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From his Los Angeles home, Danish artist and Oscar-winning film producer BENNI KORZEN, who left Copenhagen for New York in 1964, talks first about his 200 or so abstract color paintings and collages that surround him. Benni recalls his Oscar win for Best Foreign Film for the Danish production Babette's Feast (1987), a 1960 documentary with CBS about the historic 1943 rescue of 95% of Danish Jews (of which he was one) to Sweden, and describes current projects.Benni selects a work by Paul Gernes from the SMK collection.https://open.smk.dk/en/artwork/image/KMS8160(Photographer: Christian D. Bruun)----------We invite you to subscribe to Danish Originals for weekly episodes. You can also find us at:website: https://danishoriginals.com/email: info@danishoriginals.com----------And we invite you to donate to the American Friends of Statens Museum for Kunst and become a patron: https://donorbox.org/american-friends-of-statens-museum-for-kunst
After successful theatrical and television runs in Australia and New Zealand, Vision Films announces the limited theatrical release on April 26, 2024 of the Jane Seymour starrer Ruby's Choice, followed by the North American Transactional VOD release on May 7. Directed and produced by Michael Budd, written by Paul Mahoney, produced by Jessica Butland, Holly Brisley, Bianca Wei, Allison Berger, and executive produced by Sir Owen Glenn and Budd, the film was acquired in a deal with Carlos Alperin and his Australian sales company Galloping Entertainment. It racked up many festival awards and achievements both in the US and abroad, including a double victory at the 2023 Burbank International Film Festival (BIFF) where it won Best Foreign Film and Best Feature Film. A limited theatrical run starts on April 26, 2024 at The Laemmle Town Center in Encino, CA including a Q&A with Jane Seymour after the matinee on Sunday, April 28. Please visit laem.ly/3VOhR0l for more details and tickets. The movie will open the same day at the Old Mill Playhouse in The Villages, FL. Jane Seymour, known for her celebrated career ranging from the 1973 Bond girl "Solitaire" to Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and more recently The Kaminsky Method, embraces one of the most powerful and emotionally charged roles of her career. Ruby's Choice intricately weaves a poignant narrative around a teenage girl whose life takes a profound turn when she shares her space with her grandmother (Seymour) battling dementia. What begins as initial resentment transforms into a journey of love, self-discovery, and the revelation of long-held family secrets. Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omYDwdk5jdA Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.
After successful theatrical and television runs in Australia and New Zealand, Vision Films announces the limited theatrical release on April 26, 2024 of the Jane Seymour starrer Ruby's Choice, followed by the North American Transactional VOD release on May 7. Directed and produced by Michael Budd, written by Paul Mahoney, produced by Jessica Butland, Holly Brisley, Bianca Wei, Allison Berger, and executive produced by Sir Owen Glenn and Budd, the film was acquired in a deal with Carlos Alperin and his Australian sales company Galloping Entertainment. It racked up many festival awards and achievements both in the US and abroad, including a double victory at the 2023 Burbank International Film Festival (BIFF) where it won Best Foreign Film and Best Feature Film. A limited theatrical run starts on April 26, 2024 at The Laemmle Town Center in Encino, CA including a Q&A with Jane Seymour after the matinee on Sunday, April 28. Please visit laem.ly/3VOhR0l for more details and tickets. The movie will open the same day at the Old Mill Playhouse in The Villages, FL. Jane Seymour, known for her celebrated career ranging from the 1973 Bond girl "Solitaire" to Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and more recently The Kaminsky Method, embraces one of the most powerful and emotionally charged roles of her career. Ruby's Choice intricately weaves a poignant narrative around a teenage girl whose life takes a profound turn when she shares her space with her grandmother (Seymour) battling dementia. What begins as initial resentment transforms into a journey of love, self-discovery, and the revelation of long-held family secrets. Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omYDwdk5jdA Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.
Though it was snubbed in the Best Foreign Film category for this year's Academy Awards (hi, Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig!),the Film School Janitors didn't snub GODZILLA MINUS ONE! The film is an updated re-telling of the original 1954 classic, GOJIRA. What did the Janitors think? Listen to find out!
Enrique Costa is CEO of the Spanish production and distribution company Elastica Films, which he co founded In 2021 together with María Zamora. In a little over 2 years the company has built a reputation for dynamic markeing and savvy acquisitons, releasing the last 2 Palm D'or Winners “Triangle of Sadness” and “Anatomy of a Fall” as well as prestige titles such as “Drive my Car,” “The Worst Person in the World”, “Aftersun” and more. In this conversation, Enrique talks about the jounrey of establishing Elastica, his principles on marketing (and poster design), acquistion strategies and techniques for attracting younger audiences to arthouse films Enrique holds a degree in Economics from the European University of Madrid and a Master Degree in Audiovisual Production and Distribution from the Media Business School. In June 2021 he founded the production and distribution company ELASTICA FILMS together with María Zamora. Among the films released are two last Palm D'or “Triangle of Sadness” and “Anatomy of a Fall”, “Drive my Car,” winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, “The Worst Person in the World”, “Aftersun”, “Annette”, “Petite Maman” and “Alcarràs”, Golden Bear at Berlinale 2022. During the next months, the following releases are “The Zone of Interest”, “Past Lives”, or “La Chimera”. Elastica is committed itself to auteur and independent cinema, maintaining its faithful engagement to films of great cinematographic quality and supporting new female directors. With a strong vocation for the film industry, Elastica's philosophy is to produce and distribute films that the company itself would enjoy as an audience. Enrique was recently awared the Distirbution Innovation award at the International Disstribution Summit 2023.
SJMK is joined by the director and one of the stars of South Africa's submission for the 96th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category, Music is My Life: Joseph Shabalala and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Guests Director Mpumi “Supa” Mbele Son of Joseph Shabalala, Sibongiseni See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This film was originally released in 2014 as an Austrian psychological horror film that was written and directed by Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala. In 2022, it was remade with an American film studio, directed by Matt Sobel and stars Naomi Watts. Both films center around the same premise, a woman returns home to her twin sons after having reconstructive surgery on her face which leaves her head covered in bandages but things take a dark turn when the sons start to question the identity of their mother after her behavior seems to have changed. While the 2014 film debuted at the Venice International Film Festival, it was not selected for a Best Foreign Film nomination at that year's Academy Awards despite its positive reviews. The 2022 film debuted on Amazon Prime Video but did not have the same success critically. The only positive from the remake was Naomi Watt's' performance, which garnered rave reviews.
Thu, 28 Sep 2023 13:00:00 +0000 https://efm-industry-insights.podigee.io/43-finance-trends-across-the-ecosystem 28ed775a397f6a1ac3c4be093f240d97 Industry Insights – The EFM Podcast is presented by the European Film Market of the Berlinale. Hosted by journalist, moderator and film festival consultant, it delves deep into the rapidly evolving film industry. This special EFM Industry Insights episode meets top global film executives attending San Sebastian's second-annual Creative Investors Conference, where industry experts Elisa Alvares, Carole Scotta, Juan Gordon, and John Sloss have gathered to discuss topics such as opportunities in the shifting US landscape; global trends across the film value chain; the outlook from leading streamers; specific challenges facing independent producers; examining the global marketplace for Spanish-language content; finding strength in new international collaborations; and future-proofing how the industry continues to evolve to best serve audiences. Elisa Alvares is an all-rounded financier with over 25 years' experience in international corporate and structured finance with a focus in Media & Entertainment/Media-tech. Further to a successful career across investment banking, asset management and commercial banking with the likes of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Bank, Taurus Finance and Bank Leumi, Elisa founded Jacaranda Group in London in 2018. Through Jacaranda Consultants, Elisa has advised VC-backed investment funds and family offices around the world on their investments into music, film, TV, games, interactive/EntTech. Over the years, Elisa has originated/executed on transactions in Media & Entertainment in excess of $1B. Jacaranda assists clients from new fund strategy phase to deal origination and structuring, including facilitating corporate governance, and overseeing deal negotiation, deal execution and monitoring as part of long-term strategies. Juan Gordon is one of the founders of Morena Films, established in 1999. He was previously General Director of the production and distribution company ESICMA, where he produced his first feature film Lluvia en los Zapatos, directed by Maria Ripoll. Already at Morena, Juan has been responsible for the development and production of films such as: Intemperie (Benito Zambrano, 2019); Yuli (Iciar Bollain, 2018); Immersion (Wim Wenders, 2018); May God come down and see it (Curro Velázquez, 2017); One Hundred Years of Forgiveness (Daniel Calparsoro, 2016); The Olive Tree (Iciar Bollain, 2016); The Sheep Don't Miss the Train (Álvaro Fernández Armero, 2015); The Cave (Alfredo Montero, 2013). Recent credits include the Netflix original film Amor de Madre. After graduating from Arizona State University, Carole Scotta founded Haut et Court in 1992 the same year she won the Fondation Hachette prize as best young producer. She first broke into the French distribution sector with the "Unreleased of America" which included among others Alison Ander's "Gas, Food, Lodging" and Alex Cox's "Highway Patrolman". In 1997 Carole Scotta produced "My life in Pink" by Alain Berliner, her first feature film (Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film). Since then, her company, Haut et Court, produced and distributed over 200 films most of which have won several awards in international festivals; among others the Palme d'Or in Cannes 2008 with "The Class" by Laurent Cantet and the International Emmy for Best Drama Series 2013 with "The Returned" by Fabrice Gobert. Carole also produced "Coco before Chanel" by Anne Fontaine with Audrey Tautou, which was the first French film on the international market in 2009. She is not only a producer and a distributor but also an exhibitor with the launch of the NOUVEL ODEON in 2010, a theater in the heart of the Quartier Latin in Paris and the LOUXOR, a renovated theater which first opened in 1921. John Sloss is founder and CEO of Cinetic Media, and partner in Sloss Eckhouse Dasti Haynes LawCo. Through Cinetic, John produces motion pictures and television, provides various content sales and corporate advisory services, and presides over a rapidly growing talent management division. He has produced or executive produced over 70 films including Richard Linklater's Academy Award-winning BOYHOOD, LAST FLAG FLYING, and “BEFORE” Series, Todd Haynes's THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, **WONDERSTRUCK **and I'M NOT THERE, Peter Farrelly's Academy Award-winning GREEN BOOK, Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning THE FOG OF WAR, Kimberly Peirce's Academy Award-winning BOYS DON'T CRY and many more. John founded Producers Distribution Agency in 2010, a theatrical distribution company. He also founded the groundbreaking digital production and distribution company InDigEnt alongside Gary Winnick and IFC Films. Wendy Mitchell is a journalist, moderator and film festival consultant. She is a contributing editor and Nordic correspondent at Screen International, the producer of the Sundance London film festival, the UK and Nordic delegate for San Sebastian, consultant for San Sebastian's Creative Investors' Conference, curator at LÜbeck Nordic Film Days and frequent moderator for Cannes Marché du Film and Berlinale's European Film Market. This podcast episode has been developed in collaboration with the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The Berlinale's European Film Market is the first international film market of the year, where the film industry starts its business. Industry Insights - The EFM Podcast puts a spotlight on highly topical and trendsetting industry issues, thereby creating a compass for the forthcoming film year. The year-round podcast is produced in cooperation with Goethe-Institut and co-funded by Creative Europe MEDIA. full no Berlinale,Film Business,Entertainment Business,Financing in Film,Creative Investors,Film Finance Trends,TV Series Finance Trends European Film Market
We finally complete our mini-series on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films in 1989, a year that included sex, lies, and videotape, and My Left Foot. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we complete our look back at the 1980s theatrical releases for Miramax Films. And, for the final time, a reminder that we are not celebrating Bob and Harvey Weinstein, but reminiscing about the movies they had no involvement in making. We cannot talk about cinema in the 1980s without talking about Miramax, and I really wanted to get it out of the way, once and for all. As we left Part 4, Miramax was on its way to winning its first Academy Award, Billie August's Pelle the Conquerer, the Scandinavian film that would be second film in a row from Denmark that would win for Best Foreign Language Film. In fact, the first two films Miramax would release in 1989, the Australian film Warm Night on a Slow Moving Train and the Anthony Perkins slasher film Edge of Sanity, would not arrive in theatres until the Friday after the Academy Awards ceremony that year, which was being held on the last Wednesday in March. Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train stars Wendy Hughes, the talented Australian actress who, sadly, is best remembered today as Lt. Commander Nella Daren, one of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's few love interests, on a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Jenny, a prostitute working a weekend train to Sydney, who is seduced by a man on the train, unaware that he plans on tricking her to kill someone for him. Colin Friels, another great Aussie actor who unfortunately is best known for playing the corrupt head of Strack Industries in Sam Raimi's Darkman, plays the unnamed man who will do anything to get what he wants. Director Bob Ellis and his co-screenwriter Denny Lawrence came up with the idea for the film while they themselves were traveling on a weekend train to Sydney, with the idea that each client the call girl met on the train would represent some part of the Australian male. Funding the $2.5m film was really simple… provided they cast Hughes in the lead role. Ellis and Lawrence weren't against Hughes as an actress. Any film would be lucky to have her in the lead. They just felt she she didn't have the right kind of sex appeal for this specific character. Miramax would open the film in six theatres, including the Cineplex Beverly Center in Los Angeles and the Fashion Village 8 in Orlando, on March 31st. There were two versions of the movie prepared, one that ran 130 minutes and the other just 91. Miramax would go with the 91 minute version of the film for the American release, and most of the critics would note how clunky and confusing the film felt, although one critic for the Village Voice would have some kind words for Ms. Hughes' performance. Whether it was because moviegoers were too busy seeing the winners of the just announced Academy Awards, including Best Picture winner Rain Man, or because this weekend was also the opening weekend of the new Major League Baseball season, or just turned off by the reviews, attendance at the theatres playing Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train was as empty as a train dining car at three in the morning. The Beverly Center alone would account for a third of the movie's opening weekend gross of $19,268. After a second weekend at the same six theatres pocketing just $14,382, this train stalled out, never to arrive at another station. Their other March 31st release, Edge of Sanity, is notable for two things and only two things: it would be the first film Miramax would release under their genre specialty label, Millimeter Films, which would eventually evolve into Dimension Films in the next decade, and it would be the final feature film to star Anthony Perkins before his passing in 1992. The film is yet another retelling of the classic 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson story The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, with the bonus story twist that Hyde was actually Jack the Ripper. As Jekyll, Perkins looks exactly as you'd expect a mid-fifties Norman Bates to look. As Hyde, Perkins is made to look like he's a backup keyboardist for the first Nine Inch Nails tour. Head Like a Hole would have been an appropriate song for the end credits, had the song or Pretty Hate Machine been released by that time, with its lyrics about bowing down before the one you serve and getting what you deserve. Edge of Sanity would open in Atlanta and Indianapolis on March 31st. And like so many other Miramax releases in the 1980s, they did not initially announce any grosses for the film. That is, until its fourth weekend of release, when the film's theatre count had fallen to just six, down from the previous week's previously unannounced 35, grossing just $9,832. Miramax would not release grosses for the film again, with a final total of just $102,219. Now when I started this series, I said that none of the films Miramax released in the 1980s were made by Miramax, but this next film would become the closest they would get during the decade. In July 1961, John Profumo was the Secretary of State for War in the conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when the married Profumo began a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year-old model named Christine Keeler. The affair was very short-lived, either ending, depending on the source, in August 1961 or December 1961. Unbeknownst to Profumo, Keeler was also having an affair with Yevgeny Ivanov, a senior naval attache at the Soviet Embassy at the same time. No one was the wiser on any of this until December 1962, when a shooting incident involving two other men Keeler had been involved with led the press to start looking into Keeler's life. While it was never proven that his affair with Keeler was responsible for any breaches of national security, John Profumo was forced to resign from his position in June 1963, and the scandal would take down most of the Torie government with him. Prime Minister Macmillan would resign due to “health reasons” in October 1963, and the Labour Party would take control of the British government when the next elections were held in October 1964. Scandal was originally planned in the mid-1980s as a three-part, five-hour miniseries by Australian screenwriter Michael Thomas and American music producer turned movie producer Joe Boyd. The BBC would commit to finance a two-part, three-hour miniseries, until someone at the network found an old memo from the time of the Profumo scandal that forbade them from making any productions about it. Channel 4, which had been producing quality shows and movies for several years since their start in 1982, was approached, but rejected the series on the grounds of taste. Palace Pictures, a British production company who had already produced three films for Neil Jordan including Mona Lisa, was willing to finance the script, provided it could be whittled down to a two hour movie. Originally budgeted at 3.2m British pounds, the costs would rise as they started the casting process. John Hurt, twice Oscar-nominated for his roles in Midnight Express and The Elephant Man, would sign on to play Stephen Ward, a British osteopath who acted as Christine Keeler's… well… pimp, for lack of a better word. Ian McKellen, a respected actor on British stages and screens but still years away from finding mainstream global success in the X-Men movies, would sign on to play John Profumo. Joanne