kasi lemmons Tagged Articles at Cinematical

This week features a trio of intriguing indie DVDs. In her review of the dramatic and poignant Journey From the Fall, our own Kim Voynar wrote: "The journey of the 'boat people' of Vietnam has never before been documented in an American film, but if it took this long to do it right, it was worth the wait." She notes that "writer/director Ham Tran did countless interviews with Vietnamese refugees and survivors of the re-education camps to make certain his script for Journey from the Fall was authentic." The effort certainly sounds like it paid off. Look for the DVD from ImaginAsian Home Entertainment.

Cinematical's very busy Kim V. also reviewed Charles Ferguson's documentary No End in Sight when it debuted at Sundance earlier this year. She acknowledged the many other Iraq War docs that have been made recently, yet felt "the difference with No End In Sight is that it takes a ruthlessly fact-finding, information-based approach, simply in finding the right people to talk to and listening to what they have to say, that ultimately paints a very different picture of the Iraq War than the one spun by the folks currently in the Bush administration." Magnolia's DVD includes a flock of extras.

Talk to Me reportedly features a galvanizing performance by Don Cheadle, playing an ex-con who became a very popular radio personality in Washington D.C. Jeffrey M. Anderson was duly impressed, expressing his opinion that director Kasi Lemmons' major achievement "is the way that she has been able to trace nearly 20 years of history while still allowing the film to live in its current moment." The DVD from Universal Studios includes deleted scenes and two featurettes.

Other releases of interest include the five-disk set The Cinema of Peter Watkins, Russian action fantasy Day Watch and romantic comedy In the Land of Women. Oh, and a box set of some television show co-created by the dude that made Eraserhead.

The squandered genius of writer-director Bernard Rose is a subject worthy of a documentary. After some steady work as a hired helmer in British cinema, Rose made his writing-directing debut with 1992's Candyman, a movie that, by all rights, should have been a forgettable B-grade chiller about a ghost who haunts a ghetto, but which I vividly remember seeing in theaters on a double-bill with Steven Seagal's Under Siege. Since I was only 14 at the time, I was very appreciative of Under Siege -- specifically Erika Eleniak's nude scene -- but I was absolutely terrified of Candyman, and remain so to this day. By the time Rose's second film, Immortal Beloved, rolled around, I was already a fan and fell for the lush, full-throated and historically absurd sophomore effort as much as I had for Candyman. Then came 1997's expansive, shot-on-location-in-Russia film adaption of Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau, which took in less than a million dollars at the box-office, effectively ending Rose's Hollywood career just as it was beginning.

Should Rose ever be given entrance into the brass ring again, we can only hope his skills are still sharp enough to make movies like Candyman, which does so many things right I can hardly list them all. This is a horror movie that gets depressing right -- how many movies can hit that note? After you've seen it, you don't feel like you've had a "thrill ride" or a "good scare"-- you feel like the world is a grim, depressing and inescapably hopeless place. The plot: two sociology grad students at the University of Illinois, played by Virginia Madsen and Kasi Lemmons, decide to investigate a locally born urban legend figure known as Candyman (Tony Todd) -- say his name a few times in the mirror and he'll appear and gut you with his hook. Their research leads them to Chicago's Cabrini Green, a notoriously gang-infested housing complex that's sort of like a North Shore Compton, only scarier because it's comprised of dilapidated high-rise buildings with rotting walls and empty staircases that just scream out 'very bad things have happened here.'

Strictly on the basis of its estimated per-screen average, Talk to Me was the star of the weekend. As listed by Box Office Mojo, the period biopic added 79 theaters for a total of 115 and brought in $6,982 on average, earning an estimated total of $1,886,000 for distributor Focus Features. In his Cinematical review, Jeffrey M. Anderson praised the direction by Kasi Lemmons and thought that the film might "stir up some enthusiasm over its amazing performances" and that seems to be the case. The great Don Cheadle stars; he has the kind of magnetic appeal that makes him stand out and gets people talking.

Opening with a very robust estimate of $16,000 per screen in New York and Washington, DC, Charles Ferguson's Iraq war documentary No End in Sight showed that interest is still strong for independent viewpoints on the subject. Reviewing it at Sundance for Cinematical, Kim Voynar acknowledged other Iraq war docs, but felt "the difference with No End In Sight is that it takes a ruthlessly fact-finding, information-based approach, simply in finding the right people to talk to and listening to what they have to say." James Rocchi just interviewed Ferguson and it's a fascinating read. Magnolia Pictures will roll out No End in Sight to more cities in the coming weeks.

Two other new releases did fine in limited engagements; period drama Moliere and nature doc Arctic Tale averaged north of an estimated $5,000 per screen. Expanding in their screen count, Sunshine ($2,750 per screen) and Rescue Dawn ($3,304 per screen) performed quite respectably. Sicko lost 267 screens and the per-screen estimate at the remaining 850 locations dropped 39.4% to $1,338, indicating a slowdown in its sixth week, along with summer favorites Waitress and Paris je t'aime (under $1,000 per screen in the 13th week of release for each). Meanwhile, La Vie en Rose and Once remain steady.

