Film
Friday, May 25, 2012
Film The dude from 'Twilight' is making a movie about 'The Band'
Robert Pattinson, the actor who plays sparkly, emasculated vampire Edward Cullen in the "Twilight" series, has told the magazine Les Rockuptibles that one of the projects he'll be taking on in coming months is a film about "The Band."
Before you start thinking the ghost of Levon is going to appear and stake his ass, this might actually be interesting. Beyond all the Twigasming, Pattison is an reasonably good young actor — his turn as Stephanie Meyer's whiny, tubercular virgin-slayer not withstanding — and probably has enough pull in Hollywood these days to bring some real money and talent to what will have to be an ensemble project.
Besides, you can't possibly hate Edward as much as Robert Pattinson does.
From the interview with Les Rockuptibles:
Q: What are you working on right now?
RP: I'm going to do a movie about The Band, the one that played with Dylan: a beautiful script about the nature of songwriting. I'm preparing a thriller too, with a beautifully written script too. It doesn't have a director yet. Tons of French directors are in line to to do. A few years ago, Latin America was where it's happening, it seems it's France turn now ... I'm filming another movie with Cronenberg but i don't know when he wants to start filming. It's going to be his first one in the US and he promises it's going to be very strange. The next two or three years are going to be crucial for me. It's now that that everything happens.
Posted by David Koon on | Permalink | Comments (1)
Monday, May 21, 2012
Film / Coming soon Movies in the Park unveils schedule
Movies in the Park, the annual slate of free outdoor movies at the Riverfest Amphitheater, has announced its summer schedule.
All movies begin at sundown. Lawnchairs, blankets, food and booze (as long as it's not consumed in glass containers) are allowed. More info here.
Here is the schedule:
• June 6: Transformers
• June 13: Steel Magnolia's
• June 20: Puss N Boots
• June 27: Moneyball
• July 11: Jaws
• July 18: Twilight Eclipse
• July 25: Caddyshack
• August 1: Annie
Posted by Lindsey Millar on | Permalink | Comments (3)
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Film / Coming soon Check out these clips from Jeff Nichols' upcoming film 'Mud'
Awesome! Here are two clips from Little Rock native Jeff Nichols' forthcoming film "Mud," which stars Reese Witherspoon, Michael Shannon, Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland, of Yell County. The latter three are featured in the clips, which you can find after the jump.
It's thus far the biggest movie production in the state's history.
Check out the rad bootleg Fugazi shirt on Lofland, toward the end of the first clip. Wonder where he got it?
Posted by Robert Bell on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Film / LRFF Little Rock Film Festival to host Lea Thompson, Nichols and Russell to receive Diamond Award
- Cabe Bedlam
- Lea Thompson will screen her new film "The Trouble with the Truth" at the Little Rock Film Festival.
If you've been pondering the topic of just who will receive the Diamond Award at this year's Little Rock Film Festival, well ponder no more: Jeff Nichols ("Shotgun Stories," "Take Shelter," "Mud") and Jay Russell ("Ladder 49," "My Dog Skip," "The Water Horse") will receive the honor, which "pays tribute to filmmakers who have made extraordinary contributions to film and Arkansas."
The festival will also host Lea Thompson, known for her roles in the "Back to the Future" films and the show "Caroline in the City," among many others. Thompson will screen one of her latest films, "The Trouble with the Truth," as well as a "surprise screening" of one of her 1980s cult classics.
Organizers have not said which film that will be, on account of it's a surprise and all, so this is probably a good opportunity for some wild speculation.
My vote? "Red Dawn."
Posted by Robert Bell on | Permalink | Comments (1)
Monday, May 7, 2012
Film / Coming soon Hops and Docs in Hot Springs
This Friday, June 1, immediately following the Hot Springs Gallery Walk, Malco Theater will host a screening and beer tasting to benefit the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute. (Sorry kids, the event is only open to 21 and up!) The hour long film program starts at 7 p.m. and includes pieces of an unfinished documentary about craft beer in Arkansas, with interviews with Rose and Todd Cranson, who are starting a microbrewery in a bathhouse on Bathhouse Row. They'll also show "Beer O'Clock," a doc that takes you step-by-step through the home-brewing process, and some shorts by local filmmakers. Beer from Diamond Bear of Little Rock, Tallgrass Brewing Co. of Manhattan, Kan. and Choc Beer of Krebs, Okla. will be served, as well as some home-brewed pale ales and a cider from the Hot Springs Homebrew Club. There's a $20 suggested donation.
