With Spike fresh off the release of Where The Wild Things Are and Kanye fresh off a retarded appearance at the MTV awards this short film “We Were Once A Fairytale” is surprisingly relevant and oddly poignant. At this point I’m not sure who’s a weirder person, director or actor, but rest assured that weirdness abounds. Watch:
This uniquely entertaining tale of forgiveness and redemption marks the directorial debut of Michael Keaton who stars alongside Kelly Macdonald, Tom Bastounes, and Bobby Canavale. The Merry Gentleman is a heady mix of suspense, gentle romance and quiet humor blending a hopeful spirit with a surprisingly dark heart.
The Merry Gentleman tells the story of Kate Frazier, a young woman running away from a troubled marriage in the hopes to find anonymity with a new home and a new job in Chicago. When Kate meets Frank Logan, the two discover unexpected satisfaction in their mutual shared silence. Haunted by the troubling choices he has made, Frank finds a kindred spirit in the younger Kate, and, for a moment, the two seem destined to redeem and remake each other. As the holidays and New Year pass against an urban landscape that seems both breathtakingly beautiful and starkly quiet, Kate and Frank’s friendship becomes one of necessity and survival. But, neither lonely soul can escape the lives they have left behind. As events unfold and the painful truth slowly emerges, Frank is forced to face the man he truly is, while Kate struggles to become the woman she needs to be.
The Merry Gentleman opens in theaters on May 1st, 2009!
Focus Features has just released the trailer for their upcoming comedy Away We Go, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph and directed by Sam Mendes.
Synopsis:
Away We Go is a contemporary comedy directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie follows the journey of an expectant couple (John Krasinski of The Office and Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live), as they travel the U.S. in search of a place to put down roots and raise a family. Rounding out the cast are Jeff Daniels, Carmen Ejogo, Jim Gaffigan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Allison Janney, Melanie Lynskey, Chris Messina, Catherine O’Hara, and Paul Schneider. Away We Go is produced and co-financed with Focus by Big Beach.
Release Date: June 5, 2009 (limited)
Director: Sam Mendes
Writers: Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida
Cast: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Catherine O’Hara, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan
From the writers of Feast, Feast II and Saw IV and V, FEAST III: The Happy Finish shocks its way to DVD on February 17th from Genius Products.
Pre-Order Retail Link at Amazon
The gore-fest continues in the third installment of director John Gulager’s blood-curdling FEAST series when the hotly anticipated FEAST III: THE HAPPY FINISH arrives on DVD February 17 from Genius Products and The Weinstein Company under the Dimension Extreme label. From the writers of Feast, Feast II and Saw IV and V, terror takes a frightening turn when the viscous attacks continue in the dark and deadly FEAST III: The Happy Finish. Picking up moments after the end of FEAST II, the survivors are saved by Shot Bus Gus, a mysterious prophet who has the uncanny ability to control the beasts. Leading the survivors through the sewers into the big city, the group learns from the prophet that the beasts originated from a place called “The Hive.” Armed with this new information and a renewed interest in living, the motley crew of strangers decides to fight back and destroy the beasts once and for all. Featuring intense and disturbing performances from horror vixen Jenny Wade (No Reservations, Feast), Martin Klebba (Feast II, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End), Clu Gulager (Feast) and Craig Henningsen (“The Slammer”), the un-godly monsters continue on their path of death and destruction in the third chapter of the FEAST series, based on the original “Project Greenlight”–winning film FEAST. FEAST III: THE HAPPY FINISH DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $19.97.
Synopsis
The survivors fight for their lives, trying to get away from the nasty flesh-eating monsters that have taken over their town.
Special Features
• A Look Back At John Gulager
• Commentary By Director John Gulager, Writers Patrick Melon
• Feast Trailers
Basics
Price: $19.97
Street Date: February 17, 2009
Catalog Number: 81782
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Runtime: 80 minutes
Languages: English Dolby 5.1
Subtitles: English and Spanish
Closed Captioned
John Malkovich? I’m in…
Image Entertainment presents Then She Found Me available now on DVD. The critically-acclaimed romantic comedy features an all-star cast including Academy Award® winner Helen Hunt (who also directed), Bette Midler, Colin Firth, and Matthew Broderick.
Watch the trailer here.