Radio has to be one of the most un-cinematic things on the planet; it's a guy sitting in a booth for four hours talking into a microphone, or maybe playing some music. And yet radio has a kind of special magic about it. A person's voice comes sailing through the airwaves and landing in our homes, and it has the power to captivate, to soothe and to make sense of the world. Radio has appeared in a surprising number of good movies: Wolfman Jack and Stephen Wright, respectively, provided atmosphere in American Graffiti (1973) and Reservoir Dogs (1992), Robin Williams brought humor to the troops in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Christian Slater brought hope to high school students in Pump Up the Volume (1990).

It's probably a great deal more difficult to make a movie about podcasting, and so with her new film Talk to Me, director Kasi Lemmons (Eve's Bayou, The Caveman's Valentine) returns to the past for the story of Ralph "Petey" Greene (Don Cheadle), an ex-con who became one of Washington DC's most recognizable personalities in the 1960s and all the way up to his death in 1984. Lemmons starts her movie with a bang, with Petey's signature line: "Wake up, Goddammit!" as Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) rolls out of bed, puts on his suit and makes an excursion to prison to visit his brother (Mike Epps). Lemmons intercuts Dewey's progress while Petey "raps" about imprisonment. Dewey may be free, but he's trapped, too.

Having survived criticism for agreeing to showcase Michael Bay's Transformers and, on the other end of the artistic spectrum, losing the US premiere of a Romanian prize-winner, reportedly due to an anxious distributor, the Los Angeles Film Festival prepares to open on Thursday with the world premiere of Talk to Me. The latest film by Kasi Lemmons, Talk to Me stars Don Cheadle as Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene Jr., an "underappreciated hero of the civil rights movement." Lemmons is a member of the Board of Directors of Film Independent, the organization behind the festival, but she's also an acclaimed filmmaker in her own right, having made the excellent Eve's Bayou and The Caveman's Valentine, and the trailer for Talk to Me looks great. A rich variety of entertainment -- including live music, filmmaker talks and free outdoor screenings -- has been arranged throughout the festival, which runs from June 21 through July 1.

Still, the heart of any festival is the film programming, and the line-up is stellar. The Narrative Competition includes August Evening, which has the potential to be exceptional; it features lyrical photography and a hypnotic sense of place as an older man faces the dissolution of his family. Owl and the Sparrow also looks promising; from the trailer it appears to be a lively tale of a young girl who runs away to Saigon and gets involved with a flight attendant and a zookeeper. Summer Previews include Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris and Steve Buscemi's Interview, while the International Showcase will screen Ad Lib Night from South Korea ("amazingly powerful," according to one knowledgeable reviewer) and Guilty Pleasures will give audiences the chance to see Flight of the Living Dead; all you need to know is "zombies on a plane." About 40 trailers are available for viewing on the festival's web site; in all, more than 230 features, shorts and music videos will screen before the Closing Night presentation of Danny Boyle's Sunshine.

I'll admit that the only Don Cheadle project I had been keeping track of was the Miles Davis biopic; so it was no surprise that Cheadle's Talk To Me had flown completely under my radar. That is until I noticed the new trailer up on Yahoo! Movies. Also starring is Martin Sheen, Chiwetel Ejiofor (Inside Man) and Cedric The Entertainer -- who might be looking to redeem himself with audiences after the reception Code Name: The Cleaner received.

Directed by Kasi Lemmons, the film is the biography of Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con who became an Emmy winning broadcaster and social activist. Greene passed away in 1984 at the age of 53. The movie looks to be dripping with nostalgia and even manages to work in a shot of a burning flag in case you think this period comedy doesn't have a serious point to make. Luckily, Cheadle has the uncanny ability of walking away with his dignity intact no matter what the rest of the movie is like; if you don't believe me, watch Swordfish and tell me he doesn't save himself from total embarrassment, if only John Travolta had managed to do the same. Talk To Me opens July of this year.

Acting buffs everywhere rejoiced on Tuesday, as it was announced that Don Cheadle and Chiwitel Ejiofor -- two of the best actors working today, regardless of their race -- are teaming up for a true-life tale of a Washington, D.C. talk radio jock from the '60s. Cheadle will rock the mic, playing ex-con 'Petey' Green, who became a controversial host in '60s D.C.; Ejiofor will play his producer Dewey Hughes. Even more interesting is the announcement that Kasi Lemmons will be directing-- Lemmons made a splash with Eve's Bayou, although her follow-up, The Caveman's Valentine, fell off the radar. Shooting is scheduled to start next month -- presumably after Cheadle's Ocean's 13 duties are accomplished -- and the pic will be distributed by Focus Features, the Universal-linked micro-studio that brought us Brokeback Mountain and Far From Heaven. Never having lived in D.C., I don't know the background of this story -- can any of our readers in Drama City fill us in on the historical roots of this film? As for me, I'm just psyched by the thought of Cheadle and Ejiofor working together on the big screen. ...