Stripping the Spy Down to His Manners
IT took two years of high-level negotiations to arrange a meeting with Daniel Craig. In an era when MI6 — the agency that employs his best-known character, James Bond — blithely advertises for agents on the Internet, Mr. Craig may well be the world’s most elusive pretend spy.
Montréal, le 22 décembre 2008 — La Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) annonce sa dernière ronde d’investissements en production suite aux dépôts de l’automne. Au total, 37 projets en production ont été retenus dont; 5 courts métrages, 17 documentaires, 10 projets de jeunes créateurs (4 documentaires et 6 fictions), 4 longs métrages du secteur indépendant et 2 coproductions minoritaires en fiction du secteur privé.
C’est dans la poursuite de son mandat qui est de soutenir la production et la diffusion de la culture québécoise dans le champ des industries culturelle, que la SODEC présente ses investissements en cinéma. Ainsi la SODEC assure le soutient de l'écriture, de la production et de la promotion des oeuvres, tout en assurant la relève et l’intégration des jeunes créateurs dans les circuits réguliers.
Secteur régulier
Fiction volet indépendant
Voici la liste des projets de longs métrages de fiction déposé le 17 octobre dernier, qui ont été retenus par la SODEC :
J’ai tué ma mère, écrit et réalisé par Xavier Dolan
Sortie 67, écrit et réalisé par Jephté Bastien
The girl in the white coat, écrit et réalisé par Darrell Wasyk
La route des cieux, écrit et réalisé par Jean-Pierre Lefebvre
Des grandes fresques de Bollywood au septième art érudit de Calcutta, le cinéma indien offre de multiples visages
Peut-être suffit-il de rappeler que le cinéma, en Inde, se vit quasiment comme une « religion », pour suggérer toute la ferveur des cinéphiles. Apparu dans le sous-continent en 1896, le septième art a rencontré un tel engouement qu’il consacre aujourd’hui l’Inde en première usine cinématographique mondiale.
Avec 12 000 salles, 13 millions de spectateurs par jour et plus de 800 productions par an, le cinéma indien est une institution. Les acteurs vedettes sont des idoles, les vieux films sont des classiques, et les musiques sont des « hits ».
Actor Will Smith, star of "Hancock" and "Seven Pounds", was voted the top money-making movie star of 2008, dethroning Johnny Depp in an annual poll released on Friday of movie theater owners and film buyers.
Smith, 40, is only the second African-American actor to win the Quigley poll in its 76 year history. Sidney Poitier was placed first in 1968 after the success of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "In the Heat of the Night."
Three newcomers on the 2008 list -- "Iron Man" Robert Downey Jr, "Batman" star Christian Bale, and Shia LaBeouf, the 22 year-old actor in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" -- came in second, third and fourth places respectively.
L'actrice Isabelle Huppert, 55 ans, présidera le jury du 62e Festival de Cannes, qui sera organisé du 13 au 24 mai. "Je suis très heureuse et très fière, a-t-elle déclaré en acceptant l'invitation du président du festival, Gilles Jacob et du délégué général, Thierry Frémaux. Cannes et moi, c'est une longue histoire, et ce prochain rendez-vous scelle définitivement mon amour pour le festival, et donc pour le cinéma mondial. Cannes, c'est la porte ouverte à toutes les nouvelles idées du monde. En être une spectatrice privilégiée m'enthousiasme."
M. Frémaux a indiqué à l'AFP qu'"offrir la présidence du jury à une artiste telle qu'Isabelle Huppert, c'est rendre hommage à celle qui met sa popularité de comédienne au service du cinéma d'auteur, qui s'engage auprès des jeunes metteurs en scène et que les cinéastes étrangers admirent". Jeudi 1er janvier, l'actrice a par ailleurs été promue officier de la Légion d'honneur.
Guild begins new year with civil war
By DAVE MCNARY
The Screen Actors Guild is starting 2009 with a civil war raging over a possible strike.
SAG's moderate wing plans to replace the guild's negotiating committee -- and possibly fire national exec director Doug Allen -- in hopes of breaking the contract stalemate with the majors.
By BILL CARTER - NEW YORK TIMES
There was good news in the early hours of Thursday for tiny tots in New York, Los Angeles and other large cities: The “Sponge Bob” blackout has been avoided.
The ball had already dropped in Times Square, but MTV Networks and Time Warner Cable kept talking through Wednesday night and into the early New Year and concluded a deal in principle that insured that shows like “Sponge Bob Square Pants” and “The Colbert Report” would still be available to the 13.3 million subscribers to the Time Warner Cable service.
