Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Invites New Members - Writers, Directors, and Producers

ACADEMY INVITES 683 TO MEMBERSHIP

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 683 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.  Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2016.

18 individuals (noted by an asterisk) have been invited to join the Academy by multiple branches.  These individuals must select one branch upon accepting membership.

New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception in the fall.

Learn more: http://www.oscars.org/2016class

The 2016 invitees are:

Directors
Lenny Abrahamson – “Room,” “Frank”
Naji Abu Nowar – “Theeb”
Maren Ade – “Everyone Else,” “The Forest for the Trees”
Lexi Alexander – “Punisher: War Zone,” “Green Street Hooligans”
Haifaa al-Mansour – “Wadjda”
Ana Lily Amirpour – “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”
Amma Asante – “Belle,” “A Way of Life”
Katie Aselton – “Black Rock,” “The Freebie”
Ramin Bahrani – “99 Homes,” “At Any Price”
Anna Boden – “Mississippi Grind,” “It’s Kind of a Funny Story”
Catherine Breillat – “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Sex Is Comedy”
Israel Cárdenas – “Sand Dollars,” “Carmita”
Carlos Carrera – “Backyard,” “El Crimen del Padre Amaro”
Nuri Bilge Ceylan – “Winter Sleep,” “Once upon a Time in Anatolia”
Souleymane Cissé – “Brightness,” “The Wind”
Isabel Coixet – “Learning to Drive,” “Elegy”
Ryan Coogler* – “Creed,” “Fruitvale Station”
Scott Cooper – “Black Mass,” “Crazy Heart”
John Crowley – “Brooklyn,” “Closed Circuit”
Julie Dash – “Daughters of the Dust”
Tamra Davis – “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child,” “Billy Madison”
Jonathan Dayton – “Ruby Sparks,” “Little Miss Sunshine”
Dominique Deruddere – “Flying Home,” “Everybody Famous!”
Xavier Dolan – “Mommy,” “Tom at the Farm”
Cheryl Dunye – “My Baby’s Daddy,” “The Watermelon Woman”
Deniz Gamze Ergüven – “Mustang”
Valerie Faris – “Ruby Sparks,” “Little Miss Sunshine”
Shana Feste – “Endless Love,” “Country Strong”
Hannah Fidell – “A Teacher”
Anne Fletcher – “The Proposal,” “Step Up”
Ari Folman – “The Congress,” “Waltz with Bashir”
Anne Fontaine – “Gemma Bovery,” “Coco before Chanel”
Cary Joji Fukunaga – “Beasts of No Nation,” “Jane Eyre”
Nicole Garcia – “A View of Love,” “Charlie Says”
Juan Antonio Garcia Bayona – “The Impossible,” “The Orphanage”
Sarah Gavron – “Suffragette,” “Brick Lane”
Lesli Linka Glatter – “The Proposition,” “Now and Then”
Ciro Guerra* – “Embrace of the Serpent,” “The Wind Journeys”
Laura Amelia Guzmán – “Sand Dollars,” “Carmita”
Sanaa Hamri – “Just Wright,” “Something New”
Mia Hansen-Løve* – “Eden,” “The Father of My Children”
Mahamet-Saleh Haroun – “Grigris,” “Our Father”
Mary Harron – “The Notorious Bettie Page,” “American Psycho”
Marielle Heller* – “The Diary of a Teenage Girl”
Albert Hughes – “The Book of Eli,” “Dead Presidents”
Hou Hsiao-Hsien – “The Assassin,” “Three Times”
Patty Jenkins – “Wonder Woman,” “Monster”
Naomi Kawase* – “Still the Water,” “The Mourning Forest”
Abdellatif Kechiche – “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” “Black Venus”
Abbas Kiarostami – “Certified Copy,” “Taste of Cherry”
So Yong Kim – “For Ellen,” “In Between Days”
Kiyoshi Kurosawa – “Seventh Code,” “Pulse”
Karyn Kusama – “Jennifer’s Body,” “Girlfight”
Francis H. Lawrence – “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “I Am Legend”
Tobias Lindholm* – “A War,” “A Hijacking”
Phyllida Lloyd – “The Iron Lady,” “Mamma Mia!”
Ken Loach – “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” “Kes”
Julia Loktev – “The Loneliest Planet,” “Day Night Day Night”
Ami Canaan Mann – “Jackie & Ryan,” “Texas Killing Fields”
Lucrecia Martel – “The Headless Woman,” “The Holy Girl”
Adam McKay* – “The Big Short,” “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”
Deepa Mehta – “Midnight’s Children,” “Water”
Ursula Meier – “Sister,” “Home”
Rebecca Miller* – “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” “Personal Velocity”
Karen Moncrieff – “The Dead Girl,” “Blue Car”
Cristian Mungiu* – “Graduation,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”
Anna Muylaert – “The Second Mother”
László Nemes* – “Son of Saul”
María Novaro – “The Good Herbs,” “Lola”
Victor Nunez – “Spoken Word,” “Ulee’s Gold”
Euzhan Palcy – “Siméon,” “A Dry White Season”
Park Chan-wook* – “Stoker,” “Oldboy”
Lucía Puenzo – “The German Doctor,” “El Niño Pez”
Lynne Ramsay – “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” “Morvern Callar”
Dee Rees – “Pariah”
Nicolas Winding Refn – “Only God Forgives,” “Drive”
Patricia Riggen – “The 33,” “Girl in Progress”
Gillian Robespierre – “Obvious Child”
Patricia Rozema – “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl,” “Mansfield Park”
Marjane Satrapi – “The Voices,” “Persepolis”
Sam Taylor-Johnson – “Fifty Shades of Grey,” “Nowhere Boy”
George Tillman, Jr. – “Notorious,” “Soul Food”
Luis Valdez – “La Bamba,” “Zoot Suit”
Melvin Van Peebles – “Identity Crisis,” “Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song”
Margarethe von Trotta – “Rosenstrasse,” “Marianne and Juliane”
Lana Wachowski – “Cloud Atlas,” “The Matrix Trilogy”
Lilly Wachowski – “Cloud Atlas,” “The Matrix Trilogy”
Taika Waititi – “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” “What We Do in the Shadows”
James Wan – “The Conjuring,” “Saw”
Keenan Ivory Wayans* – “Scary Movie,” “A Low Down Dirty Shame”
Apichatpong Weerasethakul – “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” “Tropical Malady”

