Have you ever liked an actor that no one else seems to like? You almost want to keep your adoration to yourself, for fear that you'll be laughed out of a party or a gathering when you say how much you like Josh Hartnett. I actually do like Josh Hartnett, quite a lot. For a pretty boy, he has a very warm screen personality, and though he can appear perfectly comfortable playing a boxer or a cop, he also has a wonderful sense of humor. In short, he's not a brooder or a poser like most of his other pretty boy contemporaries. And yes, he was in Pearl Harbor, but he made up for that with excellent performances in The Virgin Suicides, O, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Hollywood Homicide and The Black Dahlia. Incidentally, these are all under-appreciated or misunderstood movies, just like Josh himself.

There. I've gone on record. Looking down the list of movies currently playing on 400 screens or less, I came up with several other actors I like that have not really received the love they deserve. First up, we have Amy Adams, who I just caught in the new Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. As far as I'm concerned, Amy walks on water. She's like a Carole Lombard for the 21st century. That means that she's not particularly suited for low-key "realistic" roles, such as the one she plays in Charlie Wilson's War (97 screens); in that, she basically trails Tom Hanks and occasionally reads some complicated dialogue to him. (I thought Mike Nichols was supposed to be good with actors.) But in Enchanted (329 screens), Amy is perfectly cast as a slightly cartoonish, screwball kook. She can move her eyes and her entire body in very precise ways for outlandish results, but she still retains a strain of humanity; she never spirals off into anything untouchable or unknowable. I thought she deserved an Oscar nomination for this one, but I'm afraid she'll need to put on a lot of "ugly" makeup before she wins anything.

One of the most towering achievements in cinema this year, Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, finally opened in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day and was rewarded with a per-screen average of $91,300 over the weekend, the best average of the year, according to Pamela McClintock of Variety. Of course, the film only played at two theaters, but still, that's mighty impressive. Nineteen cities across the country also hosted a midnight screening on Saturday; no word yet on how those screenings were received. I thought this was an astounding film when I saw it at Fantastic Fest and I can't wait to see it again.

Cinematical's Scott Weinberg has been raving about The Orphanage since he saw the Spanish ghost story at the Toronto film festival (check his Top 10 list), and the film grossed a very healthy $12,260 per screen at 19 engagements, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. That's just slightly more than the French-language Persepolis, the animated tale about a little girl coming of age during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which earned $12,160 per screen at seven engagements. James Rocchi reviewed the film at Cannes, and Erik Davis recently posted his interview with directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud.

When it played at the Toronto festival, Monika Bartyzel called John Sayles' Honeydripper "a simple and plainly executed ode to the start of rock 'n' roll." Movie City News pointed to Stephen Holden's "withering notice" in The New York Times, which provoked Ira Deutschman of distributor Emerging Pictures to respond: "Do people show their own ignorance–and even racism–when they have a kneejerk reaction to a story that, while set in a certain time and place, is trying to get to something a little different from what is expected?" The picture made just $2,400 per screen at four locations in New York and Los Angeles.

The 51st edition of the London Film Festival kicked off last night with a red carpet gala for David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. An article in Variety says that Cronenberg attended and even joked with the audience: "The reason you might not recognize London in this film is that it was shot in Prague." The now-notorious scene in which a naked Viggo Mortensen battles brutes in a bathhouse reportedly drew a round of applause.

Cast members Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel were in attendance, as well as a treasure trove of celebrities, including Colin Firth, Martin Freeman and Elle McPherson. Check out the Cinematical photo gallery of the premiere below to get a taste of the red carpet.

Next Monday night, Robert Redford's political drama Lions for Lambs will have its world premiere, with Redford and stars Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep scheduled to attend. Other upcoming gala and special screenings include Bee Movie, The Darjeeling Limited, Into the Wild, Lust, Caution, Sicko and Things We Lost in the Fire.

