Plot

A reclusive writer played by Bentley makes his living composing other people’s suicide notes. His life gets turned upside down after he embarks on a tumultuous romance with Ryder, the sister of a recently deceased client.

Winona plays the sister the man who enlists the services of a professional suicide note writer(Bentley) before he takes his own life - and events lead to a romance between him and Winona.

Filming began in March and is set to wrap April 20th.

Cast

• Winona Ryder... Charlotte Morris
• Wes Bentley... Evan
• Ray Romano
• Gina Hecht
• A.J. Trauth ... Greg
• Kurt Caceres ... Sammy
• Michael Cornacchia ... Client

From his blog:

My advice? You should make an indie film to make a film. Period. Artistic and commercial success don’t correlate well, and at the moment, only the former is remotely within your control.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have made the same movie but completely rethought how it went out into the world. I would have challenged a lot of the standard operating procedures, which seem to be part of an indie world that no longer exists. The Nines would have likely made just as little at the box office, but could have made a bigger impact on a bigger audience. Ultimately, I think that’s how you need to measure the success of an indie film’s release: how many people saw it.

He's got a lot to say, including that Theatrical releasing is overrated and Sundance buzz is meaningless.

But to get back to his point -- you as a filmmaker will always have a different agenda than whomever is producing or distributing (even if that person is you).

The filmmaker just wants to share their work with the largest possible audience.  To communicate and to move people.  The producer and distributor wants to make money from showing it to those people.

Sometimes those goals are in conflict, or at least they appear to be.

Especially nowadays when it takes a massive amount of cash to build awareness and get anyone remotely excited enough to shell out $10 or more to see your film in a theater and $20 to buy it on DVD.  If it's an unknown quantity, they are not going to want to buy it.

That's why you as a filmmaker want to give it away.  You want to build that audience because that's the only thing you can directly influence.  That influence has value to you moving forward in your career because there will always be someone who is better at producing than you that will want to try and use your influence with the audience to make them lots of money.

When I say that independent film is dead, I'm mostly talking about the pipe dream of theatrical distribution.  That's a money losing affair, even big studios look at major releases like Pirates of the Caribbean as a loss leader for merch, DVD, TV licensing, etc.

And look who the messenger is on this, not some sort of Hollywood outsider or new media miscreant, this is the dude that wrote the Charlie's Angels movies.  He has more access to the system than you or me (even taking into account how much writer's are shat upon in Hollywood).

If he's having these problems and learning these lessons, you will too.

(found via NewTeeVee)

Así empieza Slacker, con un desconocido hartándonos a preguntas metafísicas. Un profundo monólogo sacado del bolsillo que no espera atención ni respuestas. Como si no hubiera otra cosa en la que pensar (y de la que hablar) en un viaje en taxi por la capital de Texas, Austin. Esto es precisamente lo que define a la generación que retrata la película, la slacker: jóvenes (de espíritu) inteligentes que intentan definir su vida haciendo, pensando y hablando lo que quieren  y cuando quieren; al margen de la sociedad.

La película Slacker nació en 1991 de la mano guionista, productora y directora del treintañero Richard Linklater. Tanto su presupuesto (23.000 dólares), como su temática y su puesta en escena la convierten desde el primer minuto de metraje en una producción indie. Con un ritmo estructurado en forma de carrera de relevos, decenas de personajes pasan delante del espectador para soltar libremente sus divagaciones (que van desde sólidas teorías anticapitalistas hasta el flujo vaginal de Madonna) La sensación que queda tras verla no es la de haber visto una película como tal, sino la de haber sido espectador de un día de una clase social alternativa, la “marginal voluntaria”, la slacker.