Writers
Jonathan Aibel – “Kung Fu Panda” series, “Monsters vs Aliens”
Sherman Alexie – “The Business of Fancydancing,” “Smoke Signals”
Glenn Berger – “Kung Fu Panda” series, “Monsters vs Aliens”
Andrea Berloff – “Straight Outta Compton,” “World Trade Center”
Vera Blasi – “Tortilla Soup,” “Woman on Top”
Ryan Coogler* – “Creed,” “Fruitvale Station”
Destin Daniel Cretton – “Short Term 12,” “I Am Not a Hipster”
Emma Donoghue – “Room”
Tina Fey – “Mean Girls”
Efthimis Filippou – “The Lobster,” “Dogtooth”
Jennifer Flackett-Levin – “Little Manhattan,” “Wimbledon”
Ryan Fleck – “Mississippi Grind,” “Half Nelson”
Alex Garland – “Ex Machina,” “28 Days Later”
Drew Goddard – “The Martian,” “Cloverfield”
Ciro Guerra* – “Embrace of the Serpent,” “The Wind Journeys”
Mia Hansen-Løve* – “Eden,” “The Father of My Children”
Marielle Heller* – “The Diary of a Teenage Girl”
David Henry Hwang – “Possession,” “Golden Gate”
O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson* – “The Players Club,” “Friday”
Jia Zhangke – “Mountains May Depart,” “Still Life”
Miranda July – “The Future,” “Me and You and Everyone We Know”
Laeta Kalogridis – “Terminator Genisys,” “Shutter Island”
Naomi Kawase* – “Still the Water,” “Firefly”
Richard Kelly – “Domino,” “Donnie Darko”
Takeshi Kitano – “Outrage,” “Kikujiro”
Hirokazu Koreeda – "Like Father, Like Son,” “Nobody Knows”
Yorgos Lanthimos – “The Lobster,” “Dogtooth”
Lee Chang-dong – “Poetry,” “Oasis”
Sebastián Lelio – “Gloria,” “Navidad”
Mark Levin – “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Nim’s Island”
Tobias Lindholm* – “A War,” “The Hunt”
Adam McKay* – “The Big Short,” “The Other Guys”
Rebecca Miller* – “Maggie’s Plan,” “The Ballad of Jack and Rose”
Abi Morgan – “Suffragette,” “The Iron Lady”
Cristian Mungiu* – “Beyond the Hills,” “Occident”
Phyllis Nagy – “Carol”
László Nemes* – “Son of Saul”
Park Chan-wook* – “Thirst,” “Oldboy”
Charles Randolph – “The Big Short,” “The Life of David Gale”
Carlos Reygadas – “Silent Light,” “Battle in Heaven”
Clara Royer – “Son of Saul”
Misan Sagay – “Belle,” “The Secret Laughter of Women”
Lorene Scafaria – “The Meddler,” “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist”
Josh Singer – “Spotlight,” “The Fifth Estate”
Keenan Ivory Wayans* – “White Chicks,” “A Low Down Dirty Shame”
Alice Winocour – “Mustang,” “Home”