Whaley, who had filmed the yet to be released at that time Willow with her soon to be husband Val Kilmer, would get her first starring role as Keeler, and Bridget Fonda, who was quickly making a name for herself in the film world after being featured in Aria, would play Mandy Rice-Davies, the best friend and co-worker of Keeler's. To save money, Palace Pictures would sign thirty-year-old Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones to direct, after seeing a short film he had made called The Riveter. But even with the neophyte feature filmmaker, Palace still needed about $2.35m to be able to fully finance the film. And they knew exactly who to go to. Stephen Woolley, the co-founder of Palace Pictures and the main producer on the film, would fly from London to New York City to personally pitch Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Woolley felt that of all the independent distributors in America, they would be the ones most attracted to the sexual and controversial nature of the story. A day later, Woolley was back on a plane to London. The Weinsteins had agreed to purchase the American distribution rights to Scandal for $2.35m. The film would spend two months shooting in the London area through the summer of 1988. Christine Keeler had no interest in the film, and refused to meet the now Joanne Whaley-Kilmer to talk about the affair, but Mandy Rice-Davies was more than happy to Bridget Fonda about her life, although the meetings between the two women were so secret, they would not come out until Woolley eulogized Rice-Davies after her 2014 death. Although Harvey and Bob would be given co-executive producers on the film, Miramax was not a production company on the film. This, however, did not stop Harvey from flying to London multiple times, usually when he was made aware of some sexy scene that was going to shoot the following day, and try to insinuate himself into the film's making. At one point, Woolley decided to take a weekend off from the production, and actually did put Harvey in charge. That weekend's shoot would include a skinny-dipping scene featuring the Christine Keeler character, but when Whaley-Kilmer learned Harvey was going to be there, she told the director that she could not do the nudity in the scene. Her new husband was objecting to it, she told them. Harvey, not skipping a beat, found a lookalike for the actress who would be willing to bare all as a body double, and the scene would begin shooting a few hours later. Whaley-Kilmer watched the shoot from just behind the camera, and stopped the shoot a few minutes later. She was not happy that the body double's posterior was notably larger than her own, and didn't want audiences to think she had that much junk in her trunk. The body double was paid for her day, and Whaley-Kilmer finished the rest of the scene herself. Caton-Jones and his editing team worked on shaping the film through the fall, and would screen his first edit of the film for Palace Pictures and the Weinsteins in November 1988. And while Harvey was very happy with the cut, he still asked the production team for a different edit for American audiences, noting that most Americans had no idea who Profumo or Keeler or Rice-Davies were, and that Americans would need to understand the story more right out of the first frame. Caton-Jones didn't want to cut a single frame, but he would work with Harvey to build an American-friendly cut. While he was in London in November 1988, he would meet with the producers of another British film that was in pre-production at the time that would become another important film to the growth of the company, but we're not quite at that part of the story yet. We'll circle around to that film soon. One of the things Harvey was most looking forward to going in to 1989 was the expected battle with the MPAA ratings board over Scandal. Ever since he had seen the brouhaha over Angel Heart's X rating two years earlier, he had been looking for a similar battle. He thought he had it with Aria in 1988, but he knew he definitely had it now. And he'd be right. In early March, just a few weeks before the film's planned April 21st opening day, the MPAA slapped an X rating on Scandal. The MPAA usually does not tell filmmakers or distributors what needs to be cut, in order to avoid accusations of actual censorship, but according to Harvey, they told him exactly what needed to be cut to get an R: a two second shot during an orgy scene, where it appears two background characters are having unsimulated sex. So what did Harvey do? He spent weeks complaining to the press about MPAA censorship, generating millions in free publicity for the film, all the while already having a close-up shot of Joanne Whaley-Kilmer's Christine Keeler watching the orgy but not participating in it, ready to replace the objectionable shot. A few weeks later, Miramax screened the “edited” film to the MPAA and secured the R rating, and the film would open on 94 screens, including 28 each in the New York City and Los Angeles metro regions, on April 28th. And while the reviews for the film were mostly great, audiences were drawn to the film for the Miramax-manufactured controversy as well as the key art for the film, a picture of a potentially naked Joanne Whaley-Kilmer sitting backwards in a chair, a mimic of a very famous photo Christine Keeler herself took to promote a movie about the Profumo affair she appeared in a few years after the events. I'll have a picture of both the Scandal poster and the Christine Keeler photo on this episode's page at The80sMoviePodcast.com Five other movies would open that weekend, including the James Belushi comedy K-9 and the Kevin Bacon drama Criminal Law, and Scandal, with $658k worth of ticket sales, would have the second best per screen average of the five new openers, just a few hundred dollars below the new Holly Hunter movie Miss Firecracker, which only opened on six screens. In its second weekend, Scandal would expand its run to 214 playdates, and make its debut in the national top ten, coming in tenth place with $981k. That would be more than the second week of the Patrick Dempsey rom-com Loverboy, even though Loverboy was playing on 5x as many screens. In weekend number three, Scandal would have its best overall gross and top ten placement, coming in seventh with $1.22m from 346 screens. Scandal would start to slowly fade after that, falling back out of the top ten in its sixth week, but Miramax would wisely keep the screen count under 375, because Scandal wasn't going to play well in all areas of the country. After nearly five months in theatres, Miramax would have its biggest film to date. Scandal would gross $8.8m. The second release from Millimeter Films was The Return of the Swamp Thing. And if you needed a reason why the 1980s was not a good time for comic book movies, here you are. The Return of the Swamp Thing took most of what made the character interesting in his comic series, and most of what was good from the 1982 Wes Craven adaptation, and decided “Hey, you know what would bring the kids in? Camp! Camp unseen in a comic book adaptation since the 1960s Batman series. They loved it then, they'll love it now!” They did not love it now. Heather Locklear, between her stints on T.J. Hooker and Melrose Place, plays the step-daughter of Louis Jourdan's evil Dr. Arcane from the first film, who heads down to the Florida swaps to confront dear old once presumed dead stepdad. He in turns kidnaps his stepdaughter and decides to do some of his genetic experiments on her, until she is rescued by Swamp Thing, one of Dr. Arcane's former co-workers who got turned into the gooey anti-hero in the first movie. The film co-stars Sarah Douglas from Superman 1 and 2 as Dr. Arcane's assistant, Dick Durock reprising his role as Swamp Thing from the first film, and 1980s B-movie goddess Monique Gabrielle as Miss Poinsettia. For director Jim Wynorski, this was his sixth movie as a director, and at $3m, one of the highest budgeted movies he would ever make. He's directed 107 movies since 1984, most of them low budget direct to video movies with titles like The Bare Wench Project and Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade, although he does have one genuine horror classic under his belt, the 1986 sci-fi tinged Chopping Maul with Kelli Maroney and Barbara Crampton. Wynorski suggested in a late 1990s DVD commentary for the film that he didn't particularly enjoy making the film, and had a difficult time directing Louis Jourdan, to the point that outside of calling “action” and “cut,” the two didn't speak to each other by the end of the shoot. The Return of Swamp Thing would open in 123 theatres in the United States on May 12th, including 28 in the New York City metro region, 26 in the Los Angeles area, 15 in Detroit, and a handful of theatres in Phoenix, San Francisco. And, strangely, the newspaper ads would include an actual positive quote from none other than Roger Ebert, who said on Siskel & Ebert that he enjoyed himself, and that it was good to have Swamp Thing back. Siskel would not reciprocate his balcony partner's thumb up. But Siskel was about the only person who was positive on the return of Swamp Thing, and that box office would suffer. In its first three days, the film would gross just $119,200. After a couple more dismal weeks in theatres, The Return of Swamp Thing would be pulled from distribution, with a final gross of just $275k. Fun fact: The Return of Swamp Thing was produced by Michael E. Uslan, whose next production, another adaptation of a DC Comics character, would arrive in theatres not six weeks later and become the biggest film of the summer. In fact, Uslan has been a producer or executive producer on every Batman-related movie and television show since 1989, from Tim Burton to Christopher Nolan to Zack Snyder to Matt Reeves, and from LEGO movies to Joker. He also, because of his ownership of the movie rights to Swamp Thing, got the movie screen rights, but not the television screen rights, to John Constantine. Miramax didn't have too much time to worry about The Return of Swamp Thing's release, as it was happening while the Brothers Weinstein were at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. They had two primary goals at Cannes that year: To buy American distribution rights to any movie that would increase their standing in the cinematic worldview, which they would achieve by picking up an Italian dramedy called, at the time, New Paradise Cinema, which was competing for the Palme D'Or with a Miramax pickup from Sundance back in January. Promote that very film, which did end up winning the Palme D'Or. Ever since he was a kid, Steven Soderbergh wanted to be a filmmaker. Growing up in Baton Rouge, LA in the late 1970s, he would enroll in the LSU film animation class, even though he was only 15 and not yet a high school graduate. After graduating high school, he decided to move to Hollywood to break into the film industry, renting an above-garage room from Stephen Gyllenhaal, the filmmaker best known as the father of Jake and Maggie, but after a few freelance editing jobs, Soderbergh packed up his things and headed home to Baton Rouge. Someone at Atco Records saw one of Soderbergh's short films, and hired him to direct a concert movie for one of their biggest bands at the time, Yes, who was enjoying a major comeback thanks to their 1983 triple platinum selling album, 90125. The concert film, called 9012Live, would premiere on MTV in late 1985, and it would be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. Soderbergh would use the money he earned from that project, $7,500, to make Winston, a 12 minute black and white short about sexual deception that he would, over the course of an eight day driving trip from Baton Rouge to Los Angeles, expand to a full length screen that he would call sex, lies and videotape. In later years, Soderbergh would admit that part of the story is autobiographical, but not the part you might think. Instead of the lead, Graham, an impotent but still sexually perverse late twentysomething who likes to tape women talking about their sexual fantasies for his own pleasure later, Soderbergh based the husband John, the unsophisticated lawyer who cheats on his wife with her sister, on himself, although there would be a bit of Graham that borrows from the filmmaker. Like his lead character, Soderbergh did sell off most of his possessions and hit the road to live a different life. When he finished the script, he sent it out into the wilds of Hollywood. Morgan Mason, the son of actor James Mason and husband of Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle, would read it and sign on as an executive producer. Soderbergh had wanted to shoot the film in black and white, like he had with the Winston short that lead to the creation of this screenplay, but he and Mason had trouble getting anyone to commit to the project, even with only a projected budget of $200,000. For a hot moment, it looked like Universal might sign on to make the film, but they would eventually pass. Robert Newmyer, who had left his job as a vice president of production and acquisitions at Columbia Pictures to start his own production company, signed on as a producer, and helped to convince Soderbergh to shoot the film in color, and cast some name actors in the leading roles. Once he acquiesced, Richard Branson's Virgin Vision agreed to put up $540k of the newly budgeted $1.2m film, while RCA/Columbia Home Video would put up the remaining $660k. Soderbergh and his casting director, Deborah Aquila, would begin their casting search in New York, where they would meet with, amongst others, Andie MacDowell, who had already starred in two major Hollywood pictures, 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and 1985's St. Elmo's Fire, but was still considered more of a top model than an actress, and Laura San Giacomo, who had recently graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh and would be making her feature debut. Moving on to Los Angeles, Soderbergh and Aquila would cast James Spader, who had made a name for himself as a mostly bad guy in 80s teen movies like Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero, but had never been the lead in a drama like this. At Spader's suggestion, the pair met with Peter Gallagher, who was supposed to become a star nearly a decade earlier from his starring role in Taylor Hackford's The Idolmaker, but had mostly been playing supporting roles in television shows and movies for most of the decade. In order to keep the budget down, Soderbergh, the producers, cinematographer Walt Lloyd and the four main cast members agreed to get paid their guild minimums in exchange for a 50/50 profit participation split with RCA/Columbia once the film recouped its costs. The production would spend a week in rehearsals in Baton Rouge, before the thirty day shoot began on August 1st, 1988. On most days, the shoot was unbearable for many, as temperatures would reach as high as 110 degrees outside, but there were a couple days lost to what cinematographer Lloyd said was “biblical rains.” But the shoot completed as scheduled, and Soderbergh got to the task of editing right away. He knew he only had about eight weeks to get a cut ready if the film was going to be submitted to the 1989 U.S. Film Festival, now better known as Sundance. He did get a temporary cut of the film ready for submission, with a not quite final sound mix, and the film was accepted to the festival. It would make its world premiere on January 25th, 1989, in Park City UT, and as soon as the first screening was completed, the bids from distributors came rolling in. Larry Estes, the head of RCA/Columbia Home Video, would field more than a dozen submissions before the end of the night, but only one distributor was ready to make a deal right then and there. Bob Weinstein wasn't totally sold on the film, but he loved the ending, and he loved that the word “sex” not only was in the title but lead the title. He knew that title alone would sell the movie. Harvey, who was still in New York the next morning, called Estes to make an appointment to meet in 24 hours. When he and Estes met, he brought with him three poster mockups the marketing department had prepared, and told Estes he wasn't going to go back to New York until he had a contract signed, and vowed to beat any other deal offered by $100,000. Island Pictures, who had made their name releasing movies like Stop Making Sense, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, The Trip to Bountiful and She's Gotta Have It, offered $1m for the distribution rights, plus a 30% distribution fee and a guaranteed $1m prints and advertising budget. Estes called Harvey up and told him what it would take to make the deal. $1.1m for the distribution rights, which needed to paid up front, a $1m P&A budget, to be put in escrow upon the signing of the contract until the film was released, a 30% distribution fee, no cutting of the film whatsoever once Soderbergh turns in his final cut, they would need to provide financial information for the films costs and returns once a month because of the profit participation contracts, and the Weinsteins would have to hire Ira Deutchman, who had spent nearly 15 years in the independent film world, doing marketing for Cinema 5, co-founding United Artists Classics, and co-founding Cinecom Pictures before opening his own company to act as a producers rep and marketer. And the Weinsteins would not only have to do exactly what Deutchman wanted, they'd have to pay for his services too. The contract was signed a few weeks later. The first move Miramax would make was to get Soderbergh's final cut of the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, where it would be accepted to compete in the main competition. Which you kind of already know what happened, because that's what I lead with. The film would win the Palme D'Or, and Spader would be awarded the festival's award for Best Actor. It was very rare at the time, and really still is, for any film to be awarded more than one prize, so winning two was really a coup for the film and for Miramax, especially when many critics attending the festival felt Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was the better film. In March, Miramax expected the film to make around $5-10m, which would net the company a small profit on the film. After Cannes, they were hopeful for a $15m gross. They never expected what would happen next. On August 4th, sex, lies, and videotape would open on four screens, at the Cinema Studio in New York City, and at the AMC Century 14, the Cineplex Beverly Center 13 and the Mann Westwood 4 in Los Angeles. Three prime theatres and the best they could do in one of the then most competitive zones in all America. Remember, it's still the Summer 1989 movie season, filled with hits like Batman, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Parenthood, Turner & Hooch, and When Harry Met Sally. An independent distributor even getting one screen at the least attractive theatre in Westwood was a major get. And despite the fact that this movie wasn't really a summertime movie per se, the film would gross an incredible $156k in its first weekend from just these four theatres. Its nearly $40k per screen average would be 5x higher than the next closest film, Parenthood. In its second weekend, the film would expand to 28 theatres, and would bring in over $600k in ticket sales, its per screen average of $21,527 nearly triple its closest competitor, Parenthood again. The company would keep spending small, as it slowly expanded the film each successive week. Forty theatres in its third week, and 101 in its fourth. The numbers held strong, and in its fifth week, Labor Day weekend, the film would have its first big expansion, playing in 347 theatres. The film would enter the top ten for the first time, despite playing in 500 to 1500 fewer theatres than the other films in the top ten. In its ninth weekend, the film would expand to its biggest screen count, 534, before slowly drawing down as the other major Oscar contenders started their theatrical runs. The film would continue to play through the Oscar season of 1989, and when it finally left theatres in May 1989, its final gross would be an astounding $24.7m. Now, remember a few moments ago when I said that Miramax needed to provide financial statements every month for the profit participation contracts of Soderbergh, the producers, the cinematographer and the four lead actors? The film was so profitable for everyone so quickly that RCA/Columbia made its first profit participation payouts on October 17th, barely ten weeks after the film's opening. That same week, Soderbergh also made what was at the time the largest deal with a book publisher for the writer/director's annotated version of the screenplay, which would also include his notes created during the creation of the film. That $75,000 deal would be more than he got paid to make the movie as the writer and the director and the editor, not counting the profit participation checks. During the awards season, sex, lies, and videotape was considered to be one of the Oscars front runners for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and at least two acting nominations. The film would be nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress by the Golden Globes, and it