Posted by Cheree Franco on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, April 30, 2012
Film New film emphasis offered at UALR
The film program at UCA in Conway has been churning out starry-eyed young filmmakers for awhile, and now UALR is pumping up the film options for their students, with a new cinema-centric degree emphasis offered through the School of Mass Communications.
Courses available will include screenwriting, movie-making techniques, documentary production, and non-linear video editing, all applicable toward a degree in Mass Communications with an accent on motion pictures. UALR's Mass Comm already has a film minor.
For more information about the movie making option, contact Mark Giese at (501)569-3250 or visit ualr.edu/masscomm.
Posted by David Koon on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Film Attention Ark. Filmmakers: Don't f*** with The Jack
Arkansas director Eric England, whose Arkansas-filmed retro-slasher flick "Madison County" will be out on DVD early next month, recently blocked a fan on Facebook. Said fan, who straightfacedly refers to himself as "The Jack," has now posted a response video (seen above) in which, among other things, he admits that he was looking forward to seeing "Madison County" so much that he went ahead and torrented it (AKA: ripped it off illegally) online. NOTE: NSFW due to language and tearing-sheetmetal voice ("DIRECTOR! PRODUCER!")
BONUS: The Jack has now posted an even more unintentionally hilarious video calling for a boycott of the film, in which he contends: "the director is mean! He's a jerk! He has no compassion to his fans! His name is Eric England, and he is a very bad director, because he does not care for his fans! Nor does he care about his reputation in the film industry, which I will stinglehandedly tarnish, because I can do that!"
Posted by David Koon on | Permalink | Comments (0)
What's going on / Film / Music Thursday: Moscow Festival Ballet, The See, Satisfaction and more
The Moscow Festival Ballet presents "Romeo & Juliet" at Reynolds Performance Hall at the University of Central Arkansas, 7:30 p.m., $25-$40.
Powerhouse locals The See bring rousing guitar rock to White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m., $5.
Got a jones for some Stones? Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones Tribute plays an 18-and-older show at Stickyz, 9 p.m., $7 adv., $10 d.o.s.
For a dose of sultry southern songcraft, check out Nashville's Kristen Cothron & The Darkside, Maxine's, 8 p.m., free.
A screening of the documentary "Miss Representation" includes a panel discussion afterward with Angela Thomas of AY Magazine and Lindsey Millar and Leslie Newell Peacock of the Arkansas Times at UALR's EIT Auditorium, 6 p.m., free.
Posted by Robert Bell on | Permalink | Comments (0)
What's going on / Film Thursday To Do: Argenta Film Series 'Just Like Us'
ARGENTA FILM SERIES: 'JUST LIKE US'
6 p.m. Argenta Community Theater. $8.
"Just Like Us" is a documentary that follows Egyptian-born American comedian Ahmed Ahmed (who also directed the film) on a tour through Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Lebanon and Egypt to bring standup comedy to a part of the world that many folks don't associate with laughter and good humor.
As Ahmed told the Washington Post last year, the film is "about humor and family and culture. There's a smidgen of geopolitics and religion just to raise the question, not to preach it. I'm just hoping audiences respond." The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Arkansas native Taylor Feltner was one of the producers of "Just Like Us." He'll be on hand Wednesday to answer questions after the screening.
Posted by Robert Bell on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, April 20, 2012
Film / Reviews New documentaries at Market Street
There are two acclaimed documentaries opening at Little Rock's indie dive-of-a-theater today — "Undefeated," a real life Friday Night Lights about an inner city turnaround coach doing his thing just down the road a piece, in a Memphis high school football field, and "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," a meditative homage to an 85-year-old man in Tokyo who makes the the best sushi in the world.
I've wanted to see "Undefeated" since its Sundance hype, so I'll definitely make it to Market Street sometime next week (these films are on till Thursday). I've actually seen "Jiro Dreams of Sushi," and it's a solid piece, albeit with noticeable flaws.
Jiro has been making sushi for 70 years. He operates a ten-seat restaurant in an underground nook in a Tokyo subway station. Jiro's joint is the one of two sushi restaurants that consistently receive three Michelin stars — the highest global honor bestowed upon any restaurant. More than a story with an arc, this is an incomplete profile of Jiro and a fetishized reflection of an traditional eastern lifestyle. It's also a collision sketch — the humble, repetitive journey of an uneducated working man quietly mastering his trade again and again, ramming against the showiness and elitism of one of the world's institutional high-culture makers and all of the pride, pressure and financial gain that goes along with that.
