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1-20 of 43 articles from 2009 « Prev | Next »
Blu-Ray Review: ‘Taking Woodstock’ Has Plentiful Atmosphere, Little Depth
16 December 2009 9:05 AM, PST
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – Ang Lee’s take on the landmark music festival isn’t a film so much as a filmed idea. It aims to capture the atmosphere of the concert without ever showing the actual music. Of course, the real show was the crowd itself.
There’s one lovely shot in “Taking Woodstock” where its protagonist, high on acid, gazes at the countless hordes gathered around the distant main stage. Suddenly, the crowd starts to move like ripples in the water, as they become united by their shared vibes. The image may sound pretentious on paper, but it has a poetry and wonderment that’s largely missing from the rest of the picture.
Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0
There are few writer-director teams in film history that have tackled as many diverse genres as James Schamus and Ang Lee. Their collaborations include “The Ice Storm,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and “Lust, Caution,” though “Taking Woodstock
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- mattmovieman
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Tobey Maguire Could Be Partying at the Shire
14 December 2009 2:22 PM, PST
| WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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I have not idea why (it could be the years of brain cell damage catching up with me), but there was a period a few years back where I was having a difficult time differentiating between Tobey Maguire and Elijah Wood. It’s stupid, I know, especially when you consider what I do, but, even now, if someone gives me a film either of them are in (The Ice Storm, Go!), I have to think for a split second before giving my definitive answer. It’s Maguire in that one, by the way.
This news, if it ends up being true and coming to fruition, will probably not do me any favors in this difficult department I face each time I watch Sin City. According to Latino Review, the Spider-man star, is in negotiations to play the lead role, that of Bilbo Baggins, in Guillermo Del Toro’s two-part adaptation of The Hobbit.
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- Kirk
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Sigourney Weaver: 'Avatar will change what people want in the cinema'
8 December 2009 1:20 AM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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The star of the Alien films and Avatar talks about feminism, 'wild men' and why being tall stopped her from playing romantic roles
One of the first things that people think about when the name Sigourney Weaver pops into conversation, along with her braininess and patrician elegance, is her height. You only have to think of the scene in Infamous when she dances with Toby Jones playing Truman Capote, in which his head reaches somewhere around her navel.
Then there's the story about how she acquired her name. She was christened Susan, but when she was 14 she decided it didn't suit a person like her who was 6ft tall in her shoes. So she seized on the name Sigourney, having spotted it in The Great Gatsby. Sigourney seemed to her to be long and curvy: much more appropriate for someone her size.
I knew all that well before I met
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- Ed Pilkington
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Brothers Set To Hit Theaters This Week
3 December 2009 11:45 PM, PST
| ScreenStar
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In 1879, General Sherman declared "War is Hell." 130 years later, it still holds true. Director Jim Sheridan has boldly and truthfully provided evidence of this in his new film Brothers (2009), starring Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film, set to be released on December 4th, explores the ravaging effects of war, not just on one soldier, but on the dynamics of the family he leaves behind. If you're not a fan of battle tales, don't run for the door just yet. This is certainly not your every-day war story. Brothers (2009) is a compelling drama in which Toby Maguire's character, Capt. Sam Cahill, goes off to fulfill his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan, leaving behind his wife Grace (played brilliantly by Portman), and two small daughters. As Sam is leaving for war, his brother Tommy, played by Gyllenhaal, is fresh out of jail with no mission at all. When Sam is presumed dead,
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- jmaurer@corp.popstar.com (Jennifer Maurer)
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Jeremy Piven Goes Knee-Deep in ‘Waska’
30 November 2009 6:14 AM, PST
| ReelLoop.com
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Jeremy Piven was the best thing since sliced bread about 4 or 5 years ago after the birth of Entourage, but with the reported decline in that show’s quality (this is hearsay — I’ve never seen an episode of it) and less exposure for the actor beyond a great role in Smokin’ Aces, I keep seeing more and more backlash against the guy.
I don’t really understand why this is — he’s charismatic as all get-out, just sullied by roles in The Goods and surely the upcoming adaptation of Marmaduke. One thing that could very well help is a lower budget, character-driven picture, which is precisely what he’s signing up for with Waska.
