.............                                                                                                                                                          NEWSLETTER N° 500: march 3rd, 2011 Follow this LINK if you cannot read the newsletter properly  500! let us toast to that! Contact the Editor, Advertise with us  This weekly newsletter reaches 90 9...

  BEST FEATURE (Award given to the Producer) Black Swan BEST DIRECTOR Darren Aronfosky, "Black Swan" BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to the director and producer) Get Low JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000; award given to the writer, director, and producer) Daddy Longlegs BEST SCREENPLAY "The Kids Are All Right" BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY "Tiny Furniture" BEST FEMALE LEAD Natalie Por...

By Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles CorrespondentToday the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced this year's Oscar(r) nominations. With few surprises, Colin Firth's festival run in THE KING'S SPEECH, written by David Seidler, is poised to take most of the honors with a record-vying 12 nominations. Fourteen (14) is the record for Oscar noms (i.e.; TITANIC), but if this picture wins in every nominated category, cinema history will be made.Oscar 2011: Expect Natalie Portman & Colin Fir...

BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, has announced its "longlists", a rather quaint annual exercise that reduces the number of potential candidates for BAFTA Awards to 15. At the moment, in one of the key races of the awards season, the historical epic THE KING'S SPEECH and the ballet-goes-mad BLACK SWAN are tied for most mentions (to be translated in a few weeks time to most nominations). Not far behind are the films INCEPTION and THE SOCIAL NETWORK. The Leading Actor candi...

 This morning, the press launch for the 54th BFI London Film Festival took place in Leicester Square. As usual, Amanda Nevill,  the director of the BFI gave a thank you speech for all the sponsors, old and new, volunteers and benefactors of the festival. She also pointed out that, although the world is not in the best of financial situations, this year we will have a great selection of films demonstrating the importance of the continual of the survival of this industry in the world. Sand...

Ron Gilbert and I raced from the screening of "Farewell" last night, looking for the drinks. "Let's go the Elephant party!!" he was saying, and who can resist a line like that. "The elephants are all the way down the end there", he said, scanning LA live cinemas 1, 2, 3, 4 and... nothing. "Where are the elephants?" he asked the first person to step into the elevator, "and did you see the zeppelin film?". We'd been hoping to see the premie...

Wow, what an opening.  Limos cruised behind the red carpet, helicopters buzzed around LA Live, spotlights strobed the skies, and I felt like I was in a Batman movie, with the big action sequence about to erupt around me.  Festival volunteers ushered me to the rooftop Opening Night party of the LA Film Festival, telling me excitedly "you'll be able to watch the riots from there!".   Yes the riot police were marching out. Were people actually RIOTING over the opening n...

"Gutsy, original, smart and free" - Mark Ruffalo says it all, at the Los Angeles Film Festival Opening Night Film 'The Kids Are All Right´Wow, what an opening. Limos cruised behind the red carpet, helicopters buzzed around LA Live, spotlights strobed the skies, and I felt like I was in a Batman movie, with the big action sequence about to erupt around me. Festival volunteers ushered me to the rooftop Opening Night party of the LA Film Festival, telling me excitedly "you'll be able to watch th...

The L.A. Film Festival Directors have set the scene. And the Film Independent press conference today announced action. Downtown LA will be the stage for the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival, with red carpet events such as the World Premiere of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse about to eclipse a lot of fine indie films but spotlight "a vibrant and burgeoning independent arts community in downtown Los Angeles".Over 16 years the L.A. Film Festival has shown itself worthy of its reputation as a world class ...

The L.A. Film Festival Directors have set the scene. And the Film Independent press conference announced action. Downtown LA will be the stage for the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival, with red carpet events such as the world premiere of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse about to eclipse a lot of fine indie films but spotlight "a vibrant and burgeoning independent arts community in downtown Los Angeles".  ...

A flashy two page center spread in the popular daily tabloid BERLIN KURIER offers a list of "Sixty Facts about the 60th Birthday" of the Berlin Film Festival, which is tantamount to listing sixty good reasons not to miss this one. The spread is adorned with a top to bottom leggy photo of a winsomely smiling Jessica Alba, star of Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me", and smaller shots spaced around the layout of Leonardo Dicaprio, who will be here to promote the new Martin Scorcese thril...

A flashy two page center spread in the popular daily tabloid BERLIN KURIER offers a list of "Sixty Facts about the 60th Birthday" of the Berlin Film Festival, which is tantamount to listing sixty good reasons not to miss this one. The spread is adorned with a top to bottom leggy photo of a winsomely smiling Jessica Alba, star of Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me", and smaller shots spaced around the layout of Leonardo Dicaprio, who will be here to promote the new...