays out like a series of half-hearted compromises," he writes. In the end, writes Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post, "You're left with admirable, even noble, wreckage, but wreckage it is." Nevertheless, several critics, while finding fault with the film's script, conclude that there's a great deal to appreciate about the film -- particularly its use of the United Nations as a backdrop, the first time the U.N. has ever permitted itself to be used for such a purpose. The location, writes Robert Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, "adds an unstated level of authenticity to everything that happens." Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun adds: "The U.N. presence keeps the movie energized. ... The most enticing part of the structure may be how it opens up a city that embodies internationalism organically: Its vast picture windows showcase the miracle of New York." And Peter Howell in the Toronto Star suggests that the U.N. ought to have received star credit along with Kidman and Penn. "There is more to moviemaking than just the casting and directing," he comments. "Sometimes where you make a film is as important as who you put in it." -- IMDb
 Cannes, 29 April:  The second year of the Cannes Film Festival's Classics Series will feature two restored works of French director Jean Renoir, the 1925 silent film Whirlpool of Fate (La Fille de l'eau) and his 1951 English-language film The River (Le Fleuve) accompanied by an exhibit illustrating his other work, the festival announced yesterday. The Series, to be hosted by actress Betsy Blair, will also feature what it calls an "homage to Mexican cinema," with a selection of recently restored films. Marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of British filmmaker Michael Powell, the event will also feature seven films that he directed in the 1930s and '40s, including The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. Powell's widow, the Oscar®-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, is due to attend the screening of Black Narcissus. In addition, the festival will honor James Dean, who died fifty years ago in an auto accident, by screening Michael Sheridan's unreleased documentary Forever Young and two of Dean's films, East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause. Ten other restored prints are due to be presented during the series, including Delbert Mann's Marty, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes fifty years ago (and the Oscar® the following year).
New York, 2 May: Chinese director Li Shaohong's Stolen Film has received the Founders Award, the highest honor at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Accepting the award, Li, whose film has been banned in China, expressed the hope that it would now be "green-lighted so that my people in China can watch this film soon." Meanwhile, the biopic Kinsey won the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for outstanding film Saturday. -- IMDb
New York, 6 May:  Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby, makes his directorial debut in Crash, which he also wrote, and which stars, among others, Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Ludacris, and Brendan Fraser. The effort is receiving mixed reviews. Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News writes, "It's good to see a movie that views its characters as mixed bags instead of merely saints or sinners. And there's some very fine acting on display. Crash wants to be taken seriously as a meditation on our anxiety-plagued times, but the coincidences are too pat, the tugs on the heartstrings too insistent." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post also reveals some mixed feelings about the film: "This ambitious directing debut ... is uneven and its interlocking stories rely heavily on coincidence, but the acting is uniformly fine and there are some stunning sequences." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe describes the film as "one of those multi-character, something-is-rotten-in-Los Angeles barnburners that grab you by the lapels and try desperately to shake you up." However, he adds, "its characters come straight from the assembly line of screenwriting archetypes, and too often they act in ways that archetypes, rather than human beings, do." But Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution praises the film as a "literate, engrossing and occasionally funny look at race relations in Los Angeles" and says it's "blessed with a splendid cast and a smart script." And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times praises it as "a movie of intense fascination." He adds: "Because we care about the characters, the movie is uncanny in its ability to rope us in and get us involved." Finally, Ebert concludes: "Not many films have the possibility of making their audiences better people. I don't expect Crash to work any miracles, but I believe anyone seeing it is likely to be moved to have a little more sympathy for people not like themselves." -- IMDb
 Cannes, 11 May:  Lemming, directed and co-written by Dominik Moll and the opening movie of the 58th Film Festival de Cannes, premiered here today and was weird; it's not easy to fit the movie in a category. The movie is funny, sad, confusing and dramatic at the same time. It's about Alain Getty (Laurent Lucas), who works for an company that produces household goods. His newest product is a flying webcam, with which you can surveil your house from everywhere. After a incident with a lemming, he lost control of his life. Suddenly neither the viewer nor himself knows what is happening. Other important characters in this confusing game are his boss (André Dussollier) and Alain's eccentric wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg). The story turns its direction all the time and rushes from incident to incident without explaining anything properly. Example: This excentric boss's wife (Charlotte Rampling) tries to seduce him, but fails to do so. Even though he goes over to his wife an tells her what happened, both of their reactions are low key. Why? The deaths and murders are not very easy to understand... The wife suddenly takes over a soul of somebody else? So many questions, so few answers. The whole thing is too mysterious... After one hour or so I stopped following the story and just kept laughing at the black humour -- which does not appear very often, because the movie has some longer parts that make the boring scenes even longer... Yesterday I had dinner with a moviehost from Scotland, who told me that you have to start a festival with the weakest movie. Let's hope that's the way it works here in Cannes as well. -- by Jacob Montrasio; translated from the original German at mysan.de