The final terms, which were not disclosed, will be worked out in talks in the next few days, a Viacom executive said.
Guild's exec director addresses strike turmoil
By DAVE MCNARY
With pressure mounting to call off SAG's strike authorization, the guild's top exec has asserted he's hoping a strike won't occur but that if it does, it won't shut down the industry.
In a message sent Tuesday to SAG's 120,000 members, national exec director Doug Allen reiterated his oft-stated position that approval of the authorization won't guarantee a strike on primetime and features. That declaration's been widely disputed inside and outside SAG with the contention that SAG's leadership won't compromise at the bargaining table should the authorization receive the required 75% affirmation from those voting.
Viacom contract expires on Thursday
By CYNTHIA LITTLETON
Time Warner Cable subscribers may wind up starting the new year without MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, VH1 and other Viacom-owned cablers on their channel lineup.
Viacom late Tuesday issued a lengthy statement warning that channels may be dropped as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday because of a contract wrangle with Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest cable operator. Time Warner Cable serves 13.4 million subscribers in major markets including New York and Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES - Le studio hollywoodien Warner Bros fait savoir qu'il annule la sortie dans les salles chinoises de la dernière adaptation des aventures de Batman, "The Dark Knight", plus gros succès cinématographique de l'année, en invoquant des "sensibilités culturelles".
Le studio, qui appartient à la firme Time Warner, n'a pas précisé quels étaient les éléments susceptibles de déplaire au public chinois ou aux autorités de censure.
ANATOMY OF A CONTENDER: An epic's decades-long development story is as unusual as its subject matter.
By Alex Ben Block - Hollywood Reporter
Behind the scenes
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button": Paramount; release date: Dec. 25
Judge finds in favor of studio
By DAVE MCNARY - VARIETY
A Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that 20th Century Fox owns the distribution rights to "Watchmen," representing a setback for Warner Bros.' plans to release the pic in March.
Merrick Morton/Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures
Brad Pitt, with Tilda Swinton, stars as Benjamin Button.
It’s the Age of a Child Who Grows From a Man
By A. O. SCOTT - NEW YORK TIMES
By Joe Cellini
“I was born under unusual circumstances.”
Those opening words, spoken in voice-over narration by Brad Pitt, who plays the title character in David Fincher’s much anticipated—and already much heralded—new film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” make a perfectly understated introduction to the stoical Button, but also to the epic movie in which Fincher has framed him.
Among the unusual circumstances surrounding the making of the film is that film figured so little in it. Although nearly every major Hollywood movie of this size and budget is still made on film, “Button,” except for some high-speed and underwater sequences, was shot digitally on high-definition Thomson Viper cameras directly to hard drive, without ever touching tape, then captured into Final Cut Pro for editing.
Shooting this way allowed Fincher to bring film-like resolution to the screen without surrendering the speed and flexibility he could only achieve by building his movie entirely from data. And because Fincher had used the same workflow to create his critically acclaimed previous film “Zodiac,” he was confident that it could be ratcheted up to meet the even greater narrative, technical, and logistical challenges of “Button.”
Woody Allen tournera-t-il son prochain film en France ? Le cinéaste américain l'espère : à peine avait-il posé le pied à Paris, mardi 23 décembre, pour les fêtes de Noël, qu'il se rendait rue de Valois, au ministère de la culture. Christine Albanel l'attendait pour évoquer avec lui "toutes les possibilités" qui pourrait faciliter le tournage d'une comédie romantique à Paris, à l'été 2009 ou 2010. Le cinéaste n'a pas révélé son futur casting mais l'on sait déjà qu'un rôle au moins sera réservé à un acteur français. "Une jeune et ravissante jeune femme", a laché Woody Allen devant quelques journalistes.
"J'ai toujours été amoureux de Paris. J'avais dans le passé un scénario tout prêt mais les conditions financières ne m'avaient pas permis de concrétiser", a expliqué Woody Allen. Le crédit d'impôt, voté le 17 décembre à l'Assemblée nationale, pourrait changer la donne, si le cinéaste n'a pas encore arrêté sa décision. "Nous étudions la question avec la ministre. Nous avons besoin d'une aide non pas financière mais logistique, pour filmer dans la rue et organiser au mieux le tournage", a-t-il ajouté.
Guild needs to find exit strategy
By CYNTHIA LITTLETON - VANITYFAIR
As the prima facie evidence mounts that SAG's 122,000-plus members are in no mood to approve a strike authorization vote, the guild's two top bosses -- prexy Alan Rosenberg and national exec director Doug Allen -- seem to be twisting in the chilly December wind, looking for reinforcement on their ill-advised decisions on their contract negotiations strategy with Hollywood's majors.
