Month: June 2010

Bhutto Sundance Documentary Picked up for Distribution

By Jason Apuzzo. IndieWIRE is reporting today that North American rights to Duane Baughman’s 2010 Sundance  documentary Bhutto have been picked up by First Run Features.  A November theatrical release is planned for North America, with home video, internet platforms, and television to follow.  According to IndieWIRE:

“Bhutto” follows the epic story of Benazir Bhutto, the first woman in history to lead a Muslim nation. She was born into a wealthy family that has become Pakistan’s dominant political dynasty. Often referred to as the “Kennedys of Pakistan,” the Bhuttos share a painful history of triumph and tragedy, played out on an international stage. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, Benazir’s life changed forever when her father, Pakistan’s first democratically elected president, chose Benazir, instead of his eldest son, to carry his political mantle. After her father was overthrown and executed by his handpicked Army Chief, Benazir swore to avenge him and to restore democracy – or die trying.

We’ve embedded the film’s trailer above.  We’re pleased to see this film get picked up.  Benazir Bhutto was a fascinating and complex woman whose shocking assassination in 2007 ended the hope of many people that the current Pakistani regime could be effectively reformed.  Bhutto’s story, and that of her family, is very much the story of modern Pakistan.  We will keep an eye on this film, and report down the line on screenings.

Posted on June 29th, 2010 at 11:52am.

Hollywood Round-up, 6/28

"Can we maybe de-friend a few people?"

By Jason Apuzzo.  • Twilight‘s Facebook page currently has more followers than Iron Man, Harry Potter, Transformers and Toy Story combined. Really wishing movie futures trading was legal at this point. Fans are already raving about the new film, and early buzz from critics is strong.  Fangirls starting to muscle out fanboys as the dominant movie audience?

• Toy Story 3 won top honors at the weekend box office again, with everything else doing lackluster business.  Interesting footnote: it turns out that Iron Man 2 did not do as well as its predecessor, domestically.  I think that’s because Mickey Rourke is starting to look like the mad professor from Tarantula!

• Spike Lee will be directing a new terrorist thriller. Working title: Nuke The Right Thing.

• Restrepo was the top film at the indie box office this weekend, with better per-screen averages than either Knight and Day or Grown Ups. Glad to see this.  Read the LFM review of Restrepo here.

• There’s a new teaser trailer out for The Social Network, about Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Underwhelmed here.  The trailer’s making me think this movie’s going to feel like jury duty.

• Captain America supposedly starts shooting today. Unless it doesn’t?  Speculation brewing.

• Tim Burton is apparently moving forward with a new 3D adaptation of The Addams Family. John Kerry should play Lurch.

Carla Bruni.

• Oliver Stone’s South of the Border is coming out, and even The New York Times is noticing some whopping factual errors in the film.  NY Post critic Kyle Smith also takes the movie apart today in his review.  I still can’t believe how many films Stone’s been allowed to make, post-Alexander.

• London’s Sunday Times asks whether Christopher Nolan’s older brother is a bizarre, delusional psychopath-criminal mastermind who haunts Nolan’s work like a ghost. I can’t say, but it’s certainly fun to think about.  In related news, Nolan talks Batman 3 today with MTV.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the wonderful Camille Paglia blasts Lady Gaga in The NY Times today, calling her “a high-concept fabrication without an ounce of genuine eroticism.” We agree, which more or less justifies posting a picture of Carla Bruni, by way of contrast.

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood …

Posted on June 28th, 2010 at 3:48pm.

Four Lions Wins the Audience Award at LA FilmFest

They're big in LA.

By Jason Apuzzo. We’re very pleased to report that Chris Morris’ striking new comedy Four Lions, which I reviewed last week here at LFM (I absolutely loved it), has won the audience award for best narrative feature at the recently completed Los Angeles Film Festival.

I’m not surprised by this, given the audience’s overwhelmingly positive reaction in the screening I attended – but at the same time I’m thrilled to learn that the film won this important award.  This will certainly boost the film’s chances for securing a distribution deal here in the U.S.

Best wishes to whole team behind Four Lions, and we’ll keep everyone here at LFM updated on when and where you can see this extraordinary film.

Posted on June 28th, 2010 at 1:43pm.

The Berlin Wall: The Wall – A World Divided Tonight on PBS

By Jason Apuzzo. Apropos of LFM contributor Jennifer Baldwin’s review of the newly restored Metropolis, PBS happens to be showing what looks to be a fine documentary on the history of the Berlin Wall tonight at 10pm EST (check your local listings as times may vary).

