Film
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Les Miz-mash
Actors With Cockney/ Aussie Accents Who Can’t Sing
By: - Jan 05th, 2013Why is it that hit musicals have such a hard time making a transition from stage to film? Director Tom Hooper, while striving to make a film, attempted to separate the genres. Having the actors sing on camera with tight closeups was an interesting idea. It didn't work because the cast of fine actors, for the most part, can't sing. This epic film proved to be a tedious, two and a half hour snore.
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Wes Anderson's Moonlight Kingdom
Film Wins Five Independent Spirit Awards
By: - Dec 01st, 2012Earlier this week, Moonlight Kingdom received back-to-back honors with five independent Spirit Awards after winning the best feature film award from Gotham. Academy members are taking note. Anderson’s films, rooted in meaning, accident, marginalia and idiosyncratic, handcrafted details, are rich in reference and also in dark humor. They defy description. One is left with a lingering satisfaction, surely the mark of great filmmaking.
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Daniel Day Lewis Riveting as Lincoln
Spielberg/ Kushner Film Among Year's Best
By: - Nov 30th, 2012Daniel Day Lewis is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation. As such he chooses roles carefully. In Lincoln, directed by Stephen Spielberg with a script by Tony Kushner and input by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, he has taken on an American icon. It is a career challenge to portray a character carved into the face of Mt Rushmore and cast in bronze in Washington's Lincoln Memorial by Daniel Chester French. The gift of this superb film is the richness of nuance he brings to the man we thought we knew.
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James Bondage
Rebooting Double Oh No 7 Franchise
By: - Nov 13th, 2012Now 50 the James Bond franchise was running on vapors until an extreme overhaul with Daniel Craig in Casino Royale in 2006. That was followed by Quantum of Solace in 2008 and now Skyfall. There are two more Bond films starring Craig scheduled over the next four years. By then he will be a ripe old 46. In dog years but actually just 44 since the films have already been shot. But, any way you run the numbers, Bond is showing his age.
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Just 45 Minutes From Broadway
Indie Film by Henry Jaglom
By: - Nov 07th, 2012Henry Jaglom is an American actor, and a writer/director of sometime quirky and idiosyncratic films that often deal with women’s issues, or subject matter that main- stream writer/directors often eschew. Jaglom relishes the filmic road less traveled.
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14th Williamstown Film Festival, 2012
Mostly about Shorts
By: - Nov 03rd, 2012The October 2012 WFF went off without a hitch, well almost. BerkshireFineArts has already given overviews of this year's film festival. This report is primarily about short films, or Shorts, and their highly succesful screenings during a five day long movie feast!
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Berkshire International Film Festival Updates
Tickets on Sale and Heirloom Meals Events
By: - Nov 01st, 2012Passes and packages for the annual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) for May 30 to June 2, 2013 are now on sale. Heirloom Meals’ Christmas Special is the follow-up program to the widely-seen and highly-praised Heirloom Meals’ Thanksgiving Special. Like the Thanksgiving Special, the Heirloom Meals’ Christmas Special features real people, with real food and heartfelt memories.
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2012 Williamstown Film Festival Part Two
Arcadia, Gayby, Richard Russo, Supporting Characters, Circus Dreams
By: - Oct 24th, 2012The second and final part of Williamstown Film Festival covers events on Saturday and Sunday. The five day festival drew some 1,200. With so much to absorb in a short time we offer some higlights and insights for the 14th annual WFF.
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Williamstown Film Festival Reaches Its Goals
Part One: Thursday and Friday Events
By: - Oct 23rd, 2012Now in its 14th year the Williamstown Film Festival has been compressed from two weekends to one Wednesday through Sunday stretch. That saw an increase of guest artists and visitors who hung in for the duration of the unique cinematic event. Yet again, artistic director, Steve Lawson, concocted a heady mix of many short films and several stunning features. There was a sell out for the thursday opening night of Dreamscape, followed by a party at Mezze. On Friday Mass MoCA was packed for Knuckleball. This is the first of two reports and several interviews.
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The Sessions: A Sexual Conversation
John Hawkes and Helen Hunt in Ben Lewin's Film
By: - Oct 19th, 2012Director and writer Ben Lewin, who is disabled himself, found an article by poet Mark O’Brien, a man crippled by childhood polio who sought out a sex surrogate to help him experience life more fully. He created a wonderful film.
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Argo Celebrates Hollywood
Or What Boston's Ben Affleck is Doing Post Season
By: - Oct 11th, 2012Argo tells the story of 6 American Embassy hostages who are rescued in Teheran in 1980. Sort of... "The script is in turnaround" drew howls from an industry audience at a screening in New York. Ben Affleck introed the film looking to all the world like a CIA agent.
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Williamstown Film Festival's 14th Season
Hollywood in the Berkshires October 17 to 21
By: - Sep 30th, 2012The Williamstown Film Festival's 14th season will run October 17 through 21. On the schedule: 37 films (many of them premieres) a half-dozen parties, and events at MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and Images Cinema.
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Richard Gere In Arbitrage
New Movie Doesn’t Resonate
By: - Sep 26th, 2012Richard Gere's latest film “Arbitrage†from first-time writer director Nicholas Jarecki, makes sure that his handsome visage is in practically every shot of the suspense/thriller/drama about a New York billionaire businessman who gets caught up in his own money-making schemes with other Wall Street billionaires; as well as the police on a homicide investigation.
