'Bobby', the Emilio Estevez directed film is a meaningful film chalk full of extraordinary moments. The various vignetes interweave themes of race, feminism as well as the vietnam war. Yet the film is the sum of it's parts and unfortunately, some of the parts were a bit weak. Hats off to Estevez for writing and directing what was seemingly a heartfelt attempt to portray los angeles, warts and all, during two days in 1968. The film was screened at Mann's Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard. Later, ...
Tonight, the AFI Film Festival kicks off with the U.S. Premiere of "Bobby", written and directed by Emilio Estevez. The film, produced by Dan Grodnik, Gary Michael Walters and Sir Anthony Hopkins, includes an all star cast consisting of Harry Belafonte, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, and Elijah Wood. "Bobby" was...
The surprise winner of the Golden Lion (Grand Prix for Best Film) was the untouted Chinese entry "Sanxia Haoren" (Still Life) by youthful director Jia Zhang-ke, immediately styled "a perplexing verdict" by dean of Italian film critics, Tullio Kezich. The general reaction to the jury's off-the-wall decision was something like "they must be kidding!" Although residing in the competition section, the pic was projected mostly at late night red-eye screenings, when most of the press had either packe...
With a couple of hours still left to go until the official kick-off of this "Mother of all Film Festivals" activity is feverish along the short stretch of the Lido known as Viale Marconi, the actual location of this oldest of all world film festivals --Now that was rather a mouthful, calling for a bit of elucidation. The first Venice film festival took place way back in 1932 when the Fascist government under Benito Mussolini, taking a page from Lenin, realized that film was a powerful propaganda...
With the festival entering its twilight phase there is no apparent letup in surprises and flashy new films. Three big ones yesterday were Kenneth Branagh's eagerly anticipated world premiere of a new screen version of Mozart's "Magic Flute", Manoel Oliveira's homage to Bunuel's "Belle de Jour", and another bravura turn by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada". La Streep, (a magnificent 57), the last big star of the week to hit town, held forth in a most interesting press conference in which s...
Toronto Opens 2006 Festival with World Premiere of “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen”The largest and one of the most respected Film Festivals in the world will open its doors to the public with Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn's “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen". Their last film "Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner),” had won the Camera D'or in Cannes and then the prize for best Canadian film here in Toronto in 2001. Festival Co-Director Noah Cowan felt that this was one of the most important film...