Producers
Belén Atienza – “Out of the Dark,” “The Impossible”
Amy Baer – “A Storm in the Stars,” “Last Vegas”
David Barron – “Cinderella,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Parts 1 and 2)
Ram Bergman – “Don Jon,” “Looper”
Virginie Besson-Silla – “Lucy,” “The Lady”
Fernando Bovaira – “Biutiful,” “The Sea Inside”
Anne Carey – “Mr. Holmes,” “The Savages”
Debra Martin Chase – “Sparkle,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”
Bonnie Curtis – “Albert Nobbs,” “Minority Report”
Susan Downey – “The Judge,” “Sherlock Holmes”
Ed Guiney – “Room,” “Frank”
Paul E. Hall – “Peeples,” “For Colored Girls”
Rachael Horovitz – “Maggie’s Plan,” “Moneyball”
Mark Huffam – “The Martian,” “Exodus: Gods and Kings”
Elizabeth Karlsen – “Carol,” “Made in Dagenham”
Gail Katz – “Pawn Sacrifice,” “The Perfect Storm”
Amy Kaufman – “Beasts of No Nation, “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Neil Kopp – “Green Room,” “Wendy and Lucy”
Kristie Macosko Krieger – “Bridge of Spies,” “Lincoln”
David Lancaster – “Eye in the Sky,” “Whiplash”
Albert Lee – “Chinese Zodiac,” “Let the Bullets Fly”
Roy Lee – “The Lego Movie,” “Abduction”
Mynette Louie – “Land Ho!,” “Cold Comes the Night”
Daniela Taplin Lundberg – “Beasts of No Nation,” “The Kids Are All Right”
Lori McCreary – “The Magic of Belle Isle,” “Invictus”
Edward L. McDonnell – “Sicario,” “Insomnia”
Jamie Patricof – “Mississippi Grind,” “Blue Valentine”
Amanda Posey – “Brooklyn,” “An Education”
Heather Rae – “The Dry Land,” “Frozen River”
Alexander Rodnyansky – “Leviathan,” “Stalingrad”
Esther García Rodríguez – “Wild Tales,” “The Skin I Live In”
Anish Savjani – “Green Room,” “Meek’s Cutoff”
Allison Shearmur – “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” “Cinderella”
Michael Sugar – “Spotlight,” “The Fifth Estate”
Robert Teitel – “Barbershop: The Next Cut,” “Men of Honor”
Rodrigo Teixeira – “The Witch,” “Mistress America”
Nina Yang Bongiovi – “Dope,” “Fruitvale Station”