We never learn much of Jiro's life outside the restaurant. We meet his sons, who in orthodox Japanese fashion, have been reluctantly roped into following their father's trade. There are virtually no women in this film — no mothers, no sisters, no female chefs — only fathers and their absences, sons and male apprentices. And even with a nice dose of understated tension and fascinating glimpses of a big Japanese fish market and the inner workings of a top sushi kitchen, the subject feels too thin to carry a full 80 minutes. There's loads of b-roll and pretty camera tricks, which don't fully disguise the fact that this is a really a 60 minute film that needed to fit into the feature category at festivals.
Jiro is charming, the camera work is adept, the tuna glitters like rubies. If you can overlook the awkward scenes where live shrimp flip around on the counter ("you have to hold them tight or they will escape," a chef jokes) before being boiled alive, and live, panicked octupuses are shoved into tight plastic bags, tentacles protesting, then this film can be appreciated as a simple, suspended moment in which concepts of self-discipline, controlled emotions, preserved tradition and daily presence are intuitively explored.
"Undefeated" shows at 1:45, 4:00, 7:00, 9:00, and "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" shows 2:00, 4:20, 7:00, 9:15 (the (late shows are only Friday and Saturday).
Posted by Cheree Franco on | Permalink | Comments (2)
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Film Jeff Nichols' 'Mud' to make debut at Cannes
A year after winning Critics' Week at Cannes, Jeff Nichols will return to the south of France to debut his latest film, the Arkansas-filmed "Mud." The festival runs in from May 16 through May 27. See the list of the other films in competition, including the latest from Wes Anderson and David Cronenberg, on the jump.
Via Vulture.
Posted by Lindsey Millar on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, April 13, 2012
Film Find out what Joey Lauren Adams thinks of films starring Joey Lauren Adams
Have you ever wondered what North Little Rock native Joey Lauren Adams thinks of her cinematic oeuvre? Have you also wondered how IMBD.com makes its filthy lucre?
Well brothers and sisters, you are in luck:
Posted by Robert Bell on | Permalink | Comments (2)
Monday, April 9, 2012
Film Birdpocalypse!
Here's New York filmmaker Sarah Enid Hagey's lovely short-subject documentary, "Blackbird," about some of the wild theories that gripped Beebe following the deaths of thousands of blackbirds there on New Year's Eve 2011. Nice little doc.
Posted by David Koon on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Film Trailer for Arkansas-made '45RPM'
Here's the trailer for first-time director Juli Jackson's feature, "45RPM" which the film's website describes as a dark Southern comedy about a New York artist named Charlie and a young record collector from Memphis who are trying to track down a rare 45 RPM single that Charlie's father cut in the 1960s.
Jackson's film, made with help from a $30,000 grant from the Ozark Foothills FilmFest, will debut in Batesville this fall.
Posted by David Koon on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
What's going on / Film Wednesday To-Do: Monica Staggs
MONICA STAGGS
7:30 p.m. Stanley Russ Hall, room 103, UCA. Free.
Monica Staggs is a real life superhero, except that sometimes her world-saving is a bit dubious (think Tarantino — she's been cast in three of his films, both volumes of "Kill Bill" and "Death Proof"), and sometimes she flings herself from moving 18-wheelers and ends up with four skull fractures ("Joyride"). But usually she flies through the air ("Bewitched"), falls down stairs ("Crash") and jumps rooftop to rooftop ("Four Dogs Playing Poker"), as breezy as can be.
This North Little Rock girl turned Hollywood crash dummy (a.k.a. stuntwoman) has doubled for everyone from Nicole Kidman to Uma Thurman, and she's in town to tell all — what's been fun, what's been dumb, why she'll fight in lingerie but never go topless on camera, her unabashed fear of heights and how her whole career goes back to her middle school dance classes. (Did we mention that she's brash, fast-talking and hilarious?)
Check out her stories at UCA on Wednesday night.
Posted by Cheree Franco on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Event Calendar
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Re: The dude from 'Twilight' is making a movie about 'The Band'
You hear that noise??.......it's Levon spinning in his grave.....this has the thieving Robbie Robertson and…
- on May 25, 2012
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Re: Willie Nelson to Johnny Cash Music Festival
Yes, good point Pygface. I'll inquire about all that and give an update when we…
- on May 24, 2012
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Re: Willie Nelson to Johnny Cash Music Festival
Or don't buy your ticket yet if you want to ride the bus as last…
- on May 24, 2012
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