would win the Spirit Awards for Best Picture, Soderbergh for Best Director, McDowell for Best Actress, and San Giacomo for Best Supporting Actress. But when the Academy Award nominations were announced, the film would only receive one nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. The same total and category as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which many people also felt had a chance for a Best Picture and Best Director nomination. Both films would lose out to Tom Shulman's screenplay for Dead Poet's Society. The success of sex, lies, and videotape would launch Steven Soderbergh into one of the quirkiest Hollywood careers ever seen, including becoming the first and only director ever to be nominated twice for Best Director in the same year by the Motion Picture Academy, the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America, in 2001 for directing Erin Brockovich and Traffic. He would win the Oscar for directing Traffic. Lost in the excitement of sex, lies, and videotape was The Little Thief, a French movie that had an unfortunate start as the screenplay François Truffaut was working on when he passed away in 1984 at the age of just 52. Directed by Claude Miller, whose principal mentor was Truffaut, The Little Thief starred seventeen year old Charlotte Gainsbourg as Janine, a young woman in post-World War II France who commits a series of larcenies to support her dreams of becoming wealthy. The film was a modest success in France when it opened in December 1988, but its American release date of August 25th, 1989, was set months in advance. So when it was obvious sex, lies, and videotape was going to be a bigger hit than they originally anticipated, it was too late for Miramax to pause the release of The Little Thief. Opening at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City, and buoyed by favorable reviews from every major critic in town, The Little Thief would see $39,931 worth of ticket sales in its first seven days, setting a new house record at the theatre for the year. In its second week, the gross would only drop $47. For the entire week. And when it opened at the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles, its opening week gross of $30,654 would also set a new house record for the year. The film would expand slowly but surely over the next several weeks, often in single screen playdates in major markets, but it would never play on more than twenty-four screens in any given week. And after four months in theatres, The Little Thief, the last movie created one of the greatest film writers the world had ever seen, would only gross $1.056m in the United States. The next three releases from Miramax were all sent out under the Millimeter Films banner. The first, a supernatural erotic drama called The Girl in a Swing, was about an English antiques dealer who travels to Copenhagen where he meets and falls in love with a mysterious German-born secretary, whom he marries, only to discover a darker side to his new bride. Rupert Frazer, who played Christian Bale's dad in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, plays the antique dealer, while Meg Tilly the mysterious new bride. Filmed over a five week schedule in London and Copenhagen during May and June 1988, some online sources say the film first opened somewhere in California in December 1988, but I cannot find a single theatre not only in California but anywhere in the United States that played the film before its September 29th, 1989 opening date. Roger Ebert didn't like the film, and wished Meg Tilly's “genuinely original performance” was in a better movie. Opening in 26 theatres, including six theatres each in New York City and Los Angeles, and spurred on by an intriguing key art for the film that featured a presumed naked Tilly on a swing looking seductively at the camera while a notice underneath her warns that No One Under 18 Will Be Admitted To The Theatre, The Girl in a Swing would gross $102k, good enough for 35th place nationally that week. And that's about the best it would do. The film would limp along, moving from market to market over the course of the next three months, and when its theatrical run was complete, it could only manage about $747k in ticket sales. We'll quickly burn through the next two Millimeter Films releases, which came out a week apart from each other and didn't amount to much. Animal Behavior was a rather unfunny comedy featuring some very good actors who probably signed on for a very different movie than the one that came to be. Karen Allen, Miss Marion Ravenwood herself, stars as Alex, a biologist who, like Dr. Jane Goodall, develops a “new” way to communicate with chimpanzees via sign language. Armand Assante plays a cellist who pursues the good doctor, and Holly Hunter plays the cellist's neighbor, who Alex mistakes for his wife. Animal Behavior was filmed in 1984, and 1985, and 1987, and 1988. The initial production was directed by Jenny Bowen with the assistance of Robert Redford and The Sundance Institute, thanks to her debut film, 1981's Street Music featuring Elizabeth Daily. It's unknown why Bowen and her cinematographer husband Richard Bowen left the project, but when filming resumed again and again and again, those scenes were directed by the film's producer, Kjehl Rasmussen. Because Bowen was not a member of the DGA at the time, she was not able to petition the guild for the use of the Alan Smithee pseudonym, a process that is automatically triggered whenever a director is let go of a project and filming continues with its producer taking the reigns as director. But she was able to get the production to use a pseudonym anyway for the director's credit, H. Anne Riley, while also giving Richard Bowen a pseudonym of his own for his work on the film, David Spellvin. Opening on 24 screens on October 27th, Animal Behavior would come in 50th place in its opening weekend, grossing just $20,361. The New York film critics ripped the film apart, and there wouldn't be a second weekend for the film. The following Friday, November 3rd, saw the release of The Stepfather II, a rushed together sequel to 1987's The Stepfather, which itself wasn't a big hit in theatres but found a very quick and receptive audience on cable. Despite dying at the end of the first film, Terry O'Quinn's Jerry is somehow still alive, and institutionalized in Northern Washington state. He escapes and heads down to Los Angeles, where he assumes the identity of a recently deceased publisher, Gene Clifford, but instead passes himself off as a psychiatrist. Jerry, now Gene, begins to court his neighbor Carol, and the whole crazy story plays out again. Meg Foster plays the neighbor Carol, and Jonathan Brandis is her son. Director Jeff Burr had made a name for himself with his 1987 horror anthology film From a Whisper to a Scream, featuring Vincent Price, Clu Gulager and Terry Kiser, and from all accounts, had a very smooth shooting process with this film. The trouble began when he turned in his cut to the producers. The producers were happy with the film, but when they sent it to Miramax, the American distributors, they were rather unhappy with the almost bloodless slasher film. They demanded reshoots, which Burr and O'Quinn refused to participate in. They brought in a new director, Doug Campbell, to handle the reshoots, which are easy to spot in the final film because they look and feel completely different from the scenes they're spliced into. When it opened, The Stepfather II actually grossed slightly more than the first film did, earning $279k from 100 screens, compared to $260k for The Stepfather from 105 screens. But unlike the first film, which had some decent reviews when it opened, the sequel was a complete mess. To this day, it's still one of the few films to have a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and The Stepfather II would limp its way through theatres during the Christmas holiday season, ending its run with a $1.5m gross. But it would be their final film of the decade that would dictate their course for at least the first part of the 1990s. Remember when I said earlier in the episode that Harvey Weinstein meant with the producers of another British film while in London for Scandal? We're at that film now, a film you probably know. My Left Foot. By November 1988, actor Daniel Day-Lewis had starred in several movies including James Ivory's A Room With a View and Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He had even been the lead in a major Hollywood studio film, Pat O'Connor's Stars and Bars, a very good film that unfortunately got caught up in the brouhaha over the exit of the studio head who greenlit the film, David Puttnam. The film's director, Jim Sheridan, had never directed a movie before. He had become involved in stage production during his time at the University College in Dublin in the late 1960s, where he worked with future filmmaker Neil Jordan, and had spent nearly a decade after graduation doing stage work in Ireland and Canada, before settling in New York City in the early 1980s. Sheridan would go to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where one of his classmates was Spike Lee, and return to Ireland after graduating. He was nearly forty, married with two pre-teen daughters, and he needed to make a statement with his first film. He would find that story in the autobiography of Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, whose spirit and creativity could not be contained by his severe cerebral palsy. Along with Irish actor and writer Shane Connaughton, Sheridan wrote a screenplay that could be a powerhouse film made on a very tight budget of less than a million dollars. Daniel Day-Lewis was sent a copy of the script, in the hopes he would be intrigued enough to take almost no money to play a physically demanding role. He read the opening pages, which had the adult Christy Brown putting a record on a record player and dropping the needle on to the record with his left foot, and thought to himself it would be impossible to film. That intrigued him, and he signed on. But during filming in January and February of 1989, most of the scenes were shot using mirrors, as Day-Lewis couldn't do the scenes with his left foot. He could do them with his right foot, hence the mirrors. As a method actor, Day-Lewis remained in character as Christy Brown for the entire two month shoot. From costume fittings and makeup in the morning, to getting the actor on set, to moving him around between shots, there were crew members assigned to assist the actor as if they were Christy Brown's caretakers themselves, including feeding him during breaks in shooting. A rumor debunked by the actor years later said Day-Lewis had broken two ribs during production because of how hunched down he needed to be in his crude prop wheelchair to properly play the character. The actor had done a lot of prep work to play the role, including spending time at the Sandymount School Clinic where the young Christy Brown got his education, and much of his performance was molded on those young people. While Miramax had acquired the American distribution rights to the film before it went into production, and those funds went into the production of the film, the film was not produced by Miramax, nor were the Weinsteins given any kind of executive producer credit, as they were able to get themselves on Scandal. My Left Foot would make its world premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 4th, 1989, followed soon thereafter by screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13th and the New York Film Festival on September 23rd. Across the board, critics and audiences were in love with the movie, and with Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. Jim Sheridan would receive a special prize at the Montreal World Film Festival for his direction, and Day-Lewis would win the festival's award for Best Actor. However, as the film played the festival circuit, another name would start to pop up. Brenda Fricker, a little known Irish actress who played Christy Brown's supportive but long-suffering mother Bridget, would pile up as many positive notices and awards as Day-Lewis. Although there was no Best Supporting Actress Award at the Montreal Film Festival, the judges felt her performance was deserving of some kind of attention, so they would create a Special Mention of the Jury Award to honor her. Now, some sources online will tell you the film made its world premiere in Dublin on February 24th, 1989, based on a passage in a biography about Daniel Day-Lewis, but that would be impossible as the film would still be in production for two more days, and wasn't fully edited or scored by then. I'm not sure when it first opened in the United Kingdom other than sometime in early 1990, but My Left Foot would have its commercial theatre debut in America on November 10th, when opened at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City and the Century City 14 in Los Angeles. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times would, in the very opening paragraph of her review, note that one shouldn't see My Left Foot for some kind of moral uplift or spiritual merit badge, but because of your pure love of great moviemaking. Vincent Canby's review in the New York Times spends most of his words praising Day-Lewis and Sheridan for making a film that is polite and non-judgmental. Interestingly, Miramax went with an ad campaign that completely excluded any explanation of who Christy Brown was or why the film is titled the way it is. 70% of the ad space is taken from pull quotes from many of the top critics of the day, 20% with the title of the film, and 10% with a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis, clean shaven and full tooth smile, which I don't recall happening once in the movie, next to an obviously added-in picture of one of his co-stars that is more camera-friendly than Brenda Fricker or Fiona Shaw. Whatever reasons people went to see the film, they flocked to the two theatres playing the film that weekend. It's $20,582 per screen average would be second only to Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, which had opened two days earlier, earning slightly more than $1,000 per screen than My Left Foot. In week two, My Left Foot would gross another $35,133 from those two theatres, and it would overtake Henry V for the highest per screen average. In week three, Thanksgiving weekend, both Henry V and My Left Foot saw a a double digit increase in grosses despite not adding any theatres, and the latter film would hold on to the highest per screen average again, although the difference would only be $302. And this would continue for weeks. In the film's sixth week of release, it would get a boost in attention by being awarded Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle. Daniel Day-Lewis would be named Best Actor that week by both the New York critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, while Fricker would win the Best Supporting Actress award from the latter group. But even then, Miramax refused to budge on expanding the film until its seventh week of release, Christmas weekend, when My Left Foot finally moved into cities like Chicago and San Francisco. Its $135k gross that weekend was good, but it was starting to lose ground to other Oscar hopefuls like Born on the Fourth of July, Driving Miss Daisy, Enemies: A Love Story, and Glory. And even though the film continued to rack up award win after award win, nomination after nomination, from the Golden Globes and the Writers Guild and the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review, Miramax still held firm on not expanding the film into more than 100 theatres nationwide until its 16th week in theatres, February 16th, 1990, two days after the announcement of the nominees for the 62nd Annual Academy Awards. While Daniel Day-Lewis's nomination for Best Actor was virtually assured and Brenda Fricker was practically a given, the film would pick up three other nominations, including surprise nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. Jim Sheridan and co-writer Shane Connaughton would also get picked for Best Adapted Screenplay. Miramax also picked up a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for sex, lies, and videotape, and a Best Foreign Language Film nod for the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso, which, thanks to the specific rules for that category, a film could get a nomination before actually opening in theatres in America, which Miramax would rush to do with Paradiso the week after its nomination was announced. The 62nd Academy Awards ceremony would be best remembered today as being the first Oscar show to be hosted by Billy Crystal, and for being considerably better than the previous year's ceremony, a mess of a show best remembered as being the one with a 12 minute opening musical segment that included Rob Lowe singing Proud Mary to an actress playing Snow White and another nine minute musical segment featuring a slew of expected future Oscar winners that, to date, feature exact zero Oscar nominees, both which rank as amongst the worst things to ever happen to the Oscars awards show. The ceremony, held on March 26th, would see My Left Foot win two awards, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, as well as Cinema Paradiso for Best Foreign Film. The following weekend, March 30th, would see Miramax expand My Left Foot to 510 theatres, its widest point of release, and see the film made the national top ten and earn more than a million dollars for its one and only time during its eight month run. The film would lose steam pretty quickly after its post-win bump, but it would eek out a modest run that ended with $14.75m in ticket sales just in the United States. Not bad for a little Irish movie with no major stars that cost less than a million dollars to make. Of course, the early 90s would see Miramax fly to unimagined heights. In all of the 80s, Miramax would release 39 movies. They would release 30 films alone in 1991. They would release the first movies from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. They'd release some of the best films from some of the best filmmakers in the world, including Woody Allen, Pedro Almadovar, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Atom Egoyan, Steven Frears, Peter Greenaway, Peter Jackson, Neil Jordan, Chen Kaige, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Lars von Trier, and Zhang Yimou. In 1993, the Mexican dramedy Like Water for Chocolate would become the highest grossing foreign language film ever released in America, and it would play in some theatres, including my theatre, the NuWilshire in Santa Monica, continuously for more than a year. If you've listened to the whole series on the 1980s movies of Miramax Films, there are two things I hope you take away. First, I hope you discovered at least one film you hadn't heard of before and you might be interested in searching out. The second is the reminder that neither Bob nor Harvey Weinstein will profit in any way if you give any of the movies talked about in this series a chance. They sold Miramax to Disney in June 1993. They left Miramax in September 2005. Many of the contracts for the movies the company released in the 80s and 90s expired decades ago, with the rights reverting back to their original producers, none of whom made any deals with the Weinsteins once they got their rights back. Harvey Weinstein is currently serving a 23 year prison sentence in upstate New York after being found guilty in 2020 of two sexual assaults. Once he completes that sentence, he'll be spending another 16 years in prison in California, after he was convicted of three sexual assaults that happened in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. And if the 71 year old makes it to 107 years old, he may have to serve time in England for two sexual assaults that happened in August 1996. That case is still working its way through the British legal system. Bob Weinstein has kept a low profile since his brother's proclivities first became public knowledge in October 2017, although he would also be accused of sexual harassment by a show runner for the brothers' Spike TV-aired adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Mist, several days after the bombshell articles came out about his brother. However, Bob's lawyer, the powerful attorney to the stars Bert Fields, deny the allegations, and it appears nothing has occurred legally since the accusations were made. A few weeks after the start of the MeToo movement that sparked up in the aftermath of the accusations of his brother's actions, Bob Weinstein denied having any knowledge of the nearly thirty years of documented sexual abuse at the hands of his brother, but did allow to an interviewer for The Hollywood Reporter that he had barely spoken to Harvey over the previous five years, saying he could no longer take Harvey's cheating, lying and general attitude towards everyone. And with that, we conclude our journey with Miramax Films. While I am sure Bob and Harvey will likely pop up again in future episodes, they'll be minor characters at best, and we'll never have to focus on anything they did ever again. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 119 is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.
