• Peter Knegt talks to “Ashes of Time Redux” director Wong Kair-Wai. [indieWIRE]
• Steven Zeitchick — who started a lot of the Rudin/Weinstein mess by printing gossip — writes up the “Rudin walks away” story with no mention of Patrick Goldstein’s breaking the news. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Goldstein, meanwhile, gets some quality time with Jim Brown about “The Express.” [The Big Picture]
• Karina Longworth ponders the generational divide on “Che.” [Spout Blog]
The full schedule of the 46th annual New York Film Festival was released today. indieWIRE has the scoop.
The big showcase I’m looking forward to is, of course, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” (which I touched on yesterday). But also landing in the Big Apple will be Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling,” Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” and Steven Soderbergh’s “Che.”
Time will tell if the latter remains distribution-less after a North American bow. Something tells me, given Soderbergh’s tenacity, that it will.
I’m also interested in Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” (with an “h” this time), which was a considerable favorite at this year’s Cannes fest, as well as Wong Kar-Wai’s “Ashes of Time Redux.” Despite a personal distaste for the Chinese helmer, this project has a special something keeping my interest piqued. Ari Folman’s Canne fave “Waltz with Bashir” will also make the trip.
And then there is Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” a meditation on the IRA hunger strike that made Bobby Sands a national hero in Northern Ireland. I spent a weekend in Belfast while I was overseas this summer and remember coming across a giant wall mural of Sands, part of a guided tour with one of his former compatriots who also participated in the protest.
I’ve been hearing fantastic things about Michael Fassbender’s performance in the film. He dropped an amount of weight that supposedly makes Christian Bale look obese in “The Machinist.” It might be one of the lowest flying turns on the awards radar so far, and if IFC Films can spin a valiant campaign around the actor, watch out.
Check out the full roster of NYFF titles here. The festival begins September 26 and runs through October 12.
The press office of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF for future purposes) announced some new titles for the line up at this year’s festival yesterday.
Two Gala Presentation announcements include “The Secret Life of Bees” with Dakota Fanning, Paul Bettany, Jennifer Hudson and Queen Latifah, and “The Duchess” featuring Keira Knightley in the biographical role of a woman who brought sweeping political change to England with her progressive attitudes.
In the Special Presentations Program we have “Every Little Step,” looking to be a fascinating documentary about the making of the Broadway sensation “A Chorus Line,” which dominated American Theatre in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was royally screwed up as a film by the vastly over-appreciated Sir Richard Attenborough.
From the great Wong Kar-Gai comes “Ashes of Time Redux,” while Mike Leigh brings to us the highly anticiapted “Happy-Go-Lucky”. Guy Ritchie will unveil “RocknRolla” to audiences here with Larry Charles bringing to our fair city his new picture “Religulous”.
“Ghost Town” sounds promising, as the story follows a man portrayed by Ricky Gervais who dies unexpectedly and is revived with the powert to see ghosts. And as expected, “Waltz with Bashir” will make its North American premiere here at TIFF.