Fest to present blend of traditional narratives, more cutting edge cinema
Locarno diverse lineup mixes known, discoveries
Film
LOS ANGELES, July 16, (RTRS):
The Locarno Film Festival has
unveiled a rich lineup for its 68th
edition, comprising new works
from US director Jonathan Demme
and other established international
directors,
including
Chantal
Akerman, Athina Rachel Tsangari,
Hong Sang-soo and Andrzej
Zulawski, screening alongside
potential discoveries within a mix
of traditional narratives and more
cutting edge cinema.
Demme’s “Ricki and the Flash,”
starring Meryl Streep as an aging
rock star trying to reconnect with
her family, will screen out-of-competition Aug 5 on the prominent
Swiss fest’s open-air Piazza Grande
ahead of its US release Aug 7 via
Sony’s TriStar Pictures. Hot pic is
penned by Diablo Cody.
For the competition section
Locarno artistic director Carlo
Chatrian has secured fourteen
world preems, including Greek
auteur Athena Rachel Tsangari’s
long awaited “Chevalier”; Gallic
veteran Chantal Akerman’s docu
“Not a Home Movie”; ace Italo
filmmaker Pietro Marcello’s
docu/feature “Bella e Perduta”;
“Right Now, Wrong Then,” by
South Korea’s celebrated Hong
Sang-soo, sometimes dubbed “the
Korean Woody Allen”; and
“Cosmos” by Polish auteur Andrzej
Zulawski, who is known for his creative anarchy.
Potential
Newcomers or lesser known
names with breakout potential competing for a Golden Pard include
Iranian drama “Paradise,” a first
work by Sina Ataein produced by
Jafar Panahi’s brother Yousef
Panahi; Gallic multihyphenate
Pascale
Breton’s
“Suite
Armoricaine,” which follows her
well-received debut “Illumination”
more than a decade later; and Israeli
director Avishai’s “Tikkun,” about
the perturbations of an Orthodox
Jew.
Two Sundance standouts, Rick
Alverson’s “Entertainment,” about
the odyssey of a washed-up
American stand-up comic, and Josh
Mond’s potent, if punishing, family
drama “James White” are getting
their European launches, in competition.
Sundance fave “Me and Earl and
the Dying Girl,” by Alfonso
Gomez-Rejon, is launching into
Europe from the Piazza Grande
with talent in tow.
Other titles slated to screen on
the 8,000-seat Piazza Grande
include
Antoine
Fuqua’s
“Southpaw,”
Judd Apatow’s
“Trainwreck,” Anurag Kashyap’s
Bollywood gangster epic “Bombay
Velvet,” and also less mainstream
movies on historical themes such as
Barbet Schroeder’s “Amnesia,” and
German director Lars Kraume’s
“Der Staat Gegen Fritz Bauer,”
about the prosecutor who initiated
the Auschwitz trials.
Compete
Piazza Grande titles will compete
for the Pix du Public audience Award,
and also for the Variety Piazza
Grande Award given by Variety critics to the best fest title launching from
Europe’s largest open-air venue, and
combining artistic excellence and
commercial potential.
“We worked hard on offering
diversity this year,” said Chatrian,
“both in terms of selecting established directors alongside the discoveries Locarno is known for, and
also mixing traditional narratives
with more experimental titles.”
The competition jury comprises
US photographer-director Jerry
Schatzberg; German actor Udo
Kier; Israeli director Nadav Lapid;
and South Korean actress Moon soRi.
Guests expected to attended
Locarno include Edward Norton,
Andy Garcia, Walter Murch, and
Marco Bellocchio, all being celebrated with career nods.
Fest dedicated to global indie
cinema will run Aug 5-15.