-------------------------

Review: "Jodorowsky's Dune" Documents the Beautiful Madness of an Iconoclast

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 2 (of 2016) by Leroy Douresseaux

[A version of this review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)
Running time:  90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some violent and sexual images and drug references
DIRECTOR:  Frank Pavich
PRODUCERS:  Frank Pavich, Stephen Scarlata, Travis Stevens
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  David Cavallo
EDITORS:  Paul Docherty and Alex Ricciardi
COMPOSER:  Kurt Stenzel

DOCUMENTARY – History, Film, Art

Starring:  Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, Devin Faraci, Chris Foss, Jean-Paul Gibon, H.R. Giger, Gary Kurtz, Drew McWeeney, Diane O’Bannon, Nicolas Winding Refn, and Richard Stanley

Jodorowsky’s Dune is a 2013 American documentary film from director Frank Pavich.  This movie is the story of film director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ambitious plans to adapt the seminal science fiction novel, Dune, into a film during the mid-1970s.

Dune is an epic science fiction novel that was originally serialized in the American science fiction magazine, Analog, over a two year period, from 1963 to 1965.  Chilton Books published Dune as a hardcover in 1965.  It won the first Nebula Award for “Best Novel” in 1965, and it shared the Hugo Award for “Best Novel” in 1966 (with …And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny).

In 1971, film producer Arthur P. Jacobs optioned the film rights to Dune, but died before he could develop a film.  In 1974, a French consortium purchased Dune’s film rights from Jacobs’ production company.  Alejandro Jodorowsky was set to direct the film.

Jodorowsky was born in Chile in 1929.  At a young age, he began writing poetry and later also became involved in theater.  He moved to France in 1959, where he continued to work in theater and also made his first short film.  He moved to Mexico and continued his work in avant-garde theater, but he later gained tremendous fame and notoriety for his work in film, beginning with Fando y Lis.  His fame grew with the midnight movie cult classic, El Topo (1970), and with Holy Mountain (1973).

In 1974, Jodorowsky began writing the massive script that would be his adaptation of Dune.  He approached progressive rock (prog rock) groups like Pink Floyd and Magma to provide the film score.  He sought out Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, David Carradine, and Mick Jagger, among others, to act in the film.  Jodorowsky hired French comic book artist Jean Giraud a/k/a Moebius (1938 to 2012) to draw the film’s storyboards and to provide concept art and designs.  He hired British science fiction book cover artist, Chris Foss, to design space ships for the film, and Swiss surrealist, H.R. Giger (February 5, 1940 to May 12, 2014), to provide conceptual art and designs.

After producing a massive hardcover book containing the script, the storyboards, and conceptual art, Jodorowsky and the film’s producers went to Hollywood, but were unable to convince any studio or anyone, for that matter, to finance the film.  Jodorowsky’s project ultimately failed, but Jodorowsky’s Dune became a film legend.

Director Frank Pavich interviews Alejandro Jodorowsky and the people who were his collaborators on the stalled Dune project to tell the story that is Jodorowsky’s Dune.  The interview subjects include Jodorowsky’s son, Brontis, who was going to play Dune’s lead character, Paul Atreides.  Producers Michel Seydoux and Jean-Paul Gibon talk about the overall process of trying to create such a large-scaled film.

Film critics Devin Faraci and Drew McWeeney and film directors Nicolas Winding Refn and Richard Stanley talk about the project from a broader standpoint of art and of making movies in Hollywood.  They also comment on how this failure still managed to be potent and influential.  Artist Chris Foss and H.R. Giger talk about the sense of freedom that Jodorowsky gave them, and how he encouraged their imagination.