We finally complete our mini-series on the 1980s movies released by Miramax Films in 1989, a year that included sex, lies, and videotape, and My Left Foot. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we complete our look back at the 1980s theatrical releases for Miramax Films. And, for the final time, a reminder that we are not celebrating Bob and Harvey Weinstein, but reminiscing about the movies they had no involvement in making. We cannot talk about cinema in the 1980s without talking about Miramax, and I really wanted to get it out of the way, once and for all. As we left Part 4, Miramax was on its way to winning its first Academy Award, Billie August's Pelle the Conquerer, the Scandinavian film that would be second film in a row from Denmark that would win for Best Foreign Language Film. In fact, the first two films Miramax would release in 1989, the Australian film Warm Night on a Slow Moving Train and the Anthony Perkins slasher film Edge of Sanity, would not arrive in theatres until the Friday after the Academy Awards ceremony that year, which was being held on the last Wednesday in March. Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train stars Wendy Hughes, the talented Australian actress who, sadly, is best remembered today as Lt. Commander Nella Daren, one of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's few love interests, on a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as Jenny, a prostitute working a weekend train to Sydney, who is seduced by a man on the train, unaware that he plans on tricking her to kill someone for him. Colin Friels, another great Aussie actor who unfortunately is best known for playing the corrupt head of Strack Industries in Sam Raimi's Darkman, plays the unnamed man who will do anything to get what he wants. Director Bob Ellis and his co-screenwriter Denny Lawrence came up with the idea for the film while they themselves were traveling on a weekend train to Sydney, with the idea that each client the call girl met on the train would represent some part of the Australian male. Funding the $2.5m film was really simple… provided they cast Hughes in the lead role. Ellis and Lawrence weren't against Hughes as an actress. Any film would be lucky to have her in the lead. They just felt she she didn't have the right kind of sex appeal for this specific character. Miramax would open the film in six theatres, including the Cineplex Beverly Center in Los Angeles and the Fashion Village 8 in Orlando, on March 31st. There were two versions of the movie prepared, one that ran 130 minutes and the other just 91. Miramax would go with the 91 minute version of the film for the American release, and most of the critics would note how clunky and confusing the film felt, although one critic for the Village Voice would have some kind words for Ms. Hughes' performance. Whether it was because moviegoers were too busy seeing the winners of the just announced Academy Awards, including Best Picture winner Rain Man, or because this weekend was also the opening weekend of the new Major League Baseball season, or just turned off by the reviews, attendance at the theatres playing Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train was as empty as a train dining car at three in the morning. The Beverly Center alone would account for a third of the movie's opening weekend gross of $19,268. After a second weekend at the same six theatres pocketing just $14,382, this train stalled out, never to arrive at another station. Their other March 31st release, Edge of Sanity, is notable for two things and only two things: it would be the first film Miramax would release under their genre specialty label, Millimeter Films, which would eventually evolve into Dimension Films in the next decade, and it would be the final feature film to star Anthony Perkins before his passing in 1992. The film is yet another retelling of the classic 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson story The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, with the bonus story twist that Hyde was actually Jack the Ripper. As Jekyll, Perkins looks exactly as you'd expect a mid-fifties Norman Bates to look. As Hyde, Perkins is made to look like he's a backup keyboardist for the first Nine Inch Nails tour. Head Like a Hole would have been an appropriate song for the end credits, had the song or Pretty Hate Machine been released by that time, with its lyrics about bowing down before the one you serve and getting what you deserve. Edge of Sanity would open in Atlanta and Indianapolis on March 31st. And like so many other Miramax releases in the 1980s, they did not initially announce any grosses for the film. That is, until its fourth weekend of release, when the film's theatre count had fallen to just six, down from the previous week's previously unannounced 35, grossing just $9,832. Miramax would not release grosses for the film again, with a final total of just $102,219. Now when I started this series, I said that none of the films Miramax released in the 1980s were made by Miramax, but this next film would become the closest they would get during the decade. In July 1961, John Profumo was the Secretary of State for War in the conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, when the married Profumo began a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year-old model named Christine Keeler. The affair was very short-lived, either ending, depending on the source, in August 1961 or December 1961. Unbeknownst to Profumo, Keeler was also having an affair with Yevgeny Ivanov, a senior naval attache at the Soviet Embassy at the same time. No one was the wiser on any of this until December 1962, when a shooting incident involving two other men Keeler had been involved with led the press to start looking into Keeler's life. While it was never proven that his affair with Keeler was responsible for any breaches of national security, John Profumo was forced to resign from his position in June 1963, and the scandal would take down most of the Torie government with him. Prime Minister Macmillan would resign due to “health reasons” in October 1963, and the Labour Party would take control of the British government when the next elections were held in October 1964. Scandal was originally planned in the mid-1980s as a three-part, five-hour miniseries by Australian screenwriter Michael Thomas and American music producer turned movie producer Joe Boyd. The BBC would commit to finance a two-part, three-hour miniseries, until someone at the network found an old memo from the time of the Profumo scandal that forbade them from making any productions about it. Channel 4, which had been producing quality shows and movies for several years since their start in 1982, was approached, but rejected the series on the grounds of taste. Palace Pictures, a British production company who had already produced three films for Neil Jordan including Mona Lisa, was willing to finance the script, provided it could be whittled down to a two hour movie. Originally budgeted at 3.2m British pounds, the costs would rise as they started the casting process. John Hurt, twice Oscar-nominated for his roles in Midnight Express and The Elephant Man, would sign on to play Stephen Ward, a British osteopath who acted as Christine Keeler's… well… pimp, for lack of a better word. Ian McKellen, a respected actor on British stages and screens but still years away from finding mainstream global success in the X-Men movies, would sign on to play John Profumo. Joanne Whaley, who had filmed the yet to be released at that time Willow with her soon to be husband Val Kilmer, would get her first starring role as Keeler, and Bridget Fonda, who was quickly making a name for herself in the film world after being featured in Aria, would play Mandy Rice-Davies, the best friend and co-worker of Keeler's. To save money, Palace Pictures would sign thirty-year-old Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones to direct, after seeing a short film he had made called The Riveter. But even with the neophyte feature filmmaker, Palace still needed about $2.35m to be able to fully finance the film. And they knew exactly who to go to. Stephen Woolley, the co-founder of Palace Pictures and the main producer on the film, would fly from London to New York City to personally pitch Harvey and Bob Weinstein. Woolley felt that of all the independent distributors in America, they would be the ones most attracted to the sexual and controversial nature of the story. A day later, Woolley was back on a plane to London. The Weinsteins had agreed to purchase the American distribution rights to Scandal for $2.35m. The film would spend two months shooting in the London area through the summer of 1988. Christine Keeler had no interest in the film, and refused to meet the now Joanne Whaley-Kilmer to talk about the affair, but Mandy Rice-Davies was more than happy to Bridget Fonda about her life, although the meetings between the two women were so secret, they would not come out until Woolley eulogized Rice-Davies after her 2014 death. Although Harvey and Bob would be given co-executive producers on the film, Miramax was not a production company on the film. This, however, did not stop Harvey from flying to London multiple times, usually when he was made aware of some sexy scene that was going to shoot the following day, and try to insinuate himself into the film's making. At one point, Woolley decided to take a weekend off from the production, and actually did put Harvey in charge. That weekend's shoot would include a skinny-dipping scene featuring the Christine Keeler character, but when Whaley-Kilmer learned Harvey was going to be there, she told the director that she could not do the nudity in the scene. Her new husband was objecting to it, she told them. Harvey, not skipping a beat, found a lookalike for the actress who would be willing to bare all as a body double, and the scene would begin shooting a few hours later. Whaley-Kilmer watched the shoot from just behind the camera, and stopped the shoot a few minutes later. She was not happy that the body double's posterior was notably larger than her own, and didn't want audiences to think she had that much junk in her trunk. The body double was paid for her day, and Whaley-Kilmer finished the rest of the scene herself. Caton-Jones and his editing team worked on shaping the film through the fall, and would screen his first edit of the film for Palace Pictures and the Weinsteins in November 1988. And while Harvey was very happy with the cut, he still asked the production team for a different edit for American audiences, noting that most Americans had no idea who Profumo or Keeler or Rice-Davies were, and that Americans would need to understand the story more right out of the first frame. Caton-Jones didn't want to cut a single frame, but he would work with Harvey to build an American-friendly cut. While he was in London in November 1988, he would meet with the producers of another British film that was in pre-production at the time that would become another important film to the growth of the company, but we're not quite at that part of the story yet. We'll circle around to that film soon. One of the things Harvey was most looking forward to going in to 1989 was the expected battle with the MPAA ratings board over Scandal. Ever since he had seen the brouhaha over Angel Heart's X rating two years earlier, he had been looking for a similar battle. He thought he had it with Aria in 1988, but he knew he definitely had it now. And he'd be right. In early March, just a few weeks before the film's planned April 21st opening day, the MPAA slapped an X rating on Scandal. The MPAA usually does not tell filmmakers or distributors what needs to be cut, in order to avoid accusations of actual censorship, but according to Harvey, they told him exactly what needed to be cut to get an R: a two second shot during an orgy scene, where it appears two background characters are having unsimulated sex. So what did Harvey do? He spent weeks complaining to the press about MPAA censorship, generating millions in free publicity for the film, all the while already having a close-up shot of Joanne Whaley-Kilmer's Christine Keeler watching the orgy but not participating in it, ready to replace the objectionable shot. A few weeks later, Miramax screened the “edited” film to the MPAA and secured the R rating, and the film would open on 94 screens, including 28 each in the New York City and Los Angeles metro regions, on April 28th. And while the reviews for the film were mostly great, audiences were drawn to the film for the Miramax-manufactured controversy as well as the key art for the film, a picture of a potentially naked Joanne Whaley-Kilmer sitting backwards in a chair, a mimic of a very famous photo Christine Keeler herself took to promote a movie about the Profumo affair she appeared in a few years after the events. I'll have a picture of both the Scandal poster and the Christine Keeler photo on this episode's page at The80sMoviePodcast.com Five other movies would open that weekend, including the James Belushi comedy K-9 and the Kevin Bacon drama Criminal Law, and Scandal, with $658k worth of ticket sales, would have the second best per screen average of the five new openers, just a few hundred dollars below the new Holly Hunter movie Miss Firecracker, which only opened on six screens. In its second weekend, Scandal would expand its run to 214 playdates, and make its debut in the national top ten, coming in tenth place with $981k. That would be more than the second week of the Patrick Dempsey rom-com Loverboy, even though Loverboy was playing on 5x as many screens. In weekend number three, Scandal would have its best overall gross and top ten placement, coming in seventh with $1.22m from 346 screens. Scandal would start to slowly fade after that, falling back out of the top ten in its sixth week, but Miramax would wisely keep the screen count under 375, because Scandal wasn't going to play well in all areas of the country. After nearly five months in theatres, Miramax would have its biggest film to date. Scandal would gross $8.8m. The second release from Millimeter Films was The Return of the Swamp Thing. And if you needed a reason why the 1980s was not a good time for comic book movies, here you are. The Return of the Swamp Thing took most of what made the character interesting in his comic series, and most of what was good from the 1982 Wes Craven adaptation, and decided “Hey, you know what would bring the kids in? Camp! Camp unseen in a comic book adaptation since the 1960s Batman series. They loved it then, they'll love it now!” They did not love it now. Heather Locklear, between her stints on T.J. Hooker and Melrose Place, plays the step-daughter of Louis Jourdan's evil Dr. Arcane from the first film, who heads down to the Florida swaps to confront dear old once presumed dead stepdad. He in turns kidnaps his stepdaughter and decides to do some of his genetic experiments on her, until she is rescued by Swamp Thing, one of Dr. Arcane's former co-workers who got turned into the gooey anti-hero in the first movie. The film co-stars Sarah Douglas from Superman 1 and 2 as Dr. Arcane's assistant, Dick Durock reprising his role as Swamp Thing from the first film, and 1980s B-movie goddess Monique Gabrielle as Miss Poinsettia. For director Jim Wynorski, this was his sixth movie as a director, and at $3m, one of the highest budgeted movies he would ever make. He's directed 107 movies since 1984, most of them low budget direct to video movies with titles like The Bare Wench Project and Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade, although he does have one genuine horror classic under his belt, the 1986 sci-fi tinged Chopping Maul with Kelli Maroney and Barbara Crampton. Wynorski suggested in a late 1990s DVD commentary for the film that he didn't particularly enjoy making the film, and had a difficult time directing Louis Jourdan, to the point that outside of calling “action” and “cut,” the two didn't speak to each other by the end of the shoot. The Return of Swamp Thing would open in 123 theatres in the United States on May 12th, including 28 in the New York City metro region, 26 in the Los Angeles area, 15 in Detroit, and a handful of theatres in Phoenix, San Francisco. And, strangely, the newspaper ads would include an actual positive quote from none other than Roger Ebert, who said on Siskel & Ebert that he enjoyed himself, and that it was good to have Swamp Thing back. Siskel would not reciprocate his balcony partner's thumb up. But Siskel was about the only person who was positive on the return of Swamp Thing, and that box office would suffer. In its first three days, the film would gross just $119,200. After a couple more dismal weeks in theatres, The Return of Swamp Thing would be pulled from distribution, with a final gross of just $275k. Fun fact: The Return of Swamp Thing was produced by Michael E. Uslan, whose next production, another adaptation of a DC Comics character, would arrive in theatres not six weeks later and become the biggest film of the summer. In fact, Uslan has been a producer or executive producer on every Batman-related movie and television show since 1989, from Tim Burton to Christopher Nolan to Zack Snyder to Matt Reeves, and from LEGO movies to Joker. He also, because of his ownership of the movie rights to Swamp Thing, got the movie screen rights, but not the television screen rights, to John Constantine. Miramax didn't have too much time to worry about The Return of Swamp Thing's release, as it was happening while the Brothers Weinstein were at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. They had two primary goals at Cannes that year: To buy American distribution rights to any movie that would increase their standing in the cinematic worldview, which they would achieve by picking up an Italian dramedy called, at the time, New Paradise Cinema, which was competing for the Palme D'Or with a Miramax pickup from Sundance back in January. Promote that very film, which did end up winning the Palme D'Or. Ever since he was a kid, Steven Soderbergh wanted to be a filmmaker. Growing up in Baton Rouge, LA in the late 1970s, he would enroll in the LSU film animation class, even though he was only 15 and not yet a high school graduate. After graduating high school, he decided to move to Hollywood to break into the film industry, renting an above-garage room from Stephen Gyllenhaal, the filmmaker best known as the father of Jake and Maggie, but after a few freelance editing jobs, Soderbergh packed up his things and headed home to Baton Rouge. Someone at Atco Records saw one of Soderbergh's short films, and hired him to direct a concert movie for one of their biggest bands at the time, Yes, who was enjoying a major comeback thanks to their 1983 triple platinum selling album, 90125. The concert film, called 9012Live, would premiere on MTV in late 1985, and it would be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. Soderbergh would use the money he earned from that project, $7,500, to make Winston, a 12 minute black and white short about sexual deception that he would, over the course of an eight day driving trip from Baton Rouge to Los Angeles, expand to a full length screen that he would call sex, lies and videotape. In later years, Soderbergh would admit that part of the story is autobiographical, but not the part you might think. Instead of the lead, Graham, an impotent but still sexually perverse late twentysomething who likes to tape women talking about their sexual fantasies for his own pleasure later, Soderbergh based the husband John, the unsophisticated lawyer who cheats on his wife with her sister, on himself, although there would be a bit of Graham that borrows from the filmmaker. Like his lead character, Soderbergh did sell off most of his possessions and hit the road to live a different life. When he finished the script, he sent it out into the wilds of Hollywood. Morgan Mason, the son of actor James Mason and husband of Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle, would read it and sign on as an executive producer. Soderbergh had wanted to shoot the film in black and white, like he had with the Winston short that lead to the creation of this screenplay, but he and Mason had trouble getting anyone to commit to the project, even with only a projected budget of $200,000. For a hot moment, it looked like Universal might sign on to make the film, but they would eventually pass. Robert Newmyer, who had left his job as a vice president of production and acquisitions at Columbia Pictures to start his own production company, signed on as a producer, and helped to convince Soderbergh to shoot the film in color, and cast some name actors in the leading roles. Once he acquiesced, Richard Branson's Virgin Vision agreed to put up $540k of the newly budgeted $1.2m film, while RCA/Columbia Home Video would put up the remaining $660k. Soderbergh and his casting director, Deborah Aquila, would begin their casting search in New York, where they would meet with, amongst others, Andie MacDowell, who had already starred in two major Hollywood pictures, 1984's Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, and 1985's St. Elmo's Fire, but was still considered more of a top model than an actress, and Laura San Giacomo, who had recently graduated from the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh and would be making her feature debut. Moving on to Los Angeles, Soderbergh and Aquila would cast James Spader, who had made a name for himself as a mostly bad guy in 80s teen movies like Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero, but had never been the lead in a drama like this. At Spader's suggestion, the pair met with Peter Gallagher, who was supposed to become a star nearly a decade earlier from his starring role in Taylor Hackford's The Idolmaker, but had mostly been playing supporting roles in television shows and movies for most of the decade. In order to keep the budget down, Soderbergh, the producers, cinematographer Walt Lloyd and the four main cast members agreed to get paid their guild minimums in exchange for a 50/50 profit participation split with RCA/Columbia once the film recouped its costs. The production would spend a week in rehearsals in Baton Rouge, before the thirty day shoot began on August 1st, 1988. On most days, the shoot was unbearable for many, as temperatures would reach as high as 110 degrees outside, but there were a couple days lost to what cinematographer Lloyd said was “biblical rains.” But the shoot completed as scheduled, and Soderbergh got to the task of editing right away. He knew he only had about eight weeks to get a cut ready if the film was going to be submitted to the 1989 U.S. Film Festival, now better known as Sundance. He did get a temporary cut of the film ready for submission, with a not quite final sound mix, and the film was accepted to the festival. It would make its world premiere on January 25th, 1989, in Park City UT, and as soon as the first screening was completed, the bids from distributors came rolling in. Larry Estes, the head of RCA/Columbia Home Video, would field more than a dozen submissions before the end of the night, but only one distributor was ready to make a deal right then and there. Bob Weinstein wasn't totally sold on the film, but he loved the ending, and he loved that the word “sex” not only was in the title but lead the title. He knew that title alone would sell the movie. Harvey, who was still in New York the next morning, called Estes to make an appointment to meet in 24 hours. When he and Estes met, he brought with him three poster mockups the marketing department had prepared, and told Estes he wasn't going to go back to New York until he had a contract signed, and vowed to beat any other deal offered by $100,000. Island Pictures, who had made their name releasing movies like Stop Making Sense, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, The Trip to Bountiful and She's Gotta Have It, offered $1m for the distribution rights, plus a 30% distribution fee and a guaranteed $1m prints and advertising budget. Estes called Harvey up and told him what it would take to make the deal. $1.1m for the distribution rights, which needed to paid up front, a $1m P&A budget, to be put in escrow upon the signing of the contract until the film was released, a 30% distribution fee, no cutting of the film whatsoever once Soderbergh turns in his final cut, they would need to provide financial information for the films costs and returns once a month because of the profit participation contracts, and the Weinsteins would have to hire Ira Deutchman, who had spent nearly 15 years in the independent film world, doing marketing for Cinema 5, co-founding United Artists Classics, and co-founding Cinecom Pictures before opening his own company to act as a producers rep and marketer. And the Weinsteins would not only have to do exactly what Deutchman wanted, they'd have to pay for his services too. The contract was signed a few weeks later. The