Los slackers de Linklater son como los hippies de los sesenta pero sin la agenda política. Aunque en sus discursos la crítica al sistema capitalista  es constante no hay ni rastro de intención alguna por levantarse del sofá y cambiar las cosas. Al contrario, los tiempos muertos y los días perdidos son el ecosistema de estos jóvenes, en el fondo,  adultos enfermos del síndrome de Peter pan. Conformistas, devoran información conspiratoria y gastan todas sus energías en ser apáticos. Si bien no se adaptan al mundo, deciden crear el suyo propio equivalente, una realidad  paralela en Austin. Y no es casual que sea Austin el marco de esta película pues es, en sí misma, una ciudad slacker. Su resistencia a los Mc Donald’s y a los Starbucks como conceptos de masa y homogeneización del consumo la han hecho famosa por sus lugares corrientes, costrosos, cutres y ya en peligro de extinción en Norteamérica.

En definitiva, el panfleto anticapitalista que desprende por sus poros, sus personajes tan extravagantes como vacíos y su peculiar dinámica, hacen de esta película una obra nada recomendable para las “masas” sedientas de tramas y argumentos. Eso sí, tampoco es un producto diseñado exclusivamente para el disfrute de los manifestantes antiglobalización o los gafapasta progresistas. Más allá de todo eso, es cine. Y dentro de este, una propuesta visual alternativa digna de mención dentro de la tradición del mejor cine independiente americano. Al mismo tiempo que Linklater pone en la mesa de operaciones a los referentes de la cultura norteamericana para diseccionarlos y sacar de ellos  “la otra América”, también hace lo propio con  el cine fácil e intrascendente. Así, apuesta explícitamente por lo que uno de los personajes finales llama el “anti arte”, el arte inusual e incómodo que “destruye el trabajo artístico de los demás” y construye con él algo nuevo, original y nunca-visto.

Son los dos desafíos que dominan Slackers: el sociocultural y el cinematográfico; ambos resumidos en la frase más sintética que lanza el film: “Despierta América”

Not just a domain but a way of life: página (que en su url incluye la asociación Austin-slacker) que sintetiza muy bien con su contenido lo que el término slacker pasó a significar tras la película de Linklater.

Ficha imdb de la película

Trailer de la película

Shadow told you about the new Bond trailer earlier and I wanted to add my two cents on films you should mark your calendars to see.  The Wackness, which premiered last night in NYC, has won a ton of critical acclaim already and went home with the Audience Award from Sundance this year.   

It comes out July 3, in select theaters.   The synopsis courtesy of imdb:

It's the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop. Set against this backdrop, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends his last summer before college selling dope throughout New York City, trading it with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) for therapy, while crushing on his step-daughter (Olivia Thirlby).

The real problem with new media that no one seems to be detecting yet is the democratic process itself. For all the complaining some do about Hollywood spoon-feeding us crap, democracy as a business model is far worse. Leaving aside the nightmare of actually finding a decent independent movie in the sea of amateur waste floating on social networking sites, consider for a moment that you’re an independent filmmaker with some real chops. Let’s also imagine that you’re stuck, like so many others, and have no possible route to selling your film after studios and distributors stop buying unknowns at festivals.

According to the Youtube model, you throw your masterpiece up there to the gaping maw of the public. If buzz never catches on, if there’s no tipping point, you’re in trouble. But it’s far worse if you actually do get a million viewers in one week. Because, congratulations, your film isn’t marketable anymore. While creating a massive audience for a film, new media simultaneously reduces the sales potential of a movie.

How many of those million will head to the theaters to see a movie on the big screen that they’ve already seen? How many who felt compelled to write “Gr8 job, dood!!” on your profile page will still feel compelled to spend money for the mega-plex release a year later?

Arrgh.

New media is just like old media, only better for artists.  Both are about building your quote, how much you get paid to ply your craft.  Typically you get low money the first time out and you build from there.  But if no one knows who you are, no one will even know to pay you.

That's where YouTube comes in, if you make a hit that gets millions of views then maybe you can do it again.  That's where you get paid.  Just like in old Hollywood you must have a track record of success to get people to pay you moving forward. But there's a difference, you still own your original work that has been seen by millions.  That still has value.  People will still buy the DVD, broadcast networks still need to pay you for the rights to air it.  Other video sharing sites could license it, etc.