Directed by Gaby Dellal (On a Clear Day), Waska is an indie drama in the works that will focus on “a young father who loses his son, throwing the community into disarray at the time of
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- John Cooper
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Jeremy Piven Celebrates Waska
29 November 2009 10:47 PM, PST
| EmpireOnline
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News of a new Jeremy Piven sighting is always cause for celebration, so with a spring in our step on this chilly late November morning we bring you Waska: an indie drama on the way from On a Clear Day director Gaby Dellal.The Waska of the title is the first snowfall of the year, "magical but often treacherous", and the story revolves around the disappearance of a toddler in the snowstorm, and a small community's search for him. The novel by Leslie Schwartz on which the film is based (adapted by Catherine Trieschmann, with the title changed from the eighties-soap-opera-sounding Angel's Crest) is as much about detailed portraits of the townsfolk as it is about the disappearance, so expect toothsome supporting roles for a cast that also includes Mira Sorvino, Thomas Dekker, Lynn Collins, Elizabeth McGovern, Joseph Morgan and Kate Walsh. Immediate wintry comparisons that leap to mind are
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Glenn Gives Thanks
26 November 2009 8:00 AM, PST
| FilmExperience
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Australia's only knowledge of Thanksgiving is, essentially, what we see from TV and the movies. I feel then that it is only fitting that I "give thanks" for a certain woman who has shaped by idea of Thanksgiving more than any other: Christina Ricci.
Bless her lil cotton socks, but Christina Ricci had already solidified herself in the annals of cinema history by the age of 17 with her performance in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. The gifts of that film are many, but the bit that I always remember first and foremost is the toast that Ricci's Wendy gives. Let us relive it:
Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions that we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff ourselves like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.
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- Glenn Dunks
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Free Flick of the Day: Pieces of April
26 November 2009 6:02 AM, PST
| Cinematical
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In this current world where Katie Holmes is wife to Tom Cruise and mother of Suri, it's easy to forget she used to have a pretty solid indie career intermingled with her days on the popular Creek -- Libbets Casey in The Ice Storm, Claire in Go, Hannah in Wonder Boys, Jessica in The Gift, Nurse Mills in The Singing Detective, April Burns in Pieces of April, and Heather Holloway in Thank You For Smoking. But there is one starring role in there that's quite applicable this week: Pieces of April. *
Her last big role of worth (she played only a supporting character in Smoking and she was bad enough to be axed from Gotham law after Batman Begins), Pieces of April finds Holmes the black sheep of a dysfunctional family. Living a life on her own in New York with her boyfriend Bobby, April decides to tackle the daunting
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- Monika Bartyzel
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Culture Warrior: Towards a More Thanksgiving-Friendly Cinema
26 November 2009 12:35 AM, PST
| FilmSchoolRejects.com
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I don’t know about your family, but in mine Thanksgiving is viewed largely as a warm-up drill for the Christmas season, a Christmas prequel if you will. At Thanksgiving I see, for the most part, the same extended family I end up seeing at Christmas, but for a far shorter duration of time. Whatever conversation I don’t have time to catch up on with my family over Thanksgiving I promise to continue over Christmas. Thanksgiving is when Christmas decorations are put up, when holiday shopping begins in full force, and when Christmas wish-lists are collected. Thanksgiving used to be the time when the first Christmas-themed movies of the year were released, but now movies like A Christmas Carol are released the first weekend in November in hopes of capitalizing over two months of manufactured Christmas spirit. Department stores and retail outlets have begun moving in unison with the trends of Christmas-themed Hollywood fare, putting
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- Landon Palmer
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Free Flick Fridays: Pieces Of April
25 November 2009 11:08 AM, PST
| Huffington Post
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This weekend, take a break from your own family (dys)function to check out Katie Holmes in Pieces of April. It's a Thanksgiving classic, now available for free on Hulu.
Pieces of April
dir. Peter Hedges (2003)
Remember when Katie Holmes was a winning young actress-to-watch? Ah, yes, the Halcyon, pre-Cruise days of The Ice Storm and Go and Wonder Boys...
Into this mix falls the charming Pieces of April, a story of family dysfunction and East Village squalor, with Holmes as the bad-girl black sheep prodigal daughter, living in sin with her dreamboat boyfriend (Derek Luke). In his directorial debut, Hedges (who literally wrote the book, and screenplay, on eccentric families with What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) tells two alternating stories: one of April trying to cook a turkey in her tenement of an apartment, meeting her neighbors (like Sean Hayes) along the
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- Tribeca Film
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Free Flick Fridays: Pieces of April
25 November 2009 3:00 AM, PST
| TribecaFilm.com
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Pieces of April
dir. Peter Hedges (2003)
Remember when Katie Holmes was a winning young actress-to-watch? Ah, yes, the Halcyon, pre-Cruise days of The Ice Storm and Go and Wonder Boys...
