gimme shelter Tagged Articles at Cinematical

You've probably heard folks talk about the atrocities being committed in the Congo, or skipped through a commercial featuring a slideshow of poor, dirty, unhappy faces in an effort to win your donations -- but the problems aren't going away, and perhaps you'll take a few minutes to check out this new short film from Ben Affleck to see if there's anything you can do to help. Affleck teams up with UNHCR and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in a new campaign (which includes the following short, directed by Affleck) to "help raise funds and awareness about the crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the work of the UN refugee agency." They hope to eventually raise $23 million in 2009 to help pay for stuff like clean water supplies and emergency humanitarian assistance kits.

From UNHCR: "In November, Affleck visited Africa to shoot footage in DRCs strife-torn North Kivu province, where tens of thousands have fled their homes since fighting resumed in August. He also visited Uganda, where some 30,000 people have sought refuge and are receiving help from UNHCR. The result is a short film entitled Gimme Shelter, set to the classic Rolling Stones song of the same name, which Jagger and the group donated to the campaign."

Watch the short below, then please head on over to the UNHCR website to see what you can do to help.

Among the perks of being a sought-after Oscar-winning screenwriter is, apparently, the ability to fourwall a movie theater for two weeks and play a bunch of your favorite films for an appreciative audience. That's exactly what Juno's Diablo Cody is doing at LA's New Beverly Cinema from today through July 24th, and it won't come as any surprise to Cody's admirers that the lady's got good taste. Her slate includes reliable classics (Stripes, Pretty in Pink), off the wall genre picks (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), some culty fun (Wet Hot American Summer) and the expected shout-out to Juno director Jason Reitman.

Previous guest programmers at the New Beverly have included Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Joe Dante. Cody will introduce some of the films herself, and the theater's MySpace page promises "many guest appearances."

Kudos to Movie City News for coming across this. Check out the entire schedule after the jump -- it's really an inspired slate of picks. She's got a nose for filmmaking that's smart and unabashedly mainstream, as both Juno and this film festival proves.