 Cannes, 12 May: Woody Allen's new film, March Point, starring Allen, Brian Cox and Scarlett Johansson, premieres today at the Cannes Film Festival. Making his first film in the U.K. with a story originally conceived for New York, Allen once again takes up issues of morality and guilt in what amounts to An English Tragedy, as in Theodore Dreiser. This well-observed and superbly cast picture is the filmmaker's best in quite a long time and as such represents an attractive potential acquisition for a U.S. distributor keen to break Allen's recent string of B.O. flops. Although the script is spiked with mordant humor, the prevailing serious mood is underlined by doom-laden laments from Italian grand opera and references to Dostoevsky, Strindberg and even Andrew Lloyd Webber's dramatically similar The Woman in White. In thematic terms, Match Point, whose tennis allusion reflects a preoccupation with the role of luck in life, comes closest to Crimes and Misdemeanors among Allen's films. -- full review: Todd McCarthy, Variety.com
Los Angeles, 13 May:  Critics are scratching their heads, trying to figure out what prompted Jane Fonda to return to the screen after 15 years in the comedy Monster-in-Law. Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is one of them, writing, "Why Fonda chose this embarrassing project for her first film in 15 years is, as they say, a puzzlement." Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune apparently thinks he's figured it out: "Perhaps the challenge of trying to energize mediocrity is just what she needed after her inactive years," he writes. Similarly, Wesley Morris writes in the Boston Globe that it's "insane that Fonda's first big part in so long is so grotesque. But by Hollywood standards, a movie carried with such gusto by a 67-year-old woman has to be considered a miracle." Jennifer Lopez costars in the movie with Fonda, but she's mostly ignored by the critics. To Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the idea of J.Lo and Fonda locking horns "sounds like fun. But Monster-in-Law, where Bridezilla meets Godzilla, is a comedy so anemic, so toxic, that even Dracula wouldn't bite." Stephen Holden in the New York Times describes it as "a comedy so one-dimensional and craven that it makes Meet the Parents look avant-garde." But Lou Lumenick in the New York Post, calling Fonda "a hoot and a half," remarks that the movie is "a cannily selected vehicle that's more than funny enough to relaunch [Fonda] as a major movie star." -- IMDb
Venice, 14 May:  Dante Ferretti, the most famous art designer in Hollywood, favorite of Federico Fellini and now Martin Scorsese, 2005 Oscar® winner for The Aviator, has accepted the offer to chair the international jury for the 62nd Venice Film Festival which will take place on the Venice Lido from August 31 to September 10. Mostra director Marco Müller confirmed that he will present an official selection of no more than 60 films. Alongside the official selection this year will be the Secret History of Asian Cinema, dedicated to the "invisible" cinema of the Far East (China, Hong Kong, Japan, India). The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, as previously announced, will go to the Japanese master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. The award will be presented to the great artist on Friday September 9 during "Miyazaki day", when some of his, as yet, unreleased films in Italy and Europe, will be shown.
 Los Angeles, 18 May: Call it the critics' war over Star Wars. Seldom have reviews clashed as remarkably as they have with Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post praises director George Lucas not only for the remarkable special effects in the film but for his willingness to address the fundamental question, "What makes man evil?" The issue, he says, is "what drives the movie ahead -- it starts fast, gets fast and angry and ends fast and furious. And I do mean furious. Fury is its fuel, its raison d'etre and its destiny." Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun calls it "a pop masterpiece." A.O. Scott in the New York Times concludes that it is the best of all the "episodes," including the original Star Wars (renamed Episode IV -- A New Hope). Scott does mildly criticize the dialogue and the performances, but, he adds, "nobody ever went to a Star Wars picture for the acting. Even as he has pushed back into the Jedi past, Mr. Lucas has been inventing the cinematic future, and the sheer beauty, energy and visual coherence of Revenge of the Sith is nothing short of breathtaking." But clearly Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News was expecting something more. "The dialogue is astonishingly feeble, the acting unforgivably wooden," she writes. "To paraphrase Yoda ... Bored I am." Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle writes similarly: "The picture is laden with plot and difficult to follow, even for someone who has seen every Star Wars installment. The action scenes are overlong and unexciting, and if anyone needs to take a bathroom break, go during a light saber duel. They'll still be fighting when you get back." Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer describes the dialogue as "ponderous hooey" that "crashes and burns like an X-wing zapped out of the sky by a star destroyer." Many reviews fall somewhere between those two forces. Gene Seymour writes in Newsday, "The characters speak fluent billboard. The battle scenes, especially the ones at the very beginning, steal the show. And acting honors threaten to go, by default, to a 3-foot-tall special effect." Many of the critics conclude that Episode III is a major improvement over the other two prequels and that the special effects work is particularly impressive. Roger Ebert writes in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Episode III has more action per square minute, I'd guess, than any of the previous five movies, and it is spectacular. The special effects are more sophisticated than in the earlier movies, of course, but not necessarily more effective." Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times remarks, "It's a tribute to the power and durability of the universe Lucas and company created in the first three Star Wars movies that we want to see this episode despite the tedium of the previous two and despite knowing exactly what will happen in it." But Turan concludes that the special effects in the movie make it worth the wait. "It's not just in warfare that Revenge's visuals excel. The film is frankly overwhelming in its ability to create a spectacular variety of alternate worlds."