2015 Locarno Lineup
Piazza Grande
“Ricki and the Flash,” Jonathan
Demmme, US “La Belle Saison,”
Catherine Corsini, France “Der Staat
Gegen Fritz Bauer,” Lars Kraume,
Germany “Southpaw,” by Antoine
Fuqua, US “Trainwreck,” by Judd
Apatow, US “Jack,” by Elisabeth
Scharang, Austria “Floride,” by
Philippe Le Guay, France “The Deer
Hunter,” Michael Cimino, UK, US
“My Internship in Canada,” Philippe
Falardeau, Canada”Bombay Velvet,”
Anurag Kashyap, India “Amnesia,”
Barbet Schroeder, Switzerland/
France “La Vanite,” Lionel Baier,
Switzerland “The Laundryman,”
Chung Lee, Taiwan “Me and Earl and
the Dying Girl,” Alfonso GomezRejon, US “Fists in the Pocket,”
Marco Bellocchio, Italy”Heliopolis,”
Sergio Machado, Brazil
Features
Variety
Mick Jagger performs at the Rolling Stones concert during the Quebec Summer Festival on July 15 in Quebec City. (AP)
Film
Super powers showcased in ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot trailer
FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2015
LOS ANGELES: Paul
Walker’s brother, Cody
Walker, is starring alongside
Nicolas Cage in the World War
II movie “USS Indianapolis:
Men of Courage.”
This marks the first major
role for Cody Walker, who
replaced his late brother in
“Furious 7” after he was killed
in a 2013 car crash. Tom
Sizemore, Thomas Jane,
Matt Lanter and Brian
Presley round out the cast.
Mario Van Peebles is
directing from a script by Cam
Cannon and Hannibal
Classics principal Richard
Rionda Del Castro. Producers
are Rionda Del Castro and
Michael Mendelsohn of
Patriot Pictures, who are also
financing “Men of Courage.”
Saban Films acquired US
rights during Cannes. The film
is scheduled to be released
over the 2016 Memorial Day
weekend.
Ness Saban and Saban
Films president Bill Bromiley
will exec produce, along with
Patricia Eberle, Timothy
Patrick Cavanaugh, Dama
Claire, Jamal Hanan,
Mariusz Lukomski and
Frederico Lapenda.
Cage is playing the role of
Capt Charles Butler McVay,
whose ship was torpedoed in the
South Pacific in July 1945, after
delivering parts for the first
atomic bombs. Their mission
was classified, so the Indianapolis was not reported missing
until four days later. (RTRS)
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LOS ANGELES: Acclaimed
African-American filmmaker
Spike Lee’s new movie
“Chiraq” about violence in
inner-city Chicago will be the
first original film to be distributed by the new Amazon
Studios, the company said
Wednesday.
The film will be distributed
first in theaters and later
Lilly brings girl power to ‘Ant-Man’
LOS ANGELES, July 16, (RTRS): When
asked to play the feisty Hope van Dyne in
Marvel’s superhero movie “Ant-Man,”
actress Evangeline Lilly had some initial
doubts.
“One thing I was asking for was that we sit
down and take a very serious look at the
female character, bring more dimension to it
and make her more well-rounded as a human
being,” Lilly told Reuters.
Ahead of the film’s release in theaters on
Friday, Lilly, 35, discussed the challenges of
being the film’s sole female force. Below are
excerpts of the interview.
Question: Marvel movies have been getting bigger in scope, so how was it coming
onto a superhero movie that’s so micro and
intimate in scale?
Answer: Because we come on the coattails of “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which ...
was so spectacular and awe-inspiring, “AntMan” just brings it down into such a sweet
space. It’s an origin story, it’s a redemption
story between fathers and daughters. There’s
a lot of emotions, there’s tons of comedy.
Q: There’s criticism that women are not
represented enough in superhero films and
your character is the only leading female in a
male-dominated movie. How did you and
director Peyton Reed make sure Hope is represented equally?
A: She’s a fully realized person and not
any way a cliché of what we expected a
woman to be like in a superhero movie.
That was really important to me and that’s
really important to Marvel... They’ve taken
online, but Amazon has not yet
announced a timeline for
either release.
“I’m honored to be part of
the film that will launch
Amazon Studios and to tell a
story that is so important,” Lee
said in a statement.
The film has been somewhat controversial because of
its title equating the unrelent-
Walker
on this matter and said, “We are going to represent women as well as we do men.”
Q: What were you eager to bring to
Hope’s character?
A: I wanted to make sure she wasn’t just a
chick, because they are very, very fun to
watch but I don’t buy it. I don’t necessary
believe this is the example I want to set for
young women or even my peers. I feel it’s
important to always make sure strength
comes through our vulnerability; strength
comes through our passions, comes through
our ability to forgive.
There are different versions of strength.
For a woman just to go out and blow people
up or just beat them up, that’s not interesting
for me to play.