Democratization of the media and the removal of gatekeepers is a good thing.  Bloggers are the new gatekeepers.  And they are much better gatekeepers than the old school, because they are always going to need pageviews, and their space is unlimited.  So if they like something they are going to share it, and if they share it, so might their readers.

The only people that will be hurt by this new open access are the frauds that could previously fool the handful of elites and present themselves as misunderstood artists (*cough*Vincent Gallo*cough*).  The emperor's new clothes are easy to spot in this new world order.

And I have news for everyone.  Adults don't go to movie theaters anymore.  And when they do, they generally want to watch the same sort of big experience films that can only be experienced on a 70 foot screen.

So if you want to create small and meaningful films, most likely they won't be appearing in the local multiplex.  They will be watched on DVD, TV, VOD, and the Computer.

But the bigger question is, what is a small and meaningful film?  The 90-120 minute single expression has been born out from the theatrical experience.  TV series (like what's being done on AMC, TNT, HBO, and ShowTime) give filmmakers a much broader canvas of 6-10 hours.  The web can support expressions from 60 seconds to multiple hours.  It all depends on what you have to say.

The only sorts of indies we're going to see with big theatrical runs will continue to be genre flicks, Jason Reitman-style comedies (well crafted, funny, a little off center, and palatable to the mainstream), and Oscar fodder (big stars going for the statue).

So why the frickin' hand wringing?  I mean Sundance and the other festivals are great, but they can't get you an audience of close to 90 million that Ask A Ninja has acquired over the last 3 years.  That audience has value not only in terms of what we can do to make money from Ask A Ninja, but also in getting us real Hollywood deals.  Giving it away got us seen and paid.  And now we're working on raising our quote.  :)

So stop worrying about the death of indie film.  It's already dead.  There's something better to replace it, but it's scary because it seems to violate every rule from that old world.  We'll all figure out the new rules sooner or later (and then it'll stop being interesting).

But now's the time, if you've been waiting on the sidelines wondering if you should jump in or not, this is your official invitation.  I'm an adult and I say it's okay.  Come on in, the water's fine.

However, this might be something completely different...

(in case you haven't noticed this may or may not be nsfw)

I am enthralled. I have hopes that SBS might pick this up. But I'm not watching that much TV these days, particularly as I can't afford one of my own.

It certainly makes me wish I'd taken more invertebrate zoology classes back at university for some reason.

I think that sets the bar for my new blog rather well.

Hulu is a free streaming video site- like Youtube, but they carry entire shows and movies.  It's legal, and there's some stuff you have to sign in to watch, and there are a couple of commercials played during each episode.  But the videos stream pretty quickly and without weirdness for me, so that's a nice big plus.

You can watch clips or episodes from "Big Ideas for a Small Planet", which is a documentary series about sustainable topics- power, water, fashion (!?), and the like. "Eco Biz" profiles entrepreneurs in green businesses, and new eco-business strategies. "Ecoist" appears to be clips of famous people talking about their environmental activism. National Geographic has a passel of short environment documentaries posted, also. Oh, and Fox was helpful and posted their 10-second clips of famous people telling you to do green things from Earth Day. So, if you feel the need to hear Omar Epps lecture you on reusable bag use, be Hulu's guest.

As for environment movies, there's...uh...The Day After Tomorrow.  Which is awesome, but not in the informative way.

Looks like there are some entire channels dedicated to green programing now- Sundance's The Green, Discovery's Planet Green.  They've got reality shows (on Planet Green: Greensburg- after a tornado destroyed everything, they're trying to rebuild, well, green) and celebrities (Sundance does Ecoist, but a more entertaining series has Isabella Rosselini in elaborate insect costumes while describing in graphic detail their mating rituals.  Probably NSFW, or children for whom the facts of life have not been outlined, though bug love presents a much less loaded conversation-starter than most cable programming).  Plus home makeovers, science, history, business...like other cable channels, only I'm hoping the show host banter is less grating and more informative.