The film is set to open nationwide at midnight tonight, with numerous theaters reporting sellouts throughout the wee hours. Twentieth Century Fox distribution chief Bruce Snyder told the New York Times that he can't recall ever seeing advance sales for any movie running so strong. Analysts are predicting that the film could earn $120 million or more by the end of the weekend. Making the ticket sales even more extraordinary, he noted, is the fact that "it's not exactly summertime." The George Lucas film is certain to lift the box office out of one its longest-running slumps of recent years -- nearly three months long. Total box office is now down 8 percent for the year, with actual admissions down some 10 percent. -- IMDb
Cannes, 23 May:  Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne took the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or Saturday for L'Enfant (The Child), about a thief who sells his infant son. In a kind of display of Franco-Hollywood unity, the Dardennes received their award from recent Oscar® winners Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. It was the second Palme d'Or for the Dardennes; they won in 1999 for Rosetta. They dedicated their prize this year to French journalist Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi assistant, Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, who have been held hostage in Iraq since January. The festival's Grand Prize (regarded as the second-place award) went to Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, starring Bill Murray. The director's prize went to Austrian Michael Haneke for the French film Caché (Hidden). Though his film had been the favorite of critics to win the top award, Haneke said that the important thing for him was that it was picked up at the festival by distributors all over the world. He added, "That doesn't mean that it'll be on the same footing as Star Wars." Tommy Lee Jones, who competed at Cannes with The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, his directorial debut, won the best actor award for his role in the movie. The film also won for best screenplay (by Guillermo Arriaga). Israeli actress/comedian Hana Laszlo took the best actress award for Free Zone. The Jury prize went to Wang Xiaoshuai's Shanghai Dreams. -- IMDb
New York, 3 June:  Some critics are already suggesting that Ron Howard's Cinderella Man may become the second boxing movie in a row to win the best-film Oscar® -- even critics that don't particularly like it. For example, Lou Lumenick of the New York Post writes that the movie "is an Oscar®-baiting fairy tale that manipulates the audience at every turn of the cliché." Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post praises the performance of star Russell Crowe as former heavyweight champ Jim Braddock and says that it "will no doubt make the middleweight Cinderella Man a contender -- an Oscar® contender." Peter Howell in the Toronto Star calls it "the year's first guaranteed Best Picture Oscar® nominee." Several critics take exception to the unsympathetic portrayal of former heavyweight champ Max Baer in the movie, including Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post, who observes, "It's just not right. In fact, Baer was as beloved as any heavyweight in history, was seen as a friendly, clownish kind of guy, and when a fighter died after a fight with him, he was so upset he quit boxing for several months, then went 2-4 when he came back." Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News also points out that Baer became an American "hero in 1933, when he wore a Star of David on his boxing trunks as he TKOed Hitler's favorite, the German Max Schmeling, at Yankee Stadium." -- IMDb
London, 3 June: In an announcement that stunned an already reeling British film industry, David Heyman, producer of the Harry Potter movies, indicated yesterday that he may shoot the next episode of the franchise outside of Britain. In an interview with the British trade publication Screen Daily, Heyman said, "We are exploring all options to determine the best place in the world to make the film. We are looking at the U.K. and other places all over the world." Heyman's comments follow published reports that the producer of the James Bond movies is considering shooting the next film, Casino Royale, in Bulgaria and Romania. -- IMDb
 Seattle, 6 June:  German director Werner Herzog's (Aguirre: The Wrath of God) disturbing documentary Grizzly Man is screened at the Seattle Film Festival. Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone: "...Herzog has created something unique and unforgettable. His film is a document of the life of Timothy Treadwell, who lived for fourteen summers among the grizzly bears of Alaska until one of the creatures clawed him to death in 2003. Using remarkably vivid homemade movies that Treadwell, a struggling Aussie actor, made of himself with the bears, along with interviews of those who knew him, Herzog conducts his own expedition into knowing the unknowable -- the true task of any filmmaker. Herzog makes it an art."