When a director makes a documentary about a person, that person must be a fascinating or compelling figure.  Alejandro Jodorowsky is both, and really, Jodorowsky’s Dune is as much about Jodorowsky as it is about his attempt to film Dune, if not more so.  Jodorowsky might be insane or be a madman, but he is an artist and a cinematic visionary.  Best of all, he wants to make the people who work with him reach for the genius inside themselves.  That is the kind of guy around which a director can build a great or, at least, exceptional feature film.

The other interview subjects, for the most part, are guys that I could listen to for hours as they talk about film, art, work, and life.  However, the absence of Frank Herbert, the author of Dune, is conspicuous.  Herbert died in 1986, and I can’t believe that there is no video or audio of him commenting on Jodorowsky’s attempt to make a film out of his epic novel.  Dan O’Bannon, whom Jodorowsky hired to produce the special effects for Dune, died in 2009, but this documentary features audio of him talking about working on Dune.  His widow, Diane O’Bannon, is featured in an on-camera interview in this film.

The lack of Frank Herbert in this film is a minor complaint.  Jodorowsky’s Dune is one of the best documentary films that I have ever scene.  It inspires me to be creative, and it makes me wish I could find a way to get Jodorowsky’s Dune produced.  I really want to see that movie.  Maybe, if it had been made, his Dune would have been an overblown epic, but just listening to Jodorowsky makes me believe that the film is a lost masterpiece, although it doesn’t exist.  Perhaps, the magic that director Frank Pavich performs in Jodorowsky’s Dune make me want to believe that this film project is still alive... somewhere.

9 of 10
A+

Monday, November 2, 2015


NOTES:
2013 Cannes Film Festival:  1 nomination: “Golden Camera” (Frank Pavich)

The text is copyright © 2015 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Negromancer News Bits and Bites from November 8th to 14th, 2015 - Update #14

Support Leroy on Patreon.

NEWS:

From History.com:  On this date in 1969, "Sesame Street" debuted.

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From BoxOfficeMojo:  The new James Bond movie, Spectre" won the 11/6 to 11/8/2015 box office weekend with an estimated take of $73 million.  In second place was "The Peanuts Movie" with a take of $45 million.

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From IndieWire:  Nicolas Winding Refn's next film will be released to theaters by Amazon Studios.

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From RSN:  Michael Moore stands with Quentin Tarantino.


HARD NEWS:

From YahooNews:  Three groups led Paris attacks.

From YahooNews:  Live blogs, ABC News updates on Paris attacks.

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From the SaltLakeTribute:  Judge orders infant taking from lesbian couple.


STAR WARS:

From TheGuardian:  The newspaper examines things learned from Entertainment Weekly's special issue.

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From Hitfix:  More reveals regarding "The Force Awakens" from Entertainment Weekly.


COMICS: Movies and Books:

From IndieWire:  Mariah Carey has been cast as the voice of either Commissioner Jim Gordon or the Mayor of Gotham in "The Lego Batman Movie."

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From CinemaBlend:  Chiwetel Ejiofor (Baron Mordo) and Benedict Cumberbatch on Marvel's "Doctor Strange" set.


TRAILERS AND REVIEWS:

From YahooMovies:  A review of "Concussion" starring Will Smith.

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From YouTube:  New "Ice Age" short, "Cosmic Scrat-astrophe."


OBITS:

From EOnline:  The actor, Nathaniel Marston, has died (Wednesday, November 11, 2015).  Martson, known for a six-year run on the ABC soap, "One Life to Live," succumbed to injuries he suffered in a car accident October 30, 2015.

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From YahooMovies:  The actor Gunnar Hansen has died (Saturday, November 7, 2015).  He is famous for playing one of the most iconic movie villains of all time, Leatherface, in the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

2014 Cannes Film Festival Jury Announced

On Monday (April 28, 2014), the 2014 Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes 2014) announced the names of jury members for the 2014 edition of the festival.  Jane Campion, who previously won the festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or (the Golden Palm), is jury president.