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Big Bear Lake International Film Festival (BBLIFF),
Southern California Event Honors Cinematographer Jack Cardiff
By: - Sep 20th, 2012Big Bear Lake International Film Festival (BBLIFF) in Southern California, which MovieMaker magazine has called “one of the Top 25 Festivals worth the entry fee†keeps getting bigger, better, and more prestigious within movie-savvy circles. It’s been a personal favorite of mine for a couple of reasons. First, it’s one of a few festivals that recognizes and honors the creative effort and input of the Cinematographer.
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Andrew Lloyd Webber Film Love Never Dies
Sequel To Phantom of the Opera
By: - Aug 17th, 2012Andrew Lloyd Webber has struggled with a sequel to his mega hit Phantom of the Opera. It has arrived in movie theatres in limited release as Love Never Dies. In the sequel, the creative team has the Phantom escaping the burning the Paris Opera House and has him resurfacing ten years later in Coney Island, New York where he begins anew his obsession of possessing the beautiful Christine Daae. The story has added new characters for its American setting, as well.
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Bourne Legacy Reboots Ludlum Series
Three and Out or Four is a Bore
By: - Aug 15th, 2012It has been a decade since Matt Damon launched the Bourne franchise. That's a lifetime for an action hero. When Damon opted not to return to the role without director Paul Greengrass that left Universal Studios in a quandary. The Bourne series had been a cash cow. The studio spent $130 million in a relaunch with a parallel story and new lead in Jeremy Renner with Bourne writer Tony Gilroy elevated to director. It opened with a $40 million weekend laving $90 million to make its nut. Based on mixed reviews and tepid word of mouth that may not happen.
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Chris Marker Avant-Garde Film Director at 91
Director of La Jetée & Sans Soleil
By: - Jul 31st, 2012Chris Marker defies categorization, a writer, a critic, a photographer, a filmmaker, a multi-media artist; he is the ultimate creative hybrid mind that just died at age 91. Most known for La jetée, (The Pier); Le fond de l’air est rouge, (A Grin Without a Cat), and Sans Soleil, (Without the Sun) he is considered as one of the greatest, most respected, elusive, seminal filmmaker of our time. An unmitigated independent artist, he adopted a pseudonym as well as an alter ego represented by his cat Guillaume-en-Egypte. His extensive oeuvre is a testimonial to the history, to the exploration of the individual and collective memory and the passage of time.
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Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry at BIFF
For China Ai Weiwei or the Highway
By: - Jun 04th, 2012This past week the Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei was absent from the Serpentine Gallery in London for a new work created in collaboration with the architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Previously he worked with them on the renowned "Birdsnest" design for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. Since release on bail following months of interrogation in June, 2011 the artist has been forbidden to communicate with the media or leave the country.
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BIFF in Pittsfield
A Rainy Saturday at the Movies
By: - Jun 03rd, 2012After the opening night of Ethel on Thursday we continue coverage, Friday through Saturday, of the seventh annual Berkshire International Film Festival. Yet again there was a stunning mix of features and unique documentary films.
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Ethel Opens 7th Annual Biff in Great Barrington
Kathleen Introduces Sister Rory’s HBO Documentary
By: - Jun 01st, 2012A matriarch of the Kennedy dynasty, Ethel, the widow of Robert and mother of eleven, is a sporty, fun loving but guarded private individual. When HBO decided to commission a documentary they asked her daughter Rory. Everyone was shocked when Ethel consented to be interviewed by her youngest daughter. What Ethel declines to discuss is warmly fleshed out for her nine surviving children. It provided a stunning launch to the 7th annual Berkshire International Film Festival
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Berkshire International Film Festival
Complete Schedule May 31 to June 3
By: - May 30th, 2012The 7th Annual season of The Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will celebrate this year with the latest in independent feature, documentary, short and family films. The festival runs from May 31 – June 3, 2012 in Great Barrington and June 1 – June 3rd in Pittsfield, MA and will be showcasing over 70 films in independent filmmaking.
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2012 Norton Prize Winner William Kentridge
Animations at Harvard Film Archives
By: - Apr 30th, 2012The Harvard Film Archives at the Carpenter Center presented nine of William Kentridge animated films – five from 9 Drawings for Projection, and four stand alone animations. Kentridge like the German neo-expressionists Anselm Kiefer and Jörg Immendorff, is capable of giving life to all that has never been admitted in art, embodying all the torment and the labor the creator draws upon to make a work of art. With significant compassion, humor, and willed innocence, Kentridge examines the external and internal forces that shape us as human beings.
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Berkshire International Film Festival 7th Season
Schedule of Events May 31 to June 3
By: - Apr 25th, 2012The 7th Annual season of The Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will celebrate this year with the latest in independent feature, documentary, short and family films. The festival runs from May 31 – June 3, 2012 in Great Barrington and June 1 – June 3rd in Pittsfield, MA and will be showcasing over 70 films in independent filmmaking.
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Diane Keaton, Christopher Plummer and Zac Efron in Dog Movies
Hollywood Finds Dogs Irresistible
By: - Apr 24th, 2012Apparently film producers perk up their ears when they hear the word 'dog' in a pitch, but dogs in films do not guarantee a good film. In one week I saw three dogs: My Dog Tulip, Darling Companion and The Lucky One. Or is that movies about dogs?
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Cosima Spender's Documentary Without Gorky
More Like Getting Over Gorky
By: - Apr 22nd, 2012“Without Gorky†a documentary about the family of Arshile Gorky made by his granddaughter Cosima Spender was shown this past Thursday at The Wasserman cinematheque at Brandeis to a large crowd mostly of Boston Armenians. Cosima was present and did a Q&A after the film.
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