First time feature film director Helen Hunt’s smart, subtle and comedic look at love and destiny comes to DVD and Blu-ray™ September 2 when THINKFilm and Image Entertainment debut Then She Found Me. The critically-acclaimed romantic comedy features an all-star cast including Academy Award® winner Helen Hunt (Best Actress, As Good As It Gets, 1998), two-time Oscar® nominee Bette Midler (Best Actress, The Rose, 1980; For the Boys, 1992), Colin Firth (Mamma Mia!, Bridget Jones’s Diary), Matthew Broderick (The Producers, Election, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Emmy® Award nominee Ben Shenkman (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, “Angels in America,” 2004).
The story follows Alice Epner (Hunt), a New York school teacher, who is stuck in a mid-life crisis after she is abandoned by her husband and her quirky birth mother (Midler) unexpectedly reenters her life. However, after meeting the divorced father of one of her students, her life opens up in ways she had never imagined. The bonus features include commentary by director and star Helen Hunt, as well as cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footage.
Then She Found Me was directed by Helen Hunt from the novel by Elinor Lipman and screenplay by Alice Arlen and Victor Levin & Helen Hunt. The film was executive produced by John Wells, Chip Signore, Louise Goodsell, Ralph Kamp, Victor Levin, Walter Josten, Jeff Geoffray and Howard Behar; associate produced by Moon Blauner; co-produced by Matthew Myers; produced by Pamela Koffler, Katie Roumel and Christine Vachon; and produced by Helen Hunt and Connie Tavel.
“Captivating! Stellar performances by Hunt, Firth, Broderick, and Midler.” – Elle Magazine
“Smart, engaging, and funny…a terrific showcase for Helen Hunt on both sides of the camera. Bette Midler has never had a better role on screen.” – Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight
“A beauty of a movie. Hilarious!” – Rolling Stone
DVD BONUS FEATURES:
• Director’s Commentary with Helen Hunt
• Cast Interviews and Behind-the-Scenes Footage
• Theatrical Trailer
• Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Enhanced for 16×9 Widescreen TVs
• Spanish Subtitles
• Closed Captioned
Here’s a good look at 13 movies that took a chance with a new direction and broke a few (unofficial) rules in the process. From GliPress.blogspot.com:
For all the creativity and innovation that goes into making (some) Hollywood films, there are also a lot of ideas that get recycled time and time again. I’m not referring to stock characters or the sequalitis that hits multiplexes every summer. I’m talking about the basic building blocks of storytelling that are ingrained in the movie-going experience.
Every once in a while, though, a film comes along that takes an assumption about how American movies are supposed to be made and changes it, sometimes resulting in something truly memorable. Producers who want to make a film that breaks one of the unwritten rules of motion pictures risk a lot – studios might not want to fund the film, theaters might not show it, audiences might not respond to it. The reward for taking the chance, though, is recognition for being a really interesting experiment, or, in some cases, taking your place among the greatest films ever made.
Time Code (2000)
Rule Breaking Idea: Show four frames simultaneously on the screenWhen I go to a movie theater, I assume I will sit in a chair. I assume everyone will face the same direction, the lights will be turned off (or at least down), and I will look at a large rectangular screen onto which I will see one series of moving photographs at a time. Mike Figgis’ work, in which he shows the audience four scenes running at the same time, changes one of the basic expectations of watching a movie. Keeping track of different lines of action is an interesting experience, like being a building security guard who must keep tabs on a group of cameras, mentally sorting out the important bits from the mundane. I finished my viewing wondering how much I missed, or if maybe my brain could eventually get used to this kind of viewing, the same way all film viewers use persistence of motion to watch any film.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Rule Breaking Idea: The good guys loseIn mass-marketed science fiction and fantasy films, from Flash Gordon to Superman to The Lord of the Rings, it’s an assumption that before the end credits roll the heroes will pull out some kind of victory by vanquishing the evil-doers, even if only temporarily. Perhaps that is a necessary assumption in a universe where a few deranged people can do a lot of damage with the firepower science and magic provides. The idea of the hero has been around since humans could tell stories, and in most of them, even if the hero falls, it’s not without accomplishing something worthwhile or going out with a noble flourish.
There would be no such victory for the heroes in George Lucas’ second installment of the Star Wars saga. In the previous episode, the scrappy Rebels scored a major victory against Darth Vader and his minions. In the sequel, the Rebels get their collective backsides handed to them by the Empire, militarily (the “battle” on Hoth wasn’t so much a fight as a delay action to allow the Rebels to run away), personally (Han Solo is betrayed by his friend and becomes a frozen dinner right after acknowledging his love for Leia) and emotionally (Luke Skywalker learns the biggest mass-murderer in the galaxy is his dad). At the end of the film, there’s nothing left to do but pick up the pieces, get a new hand attached, and move on.