first move Miramax would make was to get Soderbergh's final cut of the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, where it would be accepted to compete in the main competition. Which you kind of already know what happened, because that's what I lead with. The film would win the Palme D'Or, and Spader would be awarded the festival's award for Best Actor. It was very rare at the time, and really still is, for any film to be awarded more than one prize, so winning two was really a coup for the film and for Miramax, especially when many critics attending the festival felt Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was the better film. In March, Miramax expected the film to make around $5-10m, which would net the company a small profit on the film. After Cannes, they were hopeful for a $15m gross. They never expected what would happen next. On August 4th, sex, lies, and videotape would open on four screens, at the Cinema Studio in New York City, and at the AMC Century 14, the Cineplex Beverly Center 13 and the Mann Westwood 4 in Los Angeles. Three prime theatres and the best they could do in one of the then most competitive zones in all America. Remember, it's still the Summer 1989 movie season, filled with hits like Batman, Dead Poets Society, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Parenthood, Turner & Hooch, and When Harry Met Sally. An independent distributor even getting one screen at the least attractive theatre in Westwood was a major get. And despite the fact that this movie wasn't really a summertime movie per se, the film would gross an incredible $156k in its first weekend from just these four theatres. Its nearly $40k per screen average would be 5x higher than the next closest film, Parenthood. In its second weekend, the film would expand to 28 theatres, and would bring in over $600k in ticket sales, its per screen average of $21,527 nearly triple its closest competitor, Parenthood again. The company would keep spending small, as it slowly expanded the film each successive week. Forty theatres in its third week, and 101 in its fourth. The numbers held strong, and in its fifth week, Labor Day weekend, the film would have its first big expansion, playing in 347 theatres. The film would enter the top ten for the first time, despite playing in 500 to 1500 fewer theatres than the other films in the top ten. In its ninth weekend, the film would expand to its biggest screen count, 534, before slowly drawing down as the other major Oscar contenders started their theatrical runs. The film would continue to play through the Oscar season of 1989, and when it finally left theatres in May 1989, its final gross would be an astounding $24.7m. Now, remember a few moments ago when I said that Miramax needed to provide financial statements every month for the profit participation contracts of Soderbergh, the producers, the cinematographer and the four lead actors? The film was so profitable for everyone so quickly that RCA/Columbia made its first profit participation payouts on October 17th, barely ten weeks after the film's opening. That same week, Soderbergh also made what was at the time the largest deal with a book publisher for the writer/director's annotated version of the screenplay, which would also include his notes created during the creation of the film. That $75,000 deal would be more than he got paid to make the movie as the writer and the director and the editor, not counting the profit participation checks. During the awards season, sex, lies, and videotape was considered to be one of the Oscars front runners for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and at least two acting nominations. The film would be nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress by the Golden Globes, and it would win the Spirit Awards for Best Picture, Soderbergh for Best Director, McDowell for Best Actress, and San Giacomo for Best Supporting Actress. But when the Academy Award nominations were announced, the film would only receive one nomination, for Best Original Screenplay. The same total and category as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, which many people also felt had a chance for a Best Picture and Best Director nomination. Both films would lose out to Tom Shulman's screenplay for Dead Poet's Society. The success of sex, lies, and videotape would launch Steven Soderbergh into one of the quirkiest Hollywood careers ever seen, including becoming the first and only director ever to be nominated twice for Best Director in the same year by the Motion Picture Academy, the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America, in 2001 for directing Erin Brockovich and Traffic. He would win the Oscar for directing Traffic. Lost in the excitement of sex, lies, and videotape was The Little Thief, a French movie that had an unfortunate start as the screenplay François Truffaut was working on when he passed away in 1984 at the age of just 52. Directed by Claude Miller, whose principal mentor was Truffaut, The Little Thief starred seventeen year old Charlotte Gainsbourg as Janine, a young woman in post-World War II France who commits a series of larcenies to support her dreams of becoming wealthy. The film was a modest success in France when it opened in December 1988, but its American release date of August 25th, 1989, was set months in advance. So when it was obvious sex, lies, and videotape was going to be a bigger hit than they originally anticipated, it was too late for Miramax to pause the release of The Little Thief. Opening at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City, and buoyed by favorable reviews from every major critic in town, The Little Thief would see $39,931 worth of ticket sales in its first seven days, setting a new house record at the theatre for the year. In its second week, the gross would only drop $47. For the entire week. And when it opened at the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles, its opening week gross of $30,654 would also set a new house record for the year. The film would expand slowly but surely over the next several weeks, often in single screen playdates in major markets, but it would never play on more than twenty-four screens in any given week. And after four months in theatres, The Little Thief, the last movie created one of the greatest film writers the world had ever seen, would only gross $1.056m in the United States. The next three releases from Miramax were all sent out under the Millimeter Films banner. The first, a supernatural erotic drama called The Girl in a Swing, was about an English antiques dealer who travels to Copenhagen where he meets and falls in love with a mysterious German-born secretary, whom he marries, only to discover a darker side to his new bride. Rupert Frazer, who played Christian Bale's dad in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, plays the antique dealer, while Meg Tilly the mysterious new bride. Filmed over a five week schedule in London and Copenhagen during May and June 1988, some online sources say the film first opened somewhere in California in December 1988, but I cannot find a single theatre not only in California but anywhere in the United States that played the film before its September 29th, 1989 opening date. Roger Ebert didn't like the film, and wished Meg Tilly's “genuinely original performance” was in a better movie. Opening in 26 theatres, including six theatres each in New York City and Los Angeles, and spurred on by an intriguing key art for the film that featured a presumed naked Tilly on a swing looking seductively at the camera while a notice underneath her warns that No One Under 18 Will Be Admitted To The Theatre, The Girl in a Swing would gross $102k, good enough for 35th place nationally that week. And that's about the best it would do. The film would limp along, moving from market to market over the course of the next three months, and when its theatrical run was complete, it could only manage about $747k in ticket sales. We'll quickly burn through the next two Millimeter Films releases, which came out a week apart from each other and didn't amount to much. Animal Behavior was a rather unfunny comedy featuring some very good actors who probably signed on for a very different movie than the one that came to be. Karen Allen, Miss Marion Ravenwood herself, stars as Alex, a biologist who, like Dr. Jane Goodall, develops a “new” way to communicate with chimpanzees via sign language. Armand Assante plays a cellist who pursues the good doctor, and Holly Hunter plays the cellist's neighbor, who Alex mistakes for his wife. Animal Behavior was filmed in 1984, and 1985, and 1987, and 1988. The initial production was directed by Jenny Bowen with the assistance of Robert Redford and The Sundance Institute, thanks to her debut film, 1981's Street Music featuring Elizabeth Daily. It's unknown why Bowen and her cinematographer husband Richard Bowen left the project, but when filming resumed again and again and again, those scenes were directed by the film's producer, Kjehl Rasmussen. Because Bowen was not a member of the DGA at the time, she was not able to petition the guild for the use of the Alan Smithee pseudonym, a process that is automatically triggered whenever a director is let go of a project and filming continues with its producer taking the reigns as director. But she was able to get the production to use a pseudonym anyway for the director's credit, H. Anne Riley, while also giving Richard Bowen a pseudonym of his own for his work on the film, David Spellvin. Opening on 24 screens on October 27th, Animal Behavior would come in 50th place in its opening weekend, grossing just $20,361. The New York film critics ripped the film apart, and there wouldn't be a second weekend for the film. The following Friday, November 3rd, saw the release of The Stepfather II, a rushed together sequel to 1987's The Stepfather, which itself wasn't a big hit in theatres but found a very quick and receptive audience on cable. Despite dying at the end of the first film, Terry O'Quinn's Jerry is somehow still alive, and institutionalized in Northern Washington state. He escapes and heads down to Los Angeles, where he assumes the identity of a recently deceased publisher, Gene Clifford, but instead passes himself off as a psychiatrist. Jerry, now Gene, begins to court his neighbor Carol, and the whole crazy story plays out again. Meg Foster plays the neighbor Carol, and Jonathan Brandis is her son. Director Jeff Burr had made a name for himself with his 1987 horror anthology film From a Whisper to a Scream, featuring Vincent Price, Clu Gulager and Terry Kiser, and from all accounts, had a very smooth shooting process with this film. The trouble began when he turned in his cut to the producers. The producers were happy with the film, but when they sent it to Miramax, the American distributors, they were rather unhappy with the almost bloodless slasher film. They demanded reshoots, which Burr and O'Quinn refused to participate in. They brought in a new director, Doug Campbell, to handle the reshoots, which are easy to spot in the final film because they look and feel completely different from the scenes they're spliced into. When it opened, The Stepfather II actually grossed slightly more than the first film did, earning $279k from 100 screens, compared to $260k for The Stepfather from 105 screens. But unlike the first film, which had some decent reviews when it opened, the sequel was a complete mess. To this day, it's still one of the few films to have a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and The Stepfather II would limp its way through theatres during the Christmas holiday season, ending its run with a $1.5m gross. But it would be their final film of the decade that would dictate their course for at least the first part of the 1990s. Remember when I said earlier in the episode that Harvey Weinstein meant with the producers of another British film while in London for Scandal? We're at that film now, a film you probably know. My Left Foot. By November 1988, actor Daniel Day-Lewis had starred in several movies including James Ivory's A Room With a View and Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He had even been the lead in a major Hollywood studio film, Pat O'Connor's Stars and Bars, a very good film that unfortunately got caught up in the brouhaha over the exit of the studio head who greenlit the film, David Puttnam. The film's director, Jim Sheridan, had never directed a movie before. He had become involved in stage production during his time at the University College in Dublin in the late 1960s, where he worked with future filmmaker Neil Jordan, and had spent nearly a decade after graduation doing stage work in Ireland and Canada, before settling in New York City in the early 1980s. Sheridan would go to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where one of his classmates was Spike Lee, and return to Ireland after graduating. He was nearly forty, married with two pre-teen daughters, and he needed to make a statement with his first film. He would find that story in the autobiography of Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, whose spirit and creativity could not be contained by his severe cerebral palsy. Along with Irish actor and writer Shane Connaughton, Sheridan wrote a screenplay that could be a powerhouse film made on a very tight budget of less than a million dollars. Daniel Day-Lewis was sent a copy of the script, in the hopes he would be intrigued enough to take almost no money to play a physically demanding role. He read the opening pages, which had the adult Christy Brown putting a record on a record player and dropping the needle on to the record with his left foot, and thought to himself it would be impossible to film. That intrigued him, and he signed on. But during filming in January and February of 1989, most of the scenes were shot using mirrors, as Day-Lewis couldn't do the scenes with his left foot. He could do them with his right foot, hence the mirrors. As a method actor, Day-Lewis remained in character as Christy Brown for the entire two month shoot. From costume fittings and makeup in the morning, to getting the actor on set, to moving him around between shots, there were crew members assigned to assist the actor as if they were Christy Brown's caretakers themselves, including feeding him during breaks in shooting. A rumor debunked by the actor years later said Day-Lewis had broken two ribs during production because of how hunched down he needed to be in his crude prop wheelchair to properly play the character. The actor had done a lot of prep work to play the role, including spending time at the Sandymount School Clinic where the young Christy Brown got his education, and much of his performance was molded on those young people. While Miramax had acquired the American distribution rights to the film before it went into production, and those funds went into the production of the film, the film was not produced by Miramax, nor were the Weinsteins given any kind of executive producer credit, as they were able to get themselves on Scandal. My Left Foot would make its world premiere at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 4th, 1989, followed soon thereafter by screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13th and the New York Film Festival on September 23rd. Across the board, critics and audiences were in love with the movie, and with Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. Jim Sheridan would receive a special prize at the Montreal World Film Festival for his direction, and Day-Lewis would win the festival's award for Best Actor. However, as the film played the festival circuit, another name would start to pop up. Brenda Fricker, a little known Irish actress who played Christy Brown's supportive but long-suffering mother Bridget, would pile up as many positive notices and awards as Day-Lewis. Although there was no Best Supporting Actress Award at the Montreal Film Festival, the judges felt her performance was deserving of some kind of attention, so they would create a Special Mention of the Jury Award to honor her. Now, some sources online will tell you the film made its world premiere in Dublin on February 24th, 1989, based on a passage in a biography about Daniel Day-Lewis, but that would be impossible as the film would still be in production for two more days, and wasn't fully edited or scored by then. I'm not sure when it first opened in the United Kingdom other than sometime in early 1990, but My Left Foot would have its commercial theatre debut in America on November 10th, when opened at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York City and the Century City 14 in Los Angeles. Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times would, in the very opening paragraph of her review, note that one shouldn't see My Left Foot for some kind of moral uplift or spiritual merit badge, but because of your pure love of great moviemaking. Vincent Canby's review in the New York Times spends most of his words praising Day-Lewis and Sheridan for making a film that is polite and non-judgmental. Interestingly, Miramax went with an ad campaign that completely excluded any explanation of who Christy Brown was or why the film is titled the way it is. 70% of the ad space is taken from pull quotes from many of the top critics of the day, 20% with the title of the film, and 10% with a picture of Daniel Day-Lewis, clean shaven and full tooth smile, which I don't recall happening once in the movie, next to an obviously added-in picture of one of his co-stars that is more camera-friendly than Brenda Fricker or Fiona Shaw. Whatever reasons people went to see the film, they flocked to the two theatres playing the film that weekend. It's $20,582 per screen average would be second only to Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, which had opened two days earlier, earning slightly more than $1,000 per screen than My Left Foot. In week two, My Left Foot would gross another $35,133 from those two theatres, and it would overtake Henry V for the highest per screen average. In week three, Thanksgiving weekend, both Henry V and My Left Foot saw a a double digit increase in grosses despite not adding any theatres, and the latter film would hold on to the highest per screen average again, although the difference would only be $302. And this would continue for weeks. In the film's sixth week of release, it would get a boost in attention by being awarded Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle. Daniel Day-Lewis would be named Best Actor that week by both the New York critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, while Fricker would win the Best Supporting Actress award from the latter group. But even then, Miramax refused to budge on expanding the film until its seventh week of release, Christmas weekend, when My Left Foot finally moved into cities like Chicago and San Francisco. Its $135k gross that weekend was good, but it was starting to lose ground to other Oscar hopefuls like Born on the Fourth of July, Driving Miss Daisy, Enemies: A Love Story, and Glory. And even though the film continued to rack up award win after award win, nomination after nomination, from the Golden Globes and the Writers Guild and the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review, Miramax still held firm on not expanding the film into more than 100 theatres nationwide until its 16th week in theatres, February 16th, 1990, two days after the announcement of the nominees for the 62nd Annual Academy Awards. While Daniel Day-Lewis's nomination for Best Actor was virtually assured and Brenda Fricker was practically a given, the film would pick up three other nominations, including surprise nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. Jim Sheridan and co-writer Shane Connaughton would also get picked for Best Adapted Screenplay. Miramax also picked up a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for sex, lies, and videotape, and a Best Foreign Language Film nod for the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso, which, thanks to the specific rules for that category, a film could get a nomination before actually opening in theatres in America, which Miramax would rush to do with Paradiso the week after its nomination was announced. The 62nd Academy Awards ceremony would be best remembered today as being the first Oscar show to be hosted by Billy Crystal, and for being considerably better than the previous year's ceremony, a mess of a show best remembered as being the one with a 12 minute opening musical segment that included Rob Lowe singing Proud Mary to an actress playing Snow White and another nine minute musical segment featuring a slew of expected future Oscar winners that, to date, feature exact zero Oscar nominees, both which rank as amongst the worst things to ever happen to the Oscars awards show. The ceremony, held on March 26th, would see My Left Foot win two awards, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, as well as Cinema Paradiso for Best Foreign Film. The following weekend, March 30th, would see Miramax expand My Left Foot to 510 theatres, its widest point of release, and see the film made the national top ten and earn more than a million dollars for its one and only time during its eight month run. The film would lose steam pretty quickly after its post-win bump, but it would eek out a modest run that ended with $14.75m in ticket sales just in the United States. Not bad for a little Irish movie with no major stars that cost less than a million dollars to make. Of course, the early 90s would see Miramax fly to unimagined heights. In all of the 80s, Miramax would release 39 movies. They would release 30 films alone in 1991. They would release the first movies from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. They'd release some of the best films from some of the best filmmakers in the world, including Woody Allen, Pedro Almadovar, Robert Altman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Atom Egoyan, Steven Frears, Peter Greenaway, Peter Jackson, Neil Jordan, Chen Kaige, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Lars von Trier, and Zhang Yimou. In 1993, the Mexican dramedy Like Water for Chocolate would become the highest grossing foreign language film ever released in America, and it would play in some theatres, including my theatre, the NuWilshire in Santa Monica, continuously for more than a year. If you've listened to the whole series on the 1980s movies of Miramax Films, there are two things I hope you take away. First, I hope you discovered at least one film you hadn't heard of before and you might be interested in searching out. The second is the reminder that neither Bob nor Harvey Weinstein will profit in any way if you give any of the movies talked about in this series a chance. They sold Miramax to Disney in June 1993. They left Miramax in September 2005. Many of the contracts for the movies the company released in the 80s and 90s expired decades ago, with the rights reverting back to their original producers, none of whom made any deals with the Weinsteins once they got their rights back. Harvey Weinstein is currently serving a 23 year prison sentence in upstate New York after being found guilty in 2020 of two sexual assaults. Once he completes that sentence, he'll be spending another 16 years in prison in California, after he was convicted of three sexual assaults that happened in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. And if the 71 year old makes it to 107 years old, he may have to serve time in England for two sexual assaults that happened in August 1996. That case is still working its way through the British legal system. Bob Weinstein has kept a low profile since his brother's proclivities first became public knowledge in October 2017, although he would also be accused of sexual harassment by a show runner for the brothers' Spike TV-aired adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Mist, several days after the bombshell articles came out about his brother. However, Bob's lawyer, the powerful attorney to the stars Bert Fields, deny the allegations, and it appears nothing has occurred legally since the accusations were made. A few weeks after the start of the MeToo movement that sparked up in the aftermath of the accusations of his brother's actions, Bob Weinstein denied having any knowledge of the nearly thirty years of documented sexual abuse at the hands of his brother, but did allow to an interviewer for The Hollywood Reporter that he had barely spoken to Harvey over the previous five years, saying he could no longer take Harvey's cheating, lying and general attitude towards everyone. And with that, we conclude our journey with Miramax Films. While I am sure Bob and Harvey will likely pop up again in future episodes, they'll be minor characters at best, and we'll never have to focus on anything they did ever again. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 119 is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.