New York, 6 June: Even as it dropped to third place in domestic weekly box-office gross receipts, George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith established another record: fastest movie ever to cross the $300-million mark. It did so on its 17th day of release, one day faster than last year's Shrek 2. Trade reports noted that with $308.8 million Sith has already passed the $307 million taken in by the original Star Wars in 1977. However, using a standard inflation calculator, the original film's take would be worth nearly $1 billion in current dollars. The highest grossing film of the series was Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace, which earned $431 million during its run. Sith appeared stronger overseas than in the U.S., earning $38.5 million, a drop of just 37 percent, according to Daily Variety. Its worldwide total now stands at $617 million. -- IMDb
New York, 8 June:  Yesterday's death of Anne Bancroft from uterine cancer at age 73 made the front pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times today, befitting an actress who was as esteemed on the Broadway stage as she was in Hollywood films. In fact she had had a lackluster career in movies in the 1950s until she appeared on Broadway in The Miracle Worker to such acclaim that she was asked to recreate the role on film. It won her an Oscar® in 1963. As Daily Variety observed in its obituary today: "From that time on, her career went from strength to strength." She received four more Oscar® nominations -- for The Pumpkin Eater in 1965, The Graduate in 1967, The Turning Point in 1977, and Agnes of God in 1985. But she remains best remembered for her performance as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate in 1966, playing "the older woman" in Dustin Hoffman's life (despite the fact that, in real life, she was only six years older than he). Despite the fact that it was described as a match of opposites, her marriage to Mel Brooks, whom she wed in 1964, was regarded as one of the most enduring between Hollywood celebrities. She reportedly prodded Brooks to turn his movie The Producers into a Broadway musical. -- IMDb
 New York, 10 June: There's hardly a review of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that doesn't mention the "chemistry" between Brad Pitt an Angelina Jolie. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times argues that it's all important to the movie. "I think they have it," he writes, "and because they do, the movie works. If they did not, there'd be nothing to work with." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News argues that their "visual appeal and edgy chemistry salvage a number of scenes that would otherwise simply collapse from the weight of their own preposterousness." Claudia Puig in USA Today comments that the "The best moments in the action-packed romantic comedy are when the couple exhibit their considerable chemistry." Gene Seymour in Newsday writes that the stars' "on-screen chemistry, even at moderate boil, is so combustible that you're tempted to put warning stickers on every frame they share." But the headline over Eleanor Ringel Gillespie's review in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reads, "The stars have chemistry, the script doesn't." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 14 June:  Batman Begins is set to begin in most theaters at one minute past midnight tonight, prompting many newspapers to publish their reviews of the movie today. And, while there's not a Joker among the critics, a few express some misgivings about the approach taken by director Christopher Nolan. Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail writes: "All of the story is so absurdly humorless that it is dramatically inert, as if Nolan had decided the only way to make the Batman character more substantial was to put weights on his wings." Although acknowledging that the movie "does far more right than it does wrong," Ty Burr in the Boston Globe concludes that it "feints at topical notions of airborne terrorism and fundamentalist disgust with American decadence, but it quickly devolves into rubble and noise" and ends in a sequence that is all cliché. But Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune, while finding numerous faults with the film, says that he nevertheless regards it as "the best of the Batman series since director Tim Burton moved on after 1992: a violently kinetic, eerie portrait of a revenge-driven, two-faced hero ... waging pathological warfare against the fiendish master criminals who have turned Gotham City (partly recreated in Chicago) into hell on Earth." His Chicago colleague, Roger Ebert, also finds much to praise about the film, concluding: "This is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. There's something to it." Christian Bale is also receiving much positive notice for his performance in the title role. "Bale is by far the best of Hollywood's Batman corps," writes Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News. "The former child actor (Empire of the Sun) has as strong a screen presence as Michael Keaton, George Clooney or Val Kilmer, and -- as we discover here -- he is a better actor." The question remains, however, whether this new Batman will rescue the box office. Several reviewers, including some who praise the movie, express their doubts that it will attract a mass audience. Detroit Free Press critic Terry Lawson comments: "his is a grown-up comic book movie, with no comedy. ... While I greatly prefer this approach, with its life-sized performances from excellent actors and its morally ambiguous sobriety to the smash-cut alternative, it cannot be denied that Batman Begins is heavy going." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 17 June:  Some 65 Hollywood stuntmen, or, in the words of today's Los Angeles Daily News, "people who cheat death for a living," staged a demonstration outside the offices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences yesterday, demanding that the work be recognized with an Oscar® for the best stunt coordinator. The protest was organized by Jack Gill, who told reporters, "I am baffled why all these other categories -- production, design, special effects, wardrobe -- are included and we are left by the wayside." The academy reportedly will consider adding a stunt category at a meeting of its board next week, but spokesman John Pavlik told Daily Variety that it was unlikely that the new category would be added. -- IMDb
Use this link to visit the stunt players' petition for recognition by the Academy.
 Los Angeles, 22 June: The American Film Institute has devoted its annual top-100 list to movie quotes this year, topping it with Rhett Butler's scornful, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. The latest list, like those that came before it, is certain to touch off much water-cooler debate in Hollywood. (The GWTW phrase, spoken by Clark Gable to Vivien Leigh, may have seemed scandalous in its day, when "damn" was a verboten word in movies, but it would probably be considered commonplace today.) Other phrases topping the list: 2. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," from The Godfather. 3. "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am," from On the Waterfront. 4. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," from The Wizard of Oz. 5. "Here's looking at you, kid," from Casablanca. -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 23 June: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said yesterday that it intends to limit the number of Oscars® that will be presented to winners in the best picture category. After failing to persuade the studios to limit the number of nominated producers, the Academy board said that it will give the Producers Guild of America full power to decide who qualifies as a legitimate producer for Oscar® recognition. "The PGA has set up a very thorough and conscientious process of vetting producer credits," said Academy executive director Bruce Davis. "The Academy isn't an investigative body, and it seems silly for us to set up an elaborate mechanism to do something one of the guilds is already doing."