By striking this cinematic minor chord, the franchise achieved a degree of resonance and depth it would not have had if it just presented a new way for the Rebels to stick it to the Empire. This kind of pathos was not achieved again until Episode III (Revenge of the Sith) when Anakin crosses over to the Dark Side.
Russian Ark (2002)
Rule Breaking Idea: Instead of making a film with 20-30 scenes, make a film with one 90-minute scene, shot in a continuous take.Like Time Code, this film changes a fundamental part of movie-watching. Shot at the Russian State Hermitage Museum, the film is a triumph if only because it managed to pull off a logistical nightmare. Hundreds of cast and crew have to get everything right at one time, or it’s back to square one. As a viewing experience, I found the film a bit exhausting. I guess I’m just used to breaks in the narrative that cutting from scene to scene provides. Since it’s not possible to jump from one place or time period to another using this technique, the storytelling range is automatically restricted as well. It’s a beautiful film and well worth the time to see, but I’m not sure this technique would work on a regular basis.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Rule Breaking Idea: Make a heist film that shows everything except the heistThere’s nothing quite like watching a detailed, well-planned heist unfold on film. Criminal acts form the centerpiece of a lot of entertaining movies. (see: Heist, The Killing, Ocean’s Eleven, Rififi, Sexy Beast, The Score, The Sting)
In Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino’s adapted story of a bank robbery gone very wrong, things proceed from a different angle. The audience gets to see the planning, the botched getaway, and the brutal, bloody aftermath as the crooks try to figure out what to do next. The one thing that’s missing is a depiction of the actual heist. And that’s okay. A well-written film can go anywhere, and Tarantino’s writing talent, combined with a top-notch cast, is such that two people talking to each other can be an entertaining as an action sequence.
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Rule Breaking Idea: Make a truly anti-drug filmDrug and alcohol abuse have been subjects for films for years. Movies like The Days of Wine and Roses, Leaving Las Vegas, The Lost Weekend, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Trainspotting provide ample opportunities for actors to exercise their dramatic chops with scenes of decadence and ecstasy followed by anguish and regret. Drinking and drugging, while destructive, are also presented as poignant, dramatic, and even humorous and cool in certain aspects.
Much more than these films, Darren Aronofsky’s movie presents drug use as first and foremost scary, depressing, and gross. The main characters are young and pretty the way most young people are pretty. What they are not, though, is smart, interesting, glamorous, lucky, or headed anywhere. Their experiences with drug use are sad, brutal, and not fun in any reasonable way. The only joy they seem to get from the drugs they use comes from temporarily not having to look at their crappy lives, which also holds for one character’s mother, who is falling apart from abusing diet pills. In this film, the audience gets to watch four people destroy their lives without a hip soundtrack, snappy one-liners, or a happy ending to cushion the blow. I still have a hard time watching this harrowing film, but it’s worth the effort.
Psycho (1960)
Rule Breaking Idea: Kill off the main character halfway through the filmThis is a film that probably would not have gotten made if not for the fact that it’s Hitchcock. I heard on Turner Movie Classics that when the movie first premiered the director encouraged exhibitors to not let late-coming moviegoers in to see the film after a certain point. He wanted the audience to develop an attachment to the ostensible heroine before removing her from the narrative via the most famous murder ever put on film.
If this film were made today, Norman Bates would have gotten to kill off a few minor characters to show how evil he is, but Marion Crane would have found a way to survive, probably after a few close calls and some kind of one-on-one struggle with Bates before he’s dispatched at the last second. To try to do anything different shows just how radical Hitchcock’s idea was, and still is.
Memento (2000)
Rule Breaking Idea: Show the entire film in reverse scene orderThis is a very effective film noir with a great cast. The premise, centered on a man who has lost his ability to remember what just happened to him, lends itself to the technique Christopher Nolan used. Unlike a lot of films, the audience has to concentrate to understand what’s going on and keep track of how the last scene, which they saw first, fits into the first scene, shown last. Other than a lesser episode of Seinfeld, I’m not aware of any other films or TV shows that have tried the same thing, which is probably for the best.
High Noon (1952), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), and Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Rule Breaking Idea: Take one of America’s most sacred myths, the Western, and turn it on its headEvery country has its national myths. In America, the West represents freedom, adventure, and progress. The bad guys are swarthy, desperate, easy to spot, and more or less easy to defeat. The good guy rides in on a white horse and, with the help of, the decent local folks, cleans up the town from violent desperados or greedy corporate land barons, to the gratitude of the town folk. The landscapes are boundless and beautiful, the horses fast, and there’s plenty of room for anyone with courage and gumption.