Into this mix falls the charming Pieces of April, a story of family dysfunction and East Village squalor, with Holmes as the bad-girl black sheep prodigal daughter, living in sin with her dreamboat boyfriend (Derek Luke). In his directorial debut, Hedges (who literally wrote the book, and screenplay, on eccentric families with What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) tells two alternating stories: one of April trying to cook a turkey in her tenement of an apartment, meeting her neighbors (like Sean Hayes) along the way, and one of her family's journey to the Thanksgiving table, punctuated with pot-smoking (from April's mother, played by Patricia Clarkson in an Oscar-nominated performance), elderly grandmas, and petulant, 'good' daughter whining from a young Alison Pill.
The
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Ricci Embarrassed By The Ice Storm
23 November 2009 10:56 AM, PST
| WENN
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Former child star Christina Ricci is still embarrassed by her performance in The Ice Storm 12 years on - because she was totally unprepared for the sexually-charged role.
Ricci was only 17 when she began the transition into more adult movies, starting with Ang Lee's 1997 film.
And the actress insists she deserves no credit for the critically acclaimed picture, because she didn't do enough background work to play troubled, sexually-curious Wendy Hood, reports the New York Daily News.
She explains, "All of the actors did their research for that movie, but I didn't do my homework. People always compliment me on my performance in the movie, but I cannot take credit for it at all because I truly had no idea what the film was about."
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Taking Woodstock | Film review
14 November 2009 4:05 PM, PST
| The Guardian - Film News
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In The Ice Storm, Ang Lee turned a sharp, compassionate eye on affluent ex-urban New England at Thanksgiving 1973 where, as the Watergate scandal escalates, the president's bad faith is echoed in the life of an adulterous Wall Street analyst. He now goes back four years earlier to Nixon's first term in the White House and the reaction against the Vietnam War, and the expression of the new liberation that manifested itself at the 1969 Woodstock Festival up the Hudson in New York State.
The perspective here is that of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), a gay Jewish painter and designer taking time out from his Manhattan day job to help out his overbearing parents at their rundown Catskills motel and goes into business with the festival's hippie organisers. The film uses the split-screen devices of Michael Wadleigh's classic 1970 Woodstock documentary, and some of the music is distantly heard, but Elliot is
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- Philip French
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Ang Lee: 'I'm not a sick filmmaker'
12 November 2009 4:00 AM, PST
| digitalspy
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Ang Lee has admitted that he made his latest movie, '60s comedy-drama Taking Woodstock, in an effort to get away from "tragic subject matter". The acclaimed director, known for his dark dramas Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm, told Digital Spy that he doesn't want to be seen as a "sick filmmaker". "It was a deliberate effort and a gut reaction," Lee said. "If I keep going in that world I get sick. I don't want to be a sick filmmaker. (more)
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- By Simon Reynolds
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The Reelist: David Brind on Teen Angst
10 November 2009 7:30 AM, PST
| TribecaFilm.com
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Dare: Zach Gilford and Emmy Rossum
Dare, the new film directed by Adam Salky, opens this Friday after its premiere earlier this year at Sundance. Written by Tribeca Film Festival alum David Brind (Twenty Dollar Drinks, Tff 2006), Dare follows the story of three teens caught up in a tempestuous love triangle. With so many influences evident in the story, we asked Brind to share his inspiration with us.
We are pleased to present our first-ever guest-hosted Reelist. From the classic Rebel Without A Cause to seminal 90s hits (Election, The Ice Storm, Welcome to the Dollhouse) to the more recent Mean Girls, he's picked a gem of a list, and we have updated our Netflix queue accordingly.
I've been a fan of the high school movie genre for as long as I can remember. Adolescence, for me, was a time of extremely heightened emotions, desires, and drives. The tricky
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Decade in Review: 2000 Top Ten
5 November 2009 1:07 PM, PST
| FilmExperience
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What follows is my original top ten list of 2000... or rather the revised version I published in 2002. Let's discuss each year of this decade as it winds down! Who's with me?!? It's always interesting to see which films remained at the forefront of our memory and which fade... both for a variety of reasons, quality being only one factor. New comments are in red.
