Posts Tagged ‘new release’
pokemon black and white starters
Pokemon Black and White Starters leaks out – The latest game for the Nintendo DS system came out to public unexpected, The rumors bring out for this game is supposed to be around 2011, But this April 15, 2010, Nintendo released some leaks about the Pokemon Black and White Starters. Many Pokemon fans are eager to determine new release and information for latest updates with the Trailers, Gameplay and new Pokemon inside information. So better check out below to get across the New Pokemon Black and White Starters Leaks Released.
Source: (boxoffice.com)
Marking his 24th collaboration with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, director James Ivory embarks on his first solo film since the death of his producing partner, Ismail Merchant. The City of Your Final Destination is a piercing and intelligent dramedy about a young graduate student whose quest to write the biography of a deceased Latin American author sends him to Uruguay and into a web of secrets, complicated relationships and unexpected romance. It’s also a fitting reminder of the unique films Merchant/Ivory once produced and, even in the absence of one of its founders, continues to support in a market not kind to this kind of literate, high style adult entertainment. With star names Anthony Hopkins and Laura Linney involved expect decent arthouse business, hopefully enough to keep the Merchant/Ivory brand alive for another round.
This tony adaptation of Peter Cameron’s novel was actually filmed three years ago and only now (through Screen Media) is finding its way into North American theatres, proving the difficulty of getting distributors for upscale, high-minded movie fare.
The story revolves around an Iranian-born graduate student, Omar (Omar Metwally), at The University Of Colorado, whose financial aid depends on his writing a biography of a late Latin American author named Jules Gund. However Gund’s estate denies permission. Urged on by his girlfriend (Alexandra Maria Lara), Omar travels to Uruguay (Buenos Aires doubles for it) anyway, where the extended Gund family all live together on the author’s dilapidated estate. There’s his widow, Caroline (Linney), who is dead set against the bio ever being written; his mistress, Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who finds herself increasingly attracted to Omar and vice-versa; her young daughter, Portia (Ambar Mallman); his brother Adam (Hopkins) who seems open to the idea of a book and Adam’s loving partner, Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada). The entry of Omar into this tangled web of conflicting agendas and philosophies threatens to disrupt a small and very fragile community that could come apart the seams. It also provides for the frustrating romantic sub-plot between Omar and Arden.
As evidenced in most of her adaptations, from The Bostonians to Howard’s End to Mr. And Mrs. Bridge, Prawer’s interest is in maintaining the literary roots of the material without caving too far into normal movie conventions. Thus The City Of Your Final Destination could in fact be her most literate and dialogue-laden work yet. It’s the kind of talky film of ideas that would be just as comfortable on a theatre stage. The Uruguayan settings add a touch of the exotic to the whole affair but at the end of the day it’s all about the words, that is until the uber-romantic, rain-soaked final scenes—the only section of the film in which Ivory really allows the characters to get swept up in cinematic flourish.
Performances are generally first-rate with Hopkins exhibiting an ease and laid-back approach that serves Adam perfectly while Sanada is a delight as his longtime lover. Linney’s line readings are biting, brittle and beautifully delivered. Gainsbourg is heartbreakingly simple and touching and Lara is dead-on as the girl who may come up with the short straw. Carrying off the central role with aplomb is Metwally (Munich) who exhibits just the right blend of ambition, determination and romantic vulnerability to make the characterization pay off. Six time Goya winning cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe’s lensing is another big plus.
Audiences looking for an intelligent, beautifully acted film experience with the kind of fine romance and sparkling dialogue we don’t see much anymore will find themselves richly rewarded with The City of Your Final Destination.
Distributor: Screen Media
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney, Omar Metwally, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Hiroyuki Sanada
Director: James Ivory
Screenwriter: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Producers: Paul Bradley and Pierre Proner
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Rating: PG 13 for a brief sexual situation with partial nudity.
Running time: 118 min.