The title of the film is The Wall – A World Divided, and the film recently received a glowing review from The Wall Street Journal’s Michael Judge: “… reminiscent of the brilliant 2006 German drama The Lives of Others, which won the Oscar for best foreign film that year … The Wall—A World Divided takes us where only fine documentary filmmaking can: Into the hearts of everyday people who too often suffer at the hands of despots and their ideologies. Don’t miss it.”

The film’s trailer and further details are available at the PBS website.

I had the chance to visit the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie just a few years before the collapse of the East German communist regime.  It was an overwhelming, disturbing and eerie experience.  It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to see what amounts to being an enormous cage designed to trap people inside.  I wish more Americans had somehow had the chance to experience the grim spectacle of The Wall themselves, in order to understand how precious – and even precarious – our freedom is.  If documentaries such as this one from PBS can help restore an appreciation of our freedom, then so much the better.

Posted on June 28th, 2010 at 1:20pm.

LFM Review: The Complete Metropolis

By Jennifer Baldwin. With almost 30 minutes of lost footage restored, The Complete METROPOLIS is a true cinematic event.

For anybody who read the news two years ago that a nearly complete 16mm negative of METROPOLIS was discovered in Buenos Aires (including 30 minutes of additional footage previously thought lost forever), the anticipation and excitement has been building for when the film would finally be restored and we could all see Fritz Lang’s original cut of his masterpiece for the first time since its Berlin premiere in 1927.

The time has now come. After a premiere in Berlin earlier this year and a North American premiere in Los Angeles this past April, the film is finally being screened in theaters across the U.S. and Canada – all leading up to the DVD release of the Complete METROPOLIS in November 2010.

The tale of METROPOLIS – originally panned by critics and disliked by audiences on its initial release in Germany, and later mutilated by international distributors, who turned the film into a diluted Frankenstein story (a quarter of Lang’s original film was thought lost for decades, one of the ultimate “lost masterpieces” of the silent era) – is a tale well known to classic movie fans and silent cinema enthusiasts. This latest chapter in the film’s life only enhances its mystique and mystery. Almost 40 minutes of this landmark film was lost for nearly a century only to be found hidden away in a Buenos Aires museum in 2008. What was found in Argentina is now the most complete version to date. The print was deemed nearly complete because of the way it matched up to the original Gottfried Huppertz score (the only complete document still in existence from the 1927 premiere). With almost 30 minutes of film time restored, this newest version of METROPOLIS is the closest we might ever come to seeing the film the way Fritz Lang intended.


I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of the Complete METROPOLIS at the Detroit Film Theater earlier this month. It was one of the best movie experiences I’ve had in a long while, thrilling and impressive, making me fall in love with METROPOLIS all over again. Continue reading LFM Review: The Complete Metropolis

Loving the Cold War Lifestyle: A Guide For The Married Man

The ultimate 60s sex farce.

[Editor’s Note: those of us here at LFM love the ‘Cold War lifestyle’ – the spies, the bikinis, the shiny orbiting satellites and dry martinis.  We return today to an occasional series from LFM contributor Steve Greaves, “Loving the Cold War Lifestyle,” that takes us back to that altogether tastier, less politically-correct era.]

By Steve Greaves.

“What about Ruth?”

“Ruth who?”

“Ruth, your wife.”

“Oh.”

This recurring joke and banter like it would probably win a regular Joe today a new level of intimacy with the old rolling pin – that is, if wives still packed rolling pins. Welcome to the world of 1967’s A Guide for the Married Man (see the trailer here), a sharp-looking, box-office-winning and cleverly-written comedy that hasn’t been on DVD for long and might be easy to overlook. And overlooking it would be a shame.

This vintage sex farce finds Walter Matthau playing Paul, a suburban Every Husband of the nuclear era. An investment counselor by day, the man who has it all is nonetheless lacking a certain something come night: namely, variety. Gorgeous Inger Stevens is a dream wife, which makes Matthau’s eventual wanderlust that much more poignant (and inane). Mid 60’s superstar Robert Morse is perfect as Matthau’s lascivious pal Ed, who steps up to coach his new protege on the finer points of straying “the right way,” i.e., so as not to get caught and to otherwise protect the feelings of one’s betrothed. This simple “educational” device sets up a romp that allows for plenty of hilarious sequences between the two, but also for a parade of cameos wherein great comedy stars of the era enact episodes of other chaps’ successes or failures, recounted by Morse for illustrative purposes.  I can’t think of another film like this one in terms of the format, though one could make a case that it relates to period English comedies like Bedazzled, or even confessionals like Alfie that share the device of ongoing “how to” tutorials. Continue reading Loving the Cold War Lifestyle: A Guide For The Married Man