The 2014 Cannes Film Festival runs from Wednesday, May 14, 2014 to Sunday, May 25, 2014, with the closing ceremony and awards handed out Saturday, May 24, 2014.

2014 Cannes Film Festival: THE JURY

• Jane CAMPION – President
• (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – New Zealand)

• Carole BOUQUET (Actress – France)

• Sofia COPPOLA (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – United States)

• Leila HATAMI (Actress – Iran)

• JEON Do-yeon (Actress – South Korea)

• Willem DAFOE (Actor – United States)

• Gael GARCIA BERNAL (Actor, Director, Producer – Mexico)

• JIA Zhangke (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – China)

• Nicolas Winding REFN (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – Denmark)

Jury Member biographies are provided courtesy of the festival:

Carole Bouquet, Actress (France)
After her film debut in 1977 with Luis Buñuel in That Obscure Object of Desire, Bouquet alternated between arthouse and blockbuster productions. A Bond Girl in 1981 in For Your Eyes Only, she worked with Bertrand Blier on Buffet Froid (1979) and Too Beautiful For You (1989) for which she won the César for Best Actress. She appeared in Le jour des idiots by Werner Schroeter, Michel Blanc’s Dead Tired and Embrassez qui vous voudrez, Lucie Aubrac by Claude Berri, L’Enfer by Danis Tanovic, Nordeste by Juan Diego Solanas (Festival de Cannes 2005) and Unforgivable by André Téchiné.

Sofia Coppola, Director and screenwriter (United States)
Coppola’s first feature film, The Virgin Suicides (1999) was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, where it met with international critical acclaim. Four years later, after several Oscar nominations for Lost in Translation, including Best Director, she walked off with the Best Screenplay award. Her third film, Marie-Antoinette was selected in Competition at Cannes in 2006. After picking up a Golden Lion in Venice for Somewhere (2010), Sofia Coppola opened Un Certain Regard with her last film The Bling Ring at the Festival de Cannes in 2013.

Leila Hatami, Actress (Iran)
Born in Tehran into a family of filmmakers, she started out acting in films directed by her father, Ali Hatami, before starring in Dariush Mehrjui’s Leila (1998) which brought her to national attention. It was Asghar Farhadi who established her on the world stage with A Separation (Golden Bear at the 2011 Berlin Festival). She picked up the Best Actress award in Karlovy Vary for her role in Ali Mosaffa’s Last Step in 2012.

Jeon Do-yeon, Actress (South Korea)
The first Korean actress to receive the Best Actress award at the Festival de Cannes for her role in Secret Sunshine by Lee Chang-dong (2007), Jeon Do-yeon started out as a television actress before turning exclusively to cinema. Her major films include I Wish I Had a Wife by Ryoo Seung, My Mother, The Mermaid by Park Jin-pyo and The Housemaid by Im Sang-soo, presented at Cannes in 2010. A massive celebrity in her country, she has just finished shooting Memories of the Sword by Park Heung-sik.

Willem Dafoe, Actor (United States)
Twice nominated for an Oscar, for Oliver Stone’s Platoon and Shadow of the Vampire, Dafoe has appeared in 80 films including Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson, Light Sleeper by Paul Schrader, The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese, Antichrist by Lars von Trier and The English Patient by Anthony Minghella. He will soon be appearing in A Most Wanted Man by Anton Corbijn and Pasolini by Abel Ferrara. A co-founder of the Wooster Group – an experimental theatre collective – he is currently on tour with Bob Wilson’s play The Old Woman.