Some films, though, cast a different light on the Old West. In High Noon, a movie that was made partly in response to McCarthyism, everyone in the western town where the movie takes place is basically a coward, wholly dependent on the sheriff (played by Gary Cooper) to save them. When it’s the sheriff who needs help defending the town from a group of bad guys, the townspeople present any excuse not to put themselves in harm’s way, much to the chagrin and ultimate disgust of the main character.
In the Ox-Bow Incident, the mob is not just passively hiding from danger, but actively seeking out ways to punish people who are innocent of a murder. “Frontier justice” is portrayed as antithetical to the American ideal. In Bad Day at Black Rock, the frontiersmen are violent, ignorant, racist thugs. The film’s hero (played by Spencer Tracy) doesn’t come in on a horse form the dusty plain, but on a train from the city. The urban places that are often portrayed as something to escape from now become the source of justice for the innocent who live in the Wild West.
Goodfellas (1990)
Rule Breaking Idea: Look at organized crime from the bottom upAnother of America’s myths is the gangster picture. Ever since films were invented Hollywood has cranked out stories of criminal syndicates and the people who run them. (see Little Ceasar, The Public Enemy, Scarface: The Shame of a Nation, White Heat). In these movies, gangsters are high-livin’, charismatic, and exciting. Francis Ford Coppola’s epic The Godfather trilogy is perhaps the ultimate portrayal of the Mafia in all its operatic glory.
With Scorsese’s masterpiece, he focuses on organized crime’s middle-management, the guys who aren’t the kingpins, but have to get up in the morning and hustle just like everybody else. Other than the obvious difference of getting killed if you get out of line, there are parallels between their life and that of any other corporate citizen – how to keep the boss happy, how to move up the org chart, how to keep it all going day in and day out. David Chase would extend this theme with his portrayal of Tony Soprano and his business operations. It’s not the larger- than-life figures that make these films interesting, but the details and dynamics of living in a wholly unique society and economic system.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Paths of Glory (1957)
Rule Breaking Idea: Make a truly anti-war filmMotion pictures use the theme of war in a lot of ways: War is an outward expression of inner struggle between our good and evil natures (Platoon). It’s a surreal journey that transforms mens’ psyches (Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter). It’s a sick joke (Dr. Strangelove, The Great Dictator). It’s a thrill ride/videogame (Pearl Harbor). It’s a testament to the bravery and sacrifice of soldiers everywhere (The Big Red One, The Longest Day, Saving Private Ryan, Das Boot, Letters from Iwo Jima, and hundreds of other war films over the years).
These films do not glamorize or celebrate war, but there are only a few films that leave out the metaphors and symbolism and take the position that, in the end, war is nothing but people killing each other and destroying civilizations. There is nothing to be learned from it or gained by it. And there are no heroes, only survivors.
Ever since All Quiet on the Western Front was released it has been censored by countries going to war. At some point in history the film has been banned in Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, New Zealand, and Australia, and has been re-cut in the U.S. to give it a happier ending. The movie is a straightforward story of young men who go off to war with their hearts full of bravado and theory (provided by a rhetoric-spouting school professor) until they experience the horror and misery of combat.
Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory shows what happens when soldiers are caught up in a bureaucracy that maintaining order even if it means killing its own innocent soldiers. The film’s main character, Colonel Dax, is a front-line infantry officer who sees the process of death both from his enemy’s guns and from his own outfit’s brutal code of discipline. Kubrick was not only critiquing war itself, but also the way higher ranking officers, represented by General Broulard, treat their own soldiers like chess pieces, throwing them into the meat grinder while those with power remain comfortably behind the lines.
These two films are based in World War I, one the least popular wars from an American movie-making perspective. The most well-received films concerning America’s current military conflict, the war in Iraq, tend to be documentaries. For reasons that have yet to be definitively determined, fictional portrayals of the Iraq war have not done well in theaters.
Vote for your favorite Babelgum Online Film Festival video entry now! Babelgum, the new interactive web TV portal, is proud to announce its first Babelgum Online Film Festival judged by director Spike Lee and a professional panel!!
Babelgum Official Site:
http://www.babelgum.com/boff/?referrer=bab-0002
Hurry Hurry Hurry!!
Still time to Vote!!
