the eclipse Tagged Articles at Cinematical

After a long flight on my part and a far longer drive for both of us, Scott Weinberg and I have finally arrived in Montréal for the FanTasia International Film Festival (their thirteenth, our first). The genre-heavy festival lasts for nearly three weeks; alas, we've but one to spare, so without much further ado, here's a look at what I've seen already and what I hope to see before Scott tips his own hand with a title or two to recommend.

Of the features playing, I can highly recommend Michael Paul Stephenson's Troll 2 doc, Best Worst Movie; the Aussie revenge thriller, The Horseman (not to be confused with the barely-seen Dennis Quaid vehicle, Horsemen); and Paul Solet's beautifully bloody baby horror, Grace. Those looking for something a bit stranger might end up being a bit more fond of Black and The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle than I was, though I also seemed more easily pleased by the Nazi zombies of Dead Snow than most, so I guess it all balances out. My enthusiasm for the ultra-kitschy likes of Alien Trespass and Lesbian Vampire Killers, not to mention the admittedly boundary-pushing Deadgirl, is all a bit less than what's already been mentioned, so let's just leave those at that.

Read the rest at HorrorSquad!

Conor McPherson's The Eclipse had several suitors sniffing around as soon as the spooky tale made its world debut at Tribeca on April 24th, but in the end Magnolia Pictures won out with a mid-six figure deal for worldwide distribution rights.
.
Sony Pictures Classics, Miramax, Lionsgate, and Roadside were all eyeing this story starring Ciaran Hinds, who won the Best Actor jury prize for her performance. Hinds plays Michael Farr, a widower and would-be writer in Cohb, Ireland, who is smitten with Lena, a horror author from out of town. Farr has quite a few things on his mind lately: the death of his wife, contending for Lena's affections with a smug American writer (Aidan Quinn), and the recent ghost he's been seeing.

Cinematical's Eric D. Snider wrote in his review of The Eclipse, "A widower dealing with grief, a romantic triangle, and an illicit affair are more than enough to fill one story. The addition of ghostly visions could have been a way to make the film stand out from its class; instead, those elements merely feel tacked on."

Interestingly enough, it's just that combination that had distributors talking, in the hopes that The Eclipse could appeal to both "genre" fans (i.e. fans of the horror and supernatural) and romance/drama fans. Who will really be lining up to buy tickets seems to be a big question mark for reviewers, but in a year when even Woody Allen's ballyhooed return to NYC fell flat, The Eclipse has, at the very least, gotten people talking. The Eclipse, which currently has no release date, is the first big Tribeca deal in several years.

The eighth edition of the Tribeca Film Festival drew to a close very late Sunday night after a full day of screenings. The slimmed-down fest was evidently somewhat easier for the press and public to navigate, and the good films still bobbed to the surface on their own merits.

Awards. The competition categories were decided upon by all-star juries, but the paying customers got their say as well. Raymond De Felitta's comedy City Island won the Audience Award, edging out Marshall Curry's doc Racing Dreams and Ron Carlson's historical epic Mascots vs. Midgets. (Just kidding on that last description, of course; see "Our Coverage" below.) Racing Dreams previously won the jury award for Best Documentary Feature. The top 10 audience favorites are listed at the fest site.

Deals. Magnolia Pictures picked up Conor McPherson's drama The Eclipse over the weekend. We'll have a separate story on this distribution deal.

Our Coverage. Erik Davis said that Stay Cool "leaps into your lap with its perky, original concept, but then slowly but surely fails to deliver ... well, pretty much everything." Eric D. Snider advises that Ti West's The House of the Devil "prefers slow-building tension over frequent bloodletting and mayhem," but when it does deliver on its promises, "Holy crap." (?!) Another title that seemingly sells itself, Midgets vs. Mascots turns out to be "an occasionally very funny but often very sloppy mockumentary that is far too eager to show us how taboo it is," according to The Snide.

You can review, bookmark, recommend, link to, chew over, and comment upon all of our coverage right here.

Twitter Talk. Just one concluding thought: "Tribeca winds down as the dividers at the AMC slowly get put away. The rain is God shedding a tear."

In a ceremony held last night, the Tribeca Film Festival announced this year's winners of its competition categories. The top prizes went to Iranian drama About Elly for Best Narrative Feature and audience fave Racing Dreams for Best Documentary Feature.

About Elly, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, revolves around a group of "old college pals" who reunite for a weekend by the sea, a friendly outing that turns serious when one of the women disappears. The jury (Bradley Cooper, Richard Fischoff, Todd Haynes, Meg Ryan, and Uma Thurman) called the Iranian movie "a seamless piece of ensemble filmmaking." Racing Dreams, directed by Marshall Curry, follows three go-kart racers, ranging in age from 11 to 13, who are competing for a national champiomship that's considered "a huge stepping stone to auto racing's big show-NASCAR." The jury (Liz Garbus, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Morgan Spurlock, and Brian Williams) declared it to be "a completely compelling, entertaining film of incredible quality."

For his Norwegian comedy North, director Rune Denstad Langlo was recognized as Best New Narrative Filmmaker, while Ciarán Hinds (The Eclipse) and Zoe Kazan (The Exploding Girl) were honored as Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. In the documentary arena, Ian Olds won the award as Best New Documentary Filmmaker for Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, which tells the story of an Afghan "fixer" (defined as "someone hired by foreign journalists to facilitate the gathering of news stories") and the "dangerous and unseen world of wartime news gathering." The recently-acquired Defamation received a Special Jury Mention.

The complete list of award winners is available at the official site. The festival continues through May 3. Check out all of our coverage right here.