In further Academy news, despite recent demonstrations by Hollywood's stunt people, the board of the Academy yesterday turned aside a proposal for an Oscar® award for stunt coordinator. "At a time when the Academy is trying to find ways to reduce the numbers of statuettes given out and looks at categories with an eye more focused on reduction than addition, the board is simply not prepared to institute any new annual awards categories," Academy President Frank Pierson said. Stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who has been leading the fight for a stunt category, expressed disappointment and said that he would attempt to appeal the academy board's decision. -- IMDb
Beverly Hills, 24 June: Drawing attention to what an exclusive club the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences actually is, the academy has released the names of the 112 individuals it has invited to join this year. They include Paramount chief Brad Grey, Sony Pictures chief Michael Lynton, Pixar chairman Steve Jobs and DreamWorks cofounder Paul Allen. Some of the actors invited to join the academy include Will Ferrell, Paul Giamatti, Ziyi Zhang and Charlotte Rampling, as well as recent acting nominees and winners Jamie Foxx, Thomas Haden Church, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sophie Okonedo, Clive Owen and Imelda Staunton. The Writers Branch has extended membership to, among others, Paul Haggis, Keir Pearson and Jose Rivera. (Your humble webmaster was overlooked for yet another year.) New members will be welcomed into the organization at an invitation-only reception on Wednesday, September 21, at the Academy's Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills. Use this link to view the entire list of new invitees on the A.M.P.A.S. web site.
Toronto, 28 June:  Deepa Mehta's Water, which triggered violent protests and death threats when it began filming in India five years ago, will open the Toronto International Film Festival, organizers said yesterday. The film, which is set in the 1930s and deals with Hindu child widows, beat out movies by better known Canadian filmmakers Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg for the prestigious opening slot. Water gained notoriety in 2000 after hard-line Hindu protesters burned its sets in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, saying the film distorted Indian culture. Mehta, an Indian-born Canadian citizen, received death threats and had to abandon the production. After taking a break, during which she made romantic comedy Bollywood/Hollywood, she filmed Water in Sri Lanka. The film completes a film trilogy that includes Earth and Fire. Fire, which portrays a lesbian relationship between two Indians, was temporarily pulled from distribution in India after theaters showing it were attacked.
The director said she was shocked and thrilled when she found out on this past weekend that the world premiere of Water would kick off the Toronto festival, often ranked with Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Sundance as one of the world's most influential. It runs from 8 September to 17 September. "I'm in good company. Atom and David are filmmakers I respect and admire deeply, so I feel doubly thrilled," she said. Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies and Cronenberg's A History of Violence, which stars Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris, will screen as gala presentations. Both movies were shown in competition at the Cannes festival in May. -- Reuters
 New York, 29 June: Movie executives hoping that Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise, would pull the box office out of a record 18-week slump, are likely to read today's reviews of the movie with some consternation. Although minor critics had unanimously praised it in early reviews posted on the Rotten Tomatoes website, several reviews by the major critics are about as cold as the Martian ice cap. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times begins his review by remarking: "War of the Worlds is a big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg." But Ebert's remarks seem delicate compared with those of the New York Post's Lou Lumenick, who particularly assails "the lamest ending yet to a Steven Spielberg movie," which he says is "so cheesy it was greeted with gales of laughter at a screening the other night -- and this disappointing War of the Worlds limps to a conclusion that mercifully insures there will not be a sequel." The scene in question takes place in a destroyed Boston, and Boston Globe critic Ty Burr says that the audience that he saw the movie with also burst into laughter. "Then the crowd fell silent -- more silent than I've experienced in a packed theater in many moons -- as the smoking ruins of our city came into focus. War of the Worlds, it turns out, is serious stuff, at times more so than it knows how to handle." Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun pins the blame on Cruise, comments that "the actor's relentless drive to be taken seriously pushes this escapist apocalypse past its tipping point, into irredeemable weightiness." A more charitable comment on the movie comes from A.O. Scott in the New York Times, who writes that while this may be a "lesser Spielberg movie," it nevertheless "succeeds in reminding us that while Mr. Spielberg doesn't always make great movies, he seems almost constitutionally incapable of bad moviemaking." Indeed several critics are dishing out high praise. "If you must see just one Steven Spielberg movie in a lifetime, see War of the Worlds," writes Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe & Mail. Bruce Westbrook in the Houston Chronicle calls the movie "a towering accomplishment -- the most thrilling and action-packed Spielberg film in the director's broad legacy." Acknowledging "occasional flaws and misjudgments," Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post remarks that the film is nevertheless "a brilliantly told tale. It really rips along; it seizes you in its first seconds, holds you spellbound for two short hours and expels you, breathless and spent. It's your best summertime movie rush in many years." And then there's the review by Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News, who suggests that War of the Worlds might well be the best and worst of Spielberg films. He writes: "Fantastic and banal, terrifying and occasionally dull, pure Spielberg and yet at times anonymous, War of the Worlds delivers multiple viewing experiences." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 6 July: Ernest Lehman, best known for his screenplays of such classics as Sweet Smell of Success, North by Northwest, West Side Story, The Sound of Music and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, died Saturday, his wife Laurie disclosed Tuesday. He was 89. In an interview appearing in today's Daily Variety, writer/producer Mel Shavelson remarked, "Ernie Lehman was one of the last and greatest screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age. The only special effects in his brilliant screenplays were human beings." -- IMDb