Release date: April 16 NY, April 23 LA
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The City of Your Final Destination
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Source: (boxoffice.com)
First hand accounts of life in North Korea are hard to come by. The Hermit Kingdom is infamous for its humanitarian abuses, powerful neighbors, formidable weaponry (although North Korea’s actual capabilities are up for debate) and ability to string America and the impotent UN along. But its greatest strength is its ability to keep a lid on everything that goes on within its borders. In her documentary-directing debut, N.C. Heikin has gathered rare video shot in-country and riveting escapee stories to create a commendable upgrade to our limited fount of North Korean knowledge, which almost completely mitigates the doc’s numerous problems. At 74 tough and tragic minutes, though, Kimjongilia is not destined for monetary glory. The waiting arms of public television are the more likely destination.
Rules of the Sector…
Any prisoner that does not do his best to complete the assigned work will be presumed to have an attitude and will be executed by firing squad immediately.
Any prisoner who steals or hides food will be shot by firing squad immediately.
Pretty much any transgression in a North Korean prison is punishable by firing squad immediately. And pretty much any transgression can get you thrown into a North Korean prison immediately, including saying anything negative about its leader, Kim Jong-il (and, before him, North Korean founder and Eternal President, Kim Il-sung). That’s the tragedy of North Korea. Either its citizens die knowing the truth of what their troubled homeland is all about, or they live in ignorance of the full extent of its government’s action. And yet, much like last year’s Oscar nominated documentary Burma VJ, Kimjongilia contains priceless footage that found its way out of an isolated, repressed country, allowing us to bear witness to a poverty that drives adults to eat mice and children to forage for morsels on the dirty ground. Testimonials from those who’ve spent time in what are essentially concentration camps are heartbreaking. Shin Dong-Hyuk was forced to watch his mother and brother publicly executed. The parents of a woman identified as Mrs. Kim starved to death in the camps and her son was tortured until handicapped. The anguished words of these survivors are mesmerizing; even though Heikin frames some of them so tightly we can only see their eye and cheek, denying us the chance to take in the enormity of the sorrow on their faces. It’s one of a few questionable choices by Heikin. When Kang Chol-Hwan tells of being inspired to escape by reading The Count of Monte Cristo, the grainy clips from a filmed version of the novel are distracting. And some of the stories are accompanied by interpretive dance. As an ex-hoofer, Heikin might feel that interpretive dance adds emotional weight and visual interest to stories that otherwise lack supporting video. But interpretive dance is a haughty, esoteric form of expression that feels wrong here. It might have worked if the dancer was clearly identified as an important artistic figure or survivor herself. Without that connection, it just doesn’t work.
It’s easier to put these reservations aside when considering the impact of the individual accounts and how rare it is for relatively wide audiences to hear these tragic tales. For the story of North Korea is basically the story of the world’s most powerful cult of personality. The country’s modern form took shape after Korea was divided into North and South (along the 38th Parallel) after World War 2. North Korea was founded in 1948 and in 1950 president Kim Il-sung invaded the south in a failed attempt to reunite the country. The resulting Korean War lasted until 1953 and ended with a return to the borders established by the 38th Parallel. After that, Kim went full retard. Fealty to the Great Leader became mandatory and complete. As related in the film, “totally brainwashed” citizens were forced to “worship him like the Sun” and taught to believe he could fly and didn’t need to urinate. Heikin includes choice clips from North Korean propaganda films with smiling actors (penalty for not smiling: prison) singing the praises of the Great Leader (penalty for not singing the praises of the Great Leader: prison) and dancing in perfect unison at what looks like their annual Arirang Mass Games (penalty for not dancing in perfect unison at the Arirang Mass Games: prison). Hearing a narrator claim that “working restless for the people’s happiness, I feel my eyes moisten” is like hearing aliens sing the praises of their home planet. Such forced fidelity mixed with bottomless cruelty makes a good case to just screw it, take over the country and reunite the Koreas ourselves. Some will note that North Korea has the world’s fourth largest standing army, which is ironic considering that famine is so widespread most of the populace is too starved to stand. Food shortages were rampant before the demise of the Soviet Union, but after Kim lost such a vital ally, multitudes began dying of malnutrition. Families sold everything to get out, usually crossing the Chinese border because the DMZ is too fortified (Heikin includes surreptitiously recorded video documenting how some North Koreans escaped only to be sold into slavery by the Chinese). Meanwhile, the continuing famine has killed millions. As Heikin notes, the government did reach out for humanitarian aid, which was given until it was discovered that between 30%-70% of donated funds were going to the country’s elite.