Gael García Bernal, Actor, director and producer (Mexico)
Bernal first came to public attention in Iñárritu’s Amorres Perros, soon followed by Y Tu Mamá También by Alfonso Cuarón. He then featured in films directed by some of the greats of international cinema, such as The Motorcycle Diaries by Walter Salles, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Education, The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry, Babel by Gonzalez Iñárritu, and The Limits of Control by Jim Jarmusch. In 2005, he founded his Canana production company with Diego Luna and in 2010, after a few short films, directed his first feature film, Deficit, selected at La Semaine de la Critique at Cannes.

Nicolas Winding Refn, Director, screenwriter and producer (Denmark)
His first film, Pusher (1996), written and directed at the age of 24, immediately became a cult movie and he shot to fame throughout the world. He then directed Bleeder (1999), Fear X (2003), Pusher II & III (2004 & 2005), Bronson (2008) and Valhalla Rising (2009), all characteristic of the style that came to be dubbed "Refn-esque". In 2011, Drive was presented at the Festival de Cannes and won the Best Direction prize, awarded by the Jury presided by Robert De Niro. His last film, Only God Forgives, featured in Competition at Cannes in 2013.

Jia Zhangke, Director, screenwriter and producer (China)
After first studying art Jia Zhangke, born in 1970, attended the Beijing Film Academy in the 1990s. After the success of his first film, Xao Wu (1998), he directed Platform (Zhantai, 2000) and Unknown Pleasures (Ren xiao yao, 2002) selected for Venice and Cannes respectively. Still Life picked up the Golden Lion in Venice in 2006. He also presented 24 City at the Festival de Cannes, in Competition in 2008 and I Wish I Knew for Un Certain Regard in 2010. Last year, A Touch of Sin garnered the Best Screenplay prize awarded by the Jury presided by Steven Spielberg.

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Director Nicolas Winding Refn Holds Reddit Event

JOIN DIRECTOR NICOLAS WINDING REFN FOR A REDDIT ‘AMA’ JULY 17th at 11AM ET / 8AM PT

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA

ONLY GOD FORGIVES Opens Nationwide on JULY 19th 

About Nicolas Winding Refn
Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1970, and is renowned for his modern and radical, innovative style.

He has already received two lifetime achievement awards, one from Taipei International Film festival in 2006 and the second from Valencia International Film Festival in 2007. He was the winner of the Emerging Master Award from the Philadelphia International Film Festival in 2005.

At the age of only 24, he wrote and directed the extremely violent and uncompromising PUSHER (1996). The film became a cult phenomenon and won him instant international critical acclaim. He wrote, directed and produced PUSHER II (2004) and PUSHER III (2005), as a result of his first movie’s growing cult following. The subsequent success of PUSHER II and III, along with the first, created the internationally renowned PUSHER TRILOGY, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005. His other films have always enjoyed the support of the leading international festivals: BLEEDER and VALHALLA RISING screened at Venice in 1999 and 2009 respectively, while FEAR X and BRONSON screened at Sundance in 2003 and 2009. DRIVE is Refn’s most commercially successful film to date. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011, it won the Best Director prize and was a contender for the Palme d’Or.

Shot in the Chinatown district of Bangkok, Thailand, ONLY GOD FORGIVES marks the second collaboration between Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling.

Refn is currently writing his next film, I WALK WITH THE DEAD, co-produced with Wild Bunch and Gaumont, and is also turning his attention to television to develop BARBARELLA.

"Only God Forgives" Due July 19, 2013

Radius/TMC PRESENTS

ONLY GOD FORGIVES

An official selection of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival

A film by Nicolas Winding Refn

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm

IN THEATERS JULY 19th

Ryan Gosling and the director of DRIVE, Nicolas Winding Refn, are back with this visionary Bangkok-set thriller. Julien (Gosling) is a drug kingpin tasked with avenging his brother's death, but a mysterious, unhinged policeman is following his every move.

What's neon without a little flicker?

Follow @RadiusTWC to see an animated version of the poster.