I've got at least a season of Steele left, but maybe I'll stream some Big Ideas afterward.  Anyone else seen these shows?  Whats good?

http://www.youtube.com/user/ZermattResort

Well stupid me for jumping on the buzz train with Mandy Lane. This spin on the slasher film garnered decent buzz after Sundance a few years ago with Harvey Weinstein apparantly buying it on the spot. I guess I can see why, it does have a marketable angle to it. A few young babes and a bunch of dumb guys thrown into a half decent slasher story, but this is really nowhere near as original as it thinks it is.

On the upside, the film "looks" fairly gritty. It was obviously shot quite cheaply and that adds to its attempt at scaring us, but don't let its indie look fool you, this baby is as generic and predictable as any dodgy straight to DVD teenage slasher film.

What a shame, I'm always on the lookout for a film to re-ignite the slasher genre, but Mandy Lane aint it. Infact it seems to be nothing more than yet another "teenagers in peril" flick, this time taking place on a secluded ranch. Yep, it's that simple.

I'm sure I was supposed to be blown away by the apparant "twist" at the end, but if anyone didn't see it coming about 10 minutes into the film, they should be ashamed.

Kudos must go out to newcomber Amber Heard who puts in a great performance as the title character, though it is but a lone bright spot in an overall underwhelming film.

My wait for a decent slasher film continues....

Check out Green Porno by Isabella Rossellini.
She's keeping it weird, just like Blue Velvet.

Blue Velvet was CRAZY!!!

Intanto la regista romana è andata anche a visitare il set di Expired, il film tutto americano della sua allieva Cecilia Miniucchi, già presentato a Cannes e al Sundance e che uscirà in Italia solo a settembre.
La Miniucchi deve la sua carriera cinematografica a Lina Wertmuller: «Era la mia vicina di casa a Roma e mi invitò a Cinecittà dove stava girando Un complicato intrigo di donne, vicoli e delitti. Cominciai da apprendista e decisi che volevo stare dietro la macchina da presa».

Image Source: Sundance

Usually, when I get an email about something "green" I roll my eyes at it, but this particular email included the word "porno" and I thought, "oh well, why not".

Isabella Rossellini has created a short series of web shorts about insects and their sexy times...yes...Green Porno=Bug sex. This isn't your average youtube, voice dubbed, National Geographic video; It's Isabella Rossellini herself, reenacting the mating habits of bugs. It’s Ingrid Bergman’s daughter dry humping paper creatures!

The web shorts were premiered at the Sundance Dance Film Festival, but if you watch the interviews, a lot of the formatting is attributed to the fact that they were pushing it as internet shorts. These short films not only would be seen on a computer, but were also made to be seen on cell phones, such as the iPhone. That’s why they are short, attention grabbing and include colorful contrast. Also, they wanted it to have a childlike feel to it and place emphasis on its low budget so, they stylized it with cheap materials, such as paper.

To watch the film shorts CLICK HERE.

Quality entertainment from Isabella Rossellini. This series of short films on the sex lives of insects premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Fesitval, and not only did Rossellini star in these films, but she also conceptualized, wrote, and co-directed them. Click here to watch!

Released - 6th August

Having already had its world premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, Bottle Shock is this weeks film to watch out for!

Bottle Shock is the true story of Jim; a former real estate attorney, who has sacrificed everything to realize his dream of creating the perfect hand-crafted chardonnay. His business, however, is struggling, and he’s not only trying to overcome differences with his slacker son, but is also fighting off the creditors. Meanwhile in Paris, unwitting British wine shop owner Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) hopes to revive his own failing business by sponsoring a competition which will pit the traditional French powerhouse against the California upstarts. Little did Steven and Jim realize that they were both on course to change the history of wine forever.

Both Bill Bullman (who you may remember from Independence Day) and Alan Rickman (of Die Hard) look like a dynamic pair in this film. As do the cast in general, such as the likes of Dennis Farrina (Snatch) and Eliza Dushku (Buffy The Vampire Slayer). From what I've seen, Alan Rickman's subtle flavored humor is brilliant and i think, unfortunately for Bullman etc that this will overshadow a lot of the other main roles. I just hope the trailer hasn't given away all of his fantastically dry wit.