Episode 410."Eye In The Sky" Movie Composer: Paul Hepker.Paul Hepker is a talented composer whose "Eye In The Sky" remains one of my most favorite movie scores. It is also Alan Rickman's last movie. His other credits include Rendition, Tsotsi and so many more.Born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa, Paul Hepker trained as a concert pianist under Adolphe Hallis. He worked as a Musical Director at the National Theatres in Pretoria and Cape Town (The Rocky Horror Show, Joseph) and has performed or recorded with a number of prominent South African and international artists such as Shirley Bassey, Miriam Makeba, Ice Cube and Vusi Mahlasela. He wrote the voter education theme “Make Your Mark” for the first democratic elections in South Africa, which gave birth to a National TV gameshow of the same name. In the mid-1990's he toured the world as a member of Grammy-nominated band Johnny Clegg and Savuka (Juluka) before moving to Los Angeles in 1997 to pursue a career in composing for stage and screen.A long-time member of acclaimed Los Angeles theatre company Circle X, Hepker garnered an Ovation Award, two LA Weekly Awards, and numerous nominations for his work as composer or Musical Director on productions such as Grendel, Laura Comstock's Bag-Punching Dog, and Romeo & Juliet: Antebellum, New Orleans, 1839.In 1999 Hepker was a Finalist in the inaugural John Lennon Songwriting Competition and has had songs featured in, and included on the soundtracks for Eye In The Sky, Tsotsi, Permanent Midnight, Soul Survivor, The Bird Can't Fly and Into The Light.Paul's latest project is Official Secrets (Starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Matt Smith) – his fourth collaboration with director Gavin Hood. Paul also co-composed the music for Tsotsi (which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film), Eye In The Sky (starring Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman) and Rendition (starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep). Along with fellow South African composer Mark Kilian, Paul scored The Bird Can't Fly (starring Barbara Hershey). His score for Into the Light – a documentary exploring the AIDS crisis in Tanzania, featured Kenyan singer Ayub Ogada.Paul was series composer on numerous Discovery, History and National Geographic Channel series, including Deadliest Catch, IRT Deadliest Roads, Crash Files, Impact, America's Deadliest Season, Into the Firestorm, Raw Nature, Iditarod, Herrings – all for Original Productions – and Shark Taggers (NBC).Paul returned to South Africa in mid-2012, where he has been involved in music production (Ard Matthews), writing music for commercials (Nedbank Private Wealth, OUTSurance, Spar, Nissan, Serengeti Beer) and film-scoring: he recently composed the music for Kite (starring Samuel L. Jackson) and Shepherds and Butchers (directed by Oliver Shmitz and starring Steve Coogan) both for visionary South African producer Anant Singh.Welcome the awesome, Paul Hepker.Monday Morning Critic: Instagram, TiKTok, YouTube and Facebook.www.imdb.com/title/tt12597724/www.mmcpodcast.com
Our sixth episode covers 1995's 'The Usual Suspects' Does the twist ending hold up after more than 25 years? Also, we examine why Benicio del Toro seems to not get the big roles worthy of his talent... Plus, the 2006 Oscar for Best Picture should not have been awarded to Crash. But which movie should have won? And what wasn't even nominated? The we make our picks for next week: A British heist film; a two-time Best Actress winner, and a year where the Best Picture was also the Best Foreign Film.
Niobe Way, NYU professor, researcher, and author of Deep Secrets, joins Charles and I to talk about boy's crisis of connection. Way's book Deep Secrets is the inspiration for Director Lukas Dhont's 2022 film Close, nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 95th Academy Awards and winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. In this wide ranging conversation we pose a simple question. We know what's at the root of boys' challenges. Thanks to Dhont's powerfully conceived and directed film we have an unprecedented opportunity to pay renewed attention to what boys have been saying in over three decades of Way's research. Will we finally listen? Niobe Way's book Deep Secrets is available here. *** As a writer, speaker and consultant, Mark Greene has spent over a decade deconstructing our binary-riddled dialogues around manhood and masculinity. He consults to organizations world wide on diversity, inclusion and masculinity. Mark is the author of The Little #MeToo Book for Men, Remaking Manhood and is co-author with Dr. Saliha Bava of The Relational Book for Parenting Their newest book is The Relational Workplace. You can learn more about Mark's work at RemakingManhood.com Charles Matheus is an educator and public speaker who has mentored hundreds of men in communication, leadership, & emotional growth. You can learn more about his work at CharlesMatheus.com and/or by requesting to join the Facebook Group, Redefining Strength. Contact: mark@remakingmanhood.com charles@charlesmatheus.com Theme music composed by Gus Greene. Click here for links to his music on most streaming services.
On this week's episode, Mari and Jeff break down the BAFTA 2023 wins and what they could mean for Oscar hopefuls, plus the cultural reset that was the Rihanna Superbowl Halftime Show. They also break down Of An Age (Mari's favorite film of 2023 so far), the final season of Netflix's You, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and how badass Kang is, plus the 1980's Agatha Christie film The Mirror Crack'd cause why the hell not! Finally, they breakdown the Best Foreign Film frontrunner (and Best Picture dark horse) All Quiet on the Western Front including why it's anti-war, what sets it apart from other adaptations of this story, and why it's so f***in good.
Welcome to Watch. Review. Repeat. This is the podcast where two best friends discuss the latest in film and television and then do it all over again the following week! It's time again... for Colton and Andrew to talk way too much about all the film and television from the past year! Part Two includes all the technical and acting awards for films from 2022, as well as the grand reveal of their favorite films of the year! 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:58 - Best Original Score 00:07:24 - Best Original Screenplay 00:13:28 - Best Adapted Screenplay 00:18:53 - Best Sound Design 00:22:36 - Best Editing 00:26:30 - Best Visual Effects 00:28:35 - Best Production Design 00:35:21 - Best Cinematography 00:43:03 - Best Director 00:48:49 - Best Supporting Actor 00:52:09 - Best Supporting Actress 00:57:19 - Best Actor 01:05:18 - Best Actress 01:11:59 - Best Foreign Film 01:19:04 - Film Honorable Mentions 01:38:37 - Top 5 Films 02:06:19 - Listener's Corner (2022: A Year In Review - Film Edition with Henrique Jaime) 02:21:14 - Conclusion/Outro Visit our website! Support us on Patreon! Thank you for listening, and please send any feedback to watchreviewrepeat@gmail.com! Intro/Outro Credit: Mechanolith Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
0:00 - Intro & Summary2:00 - Movie Discussion39:48 - Cast & Crew/Awards44:39 - Pop Culture/Music53:01 - Rankings & Ratings To see a full list of movies we will be watching and shows notes, please follow our website: https://www.1991movierewind.com/Follow us!https://linktr.ee/1991movierewind Theme: "sunrise-cardio," Jeremy Dinegan (via Storyblocks)Don't forget to rate/review/subscribe/tell your friends to listen to us!
Phil and John continue discussing their 100 favorite films of all time, today talking about one a cult classic sequel, and an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. Next up: #15 Her (2013) and Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) #Film #SamRaimi #EnnioMorricone
By the grace of God all four members of TCB are reunited once again and have convened for a special pod recording. Sen is back from India after helping RRR with their campaign for an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film and with him brings culture shocks and rants. After spending some time on Indian roads and witnessing first hand the sheer lunacy that is driving in India, Sen now admits the stereotypes he has helped perpetuate in fact may be understated. Elsewhere, on his return journey home, Sen reveals his luggage to be missing for almost a week as he battles a large Australian airline.“Stockholm Syndrome” is back for the first time in 2023 and this week we must acknowledge the dropping of the most anticipated book since probably the Bible. Hot off the press, the boys must decide if a given quote is taken from Prince Harry's tell all memoir “Spare” or from E.L. James' 2011 modern day classic “Fifty Shades of Grey.”To bring us home this week is perhaps our most primal, potentially even darkest, and definitely most testosterone-filled segment “Animal Wars.” Animal Fighting Scenarios was a very popular Facebook page from a few years back and the boys have brought it back with their own twist. The result is Kush graphically describing, in detail, how he would incapacitate poultry in hand to hand combat.Also this week: road rage, Jetstar, riding wild stallions and could Kush fight Mr 305?Segments this week:The Logue: Tired of reaching around each other (at least on the podcast), the boys have instead decided to reach around the week's news stories, events and viral trends.Stockholm Syndrome: This segment has nothing to do with actual Stockholm Syndrome, instead this is a game where the boys try to distinguish between IKEA products and another unrelated category.Animal Wars: The boys take their own spin on Animal Fighting Scenarios as they (hypothetically) discuss which animals they could beat in a fight.___________________________________________________________FULL PODCAST EPISODES
Hello, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. Tune in to get updated about the major news stories of the day.
Hello, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. Tune in to get updated about the major news stories of the day.
Welcome to the first annual ReelTok Awards Show! We have 17 great awards to give out this year that include input from the four hosts as well as over 2,000 listener voting ballots! There are some surprise winners in here and some all-time reactions that make this episode a CAN'T MISS! Timestamps: (0:00) Welcome to the First ReelTok Awards Show (2:11) Best Director (7:20) Best Visual Effects (11:11) Best Cinematography (14:48) Best Foreign Film (18:08) Best Original Score (21:28) Best Animated Film (25:00) Best Comic Book Movie (29:01) Best Horror Film (40:21) Best Production Design (43:03) Funniest Movie of the Year (46:57) Best TV Show (51:39) Best Screenplay (54:39) Best Supporting Actor (56:14) Best Actor (1:00:00) Best Supporting Actress (1:06:11) Best Actress (1:09:34) Best Picture (1:23:00) How was 2022 as a whole for movies? (1:30:00) Wrap up and close out Go follow us on all of our socials below! ReelTok TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reeltokpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reeltokpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/reeltokpodcast Listen and Rate Us 5 Stars on Spotfiy and Apple Podcasts: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3V214vWwkO823aa4OaeDrO?si=ddaefaebe5c1460c Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reeltok-podcast/id1644680412 George Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/georgecarmi/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moviesandstuff14 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBrfDxvGMYC7NatgaqfKWMg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgecarmi/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/georgecarmi Tyler Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/TylerCWhitmore/ Movie TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@backseatscreentime?lang=en Sports TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@backseatcoach?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylercwhitmore/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TylerCWhitmore Movie YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCygaEWKt_8C41lJjfBHEhQA Sports YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BackseatCoachTV Seth Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sethsreviews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sethsfilmreviews?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachedbyse... Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachedbyseth Cam Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/cjwalsh27/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@camwalsh27?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camwalsh/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/camwalsh27 Logo created by Adamson Visuals: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adamsonvisuals?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamsonvisuals/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_AdamsonVisuals Welcome to ReelTok Podcast hosted by Cam, Tyler, Seth, and George where we talk all things movies, TV, and pop culture news. Weekly podcast episodes are released every Monday with YouTube videos uploaded daily. Help us become the #1 movie podcast in the entire world! 2022 ReelTok Awards Show | ReelTok Ep. 17 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/reeltokpodcast/support
What if you were given permission to shoot most of your film in one of the busiest and iconic streets in the world, Times Square. Well, today's guest did just that. He shot most of his new film Rapid Eye Movement.In the heart of Times Square, radio DJ Rick Weider is driven to the edge of insanity as he tries to break the 11-day world record for staying awake, under the threat of a deranged caller who will kill him if he fails. In his quest to stay awake, he endures a harrowing physical, mental and emotional ordeal while summoning the will to survive against all the odds.Rapid Eye Movement was given unprecedented access to Times Square by New York City to shoot the majority of the film right in the heart of the “crossroads of the world”. This included closing a lane of traffic for several weeks to accommodate the placement of the main set – Rick Weider's mobile radio broadcast booth where he takes on the 11-day struggle to stay awake. No film has ever had this extensive shoot in Times Square.The mandate of the film was to create absolute authenticity. A custom-made soundproof windowed booth was built to allow live audio recording, eliminating the need for ADR. Literally thousands of “extras” were always on hand to give the film scope and realism. The majority of the film was shot using an ultra-fast 18mm Zeiss lens, creating a much bigger visual space within the confined setting. No green screens were used for any of the Times Square scenes. It is a true New York film.Canadian-born actor François Arnaud takes the lead role of radio DJ Rick Weider. He embraced the challenge of shooting on location in Times Square, having to undergo a difficult emotional journey in the middle of the intensity of New York's famous landmark area. We always strove to be authentic and nothing is more real than portraying mental and physical torment in the midst of thousands of real people, the cacophony of the city and the dazzling neon lights all around.With the cooperation of New York City's Mayor's Office, The Times Square Alliance, a band of determined filmmakers, an exceptional cast and the enthusiasm of thousands of passersby who clamored to appear in the film, Rapid Eye Movement has become a unique and thrilling movie experience about pushing the limits of human endurance.Peter Bishai wrote and directed the epic true-life saga Colors of Heaven (aka A Million Colours). It is the winner of two South African Academy Awards, Best Foreign Film at the WorldFest Houston Film Festival and was the Opening Night Gala film at the Hollywood Black Film Festival. He also directed the comedy-adventure The Dueling Accountant, which won Best Comedy Film at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival and Best First Feature at the Long Island International Film Expo.It is profiled in the book Fervid Filmmaking: 66 Cult Pictures of Vision, Verve and No Self-Restraint. His newest film is the psychological thriller Rapid Eye Movement. He lives in New York City.