New York, 8 July:  Most critics have concluded that Fantastic Four is something less than fantastic. "Underwhelming," is how Roger Ebert describes the movie in the Chicago Sun-Times. He concludes: "The really good superhero movies, like Superman, Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins, leave Fantastic Four so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters." Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer is harsher, commenting: "Lacking wit, lacking style, and just plain lacking, Fantastic Four offers a series of noisy confrontations, ho-hum special effects, and a post-action-scene mantra repeated ad nauseam: One of the Fantastics, dusting off debris, checks with another and inquires, 'Are you OK?'" Lou Lumenick in the New York Post is harsher still, describing the film as "the smelliest dead-on-arrival would-be franchise since The Hulk. A perfect storm of wooden acting, hackneyed direction, inane scripting and laughably cartoonish special effects." On the other hand A.O. Scott in the New York Times apparently has concluded that all of that was intentional. "In an era when movies based on comic books have become increasingly solemn and serious, this one is content to be trashy," he writes. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post calls it "a funky, fun film version of the famous Marvel superhero concoction." And Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News takes a middle position -- calling it "neither here nor there." So does Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star, who remarks: "Because 'The So-So Four' would never do for a quartet of weirdly gifted comic-legend superheroes, Fantastic Four is somewhat misnamed. Fantastic it ain't, but not bad it sort of is." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 8 July:  Critics, who rarely give positive reviews to horror flicks, have mostly fine things to say about Walter Salles' Dark Water. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times even includes a little essay on the sentiments of film critics in his review: "I have been criticized recently for giving a pass to films of moderate achievement because they accomplish what the audience expects, while penalizing more ambitious films for falling short of greater expectations. There may be some truth in such observations, but on the other hand, nobody in the real world goes to every movie with the same kind of anticipation. If I see a film by Ingmar Bergman, as I recently did, I expect it to be a masterpiece, and if it is not, Bergman has disappointed me. If I attend a horror film in which Jennifer Connelly and her daughter are trapped in the evil web of a malevolent apartment building, I do not expect Bergman; if the movie does what it can do as well as it can be done, then it has achieved perfection within its own terms." He gives Dark Water three stars. Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer also writes positively about the movie, saying that it "pushes every button on the parental-fear keypad: Divorce, loss of custody, loss of child, loss of domicile, loss of mind. Salles doesn't tap a horror gusher, but trickles a steady panic drip. While his movie lacks the psychological resonance of Rosemary's Baby or The Sixth Sense, it easily equals their creep-out quotient." The film also draws some negative reviews, but, for a horror film, none of them is horrible. For example, Gene Seymour writes in Newsday: "Dark Water is all suggestion and moody inference setting you up for a payoff that seems itself like an apparition." And Claudia Puig writes in USA Today: "Dark Water has more substance and a more interesting look than many horror films, but the familiar elements of the story disappoint." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 14 July: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which already has a rule in place barring its members from endorsing Oscar-nominated films unless they are directly connected with them, added a new rule Wednesday that bars members from hosting screenings for the nominated films unless they are involved in their production. -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 15 July:  Critics generally seem to agree that there are things to like and to dislike about the two new films opening today, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers. In the case of the former, most conclude that the bad outweighs the good. In the case of the latter, good prevails. Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal is one of several critics who conclude that the opening charm of Charlie "gradually gives way to a peculiar state that I can only describe as engagement without enjoyment." Likewise Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post comments that "the film's strenuous efforts at becoming a camp classic eventually begin to wear thin." Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News predicts that the movie will "delight children, annoy fans of the 1971 version ... and perplex everyone else." A. O. Scott in the New York Times calls the newest adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, "wondrous and flawed." And Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times begins his review of the movie by remarking: "When it comes to confections, Tim Burton has confessed, his preference is 'dark, bitter chocolate.' Which is not exactly a surprise. The director's visionary, phantasmagorical version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is equally dark and, if not exactly bitter, unapologetically, relentlessly strange. Burton's gifts ensure you won't be able to take your eyes off the screen, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be happy with what you're seeing." -- IMDb
 New York, 15 July: Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal is one of several critics who conclude that there are a lot of misfires in Wedding Crashers. Nevertheless, he concludes, "There's a lot here to laugh at and to enjoy." He particularly cites one line of dialogue, delivered by an angry wife during a divorce mediation: "You shut your mouth when you're talking to me!" Comments Morgenstern: "This tidbit of skewed logic is only one bright moment of many in a film ... that is blessed with a surfeit of sharply-honed zingers, and a flow of language that's both raunchy and uncommonly rich." Chris Kaltenbach in the Baltimore Sun agrees, saying that the first two thirds of the movie is "very funny, a classic guilty pleasure that revels in its basest elements. If only it didn't get all mushy and profound in the third act, this movie could have been a classic, period." And Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News also remarks, "It would help if the story didn't run off to the punch bowl with about 30 minutes left, but this case of cold feet can be forgiven." Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times concedes that the film is "far from bullet proof." However, she writes, "Witty, unhinged and fearless, it's exactly the kind of movie we need now; if only to give James Dobson something to get exercised about after a long day of focusing on the family." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post compares the ending with "that deflating moment in the classical Don Rickles canon when, after tearing the world collectively a new nether passage, he'd turn to Johnny and say, 'But you know, we're really all brothers under the skin blah blah blah blah.' Ugh." Nevertheless, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are given high marks for their portrayals of two men who crash wedding parties looking for dates. "Vaughn's overbearing slacker-wiseguy and Wilson's blissed-out surfer dude blend into the ultimate patty-melt of slob-comedy personas," writes Gene Seymour in Newsday. And Kyle Smith concludes in the New York Post: "Vaughn and Wilson do cool insincerity as well as anyone since Chevy Chase and Bill Murray chased skirt. Hollywood should keep pairing them until we get sick of them." -- IMDb
New York, 15 July:  Critics have found La Marche de l'empereur (March of the Penguins) to be as wondrous as word-of-mouth has it. Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News concludes: "It will make you want to bill and coo with your mate, cuddle your young and maybe even go for a swim." Nancy Churnin in the Dallas Morning News calls director Luc Jacquet's description of the emperor penguins of Antarctica "stirring profiles in courage." Michael Booth in the Denver Post remarks that the emperors will leave audiences "energized, mesmerized and stupefied by the possibilities of life." The Baltimore Sun's Michael Sragow describes the movie as "eloquent and stirring." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls it "an often-miraculous movie." Although the film is attracting families, the Los Angeles Times warns that it may be too intense for small children. But Wesley Morris comments in the Boston Globe: "Kids might blanch at some of the more upsetting images, but ultimately the movie will delight and uplift more families than it will scare."