#OnlyGodForgives
#WannaFight

Check out the redband trailer on Yahoo! Movies: http://movies.yahoo.com/trailers/red-band/?cache=clear

Review: Refn and Gosling "Drive" to Greatness

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 18 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux

Drive (2011)
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity
DIRECTOR: Nicolas Winding Refn
WRITER: Hossein Amini (based upon the novel by James Sallis)
PRODUCERS: Michel Litvak, John Palermo, Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker, and Adam Siegel
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Newton Thomas Sigel (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Mat Newman
COMPOSER: Cliff Martinez
Academy Award nominee

CRIME/DRAMA/ACTION/THRILLER with elements of romance

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Oscar Isaac, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and Kaden Leos

I kept hearing good things about the film Drive, a 2011 crime drama and action thriller starring Ryan Gosling. Directed by critically-acclaimed Danish filmmaker, Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive centers on a mysterious getaway driver who lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbor’s troubled husband. The good things I heard about this film turned out to be true, and it is one of the very best films of 2011.

In the film, he is only known as The Driver (Ryan Gosling), and he is a supremely skilled getaway driver for those who need to get away after pulling off a heist or robbery. The Driver is also a Hollywood stuntman and mechanic, working on both jobs for garage owner, Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Shannon wants to get involved in stock car racing with The Driver as the man behind the wheel, so Shannon brings in mobster, Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), as an investor in this venture.

The Driver lives in a low-rent apartment building where he meets and befriends his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). The Driver begins to date Irene, but she is actually married to a man named Standard Gabriel (Oscar Isaac), who is about to be released from prison. After Standard is released, he must find a way to pay back protection money that he owes to a gangster. The Driver tries to help Standard and things go bad on all sides.

Drive is a hard-edged crime thriller with a neo-Film-Noir pedigree. Those who watch it may see the influence of a lot of Los Angeles-based films, including Pulp Fiction and various Michael Mann films. There is also more than a touch of John Carpenter – from the atmospheric, 1980s synth-pop score (created by the always interesting Cliff Martinez) to the somewhat Michael Myers-like Driver. I also see this as partially a blend of Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) and The Transporter film series.

Whatever its influences are, Drive is simply brilliant. It is cool without being slick and overly produced (like many Hollywood crime movies). Drive is more modern than retro, but it has a timeless quality that also makes it seem to be from a vague near-future. Director Nicolas Winding Refn turned in one of the year’s best feats of film directing simply by making a movie that takes so many influences and inspirations and turns them into an original vision and a film apart from the rest.

This movie has a number of good performances. Of course, Ryan Gosling is the centerpiece. At first, he may come across as flat and too cool, but he slowly unveils a great big darkness that lives just under the surface. Gosling also shows a gentle, romantic, and human side that surprisingly breaks through in the most surprising moments. Plus, Gosling creates, in The Driver, a most memorable man-of-few-words anti-hero. The Driver is another performance that shows just how much talent Gosling has.

Carey Mulligan is solid in a relatively quiet and restrained performance, but she sells every scene in which she appears and matches Gosling when they appear in the same scene. Everything Albert Brooks does in this movie seems fresh and sensational, even when he does something that a movie mobster typically does. He makes the old mobster stereotypes edgy, contemporary, and original.

Drive is a crime flick that is also a dark L.A. fairy tale. It makes violence and brutality seem as if it could be no cooler than it is in Los Angeles. I would have enjoyed seeing more action sequences with cars, but I like Drive too much to complain.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2012 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Sound Editing” (Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis)

2012 BAFTA Awards: 4 nominations: “Best Film” (Marc Platt and Adam Siegel), “Best Director” (Nicolas Winding Refn), “Best Editing” (Matthew Newman), “Best Supporting Actress” (Carey Mulligan)

2011 Cannes Film Festival: 1 win: “Best Director” (Nicolas Winding Refn); 1 nomination: “Palme d'Or” (Nicolas Winding Refn)

2012 Golden Globes: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture” (Albert Brooks)

Friday, March 09, 2012

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