Beyond the galas, the festival features a wide selection of world cinema. The "New British Cinema" section showcases 12 films, including Nick Broomfield's Iraq war docu-drama Battle for Haditha, John Crowley's tale of redemption Boy A and Simon Welsford's thriller Jetsam. "French Revolutions" highlights 14 newer titles from that country, while American titles like Hannah Takes the Stairs, Grace is Gone and Honeydripper are featured in other sections. The festival continues through November 1.

When Honeydripper opens, we see two young boys. One's fingers are pulling away at a string, while the other's are pounding piano keys painted on a piece of wood. While their music echoes only in their minds, their passion is palpable. This sweet scene is, in a way, a perfect metaphor for the work of John Sayles -- his films are, at once, both subdued and sonorous. However, where most of them seek to reveal hidden layers and webs, Honeydripper is a simple and plainly executed ode to the start of rock 'n' roll.

Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis (Danny Glover) is the proprietor of the Honeydripper -- an ailing club in a town called Harmony, deep in 1950's Alabama. While he offers the stunning voice of Bertha Mae (Mable John), his competition, a hop free of a skip and a jump away, offers a loud and rowdy jukebox that draws in the crowds in droves. Pine Top has one last chance to save his club, or his landlord will rent the building to someone else. The plan -- bring in radio phenomenon Guitar Sam to perform for just one Saturday night. (This is a bit unheard of for the musician-turned-bar owner, as he considers guitar players to be dangerous.)

Many people may have done more for independent film -- producers who funded groundbreaking work, directors who brought crowds to theaters with groundbreaking work, pioneers who paved the way -- but, looking at the career of writer-director John Sayles, it's hard to think of anyone who's done more with independent film. Each of Sayles's movies is different , yet they all revolve around his central concerns -- life, morality, the struggles and rewards of life in America. His new film, Honeydripper, debuts at this year's Toronto International Film Festival -- a completely independent "rock and roll fable" about the birth of rock and roll, set in an Alabama juke joint in 1950. Sayles spoke with Cinematical in Toronto about re-creating the distant past on a shoestring budget, how he found young guitar man Gary Clark, Jr. , working with Danny Glover and Charles S. Dutton and recommended specific records where you, too, can hear the sound of rock and roll being born. You can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



You can also download the interview right here.

If there's anyone I could see employing interesting independent filmmaking techniques, it would be John Sayles. And no, it's not only because I love the hell out of his films. He's been making indie films for almost 30 years, and along with partner Maggie Renzi, has always found a way to fund, make and distribute them. (Thank God!) His new movie Honeydripper, which will premiere at TIFF, takes place in Alabama and focuses on a man named Tyrone (Danny Glover) who aims to save his struggling joint with a performance by a famous musician called Guitar Sam. In the film, Tyrone has to get crafty when Sam goes AWOL, and now the film is getting creative with their distribution -- by getting help from university students.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Emerging Pictures founder Ira Deutchman and producer Will Packer are teaming with Clark Atlanta University to start a film marketing and distribution course for African-American college students across the country, including HBCU -- Historically Black Colleges and Universities. It will be organized by a prof, led by industry names and then aired on the Internet. The course will first focus on Honeydripper, before the film is released in New York and LA on December 28 (along with Atlanta and Chicago on January 18 and wide release the month after). Selected students will work with the film's distribution team to create and and put into action a grassroots marketing campaign. How cool is that?! Lucky buggers.

I just can't resist any news on John Sayles. Earlier this month, I posted that the director's latest film, Honeydripper, was going to be in this year's TIFF lineup. After starting off fall with a bang, the director is also getting saluted for his work with a Golden Alexander fat the 48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which will take place in Greece this November. Honeydripper will have its European premiere at the festival, and Sayles will be there to discuss his films with his partner/producer Maggie Renzi, as well as actors Chris Cooper and David Strathairn. But that's not all -- he'll also conduct a Master Class. Oh, how green I am turning at the thought of the lucky festival patrons in Greece.