Luc Jacquet, the director of the documentary, has expressed surprise over the striking success of the film in U.S. art houses since it opened three weeks ago. For the past two weeks, the film has earned more on a per-theater basis than the two blockbuster hits, War of the Worlds and Fantastic Four. It is expected to expand to about 150 theaters today and to about 500 theaters by next week. In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Jacquet said, "Although the film opened well in Europe, I'm surprised. ... People are liking the film, and I know how difficult it is for a French production to cross over into American theaters." He said that aside from having to film the movie in below-zero weather in the Antarctic, he and his crew also had to complete the film in six months or else they would run out of money. "It's not the kind of movie that you can pitch on paper," he said. "You can't just tell someone, 'OK, I'm going to make a film about penguins, and it's compelling, etc.' It has to be seen. The film, in order to survive and find an audience, had to be shown to get the finishing funds." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 22 July: Not only are movie exhibitors confident that the box-office slump is over, but some are now predicting that a strong fourth quarter will put the year's receipts ahead of 2004's. In interviews with Reuters, the exhibitors indicated that they have strong hopes for King Kong, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., told the wire service: "It looks very, very good for the end of the year but again we have a lot of ground to make up." Thus far this year, the box office is down 7 percent from last year. -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 5 August:  Most reviews for The Dukes of Hazzard are predictably scathing. "So loud, so long, so dumb," mourns Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post. How dumb? Well, Jack Mathews writes in the New York Daily News: "If the person who came up with the idea of a film version of the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard were caught in a bear trap, he'd chew off his foot to get free then wonder why one leg was shorter than the other. That is to say, he might have survival skills but not much sense." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times merely dismissing it as "a lame-brained, outdated wheeze." But then, many critics observe that the original television show, which ran from 1979 to 1985, was hardly any role model. As Gene Seymour comments in Newsday: "A feather-headed, scruffy old TV show deserves nothing less than a feather-headed, scruffy movie version. And The Dukes of Hazzard meets such low expectations." A.O. Scott in the New York Times remarks that the movie serves as "the latest evidence that, for Hollywood studios at least, there can never be too much of a mediocre thing." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal puts it this way: "The Dukes Of Hazzard turns a sow's ear into a bigger sow's ear." Chris Kaltenbach in the Baltimore Sun notes that there's not much of a script evident here and that in fact "the dominant line of dialogue" in the movie is "Yeeeeeee-haaaaaa." And Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, writing from Hazzard-land in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, sums up: "It's every bit as bad as you thought it'd be. Only worse." -- IMDb
Northeast Harbor, ME, 8 August:  Award-winning actress Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for her role as Miss Ellie on "Dallas" from 1978-89 (she dropped out of the series in 1984 because of health problems but returned the following year), has died of lung cancer in Northeast Harbor, Maine at age 82. Bel Geddes received three Emmy nominations and one win during the "Dallas" run. She had a distinguished career on Broadway and films in the late '40s and received a best-supporting-actress Oscar® nomination for I Remember Mama in 1949. Her career was interrupted for seven years in 1951, however, when she was blacklisted after director Elia Kazan, in congressonal testimony, named her as a fellow member of the Communist Party. -- IMDb
 New York, 12 August: There's a shoot-out between critics over John Singleton's Four Brothers that rivals anything seen in the movie itself. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times bestows three stars on the movie and remarks that while it "wants basically to be an entertainment ... it deliberately makes the point that in an increasingly diverse society, people of different races may belong to the same family." (The point is embodied by the four brothers of the title, two white and two black, raised by a white foster mother who is murdered at the outset of the film.) Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News describes it as "a rousing revenge flick that delivers the goods with a mixture of tight action, vivid performances and an old-school soundtrack that evokes the best of blaxploitation cinema." Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post remarks that the film might be criticized as old-fashioned, then adds: "Listen up: If old-fashioned is just code for leaving the theater smiling, sign me up." Like several other critics, Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer thinks of the film as a kind of contemporary B-movie. "It's your basic patter, car chase and shootout. No big budget, stars, or computer-generated tricks. Like cheap booze, it does the job," she writes. But Stephen Holden in the New York Times describes the movie as an "atmospheric, propulsive and ultimately preposterous melodrama." Ty Burr blames Singleton for the film's problems. "Grubby to look at and edited with a rusty knife, it's a bumptious, low-rent ride and further proof that Singleton, for all his status and acclaim, doesn't have impressive filmmaking chops," he comments. Kyle Smith in the New York Post is less guarded in his review, writing "Four Brothers? Ringling Brothers is more like it, because John Singleton's latest stinks like something the elephants left behind." -- IMDb