Best post wins an all expenses paid trip to meet Spike Lee at next month’s Cannes Film Festival and a ticket to the first BOFF Awards Ceremony
BABELGUM ONLINE FILM FESTIVAL/News Update
Top rated films this week are from Italy, France, Norway and the USA
London, 22nd.April 2008 – Voting fever reigns at the first Babelgum Online Film Festival (BOFF) on Babelgum, the new interactive web TV portal. Over a thousand entries from 86 countries are available to anyone with broadband, reaching a potential global audience of 360 million.
The Babelgum Online Film Festival is the first of its kind, and provides a unique distribution opportunity for the newest filmmaking talent. A number of entries have been created specifically for the festival, proving that it is also generating new and original content.
Top Films of the week April 14/20: Get a grip on your life…..and enjoy!! That seems to be the message from this week’s most popular films in the Babelgum Online Film Festival, the first BOFF. We can allow ourselves a little more pleasure, be brave in the face of adversity, move onwards and upwards even after we’ve been rejected and have faith. We can make a difference too – either by crossing a border on a rocket or, on a serious note, looking for alternatives to oil. Sure, we can take it too far, but as the top of the music category shows, true friends will always forgive us our excesses.
Animation - ITALY
Clito - This excellent piece of Italian cheekiness needs a little warning before you watch. First, make sure your mother isn’t standing behind you. Or your boss. Clear? Now, you’re ready to enjoy a hilarious and possibly educational film about the life and love life of our nether regions.
Documentary - ITALY
GREATER – Defeating Aids – This film pulls together various stories about a group of Ugandan women who are HIV positive, but this is anything but a mainstream piece of work. Inspiring characters, full of zest for life, tell us their stories, and show us their dances.
Looking for Genius - USA
Jilted – The Puppini Sisters – In this sumptuous 5 minute film (a budget of $4000? Impossible no?) we are told a story about a woman who’s been dumped and takes her revenge on all the men who have ever left her. Duel by Popcorn is just one of the original ideas here but the message is an old one: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Be warned.
Music - NORWAY
Sondre Lerche – this is quirky and fun, just what you expect from the Norwegian music scene, but here we have a snappy tune and an engaging video to boot. Sondre Lerche is the singer who manages to control the camera with his hands but the power goes to his head and he doesn’t want to share the limelight with his band. They turn into a horse-headed gang who chase him but it all works out fine in the end. Scandinavian diplomacy in action.
Short Film - USA
Officer Down – Holding on to first place in this category, this is a compelling story about a bad cop turned good, or about faith working miracles. This film just keeps on scoring highly with Babelgum audiences – it’s a praise fest. Strong writing, acting and direction.
Social/Environment - ITALY
Fill – A man fills up his car at a lonely petrol station and is haunted by the voices and sounds of all the suffering caused in the name of oil. A single drop of blood drips as he replaces the pump. This one appealed to Italian BOFFers in particular but anyone on this planet will appreciate its simplicity in conveying an important message.
Spot/Advertising - FRANCE
The Pocket Crossborder – An ad for the quickest and easiest way of crossing a border – be a human cannonball. Only don’t try this at home or on a border you can legitimately get across because helmet and armour are not included, ok? This film rocketed in the Babelgum audience’s views – no less than Charlie Kaufman wrote a post and George Lucas commented “may the force be with you”. Who said Babelgum doesn’t have friends among Hollywood’s royalty!
The Categories:
• The Babelgum Short Film Award
• The Babelgum Looking For Genius Award
• The Babelgum Animation Award
• The Babelgum Music Video Award
• The Babelgum Social / Environment Award
• The Babelgum Spot / Advertising Award
• The Babelgum Documentary Award
The Judging Process:
• Babelgum users are now voting in their thousands and having their say on who will become the next big filmmaking talent. A shortlist of films will be reached through a combination of factors: users’ votes, the amount of times a film is viewed, the amount of posts and comments and the number of times a film is linked
• The shortlist will then be judged by the BOFF Jury, led by renowned director Spike Lee. The other jurors consist of film experts from across the globe, including the directors of established film festivals, film schools and film industry associations:
About Babelgum
Babelgum is a new interactive web TV portal. Babelgum uses peer-to-peer technology to provide the immersive viewing experience and picture quality of traditional TV combined with the interactivity and personalization enabled by the Internet.
Babelgum allows users to enjoy free, on-demand and personalized channels, using both niche and mainstream content to satisfy individuals’ needs for tailored entertainment. Instead of user-generated clips, it features only professionally produced content spanning film, news, sports, documentaries, music videos, concerts, lifestyle and trends, animation and scripted programs.
