HalHolbrook Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Looking Ahead to the 2009 Denver Film Festival
Filed under: Festival Reports »
Denver may not be a city that attracts the amount of movie industry buzz that centers around our Western neighbors of Telluride, Sundance and Austin, but we do have a solid and fervent community of film lovers here. We don't have a ton of film events, but what we do have is cherished and obsessed over enough to rival the Alamo Drafthouse.
One of these events is the Starz Denver Film Festival, which is going strong in its 32nd year. After partnering with Starz, over the years, we've played host to Crispin Glover, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, Will Smith, Ang Lee, and enjoyed every on-the-cusp-of-Oscar movie of the past three seasons. This year is no exception as the festival kicks off this week with Precious, which was produced by the Denver-based Sarah Siegel Magness and Gary Magness. Denver will also get a chance to "meet" the film's buzzed about star, Gabourey Sidibe. Three legendary actors will be receiving the spotlight while enjoying our thin air: Ed Harris and his latest film, Touching Home will be the focus of a special evening, and will receive the Mayor's Achivement Award. Hal Holbrook will be receiving the Excellence in Acting Award, and be on hand with his new film, That Evening Sun. Last but not least, J.K. Simmons will be receiving the Cassavetes Award, and be presenting his new film, The Vicious Kind.
But hey, that's the glitzy statuette stuff. If you're a Colorado native, you need to check out the impressive schedule which includes big films such as Leaves of Grass, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The Last Station, The Young Victoria, and Best Worst Movie with special screenings of its star, Troll 2. If you want to avoid the buzz, there's enough intriguing indies, documentaries, and foreign film selections to make your eyeballs fall out.
From Page to Screen: 'Into the Wild'
Filed under: Drama », From Page to Screen »
The conventional wisdom regarding Sean Penn's justly acclaimed rendering of Into the Wild is that the film is "faithful" to the Jon Krakauer book. This is utterly cracked, and the misconception is illustrative of my staunch "books are not movies" philosophy. Not only is Into the Wild not "faithful" to the book, but it couldn't possibly have been faithful and remain a narrative film. Sure, it dutifully replicates what Krakauer was able to discover about Chris McCandless' adventure – most of the supporting characters, destinations and events are here, and some lines of dialogue are lifted from Krakauer's account. If that's all it takes for a movie to be "faithful," then I guess it's faithful. But that ignores the fact that the book and the film were trying to accomplish fundamentally different things, and went about it in fundamentally different ways.
Krakauer's book – which, by the way, is a national treasure – is first journalistic, and then philosophical. The author did painstaking research to piece together the details of McCandless' journey and death from interviews, personal observations, and Chris's own writings. What emerged probably wasn't what Krakauer, who obviously sympathizes and identifies with his hero, would have preferred: the picture of McCandless his sources paint is that of a young man who is bright and curious, but also inconsiderate, arrogant, and often downright unpleasant. (The letter he wrote to "Ron Franz," Hal Holbrook's character in the film, haranguing the octogenarian to sell his possessions and go on the road, is painful to read.)
SAG Announces Nominees
Filed under: Drama », Awards », Angelina Jolie », Johnny Depp », George Clooney », Oscar Watch », Cinematical Indie »
For some horrible reason Josh Brolin continues to be left out of the awards season party this year, despite his terrific performances in No Country for Old Men, American Gangster and In the Valley of Elah (he was also in Planet Terror, the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse). All I can say is that I hope he continues to be offered great roles and never has to go back to being in movies like Hollow Man and Into the Blue. Meanwhile, his No Country co-stars Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones have been nominated for Screen Actors Guild awards for their supporting roles. Bardem's presence in the category is not surprising -- he's the front-runner for the supporting Oscar, isn't he? -- but it's great to Jones here, since he's been ignored by the Golden Globes, the Golden Satellites and pretty much everything else.Another surprise with the SAG nominees is Ryan Gosling as best actor for Lars and the Real Girl, beating possible contenders Johnny Depp, Denzel Washington, Phillip Seymour Hoffman (also missing from the supporting category) and Tom Hanks. Also, there's sweet little old Ruby Dee in the supporting actress race for having the cutest reaction to being given a mansion (and for later putting Denzel in his place) in American Gangster. She goes up against the usual 2007 supporting actress contenders Cate Blanchett, Amy Ryan and Tilda Swinton, as well as somewhat surprising addition Catherine Keener, who helped to make Into the Wild the top receiver of nominations with four -- others include Emile Hirsch, Hal Holbrook and ensemble cast. Other ensemble casts nominated include those of Hairspray (no single acting noms), 3:10 to Yuma (no single acting noms), No Country for Old Men, and American Gangster. Very, very, very surprisingly left out of this category is Juno (Ellen Page is nominated for best actress, however).
This year the SAG Awards are introducing two new categories. They are both for best stunt ensemble, one for film and one for television. The film category features nominees The Bourne Identity, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, I Am Legend, 300 and The Kingdom. The rest of the motion picture nominees and categories can be found after the jump or over on Moviefone.
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Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
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