Please note: This list was based on NYC release dates in the year 2000. Some movies are listed as different years at the IMDb based on when they were released in their home country or in La or whatnot.
Runners Up (in descending order): Une Liaisons Pornographique, Nurse Betty, You Can Count On Me, Before Night Falls, Pola X, Chicken Run, American Psycho, Wonder Boys and Billy Elliott Um... What The Hell are some of these movies doing outside the top ten list? You Can Count on Me
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- NATHANIEL R
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Sigourney Weaver and John C. Reilly Face the Rapids
4 November 2009 6:09 AM, PST
| Atomic Popcorn
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Want to know why Sigourney Weaver has the comedic ability to do a great job in movies like Ghostbusters or Galaxy Quest? Or why John C. Reilly cracked you up so darn well in Step Brothers?
Take a look at Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm or the highly underappreciated Criminal. These guys have the acting chops to pull off drama effortlessly, and like the best comedic actors, have an understanding of every bit of the craft.
This is why I’m so excited for Miguel Arteta’s (Youth in Revolt) new film Cedar Rapids, which has added Weaver and Reilly to the cast alongside Alia Shawkat, The Office’s Ed Helms, and Anne Heche.
Rapids, developed by Helms and Phil Johnston (Flightless Birds), the film will “center on a wholesome and naive small-town Wisconsin man (Helms) who, when his role model dies, must represent his company at a regional insurance conference in Cedar Rapids,
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- John Cooper
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London Film Festival 2009: Taking Woodstock
1 November 2009 7:08 PM, PST
| SoundOnSight
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Taking Woodstock
Directed by Ang Lee
I've never been able to sit through more than a few minutes of Michael Wadleigh's revered documentary Woodstock. Every time it's on TV, I hope I'm going to catch some footage of Crosby Stills and Nash or Jimi Hendrix. Invariably, what I get is a (split) screenful of hippies partying on down in acres of mud. So, I was intrigued by the idea of Ang Lee making a comedy based on Elliot Tiber's 2007 memoir about his role in this seismic late 60s cultural event. And surely it had to be more fun than the Taiwanese director's downbeat spy yarn, Lust, Caution.
Greek-American comedian Demetri Martin plays Elliot, artist interior designer and dutiful son of Russian-Jewish émigrés Sonia and Jake Teichberg (Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman). The family owns the El Monaco, a ramshackle motel in White Lake, New York, where Elliot's mum
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- Ricky
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DVD Review: ‘Lymelife’ is the Same Old Story
6 October 2009 10:27 AM, PDT
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – Only a few short weeks ago, I sat through the two-hour shrug-fest that is Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” and lamented how so many of the film’s interactions between parents and the younger generation were played for cartoonish laughs instead of striving for the haunting poignancy of the director’s 1997 family drama “The Ice Storm.” Well, upon viewing Derick Martini’s “Lymelife,” I determined that the cliché is true: Be careful what you wish for.
DVD Rating: 2.0/5.0
Look at Lee’s film and Martini’s back to back, and you’ll note that their basic outlines are practically one and the same: In the 1970s, somewhere in the eastern United States, two married people have an affair, while the teenage son of one adulterer and the teenage daughter of the other begin to explore their own sexuality and indulge in the occasional drug. Mom and Dad probably have
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- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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Lymelife DVD Review
25 September 2009 8:41 AM, PDT
| Collider.com
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As the summer movie season draws to a close, more serious minded films will begin flooding the multiplexes, mostly in search of Oscar love. For those who’d prefer to experience some Oscar-baiting, fall movie gravitas at home, the coming of age drama Lymelife arrives on Blu-ray and DVD this week. This quirky tale of a 15-year old Long Island teen experiencing first love, parental discord, and disease-carrying tick paranoia, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January before receiving a brief theatrical run back in April. Clearly modeled after the award winning suburban angst dramas American Beauty and The Ice Storm, and featuring a solid ensemble cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon, Emma Roberts and Rory and Kieran Culkin, the film didn’t receive much Oscar prognostication from critics, and went largely ignored by moviegoers who preferred April’s Beyonce Knowles/Ali Larter catfight to Lymelife
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- Harrison Pierce
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