Babelgum provides independent content owners with a protected platform on which to gain global exposure of their work and a unique model to monetise their content online. Babelgum’s content partners include 3DD, the Associated Press, Shine Limited, BBC Motion Gallery, Reuters, Entertainment Rights, Gong Anime, IMG, Ministry of Sound TV, Zed and Off the Fence, among others. Founded in 2005, Babelgum is a privately held company, with headquarters in Ireland and offices in the U.K., France, Italy and soon the U.S.
For further information on Babelgum please contact:
Charles McDonald/PPR
+44 207 292 8330
charles.mcdonald@premierpr.com
Babelgum’s Press Office
Andrea Giannotti
+44 20 7268 2490
+44 7825 892 640
andrea.giannotti@babelgum.com
Check out the upcoming film Dark Matter! Dark Matter is coming to New York theatres April 11th and then expanding.
Take a look at the official website: http://www.darkmatterthefilm.com/
The feature film debut of renowned opera and theater director Chen Shi-Zheng, Dark Matter delves into the world of Liu Xing (Chinese for “Shooting Star”), a Chinese science student pursuing a Ph.D. in the United States in the early 1990s. Driven by ambition, yet unable to navigate academic politics, Liu Xing is inexorably pushed to the margins of American life, until he loses his way.
Liu Xing (Liu Ye) arrives at a big Western university with plans to study the origins of the universe. At first, his experience is a heady rush of expectation and optimism. He finds other Chinese students to share a cheap apartment with him, and flirts with an attractive American girl who works in a local tea shop. When the head of the department, Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn), welcomes Liu Xing into his select cosmology group, it seems that only hard work stands between him and a bright future in American science. At an orientation for foreigners sponsored by a local church, Joanna Silver (Meryl Streep), a wealthy patron of the university, notices the earnest student. An unspoken bond forms between them.
Liu Xing becomes Reiser’s protégé, accompanying him to a prestigious conference where he makes an impressive debut. He is drawn to the study of dark matter, an unseen substance that shapes the universe, but it soon becomes clear that his developing theories threaten Reiser’s conflicting theories and well-established studies. Excited by the possibility of a breakthrough, Liu Xing is deaf to warnings that he must first pay his dues. When he is eclipsed within the department by Laurence, a more dutiful Chinese student, Liu Xing is forced to go behind Reiser’s back to publish his discoveries. When the article draws ire instead of accolades, he turns to Joanna, who naively encourages him on his collision course.
Liu Xing clings to the idea of American science as a free market of ideas, and American society as wide open to immigrants. But in the end, his dissertation is rejected, and the girl in the tea shop brushes him off. His roommates find jobs, leaving him behind. Too proud to accept help from Joanna, and unwilling to return home to his parents, Liu Xing becomes a ghost-like presence at the university. Left alone with his shattered dreams, he explodes in a final act of violence.
Inspired by actual events, Dark Matter was written by Billy Shebar with a story by Shebar and Chen Shi-Zheng. The film was financed by American Sterling Productions, and produced by Janet Yang of American Sterling Productions and Mary Salter and Andrea Miller of Saltmill LLC. Kirk D’Amico and Linda Chiu are executive producers. Dark Matter was the Alfred P. Sloan prize winner at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Paramount Pictures will become the first major studio to make thousands of movie clips available for use on the internet, launching its VooZoo application Monday on Facebook.
http://technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca
“The short clips for a movie that you’ve already seen before helps you relive the moment,” said Derek Broes, Paramount’s senior vice-president of entertainment.
Users of the popular social networking site will have access to footage from thousands of movies, including Forrest Gump and The Ten Commandments.
Facebook users can send the video clips to others users on the site.
The scenes last from a few seconds to a few minutes, covering everything from Audrey Hepburn’s monologue about her “no-name slob” of a cat in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, to Eddie Murphy’s signature chuckle from Beverly Hills Cop.
DVDs of the movies will be offered for sale through a button that appears after each clip is played. Eventually, the studio will be using the same method to market upcoming films.
VooZoo is expected to attract a few hundred thousand users within its first two months.
“My benchmark for success is that people are joining and sending,” Broes said.
The task of selecting clips was time consuming. Paramount staffers worked for more than a year to archive and tag the clips being offered.
Paramount officials say they’re not sure how much they may reap through the experiment, and have no “revenue goals” attached to the project.
With files from the Associated Press
PLAY