One week into the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) and the screenings keep humming along. It's probably a softer buzz than previous years; some attendees have even dared to take a night or two off to care for other, personal matters (like sleep) -- something you'd never hear about at Sundance, Cannes, or Toronto. Perhaps that's a consequence of the festival being held in such a costly city: very expensive for out-of-towners to cover, and locals can't get away from their personal lives the same as when they're traveling.

Scene. Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience premiered on Tuesday evening (the post-screening party featured chocolate-covered bacon), and tonight Soderbergh and star Sasha Grey shared a panel to discuss the film. Eric Bana made an appearance in support of Love the Beast, a documentary he directed about his favorite car, and Zachary Quinto chatted with him at a party in the East Village. Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker walked the red carpet for Joshua Goldin's Wonderful World, in which Broderick stars. Racing Dreams, currently leading the Audience Awards voting, is apparently not a Go-Kart movie, as we have previously described it. Sorry!

Our Coverage. Eric D. Snider reviewed Raymond De Felitta's City Island ("a merry comedy about one of those quarrelsome Italian-American families where everybody fights a lot but ultimately loves one another") and Conor McPherson's The Eclipse ("an unusual mixture of somber character drama and supernatural horror"). Erik Davis took a critical look at Which Way Home ("a riveting documentary that taps into the same concept and themes of Sin Nombre, except it's all real and it's all heartbreaking to watch") and gave us a glimpse of the TFF flasher and other "bumps." Check out all of our coverage right here.

The press kits that accompany most films usually aren't very useful beyond telling you how to spell the actors' names, but the one for The Eclipse was insightful. The film is an unusual mixture of somber character drama and supernatural horror, and the statement from director Conor McPherson confirms something I'd suspected from watching it: the supernatural elements were wedged into the screenplay after everything else.

McPherson says he started with a screenplay based on a short story by Billy Roche but was stymied in his efforts to make it work as a film until he came up with the ghosty stuff. It's a shame (or, rather, it's a shame that it's so obvious), because films that combine these two disparate genres successfully are rare. And The Eclipse, even with its flaws, is still a respectable effort, with sensitive performances and shrewd direction. It just doesn't live up to its promise.

It is set in the quaint Irish town of Cobh, where a widowed schoolteacher named Michael Farr (Ciaran Hinds) lives with his two teenage children and still mourns the death of his wife two years ago. Michael writes fiction for a hobby and longs to do it professionally, a desire that is increased by his involvement with Cobh's annual literary festival. Authors come to town from around the world to do readings and signings, and Michael is part of the volunteer staff, driving guests to their hotels, that sort of thing.

What's been happening at the Tribeca Film Festival the past couple of days?

Deals. Discussions are underway on several titles, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Distribution executives were spotted at Conor McPherson's drama The Eclipse, a title that jumped out at me when the lineup was first announced. The great Ciaran Hinds (Rome, Munich) stars in an "atmospheric drama about a widower who sees and hears strange things in his house." Aidan Quinn and Iben Hjejle (High Fidelity) also star. Other titles "in play" include Cheryl Hines' comedy Serious Midnight, written by the late Adrienne Shelly, starring Kristen Bell, Justin Long, and Meg Ryan; Jake Goldberger's drama Don McKay, starring Thomas Haden Church and Elisabeth Shue; and Marshall Curry's Racing Dreams, a documentary about Go-Kart racing.

Our Coverage. Kirby Dick's "engrossing, revelatory" doc Outrage makes its message clear, wrote Eric D. Snider: "If you're a politician who publicly oppresses the gay community while secretly belonging to it, Kirby Dick will kick your closet door down and tell the world what a hypocrite you are." Eric also reviewed the Academy Award-winning Japanese drama Departures, "a perfect Oscar choice, a fine film that's gently funny and moving and not the least bit challenging or controversial." You can view all our coverage by clicking this handy link.

Blog Talk. The aforementioned doc Racing Dreams "alienated and creeped ... out" Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere, who explained: "I trust I'm not the only urban-residing blue-state guy who despises the whole blue-collar NASCAR thing." I'm sure the feeling is mutual. Eric Kohn at The Wrap describes Off and Running, a doc by Nicole Opper, as "the fascinating story of an adopted African-American teen raised by lesbian Jewish parents in Brooklyn ... The combination of community forces behind its existence makes [it] the quintessential Tribeca product."

The Tribeca Film Festival has been in the news lately for significant personnel changes, but what about the movies? This year's edition gets underway on April 22, and Cinematical has received a list of the first 38 of the 86 feature films that will be screened. A few titles that jumped out at me:

The Eclipse. The great Ciaran Hinds stars in an "atmospheric drama about a widower who sees and hears strange things in his house." Hinds was fairly magnificent in the TV series Rome and stood out in Steven Spielberg's Munich. Add to that Iben Hjejle and Aidan Quinn as writers the widower encounters at a literary festival, and this is a drama that I want to see.

The Fish Child. Lucia Puenzo made the well-regarded XXY and now comes a "a passionate love story in the arms of a pulsating thriller." I love the idea that for her sophomore feature, the director has made what is evidently a very different type of movie than her quieter debut drama.

Stay Cool. The Polish Brothers (Northfork) return with a "charming comedy" about a high school reunion of sorts, with Winona Ryder and Hilary Duff. Manure was sharply criticized at Sundance just a couple of months ago; could Stay Cool possibly be any good? Winona Ryder doesn't get seen enough, and Hilary Duff has made interesting choices, so this could be surprisingly good -- or another train wreck.

Outrage. Documentarian Kirby Dick, who made the terrific This Film is Not Yet Rated, turns to the subject of "the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to." I'm hoping it's as sensational as it sounds.

After the jump: The complete announcement. Browse away, and tell us what looks good to you!