My priority was having multiple dimensions of the character, making sure all the
emotional layers are there, so when she is
standing strong in a room full of men, there
is humanity behind it that you relate to, you
connect to and you sympathize with.
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A none-too-serious creature feature,
“Stung” finds attendees at a garden party
under siege by mutant wasps that keep getting bigger — from as-found-in-nature to
small-aircraft-sized — as the hectic action
proceeds. This first feature for Benni Diez
and scenarist Adam Aresty is an Englishlanguage German production aimed squarely
at genre fans, who should enjoy its slick
energy on a modest budget. The more original ideas and sensibility that might’ve made
Cage
ing violence in Iraq with the
fatal shootings that have
plagued parts of Chicago, one
of America’s biggest cities.
Lee, 58, explained that the
title may be somewhat misleading and urged audiences to
set aside their reservations and
see the movie.
“Please don’t be fooled by
the title of ‘Chiraq,’ this new
it something beyond a decent formulaic timefiller are lacking here — although with the
narrative door left wide open for a sequel,
such creative risks could be taken next time.
Touring the fest circuit since a Tribeca bow
in April, it opened on one Vermont screen
simultaneous with VOD/iTunes launch on
July 3, with a few theaters added since.
Primary exposure here and abroad, however,
will be as a viable home-format item.
Heading out to a rare high-profile gig,
Julia (Jessica Cook) is anxious about the
survival of her catering biz, and as a result
about the performance reliability of slackerish bartender/assistant Paul (Matt O’Leary).
He, meanwhile, laments that she keeps their
relationship strictly professional, ignoring
his rather obvious crush. They’re en route to
a country estate where wealthy widow Mrs
Perch (Eve Slatner) and her weird, nerdy
son Sydney (Clifton Collins Jr) preside over
an annual gathering of mostly elderly, similarly wealthy local WASPs including dapper,
cynical
Mayor
Caruthers
(Lance
Henriksen).
The tame festivities, however, are soon
unpleasantly enlivened by an invasion of real
wasps — an aggressive swarm that rises
from the ground (pharmaceutical-empire heir
Sydney later admits messing with the
grounds’ chemical fertilizer) to attack the
guests. Worse, those stung become instant
incubators for truly party-sized insect offspring whose birth they do not survive. Only
the previously named humans (plus a housekeeper played by Cecilia Pillado) make it
Spike Lee joint will be something very special,” the director said.
Some of Hollywood’s top
actors appear in the film,
including John Cusack,
Angela Bassett, Jennifer
Hudson, Wesley Snipes and
Samuel L. Jackson. (AFP)
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inside the mansion to temporary safety. But
their numbers dwindle further as the SUVsized bugs smash their way in, turning the
whole joint into a wrecked, sticky nest while
our protagonists cower in the cellar.
Paul discovers his inner action hero (as
does, eventually, Julia), rising to a series of
challenges, including confrontations with a
monstrous queen wasp lurking outside.
There’s plenty of gooey insectivorous f/x, yet
despite game contributions from all
involved, nothing else in “Stung” goes quite
far enough. Its sense of humor (including
numerous genre in-jokes) is genial without
being particularly witty or gut-busting, the
action brisk if never very surprising, performances agreeable within routine character-writing bounds. In a movie that should
have gone for funnier or scarier (ideally
both), there’s way too much eventual emphasis on the leads’ uninspired evolving
romance.
Nonetheless, the pic reps a solid calling
card for all behind-the-camera personnel,
with sharp tech and design contributions. If
the content is ultimately derivative and
unmemorable, the confident packaging suggests vfx veteran Diez (directing his first feature after several shorts) is ready for bigger
and better things.
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The hotly anticipated reboot of “Fantastic
Four” edged closer for fans, with the film’s
final trailer showcasing the characters’ super
powers.
LOS ANGELES/ LONDON:
India’s most expensive film
“Baahubali: The Beginning”
that cost $40 million to make
together with its 2016 sequel
“Baahubali: The Conclusion”
will get a new international
cut.
Vincent Tabaillon, whose
credits include “Now You See
Me”, “Taken 2” and “The
Incredible Hulk”, is on board
to edit the international version. The cut, which will be
completed by the end of
August, will be shown to film
festivals, sales agents and distributors with a view to a wide
international release. It will be
different from the version
released on July 10 in India
and Diaspora markets. (RTRS)