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 15-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, from Sunday through Thursday. Editor David Horovitz and health reporter Nathan Jeffay join host Amanda Borschel-Dan in today's episode. Before the serious talk, Borschel-Dan mentions that ahead of the nominations for Best Foreign Film for the Academy Awards, on December 6 at Jerusalem's Yes Planet, The Times of Israel is holding a screening of “Cinema Sabaya,” which swept Israel's Ophir Awards in September, and culture editor Jessica Steinberg is speaking with its creator, Orit Fouks Rotem. Turning to Horovitz, we hear why it is problematic to world Jewry that Avi Maoz, the single lawmaker of the fringe Noam party, will be appointed as a deputy minister and head a to-be-created authority for Jewish identity, which will be housed under the Prime Minister's Office. In another contentious appointment, Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir is set to be the newly created role of national security minister in the upcoming government. The brand new National Security Ministry's planned portfolio will include overseeing the police and, potentially, Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Jeffay reports on a recent peer-reviewed study that tells us about the currently available COVID booster's safety. We hear about a new company, Wisdome Wearables, that may soon blow the paper mask idea away. What's their great, peer-reviewed idea? Another new Israeli med-tech start up claims it can use voice analysis techniques through a phone app they're calling HearO to sound the alarm before the onset of congestive heart failure. And finally, four South Sudanese children who have waited over two and a half years for heart surgery should be soon going under the knife in Holon. How did they, and their guardians, finally get the green light? Discussed articles include: TICKETS HERE: English screening of Israel's Oscar pick ‘Cinema Sabaya' + director interview Netanyahu puts extremist homophobic politician in charge of Israel's Jewish identity ‘Insanity, unreal': Netanyahu slammed over deal with anti-pluralistic, homophobic MK Ben Gvir: Security forces should be able to shoot anyone holding stones or firebombs Israeli data provides ‘safety assurances' to world on fourth COVID shots — study Israeli scientists invent face mask made of thin air, which blows virus away Israeli app sounds alarm before heart failure — just by analyzing your voice In first, 4 children from South Sudan to get life-saving heart surgery in Israel Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: MK Avi Maoz attends a discussion at Jerusalem's Knesset, the assembly hall of the Israeli parliament, on November 22, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nick began writing and directing award-winning short films in 2003, culminating in his third short Shoe being Oscar-shortlisted at the 2011 Academy Awards. Nick's debut feature The Drummer And The Keeper premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh 2017, where it won Best Irish First Feature. The Drummer And The Keeper went on to win 18 awards on the international film circuit, including Best Film at the Cleveland International Film Festival, Best Foreign Film at the Newport Beach International Film Festival and the Silver Award at the Emden-Norderney International Filmfest. It received 5 nominations at the 2018 IFTAs, including Best Screenplay for Nick's script. Nick's screenplay was also one of three nominees at the 2018 Irish Writers Guild ZeBBie Awards for Best Feature Film Script. In 2018 Nick set up The Story Works, an innovative independent TV writers room with the aim of generating new television drama with global potential. He was selected for the Screenskills LA Writers Room Placements in November 2019. Bedsitterland, a new feature film written and to be directed by Nick, was selected for the Berlinale Co-Production Market in February 2020 and is currently in development. Nick originally qualified as solicitor, but gave up his legal career the same day to embark on a musical career, first fronting acclaimed Irish band The Fat Lady Sings and subsequently as a Choice Music Prize-nominated solo artist. In June 2022, he cycled from Ireland to the Glastonbury Festival, performing at venues en route and filming the journey for a future documentary about more sustainable approaches to live music. In addition to his achievements in film and music, Nick is also one of Ireland's most highly regarded advertising creatives. He has created award-winning campaigns for Aer Lingus, AIB, the Green Party, Walkers Crisps, Bord Gáis Energy, Toyota, the Irish Independent, and most notably Guinness for whom he wrote five major TV spots, including the Clio-winning Tom Crean, and Quarrel which introduced the viewing public to Michael Fassbender. He has directed TV spots and online films for Barry's Tea, AIB, SSE Airtricity, the Irish Film Archive (featuring Saoirse Ronan), SVP and the Simon Communities.
David ‘‘Tosh'' Gitonga, a Kenyan filmmaker passionate about telling our stories to the world and building the Kenyan film industry. He's directed a host of highly acclaimed films, the 2018 Academy Awards nominated ‘‘Nairobi Half Life'' (Best Foreign Film) and award-winning romantic comedy ‘‘Disconnect.''
YO WHAT IS UP! We are back again the second instalment of our Saudi Arabian Cinema theme, Barakah Meets Barakh. On this one, we take a trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where we meet Barakah and Bibi (also Barakah) a civil servant and influencer questioning their place while navigating a forbidden romance. Starring the amazing Fatima AlBanawi and Hisham Fageeh, this film was Saudi Arabia's second-ever submission to the Best Foreign Film category at the 89th Academy Awards (it never got nominated though). This film truly brought tears to our eyes and we all really enjoyed this film, so we really hope you do too. As per usual, don't forget to like, share and subscribe to The Movie Newbie. Tell all your friends, your family, or the person at your favourite corner shop. We need all the love and support you can give us
What if you were given permission to shoot most of your film in one of the busiest and iconic streets in the world, Times Square. Well, today's guest did just that. He shot most of his new film Rapid Eye Movement.Peter Bishai wrote and directed the epic true-life saga Colors of Heaven (aka A Million Colours). It is the winner of two South African Academy Awards, Best Foreign Film at the WorldFest Houston Film Festival and was the Opening Night Gala film at the Hollywood Black Film Festival. He also directed the comedy-adventure The Dueling Accountant, which won Best Comedy Film at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival and Best First Feature at the Long Island International Film Expo.It is profiled in the book Fervid Filmmaking: 66 Cult Pictures of Vision, Verve and No Self-Restraint. His newest film is the psychological thriller Rapid Eye Movement. He lives in New York City.
The Danish film “Babbette's Feast” conveys the power of artistry and generosity. Ad Music: “Good Times,” by Scott Holmes Music, from the album, “Inspiring Background Music,” 2022. Promoted by freemusicarchive.org. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode).
Truffaut's 1973 ensemble comedy is a movie about making a movie. Jacqueline Bissett was one of the cast members and principal lead. The movie won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1974 with French filmmaker Truffaut accepting the award. It is one of his best films and worth re-watching. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/james-herlihy/message
BEST FILMThe FatherHonourable Mentions: Mouthpiece, Supernova, Two Of UsBEST FOREIGN FILMTwo Of UsHonourable Mentions: Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn, Jumbo, SweatBEST ANIMATED FILMBombay RoseHonourable Mentions: Encanto, Josee, The Tiger And The Fish, The Mitchells vs. The MachinesBEST DOCUMENTARYSummer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)Honourable Mentions: MLK/FBI, Pray Away, ProcessionBEST ACTORAnthony Hopkins (The Father)Honourable Mentions: Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power Of The Dog & The Courier), Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger), Daniel Kaluuya (Judas And The Black Messiah)BEST ACTRESSVanessa Kirby (Pieces Of A Woman & The World To Come)Honourable Mentions: Magdalena Koleśnik (Sweat), Noémie Merlant (Jumbo), Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)BEST SUPPORTING ACTORStanley Tucci (Supernova, Worth & Jolt)Honourable Mentions: Boris Isaković (Quo Vadis, Aida?), Jared Leto (The Little Things & House Of Gucci), Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power Of The Dog)BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSOlivia Colman (The Father & Mothering Sunday)Honourable Mentions: Mabel Cadena (Dance Of The 41), Kirsten Dunst (The Power Of The Dog), Ruth Negga (Passing)BEST YOUNG PERFORMERSkye Dakota Turner (Respect)Honourable Mentions: Sasha Knight (Cowboys), Carl Anton Koch (Blood Red Sky), Woody Norman (C'mon, C'mon)BEST ENSEMBLEMaev Beaty, Amy Nostbakken & Norah Sadava(Mouthpiece)Honourable Mentions: Christopher Abbot, Sarah Gadon & Aubrey Plaza (Black Bear), Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge & Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night In Miami...), Muriel Bénazéraf, Martine Chevallier, Léa Drucker, Barbara Sukowa & Jérôme Varanfrain (Two Of Us)BEST DIRECTORRebecca Hall (Passing)Honourable Mentions: Ivan Ostrochovský (Servants), Ben Sharrock (Limbo), Florian Zeller (The Father)BEST SCREENPLAYNicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck & Matt Damon (The Last Duel)Honourable Mentions: Christopher Hampton & Florian Zeller (The Father), Kemp Powers (One Night In Miami...), Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)DIRECT LINK
Book Vs. Movie: Raise the Red LanternSu Tong's 1990 Novel Vs. the 1991 Zhang Yimpou's 1991 FilmThe Margos are celebrating AAPI month with a look at the author Su Tong and his work which has earned him millions of fans all over the world with his writing. His 1990 novel Wives and Concubines won great praise and was adapted into the 1991film Raise the Red Lantern by writer Ni Zhen and directed by Zhang Yimou. The story takes place in China in the 1930s where 19-year-old Lotus needs to become a concubine for a married man (his fourth mistress) when her father loses his fortune and dies by suicide. Old Master Chen Zuoqian is 50 years old and is “afraid of women” which makes babymaking with him a challenge for Lotus. She also has three other wives who hate her to contend with. There is also who 20-something son Feipu who knows how to play the flute. Gradually she loses her mind and we are left wondering if she ever winds up in the “haunted well.” The novella is translated by Michael S. Duke who brings the story to life as we dive right into the story and feel compassion for Lotus while questioning the motive of her Master. The 1991 film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film and is a visual and musical delight. The setting is placed in the 1920s with the role of the Master set in the margins. We never see him and just hear his voice. The center of this tale is on the women and how they fight for supremacy and agency. It won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice International Film Festival in September 1991. In this ep the Margos discuss:The author's background and the controversy surrounding the sexuality of this novellaThe work of director Zhang YimouThe setting of the story (the 1920s Vs the 1930s)The cast: Gong Li (Songlian,) Ha Saifei (Meishan,) Cao Cuifen (Ahuoyun,) Ma Jingwu (Master Chen,) and Kong Lin (Yan'er).Clips used:Raise the Red Lantern trailerThe Third Mistress, Meishan, sings opera Siskel and Ebert review the film in 1992Gong Li loses her sense of selfMusic by Zhao JipingBook Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.comEmail us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.comMargo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine
Book Vs. Movie: Raise the Red LanternSu Tong's 1990 Novel Vs. the 1991 Zhang Yimpou's 1991 FilmThe Margos are celebrating AAPI month with a look at the author Su Tong and his work which has earned him millions of fans all over the world with his writing. His 1990 novel Wives and Concubines won great praise and was adapted into the 1991film Raise the Red Lantern by writer Ni Zhen and directed by Zhang Yimou. The story takes place in China in the 1930s where 19-year-old Lotus needs to become a concubine for a married man (his fourth mistress) when her father loses his fortune and dies by suicide. Old Master Chen Zuoqian is 50 years old and is “afraid of women” which makes babymaking with him a challenge for Lotus. She also has three other wives who hate her to contend with. There is also who 20-something son Feipu who knows how to play the flute. Gradually she loses her mind and we are left wondering if she ever winds up in the “haunted well.” The novella is translated by Michael S. Duke who brings the story to life as we dive right into the story and feel compassion for Lotus while questioning the motive of her Master. The 1991 film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film and is a visual and musical delight. The setting is placed in the 1920s with the role of the Master set in the margins. We never see him and just hear his voice. The center of this tale is on the women and how they fight for supremacy and agency. It won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice International Film Festival in September 1991. In this ep the Margos discuss:The author's background and the controversy surrounding the sexuality of this novellaThe work of director Zhang YimouThe setting of the story (the 1920s Vs the 1930s)The cast: Gong Li (Songlian,) Ha Saifei (Meishan,) Cao Cuifen (Ahuoyun,) Ma Jingwu (Master Chen,) and Kong Lin (Yan'er).Clips used:Raise the Red Lantern trailerThe Third Mistress, Meishan, sings opera Siskel and Ebert review the film in 1992Gong Li loses her sense of selfMusic by Zhao JipingBook Vs. Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts. Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.comEmail us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.comMargo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/ Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine
John and Beeby give out awards to their favorites movies of 2021 in an amazing live production with all the celebrities in the world in attendance. We recorded this live and with a lot of visual gags so check out our new YouTube channel for the video version of this! 00:00 Intro 03:10 Martin Scorsese Memorial Award 08:01 Best Actor 15:28 Best Actress 21:00 Hottest Movie (The Chubbie) 27:35 Best Music 33:20 Best Foreign Film 40:00 Best Craft Services 48:15 Best Screenwriter 58:01 Best Director 01:07:15 Best Use of Kenneth Branagh 01:12:10 Best Series of Moving Images 01:25:40 The Charlie Award Follow us on twitter @BigBoyMovies. On YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5G9KaNwnmwlCftZ-PS29EA. Support Big Boy Movies by contributing to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/big-boy-movies
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We're 300! Wow. Thanks so much for all your continued support. It means the world to us and we wouldn't be here without you. To celebrate, we're joined by a Norwegian writer/director whose wonderful film The Worst Person In The World was up for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category, missing out to the Japanese road movie, Drive My Car. Joachim Trier has received widespread acclaim for his black-comedy drama, which tells the story of Julie as she tries to navigate the troubled waters of her love life and career. It has an absolutely brilliant soundtrack, and you'll hear plenty of examples from it.
Actual nominations are in bold font, nominations I think should have been made are in standard font.BEST FILMWho Will WinThe Power Of The DogWho Should WinBelfastMy Personal WinnerBelfastMy Personal NominationsBelfast, Don't Look Up, Drive My Car, Flee, The Last Duel, Licorice Pizza, The Lost Daughter, Nightmare Alley, Passing, The Power Of The DogBEST ANIMATED FILMWho Will WinEncantoWho Should WinFleeMy Personal WinnerFleeMy Personal NominationsEncanto, Flee, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Pompo: The Cinéphile, Poupelle Of Chimney TownBEST DOCUMENTARYWho Will WinSummer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)Who Should WinSummer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)My Personal WinnerSummer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)My Personal NominationsFlee, In The Same Breath, Procession, Summer Of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Writing With FireBEST FOREIGN FILMWho Will WinDrive My Car [Japan]Who Should WinFlee [Denmark]My Personal WinnerFlee [Denmark]My Personal NominationsCompartment No. 6 [Finland], Drive My Car [Japan], Flee [Denmark], A Hero [Iran], The Worst Person In The World [Norway]BEST DIRECTORWho Will WinJane Campion (The Power Of The Dog)Who Should WinKenneth Branagh (Belfast)My Personal WinnerJoel Coen (The Tragedy Of Macbeth)My Personal NominationsPaul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza), Kenneth Branagh (Belfast), Jane Campion (The Power Of The Dog), Joel Coen (The Tragedy Of Macbeth), Rebecca Hall (Passing)BEST ACTORWho Will WinWill Smith (King Richard)Who Should WinBenedict Cumberbatch (The Power Of The Dog)My Personal WinnerBenedict Cumberbatch (The Power Of The Dog)My Personal NominationsBenedict Cumberbatch (The Power Of The Dog), Andrew Garfield (tick, tick...BOOM!), Michael Greyeyes (Wild Indian), Oscar Isaac (The Card Counter), Denzel Washington (The Tragedy Of Macbeth)BEST ACTRESSWho Will WinOlivia Colman (The Lost Daughter)Who Should WinJessica Chastain (The Eyes Of Tammy Faye)My Personal WinnerJessica Chastain (The Eyes Of Tammy Faye)My Personal NominationsJessica Chastain (The Eyes Of Tammy Faye), Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Jodie Comer (The Last Duel), Isabelle Fuhrman (The Novice), Kristen Stewart (Spencer)BEST SUPPORTING ACTORWho Will WinTroy Kotsur (CODA)Who Should WinKodi Smmit-McPhee (The Power Of The Dog)My Personal WinnerKodi Smmit-McPhee (The Power Of The Dog)My Personal NominationsRobin de Jesús (tick, tick...BOOM!), Andrew Garfield (The Eyes Of Tammy Faye), Jason Isaacs (Mass), J.K. Simmons (Being The Ricardos), Kodi Smmit-McPhee (The Power Of The Dog)BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESSWho Will WinAriana DeBose (West Side Story)Who Should WinKirsten Dunst (The Power Of The Dog)My Personal WinnerRuth Negga (Passing)My Personal NominationsJessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter), Judy Davis (Nitram), Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Kirsten Dunst (The Power Of The Dog), Ruth Negga (Passing)BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAYWho Will WinPaul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)Who Should WinKenneth Branagh (Belfast)My Personal WinnerKenneth Branagh (Belfast)My Personal NominationsKenneth Branagh (Belfast), Adam McKay (Don't Look Up), Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza), Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby), Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt (The Worst Person In The World)BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAYWho Will WinJane Campion (The Power Of The Dog)Who Should WinMaggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter)My Personal WinnerNicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck & Matt Damon (The Last Duel)My Personal NominationsRyūsuke Hamaguchi & Takamasa Oe (Drive My Car), Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck & Matt Damon (The Last Duel), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter), Rebecca Hall (Passing), Jane Campion (The Power Of The Dog)DIRECT LINK
Drive My Car is another Best Picture nominee that is also nominated in the Best Foreign Film category. It's a three hour movie so you better buckle up for a long ride. (Spoilers)Don't forget to subscribe to the show!You can also follow us on social media Facebook: @WereYouNotEntertainedTwitter: @WYNEpodcast#DriveMyCar #Oscars #Oscars2022 #OscarNoms #OscarNominations #AcademyAwards #AwardsSeason #MoviesatHome #MovieReview #movies #podcast #podernfamily #MoviePodSquad
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 214: Les Diaboliques Released 23 February 2022 For this episode, we watched Les Diaboliques, from the novel by Boileau and Narcejac. The screenplay is by Henri-Georges Clouzot and Jérôme Géronimi and the director was Cluzot. The cast includes Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel. It won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for the Best Foreign Film of 1955, but it was completely overlooked at the Oscars. It has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96%. BEST PICK – the book is out now from all the usual places, including… From the publisher https://tinyurl.com/best-pick-book-rowman UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3zFNATI US Amazon https://www.amzn.com/1538163101 UK bookstore https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781538163108 US bookstore https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-pick-john-dorney/1139956434 To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, Tweet us on @bestpickpod or email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com. You can also Tweet us individually, @MrJohnDorney, @ItsJessRegan or @TomSalinsky. You should also visit our website at https://bestpickpod.com and sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n. If you enjoy this podcast and you'd like to help us to continue to make it, you can now support us on Patreon for as little as £2.50 per month. Thanks go to all of the following lovely people who have already done that. Alex Frith, Alex Wilson, Alison Sandy, Andrew Jex, Andrew Straw, Ann Blake, Anna Barker, Anna Coombs, Anna Elizabeth Rawles, Anna Jackson, Anna Joerschke, Anne Dellamaria, Annmarie Gray, Anthea Murray, Ben Squires, Brad Morrison, Carlos Cajilig, Caroline Moyes Matheou, Catherine Jewkes, Chamois Chui, Charlotte, Claire Carr, Claire Creighton, Claire McKevett, Craig Boutlis, Daina Aspin, Dave Kloc, David Crowley, David Gillespie, David Hanneford, Della, Drew Milloy, Elis Bebb, Elizabeth McClees, Elizabeth McCollum, Elspeth Reay, Esther de Lange, Evelyne Oechslin, Fiona, Flora, frieMo, Gavin Brown, Heather Gordon, Helen Cousins, Helle Rasmussen, Henry Bushell, Ian C Lau, Imma Chippendale, Jane Coulson, Jess McGinn, Joel Aarons, Jonquil Coy, Joy Wilkinson, Judi Cox, Julie Dirksen, Kate Butler, Kath, Katy Espie, Kurt Scillitoe, Lawson Howling, Lewis Owen, Linda Lengle, Lisa Gillespie, Lucinda Baron von Parker, Mark Bostridge, Mary Traynor, Matheus Mocelin Carvalho, Matt Price, Michael Walker, Michael Wilson, Mike Evans, Pat O'Shea, Peter, Rebecca O'Dwyer, Richard Ewart, Robert Heath, Robert Orzalli, Sally Grant, Sam Elliott, Sharon Colley, Simon Ash, Sladjana Ivanis, Tim Gowen, Tom Stockton, Wayne Wilcox, Zarah Daniel.