Los Angeles, 12 August:  Horror movies are rarely critics' cup of tea, but some are saying that The Skeleton Key may be their bag of popcorn. Jan Stuart in Newsday writes: "Gothic horror is just the ticket for August, a time when those of us who are not at the beach working on our skin cancer may be looking for the movie equivalent of the beach read." Manohla Dargis in the New York Times describes it as "one of the most enjoyably inane movies of the season." Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times writes that it "is tightly plotted and suspenseful enough to keep you guessing until the satisfying, unexpected end, which is worth suspending disbelief for." Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it "stylishly spooky" and says that the movie, set in Louisiana, "offers a rich gumbo of menace, mystery and magic -- and then lets it go cold and mushy." And Bruce Westbrook in the Houston Chronicle dismisses it as a "formulaic fear-fest with a bare-bones plot ... more moody than scary." -- IMDb
 Los Angeles, 19 August: On the heels of the best buzz any movie has generated this year, critics are gushing with praise for The 40-Year-Old Virgin, co-written by and starring Steve Carell. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, who calls the comedy, "charmingly bent," observes that nothing Carell has done in the past -- including his regular appearances on "The Daily Show" and his starring role in the U.S. version of "The Office", conveys "his sheer likability [or] his range as an actor, both crucial to making this film work as well as it does." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News writes that Carell "gives a breakout performance in the title role, creating a character who would be downright pathetic if he weren't so darn lovable." Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer marvels that the "film succeeds in having its virginity and losing it, too. Like Wedding Crashers, it purges its cynicism with romanticism." As for the title, Chris Kaltenbach in the Baltimore Sun writes: "People see the name of this movie and get defensive. What's wrong with being a virgin? they ask. Absolutely nothing, and that's part of the point of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, probably the most sweet-spirited sex comedy ever made. It's pretty funny, too." On the other hand, Lou Lumenick in the New York Post isn't buying any of that "sweet-spirited" stuff. "Like the somewhat less smutty Wedding Crashers, it panders to that crowd by wrapping envelope-pushing sex gags -- garnished with yards of misogynistic, homophobic and racist quips -- around a sweet love story between the innocent title character ... and a divorced young grandmother." And Geoff Pevere concludes in the Toronto Star: "The 40 Year-Old Virgin is overlong, meandering and pedestrianly executed (by first-time director [Judd] Apatow), and it leaves you wishing someone had pointed out economy and comedy aren't necessarily mutually exclusive." -- IMDb
 Los Angeles, 25 August: Sid Ganis has been named president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He succeeds writer-director Frank R. Pierson, who had served four consecutive one-year terms, the maximum allowed under Academy rules. Ganis is a former studio chief of Paramount Pictures and vice chairman of Columbia Pictures. In 1996, he founded Out of the Blue Entertainment, which is currently wrapping up production of Akeelah and the Bee, starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, and is working on a movie version of I Dream of Jeannie. With several studio executives in recent days blaming the overall poor quality of Hollywood's output this year for the summer slump at the box office, Ganis sounded positively upbeat when interviewed by today's Los Angeles Times following his election: "I think the motion picture business is safe and sound," he told the newspaper. "Through it all, good films are there and will always have a presence." -- IMDb
 New York, 26 August: Terry Gilliam, the American member of Monty Python who gave the group its quirky graphic designs but who did not perform with them, is back with The Brothers Grimm, and several critics are remarking that Gilliam is still providing more design than content with his films. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post remarks that Gilliam's films, which include Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), "are jammed with stuff and all but empty of drama." In The Brothers Grimm, he writes, "The art director has replaced the director. Yes, it looks terrific, yet it remains essentially inert." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times makes a similar point, praising the film as "a work of limitless invention," but noting that "the movie seems like a style in search of a purpose." Manohla Dargis in the New York Times suggests that Gilliam badly serves his two stars, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, who are required to "shout their lines and run circles around each other as they try to advance the plot." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post observes that the movie has rested on Miramax's shelves for more than a year, becoming "just one of a series of duds [Co-chairmen Bob and Harvey Weinstein] are dumping before they leave Miramax next month." The movie does receive a few left-handed plaudits. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe calls it "an absurd mess that's more entertaining than it has any right to be." Similarly, Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News describes it as "a bit of a mess: sometimes delightful, sometimes tedious, always creative." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News says that the problem with the film can be boiled down to two words: "Excessive imagination." But Jim Fusilli in the Wall Street Journal gives it an all-out ra |