Heikin’s smartest choice was not interviewing professors, authors or Western government officials to ponder the North Korean problem. Kimjongilia, named after the flower cultivated to celebrate Dear Leader’s 46th birthday, is a potent verbal document, a cry to the West, a purging of pent up sorrows. The survivors interviewed may not be in the hands of the person best qualified to tell their stories in big screen fashion. But it’s hard to quibble with any new information concerning a repressive nation that is, almost inarguably, the worst place to live on Earth.
Distributor: Lorber Films
Director: N.C. Heikin
Producers: N.C. Heikin, Robert Pepin, Young-sun Cho and David Novack
Genre: Documentary
Rating: Unrated
Running time: 75 min.
Release date: March 19 NY
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Kimjongilia
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After defeating their own favorites A Prophet (Une Prophete) and The White Ribbon for the 2009 Best Foreign Language film Oscar, Sony Pictures Classics should be sitting pretty with its April domestic release date for Argentina’s triumphant The Secret In Their Eyes (El Secreto De Sus Ojos). Based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri, this complex drama interweaves the private lives and passions of a state prosecution investigator and a judge with a 25 year old, unsolved murder case. With Oscar in hand business for this engrossing thriller, which became Argentina’s biggest home-grown box office hit in 35 years, should be steady and turn a nice profit for its distributor, who picked it up after hearing about ecstatic responses from its initial Academy screenings in October. Stateside business should also be good for this brilliantly crisp and intelligent grown-up entertainment.
Writer/ Director Juan José Campanella, previously Oscar nominated for his feel-good comedy Son Of The Bride in 2001, shows he hasn’t lost his touch with this vastly different and involving story that spans a quarter of century and is partially played out in flashbacks. Story is bookended by a recently retired criminal court investigator’s decision to write a novel based on an unsolved rape and murder that took place 25 years earlier. Still upset and privately tortured by the baffling case, Benjamin (Ricardo Darín) talks about his new project with Irene (Soledad Villamil), a judge and former colleague to whom he has never confessed a longtime hidden love. As the story switches from past to present and back again we learn of Benjamin’s many attempts to catch the murderer with the help of his oddball partner Sandoval (Guillermo Francella). Key to his pursuit and to his own unrequited feelings of love for the Judge are his past and present conversations with the victim’s still devoted husband, Ricardo (Pablo Rago). As the case soon appears to be over, Benjamin’s private and professional life comes unhinged with his relentless pursuit of the truth putting him and everyone around him at risk.
Campanella has laced his story with twists and turns worthy of Hitchcock and the framing device of the novel (which forces the protagonist to sort out the whole thing through writing) is ingenious. Without giving too much away, the ultimate resolution is haunting and completely unexpected but the audience will definitely walk away satisfied by the way things are tied up. Campanella, who has also carved out a career as a director of American TV dramas like Law And Order and House, never resorts to the easy way out and stays true to his character development throughout. His use of numerous close-ups of eyes is particularly striking
Darín, one of Argentina’s most successful stars, is superb in the role of a man haunted by his most egregious failures but, proving it is never too late, is determined to make amends. Villamil, who doesn’t appear to have aged at all in the 25 year span of the film, is a beautiful presence while Francella (the country’s top comic) is both hilarious and touching as Benjamin’s quirky partner. Rago is first-rate in his few but key scenes.
More accessible than the other four foreign lingo films the Academy nominated this year, The Secret In Their Eyes should find wide acceptance by both connoisseurs of arthouse product and fans of smart movies aimed squarely at the forgotten adult market.
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Cast: Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino and Guillermo Francella, Director/Screenwriter: Juan José Campanella
Producers: Gerardo Herrero, Mariela Besuievsky and Juan José Campanella.
Genre: Drama
Rating: R for a rape scene, some violent images, graphic nudity and language
Running time: 129 min.
Release date: April 16 NY/LA
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The Secret in their Eyes/El secreto de sus ojos
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Where the East River meets Long Island Sound lies the mile-square former fishing enclave in which writer/director Raymond De Fellita sets his movie about an Italian-American clan. Warm, broad and uneven, City Island almost thrives in the lite entertainment zone where ethnic family dramedy meets mildly raucous farce. Focusing on the solid performances and less predictable plot details is the best way to keep cynicism at bay. With Andy Garcia starring and producing the piece could develop some relative momentum as it rolls out, yet there’s little chance it’ll go gangbusters in Peoria or Little Italy.