The latest gyration came late Monday night when Allen advised members via email that the strike authorization vote, originally skedded to commence Jan. 2, would be delayed until after SAG holds an emergency national board meeting on Jan. 12-13.
Guild needs to find exit strategy
As the prima facie evidence mounts that SAG's 122,000-plus members are in no mood to approve a strike authorization vote, the guild's two top bosses -- prexy Alan Rosenberg and national exec director Doug Allen -- seem to be twisting in the chilly December wind, looking for reinforcement on their ill-advised decisions on their contract negotiations strategy with Hollywood's majors.
The latest gyration came late Monday night when Allen advised members via email that the strike authorization vote, originally skedded to commence Jan. 2, would be delayed until after SAG holds an emergency national board meeting on Jan. 12-13.
According to Allen, the powwow is needed to "address the unfortunate division and restore consensus" among SAG leaders for the strike authorization vote. Rosenberg said it would also give the guild more time for "member education and outreach" on why SAG leaders need to have the club of a strike threat in their back pocket.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.'s decision to divvy up its Golden Globe nominations among a slew of pictures has made the task of predicting winners at the Jan. 11 event all the harder. So where do the leading candidates stand?
Three movies tied for most nominations with five apiece: Paramount's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Universal's "Frost/Nixon" and Miramax's "Doubt." That would seem to make "Button" and "Frost/Nixon" the best bets for best picture (drama) ("Doubt" wasn't nominated) and hence the early front-runners for Academy Awards.
In fact, handicapping the Globes race is much more complicated.
Censorship allowed if sites break law, foreign ministry says
BANGKOK -- Western and Hong Kong news Web sites, including that of the New York Times, experienced censorship at the hands of the Chinese government last week in an apparent reversal of the open-media policy widely touted in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics.
The censorship, stemming from a reference to Taiwan, echoes past moves that experts say happen most often during times of economic or political tension.
Even the world's most successful director is struggling to raise money for movies as credit crunch bites
He is impossibly rich, uniquely powerful and boasts a copper-bottomed CV that includes dozens of the most influential blockbusters of modern times. But even Steven Spielberg's career is stalling in the apocalyptic face of the global credit crunch.
The legendary movie mogul, who recently "divorced" Paramount Pictures to turn his production firm, DreamWorks, into an independent company, finds himself in the unfamiliar position of struggling to raise enough money to get the ambitious new project off the ground.
La toute nouvelle collaboration entre Patrick Huard et Érik Canuel, Cadavres, sera présenté en ouverture des prochains Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois le jeudi 18 février prochain au Cinéma Impérial. Le film prendra ensuite l'affiche partout au Québec le 20 février.
En plus de Patrick Huard, Julie Le Breton et Christian Bégin sont en vedette dans le film qui est scénarisé par Benoît Guichard, d'après un roman de François Barcelo.Pierre Gendron et Christian Larouche produisent le film. Gilles Renaud, Patrice Robitaille, Hugolin Chevrette, Sylvie Boucher, Christopher Heyerdahl et Marie Brassard sont également de la distribution.
Producers, directors, writers call for action
In an open letter printed in the Times newspaper in London on Tuesday, more than 100 British film and TV industry heavyweights expressed their alarm over the damage online piracy is inflicting on the biz.
Signatories include directors Alan Parker, Ken Loach, Stephen Daldry, Mike Leigh and Kenneth Branagh and writers Peter Morgan and Richard Curtis.
The Slamdance Film Festival has selected 86 short films in four competition categories: documentary, narrative/experimental, animation and the new musicvideo classification.
The entries, announced Monday, will be eligible for a grand jury award. All entries were chosen by the shorts programming committee, comprised primarily of Slamdance alumni filmmakers.
Notable alumni from Slamdance's shorts include Gina Prince-Bythewood ("The Secret Life of Bees"), Mike Mitchell ("Shrek Goes Fourth"), Seth Gordon ("Four Christmases"), Jared Hess ("Napoleon Dynamite"), Matt Nix ("Burn Notice") and Rian Johnson ("The Brothers Bloom").
BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
a. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures
b. FROST/NIXON
Imagine Entertainment, Working Title, Studio Canal; Universal Pictures
c. THE READER
Mirage Enterprises; The Weinstein Company
d. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
An Evamere Entertainment BBC Films Neal Street Production; DreamWorks Pictures in Association with BBC Films and Paramount Vantage
e. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros.; Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros.