I must admit, I came into the world of Sayles late in the game -- when Casa de los babys screened at TIFF in 2003, and I got to hear a talk with him and his hugely-talented female cast. I liked it, but it was the Danny Huston-starring Silver City, which came out the next year, that really hooked me. The man has a talent for dealing with serious, and often psyche-troubling topics, but with a lightness that makes the experience enjoyable. I just about died when I saw that he directed one of my favorite actors, Joe Morton, in an alien flick about Harlem called The Brother from Another Planet. It's a great film that houses not only an amazing performance by Morton, who is seriously underrated, but Sayles' classic, alien bad-guy acting. If you want to hear more about Sayles, stay tuned to Cinematical Indie, because I'm cooking up a bit of a Sayles extravaganza, which will come out in a few weeks.

If there is one thing that always makes the TIFF season a little bit sweeter, it is John Sayles. Since I started going to the fest in 2003, I've seen his adoption drama Casa de los babys and then his Dubya-metaphor political mystery -- Silver City. The film gave Danny Huston some excellent screen-time (while robbing him appropriate props on the DVD), and had an ironic screening at TIFF, when a horde of gold and platinum card-holding patrons gained advanced entry.

Now the festival is sharing its latest batch of films to be screened, and Sayles' next film, Honeydripper, leads the pack. (We last mentioned the film when Jessica Barnes posted about the its production wrap.) Always managing to keep things fresh, this latest film is about a "down-on-his-luck Southern juke joint owner who recruits a talented drifter to help revive his club." It stars Danny Glover, and has other big names in the cast like Lisa Gay Hamilton, Charles S. Dutton and Stacy Keach.

The other films on the list aren't too shabby either. There's The Girl in the Park, David Auburn's drama starring Sigourney Weaver and Kate Bosworth, which is about a woman who never gets over the disappearance of her three-year-old daughter, and the young woman she comes across years later, who she hopes is her daughter. On a lighter note, there's Ryan Gosling's latest film -- Lars and the Real Girl, which is a film about a strange man who falls for a life-size doll. (will doll shenanigans be next in the wave of boundary-breaking cinematic sex?!)

Then we can jump back into drama with Helen Hunt's directorial debut -- Then She Found Me -- about an adopted woman in crisis. While trying to have a baby, the woman's marriage crumbles, her adoptive mom dies and then her birth mom pops up -- and it has a rather interesting cast of Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler and Matthew Broderick. Lastly, there's Richard Roxburgh's Romulus, My Father -- the Nick Drake-adapted Raimond Gaita memoir starring Eric Bana and Franka Potente. I think it's time to invest in some No-Doze or get some Clockwork eye-openers if the rest of the film list is half as tasty as what they've already listed.

Probably one of the reasons that people admire a director like John Sayles so much is that he really is an independent director. Sayles has sometimes been referred to as one of the original "DIY Filmmakers" and always managed to make films his way and with his own distinctive style.

Production has just wrapped on Sayles latest film Honeydripper. The announcement came from the film's producer on the official production blog last Friday; Maggie Renzi posted that the film had just wrapped the 100-person crew in Alabama. Sayles must have run a tight ship, as the film only began shooting last September ... and the director has been aiming for a 2007 release. The film stars Danny Glover as the owner of a floundering "Juke Joint" in rural Alabama with a serious clientele shortage. Glover's character hires a new guitar player in the hopes of drumming up business. (I wonder if that counts as a mixed metaphor?) The film also stars real-life musicians Keb' Mo and R&B singer Ruth Gordon Brown.

Renzi is currently working with emerging pictures to get distribution for the film when she posted "And I'm damned if after all this work we're going to see another movie sacrificed to the Petty God of Bad Distribution". So if you are a fan of Sayles, stay tuned as Honeydripper fights it's way to a screen near you.

[via The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Biz Blog]