Having premiered appropriately at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, City Island doesn’t take full advantage of the Bronx’s hidden gem, a community peppered with neat middle-class homes, seafood eateries and businesses catering to boaters and oystermen. Truth be told, City Island is frequently a location for film and TV shoots, but usually it’s standing-in for other places in the Tri-state area and New England.
Garcia narrates as patriarch Vince Rizzo, a corrections officer who dreams of being an actor. He makes lame excuses for the time he spends taking acting class in Manhattan, and his wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies) suspects he has a goomah on the side. Their daughter Vivian (Garcia’s real-life daughter Dominik García-Lorido) is harboring a pretty big secret of her own. Instead of attending college as everyone thinks, she’s working as a pole dancer in a New Jersey strip club, having been kicked out of school. Meanwhile, their teenaged son, Vinnie Jr. (Ezra Miller), uses the Internet to nurse his yen for plus-size women.
Then elder Vinnie’s second secret, which dwarfs all the other concealments, figures into the proceedings one day when he brings home Tony (Steven Strait of 10,000 B.C. infamy), a hunky ex-con with no next of kin (hint, hint) and nowhere else to go. In exchange for doing some plumbing, he lets Tony live in the boat shack adjacent to the house—which, by the way, was built by Vince’s grandfather. Joyce is immediately attracted to the oft-shirtless parolee and doesn’t see why she shouldn’t act on her feelings since she’s fairly certain Vince is cheating. In the other major plot strand, the opportunity for Vince to actually stray presents itself in the form of his acting-class scene partner, a Holly Golightly figure portrayed by Emily Mortimer (at first blush, a fish far from her native waters).
Vince and Joyce bicker incessantly and entertainingly, slinging insults with convincing gusto (Margulies is especially feisty) if not always with convincing accents. Of course they love each other deeply and of course everyone’s secrets are revealed and resolved in one big improbable, enjoyably messy climactic scene. Thankfully, De Felitta doesn’t press on the Italian stereotypes too hard. On the other hand, City Island can be accused of lacking ethnic authenticity (after all, Garcia is once again a Latin playing an Italian) and of not being a quintessentially New York story. The overall blandness is offset somewhat by the younger Vince’s fetish; and yet, by refraining from turning large women into objects of ridicule or veering into the gross or rudely sexual, De Felitta leaves some laughs on the table.
Young Ezra Miller delivers a breakout performance as the quirky and quick-witted adolescent whose bona fides as a sexual pervert are tastefully and indeed joyfully not established. Miller ought to find steady work based on this turn. The other standout is Alan Arkin, who, in the small role of Vince’s acting teacher, delivers a terrific speech in which he amusingly decries the propensity for amateur actors to indulge in long pauses. It contains excellent advice for aspiring (and accomplished) thespians.
For their part, budding commercial filmmakers could do a lot worse than follow De Fellitta’s model of making modestly ambitious movies by tweaking familiar situations and themes with the aid of good actors and solid behind-the-scenes crew. City Island is considerably better than his leaden 2005 exploration of father-son dynamics The Thing About My Folks, which starred Paul Reiser and Peter Falk. It has more in common with his award-winning 2000 indie Two Family House, which was set on Staten Island.
Distributor: Overture Films
Cast: Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Steven Strait, Emily Mortimer, Ezra Miller, Dominik García-Lorido and Alan Arkin
Director/Screenwriter: Raymond De Felitta
Producers: Raymond De Felitta, Andy Garcia, Zachary Matz and Lauren Versel
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, smoking and language.
Running time: 103 min.
Release date: March 19 ltd.
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City Island
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Walmart New Moon Release Party
Walmart New Moon Release Party: Watch New Moon DVD Release Party at Walmart – It was confirmd that besides the Twilight New Moon DVD Release Party at Borders, Walmart is having their own New Moon Release party too, Friday, March 19 at 11 pm. with giveaways, cake and more. Looks like a national campaign!