carroll ballard Tagged Articles at Cinematical

• Doogal - A saccharine, cheap-looking CGI import from Britain about a lazy, cowardly, sugar-addicted pooch (with a mullet cut) who must find a way to save the world from an icy death is not the follow-up to Hoodwinked that Disney escapees Bob and Harvey Weinstein hoped for...or we asked for. At least they've got the swell Over The Hedge in theaters this week. Formerly titled The Magic Roundabout and re-dubbed (Doogal, that is. Not Over The Hedge.)

• Duma - With most arthouse films rated "R", it is always a pleasure when one comes along that culture mavens can take their kids to, and The Black Stallion director Carroll Ballard's latest nature trek -- a visually lovely adventure -- certainly does fit that bill. It is about a 12-year-old South African boy (Alexander Michaletos) who must return his pet cheetah to the wild, encountering and overcoming a number of obstacles along the way, the biggest one being our initial reluctance to accept its premise.
 

It's Easter weekend, and for a lot of us that means easter egg hunts, church services, and dinner with the extended family. After stuffing yourself silly with chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chicks and ham and listening to Uncle Bert's war stories for the 89,000th time, you'll be ready to escape -- and where better to escape to than the movies? If you live in Seattle, count yourself lucky. You'll have more to choose from than Scary Movie 4 or The Wild.

UW Film Club 

This week at UW brings us a showing of Academy Award-nominated Brazilian film City of God. Tuesday, April 18 @6PM, Electrical Engineering Auditorium. Also this week at  UW:

Beautiful Boxer shows as part of International Queer Nights, Tuesday, April 18 @7PM, Q Center

ASUW A&E Movie Spring Series - every Weds. at the HUB Ballroom.

April 19 - Memoirs of a Geisha @5:30PM; Chronicles of Narnia @8PM

 

This week's weather report for the lovely Puget Sount area: rain, followed by more rain, with occasional showers breaking through. Yup, it's March in Seattle. Fortunately for us, my fellow Seattleites, it's always raining film in Seattle as well. I know, 'round here we don't let a little rain stop us from getting out and doing our biking, hiking and mountain climbing, but when you get done with all that, go bask in the warm glow of the projector light and watch one of the many cool films showing around the Seattle.

UW Film Club 

Be Here to Love Me, FREE screening, Thursday, March 30 @ 7:30PM, UW, Smith 120 

UPCOMING:

Seattle Arab and Iranian Film Festival 2006, March 31-April 6 - The festival has some promising films lined up, including Sundance winner Iraq in Fragments.

 

The most astonishing thing about Duma isn't the film itself; it's how difficult it's been for this beautiful film to get into theaters where people can see it. Roger Ebert campaigned for the film back in August of last year, and at that time noted Warner Bros. exec  Dan Fellman said the studio, which also distributed runaway success March of the Penguins,  was disappointed in the film's box office returns. Fellman expressed surprise at the time that one film was so successful while the other struggled, in spite of positive response from audience members and critics alike.

Duma was directed by Carroll Ballard, who has previously made some great family films, including The Black Stallion and Fly Away Home. With Ballard at the helm giving us his hallmark spectacular landscapes and fantastic cinematography, and a compelling story about a boy and his cheetah, you'd think Duma would have had no trouble making its mark. Yet according to Box Office Mojo, Duma has currently brought in only $870,00 at the box office, compared to March of the Penguins gargantuan take of nearly $77.5 million. And having seen both films, I can't understand why, unless it just comes down to Penguins having a broader appeal or being better marketed.