TheLastStation Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Trailer Park: Greenberg, Toys and Tolstoy
Filed under: Animation », Comedy », Drama », Trailer Trash », Trailers and Clips »
Greenberg
Ben Stiller stars in this indie comedy about a man who deals with his mid-life crisis by doing nothing. Stiller actually seems appealing when he's not trying to be zany. Watch for this one on March 12.
Toy Story 3
This new international trailer shows a little more of the trauma inflicted upon our toy heroes after Andy goes off to college and they are donated to a daycare center. Looks like this one has all the charm of the first two installments. That June 18th release date can't come soon enough.
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.
Indie Roundup: 'Dogging,' 'Serious,' 'Capitalism'
Filed under: Deals », Distribution », Cinematical Indie »
Deals. Sony Pictures Classics acquired The Last Station hot off its debut at the Telluride Film Festival and plans a quick turnaround, releasing it before the end of the year and pushing its stars Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, and James McAvoy for awards consideration, according to Thompson on Hollywood. Described as a "fictionalized chronicle of Tolstoy's last days" by our own Eugene Novikov, the film's main problem is that it 'madly equivocates' on whether Tolstoy, portrayed by Plummer is, essentially, "a crackpot."
Historical drama John Rabe will get a theatrical outing next spring courtesy of Strand Releasing, according to indieWIRE. Based on the diaries of a German businessman, the film tells about his role in saving the lives of 200,000 people during the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in 1937. indieWIRE also reports that IFC Films picked up Bruno Dumont's religiously-inclined Hadewijch and Lorber Films will distribute Nobody's Perfect, a German documentary about a man's search for fellow Thalidomide 'children' willing to pose naked for a book of photographs.
Film Criticism. The New York Film Critics Circle celebrates its 75th anniversary this year and will get the spotlight on Saturday at the Hamptons Film Festival, with the ever-contrary Armond White of New York Press sitting down along several other members of the circle. The feisty James Toback, whose documentary Tyson is up for awards consideration this fall, will moderate.
Online / On Demand Viewing. A British journalist investigates the burgeoning phenomenon of public sex in Dogging: A Love Story (not to be confused with Michael Moore's romance), which is now playing on demand via IFC. And we've got the trailer to prove it, after the jump!
Also: Why so serious? The Coen Brothers and Michael Moore.
Telluride Review: The Last Station
Filed under: Drama », Telluride », Theatrical Reviews »
Circa 1910, Lev Tolstoy was the most renowned writer and thinker in Russia. The man was so worshipped that he spawned his own political and philosophical movement – Tolstoyanism – that won over scores of fanatically devoted adherents who followed Tolstoy in rejecting notions of private property, condemning sexual intercourse, and embracing what can be described as an idiosyncratic form of communism, with a somewhat creepy religious bent. "I don't believe that Tolstoy is Christ," says one particularly revolting character in The Last Station, a fictionalized chronicle of Tolstoy's last days. "Christ is Christ. But I believe that he is a prophet."
I've read enough Tolstoy to know that the guy was essentially a crackpot. The main problem with The Last Station is that the movie – which wants badly to portray the man as sympathetic – spends most of its running time madly equivocating on this score. Certainly its depiction of his politics does Tolstoy no favors: his worldview appears as illogical and fanatical as it apparently was in real life. At the urging of his advisors, the man robs his wife of 48 years of the rights to his bestsellers, which he is convinced "belong to the people." When asked why his family shouldn't profit from what is, after all, his work, he says that if peasants had money, they wouldn't spend it on footservants – to which his wife, Countess Sofia Andreevna Tolstoya, reasonably replies that they would probably spend it on liquor.
Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren Take on Tolstoy
Filed under: Drama », Casting »
When news of The Last Station first hit all the way back in 2006, it sounded pretty darned irresistible -- Anthony Hopkins as Leo Tolstoy, Meryl Streep as his wife Sofia, and Paul Giamatti as Tolstoy's supporter, Chertkov. Now, as much as I enjoy a good performance by Hopkins and Streep, I'm happy to say that there's new casting for the film, that's finally heading towards production, and still has Giamatti attached.Variety reports that Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren have now signed on to star. Anthony is great and all, but he's no Plummer. Based on Jay Parini's novel from 1990, the film will follow the final year of the famous writer's life -- when his wife's extravagant demands clash with his "philosophy of poverty," and he flees to the house of a station-master for some peace as he dies.
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
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Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
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