The Chino and Chicano talk with Bao Tran, writer and director of the excellent action, comedy Paper Tigers. The movie was shot in Seattle's Chinatown-International District and has been called one of the best action movies of 2021. Bao Tran talks about the long journey to make the film, its success and how it has opened doors for him as a director. #ThePaperTigers http://thepapertigersmovie.com Bao Tran | Writer/DirectorMentored early on by master action director Corey Yuen, Bao was instilled with an approach to action that doesn't rely solely on spectacle, but also draws on story and character. Screen Anarchy commended his written-and-directed short BOOKIE for its “flawlessly realized world populated by entirely fleshed out and believable characters, driven by a compelling narrative and brought to sumptuous life.” His editing credits include CHO LON, one of Southeast Asia's highest-budgeted action blockbusters, and JACKPOT, a heartfelt comedy selected as Vietnam's official entry to the 2016 Oscars for Best Foreign Film. His first directorial feature THE PAPER TIGERS garnered praise from Collider as “an impressive feature debut with confident command of the narrative and action alike, it's an absolutely lovely time at the movies.” Rotten Tomatoes ranked it in each of their top categories for Best Action, Comedies, and Asian American Movies with a Certified Fresh rating.Twitter: @_tranquocbaoFacebook: @tranquocbaoInstagram: @_tranquocbaoSite: pov-films.com
Welcome to Episode 4 of Scripted by Paradox House... This week we spend some quality time with award-winning writer, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Listen in as Daisy goes deeper into the process of writing for film, tv and theatre where golden knowledge lies. You're in for a treat. Rebecca Lenkiewicz is a British playwright and screenwriter. She is best known as the author of Her Naked Skin (2008), which was the first original play written by a living female playwright to be performed on the Olivier stage of the Royal National Theatre. Several of Rebecca's plays have been published individually, and in 2013 Faber & Faber published a collection. Rebecca wrote on Secret Diary of a Call Girl for television. She co-wrote the Polish-language film Ida (2013) with Paweł Pawlikowski, its director. The film is set in Poland in the 1960s and is the story of what happens when a novitiate nun first learns that she is an orphan of Jewish parenthood. The first version of the screenplay was written in English by Lenkiewicz and Pawlikowski, when it had the working title Sister of Mercy. Pawlikowski then translated the screenplay into Polish and revised it. The screenplay for Ida won the European Screenwriter category at the 27th European Film Awards in 2014,[29] and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film at the ceremony on 22 February 2015. She co-wrote, with director Sebastian Leilo, the script for the adaptation of Disobedience in 2017. She and collaborators Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer wrote the screenplay for Colette in 2018. More recently for TV, Rebecca was the lead writer for Steve McQueen's hard-hitting series, Small Axe (2020), which is based on the real-life experiences of London's West Indian community and is set between 1969 and 1982. Enjoy!
Summertime for young people is the time to have fun, enjoy being out of school, and finding love. Part of Pride Month, Halloween Boutique Psychotronic Reviews takes a look at 2015's THE SUMMER OF SANGAILĖ, a film from Lithuania that, like our other art house film discussions this month, tackles much more than its themed lesbian relationship. Austė (Aistė Diržiūė) is a 17 year old girl that Sangailė (Julija Steponaityte) meets at a festival air show. When Austė lets her new acquaintance know that she works at the local cafeteria, Sangailė visits her there. Soon their budding friendship turns into something more. Austė learns that Sangailė has personal demons that are haunting her. During their time together, Austė begins to bring out Sangailė's inner self hoping to give her the confidence to achieve her dreams. The movie is directed and written by Alantė Kavaitė. With its beautiful photography and wonderful performances, Lithuania submitted the picture to the Academy Awards as a potential movie for the Best Foreign Film award. Actress Aistė Diržiūė was also given a European Shooting Stars award (along with such individuals as Maisie Williams (GAME OF THRONES)). Your co-hosts take a look this lesbian art house film during Pride Month and give their thoughts.
We talk to Julia Von Heinz a German filmmaker about her film, 'And Tomorrow The Entire World' which represented Germany for Best Foreign Film for the 2021 Academy Awards. 2020 And Tomorrow the Entire World Follow to receive every new episode: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-pbblog-8zDNGRf2NIOG-follower Download the Podbean Player App: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-app-iphone-android-mobile The Film Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Shoot-it-Now-105337104805218 The Film Podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo95_Quaast5vCQZtbCTjzA Please send feedback or questions to: indiefilmpodcast@gmail.com Show your support and please rate and review us on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shoot-it-now/id1545805946 Romain Dagnan | The Film Podcast Theme Composer www.romaindagnan.com Every week 'The Film Podcast' interviews award winning and indie-film directors, cinematographers (DOP) film editors, actors and other cast and crew members to learn from their unique stories.
In this episode, we continue our chat about the recent Academy Award Nominee's for Best Foreign Film. We explore the film "Quo Vadis Aida" in relation to war films in the United States. And of course we have our Weekly Obsessions and What We Are Having. So tune in and listen to us chat about world cinema and much more.
We talk to Julia is a German Filmmaker, her political film 'And Tomorrow The Entire World' is representing Germany for Best Foreign Film for the 2021 Academy Awards. Currently screening on Netflix. And Tomorrow the Entire World Full interview coming soon. Follow to receive every new episode: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-pbblog-8zDNGRf2NIOG-follower Download the Podbean Player App: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-app-iphone-android-mobile The Film Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Shoot-it-Now-105337104805218 The Film Podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo95_Quaast5vCQZtbCTjzA Please send feedback or questions to: indiefilmpodcast@gmail.com Show your support and please rate and review us on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shoot-it-now/id1545805946 Romain Dagnan | The Film Podcast Theme Composer www.romaindagnan.com Every week 'The Film Podcast' interviews award winning and indie-film directors, cinematographers (DOP) film editors, actors and other cast and crew members to learn from their unique stories.
Renee takes the helm in leading this episode of Lee Isaac Chung's latest narrative drama, 'Minari'. They share their personal resonance with the movie's story, character, and message. They also talk about the Golden Globe snub, being categorized as Best Foreign Film, even though it takes place in America. Follow us! http://www.facebook.com/ReelAsianPodcast (www.facebook.com/ReelAsianPodcast) | http://www.instagram.com/ReelAsianPodcast (www.instagram.com/ReelAsianPodcast) | Support this podcast! http://www.reelasianpodcast.com/support (www.reelasianpodcast.com/support) Intro music is by Ryan Galvan | Show cover designed by Thy Nguyen For any inquiries, reach out tohttp://www.reelasianpodcast.com/contact ( www.reelasianpodcast.com/contact) Special thanks to our sponsors: http://www.experiencesbyk.com (www.experiencesbyk.com) http://www.anniestcakes.com (www.anniestcakes.com)
It's another ground-breaking episode for us today as we cover our first ever Korean movie as we look closer at our latest Best Picture Oscar nominee Parasite! How excited are we to have Noah back on an episode and why is he back? Is this the most unique film out of all the nominations this year? How exciting is it to have a Korean film nominated for Best Picture for the first time ever? Do Colin & Noah get this movie much more than Ben does? How great is the acting? Should it have received acting nominations? Should this be nominated for Best Foreign Film as well as Best Picture or should it have to choose one or the other? And does it have a chance of winning the big one? It's a unique movie and another unique episode so let's get to it!★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Mentored early on by master action director Corey Yuen, Bao was instilled with an approach to action that doesn't rely solely on spectacle, but also draws on story and character. Screen Anarchy praised his written-and-directed short Bookie for its “flawlessly realized world populated by entirely fleshed out and believable characters, driven by a compelling narrative and brought to sumptuous life.” He has since traveled back to his homeland of Vietnam to work as a feature film editor. His editing credits include Cho Lon, one of Southeast Asia's highest-budgeted action blockbusters, and Jackpot, a heartfelt comedy selected as Vietnam's official entry to the 2016 Oscars for Best Foreign Film. Ain't It Cool News enthusiastically declared Bao as “a director I expect to see big things from.” How to not be complacent in your life and career How to go for your dreams and passions The importance of mentorship Using the dreams of your childhood to guide you in the decisions you make in adulthood The film industry of Vietnam and struggles of censorship The evolution of film editing throughout the years How to support Asian American filmmakers What “It's a Wonderful Life” and “The Terminator” have in common The Paper Tigers Movie Kickstarter POV Films website theasianamericanvoice.com/podcast/39 "Like" our Facebook page for updates on future shows and other resources: https://www.facebook.com/TheAsianAmericanVoice/
***SPOILER FREE*** Social Media Shout Outs - 2:19 The Goals of our Oscar Sprint, AKA our Award Season coverage - 3:53 TV Noms at the Golden Globes - 6:07 Film Noms at the Golden Globes - 9:36 Coming Soon, AKA more info on the Oscar Sprint - 49:18 As promised, our second episode this week reacts to the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations. Us Mikes bookend the show with explanations of what you can expect from our coverage of the Award Season, AKA our Oscar Sprint. We then do a quick survey of the Globe TV nominations before we deep dive into each of the Film Categories. We tout how great our reaction show is about to be, and then we choose not to react to the Best Original Song category. So we're walking contradictions per usual, but we will reveal our singing voices throughout this episode. Again, we are strange men. The Best Screenplay category is loaded, and we break down how the Globes are actually more competitive than the Oscars and what that's gonna mean come Academy vote time. The Best Supporting categories debut some of our stats on recent parallels from the Globes to the Oscars, we keep hope alive for our favorite snubs, and we look back at the early award season faves coming back with a vengeance at these Globes. Best Foreign Film is a category with some stark contrast between Oscar & Globe. We explain. We also talk about Netflix Documentaries we're crazy about these days for some reason. The Best Animated Film category is a shit sandwich only we can describe in its fullest glory. The Best Actor categories showcase a youngster vs the best in the business on one side, and another super snub on the other. Then damn, those Best Actress categories are loaded with great performances. We mention a bunch of snubs, share our gut feelings for who the favorites might be, and debate how difficult it's gonna be to break through in these categories at the Oscars. We have a major problem with the Best Picture - Comedy or Musical top 5, we compare Oscar and Globe recent histories, and we give you an analysis of the Globes, Critics Choice, and AFI top 10s for Best Picture. We conclude our Globes analysis with some theories on the year at large, Also Mike thinks he can sing, and then we give you some more detailed information about the Oscar Sprint episodes to come. Join us for all the Award Season coverage you desire. Take a breather from all the news and the fake news depressing us all. Look forward to our Disaster Artist and Star Wars pods. A lot of great content is coming your way. Contact us on social media. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. Please subscribe to and review us on iTunes. We greatly appreciate all your support during these early days. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to episode #596 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Mirum Podcast. Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Mirum Podcast - Episode #596 - Host: Mitch Joel. Back in early 2002, when I first got started in this agency business, I was networking as much as possible. One of the first major local executives that I met was Minter Dial. A man with an international reputation who was senior leadership at L'Oreal. We became friends, but Minter moved on. I believe that Minter and I bonded so well, because we were both interested in very divergent cultural spaces, while developing very corporate lives at the same time. To give you some context, Minter Dial is an American, with French citizenship, born in Belgium, educated in England, living in France and married with two children. He is the author and producer of the award-winning documentary film and book, The Last Ring Home. A personal and moving story that traces the lives of his grandfather and grandmother through WWII. The film, which has won multiple awards, including Best Foreign Film, Best Documentary and Best Screenplay, was shown on PBS in May of this year. On the professional front - after a 16-year international career with the L'Oréal Group -- including nine assignments in France, UK, USA and Canada -- Minter launched The Myndset Company, a boutique agency providing business speaking and consultancy on leadership, branding and digital strategy. Most recently, Minter co-authored (with Caleb Storkey), Futureproof - How to get your business ready for the next disruption. The book explores the three core mindsets and twelve disruptive technologies that brands must have to grow and succeed... and to get ready for the next disruption. Enjoy the conversation... Running time: 49:33. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Subscribe over at iTunes. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on twitter. Six Pixels of Separation the book is now available. CTRL ALT Delete is now available too! Here is my conversation with Minter Dial. Futureproof - How to get your business ready for the next disruption. The Myndset Company. The Last Ring Home. Follow Minter on Twitter. This week's music: David Usher 'St. Lawrence River'. Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Mirum Podcast - Episode #596 - Host: Mitch Joel. Tags: advertising advertising agency advertising podcast brand branding business blog business podcast business speaking caleb storkey culture digital marketing digital marketing agency digital marketing blog digital marketing podcast digital strategy disruption disruptive technology documentary future proof futureproof innovation j walter thompson jwt leadership leadership podcast loreal management podcast marketing marketing agency marketing blog marketing podcast minter dial mirum mirum agency mirum agency blog mirum blog mirum canada mirum in canada mitch joel mitchjoel pbs podcast six pixels of separation speaking technology the last ring home the myndset company wpp
***This is a Spoiler Free Episode*** Our Teaser Review of the Netflix Year of TV and Movies - 4:05 First They Killed My Father - 8:41 The Meyerowitz Stories - 27:39 Mudbound - 45:49 Lightning Round Reviews of 25+ Other 2017 Netflix Original Movies - 1:10:59 Our Top 5 Netflix Films of 2017 AKA Perfecting Perfection - 1:38:22 The podcast opens with an initial review of the Netflix year, taking both its films and TV shows into consideration. We begin with callbacks to our Freshman year Econ classes as we bark at one another about how wealth is achieved and why we have none, and as usual, we quote South Park episodes to prove our points. The show evolves into three primary reviews of the Netflix Oscar Contenders, Angelina Jolie's First They Killed My Father, Noah Baumbach's Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller dramedy The Meyerowitz Stories, and the critically beloved Mudbound, directed by Dee Rees and starring Mary J. Blige, Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, and Jason Mitchell. Also Mike rides his foreign film watching white horse and tramples Mike #1's pathetic attention span for subtitles during our review of First They Killed My Father. The production profile showcases something we once called Brangelina and their wunderkind of a son's new career as a producer. We also discuss the Oscar buzz surrounding its Best Foreign Film hopes. We vehemently disagree and trash each other over this review, and you don't want to miss it. It is a War for the Podcast of the Mikes!! YES!!! I worked that in. Is it catching on???!!! During our production profile of The Meyerowitz Stories, we cover it's colossal win of the Palm Dog (yes, I spelled that right) at the Cannes Film Festival. Look out, Oscar!! Also Mike makes a terrible joke about Mr. Magorium and his wonder emporium as we enter into our thoughts on where this movie should contend at the Oscars. Our review quibbles over whether this is a drama or comedy or dramedy, and we'll give you a hint. A Mike wins. We gush over the screenplay chops and reference our own family lives to embarrassing levels as we tease some of the plot. We focus on the great cast of Mudbound during our production profile of our third review, give you all the specs on where it's contending for Oscars, and discuss why Also Mike is a bad person. Then we somehow have a thoughtful discussion of the film and argue why it should be one of the more polarizing on the year. In a new segment we call our Lightning Round Reviews, we give a few words on over 25+ other Netflix Original movies from 2017. So we have your upcoming Netflix & Chill session thoroughly previewed and reviewed, and we bring it all home for you with a ranking of our Top 5 Netflix Original Movies of the Year thus far. As always, hit us up with your comments and feedback. This episode in particular calls out to you several times. We crave your attention, as if that's a surprise. Don't forget to plug our podcast during that Thanksgiving Dinner. But most importantly, enjoy your turkey. Watch some “foosball with them gargantuans,” or don't. Just watch movies with us. Thanks for listening. We're having a blast recording these episodes, and we so appreciate all your support during these early days of our podcast. Have yourself some Holiday Cheer.