Despite that, Bottle Shock looks like a great under dog story and a sophisticated one at that. One that could easily rival that of The Pursuit of Happiness. Whether its the picturesque locations or the overall aesthetics of the way in which the film appears to be shot (which for some odd reason reminds me a lot of The Royal Tannenbaum's) Bottle Shock (or the trailer at least) creates a great chest warming and moreish taste, making it one film on my to watch list!

You can check out Bottle Shock's trailer here!!!

- A

This weekend we're screening “The Road Home”, a Chinese production that won 12 awards including the 2001 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival as well as 4 other nominations.

“In the simple, small-scale love story The Road Home, Zhang Ziyi proves in her film debut what a powerhouse force she is on-screen, even while wearing braids and playing a vulnerable teen with a crush.” Mike Clark, USA Today

The Director

"Zhang Yimou’s childhood was a difficult one in terms of his family political and economical situation. These difficulties were to set the stage for a lifetime of struggle against Chinese officials. Yimou was in secondary school when the Cultural Revolution started in 1966. He abandoned school and worked as a laborer on a farm, and then in a textile mill (much like the one portrayed in Ju Dou). After the Cultural Revolution, Yimou became a photographer, buying his first camera in 1974. Many of his photos were published in local periodicals, including the Shaanxi Daily.

In 1979, Yimou entered the Beijing Central Film Academy (China's only film school) after a long struggle to be admitted. His initial applications were summarily rejected because he was older than the regulation application age. He was accepted only after a personal appeal to the Minister of Culture, who accepted Yimou after viewing his portfolio of photographic work. Yimou studied at the Central Film Academy until 1982, focusing on cinematography. In 1982, Yimou graduated as a member of China's Fifth Generation of filmmakers. The fifth generation is the first to have studied western film forms, and to grow away from the standard communist use of film strictly as a propaganda tool."

Show Information:
Date: Sunday, 15 June 2008
Time: 06:00 PM

Venue: Punjab Lok Rahs
Flat # 8, Third Floor, RB1, Awami Complex
Garden Town Lahore.
042 5940166, 0333 4320802

Click here for directions and a map.

Cheers,
Team
Punjnad Film Club

The summary for Garden State says it is a "whimsical comedy". What? Nothing in this was funny. Oh, sure, people tell you that a movie about someone going home for their mother's funeral and seeing what their old friends have gotten up to is bound to be hilarious. But the mother killed herself after being stuck in a wheelchair for 20 years because the son broke her neck when he was 9. The old friends are grave diggers, but only for Jewish funerals. Everyone uses hardcore drugs at the post funeral party. The main character has been medicated by his doctor-father for decades in a way that is tantamount to child abuse.

While "back home" the main character meets a woman at the neurologist's office. She's a chronic liar and wears a The Thing helmet and kills her pets.

The whole thing is like this 90 minute stoner meltdown and I really have absolutely no idea why anyone thought this was a good story. Perhaps if one is desperately aching for more fiction from Stalinist Russia and the Gulag era, then this might be worth watching. But in my opinion, all these characters are so crushed, hopeless, and miserable that death would be a kindness.

Total downer of a movie. Zero comedic value. If you have to watch it, put the subtitles on and fast-forward so less time is wasted. This was bad.

I want to write something compelling that will make you want to NOT MISS THIS FILM, but every review I attempt does not do this documentary justice, so I'll just say TUNE IN to PBS and watch this one -- You'll be glad you did.

First-time filmmaker Katrina Browne makes a troubling discovery - her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She and nine fellow descendants set off to retrace the Triangle Trade: from their old hometown in Rhode Island to slave forts in Ghana to sugar plantation ruins in Cuba. Step by step, they uncover the vast extent of Northern complicity in slavery while also stumbling through the minefield of contemporary race relations. In this bicentennial year of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade, "Traces of the Trade" offers powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide. An official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Find out more about this film:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/traces...

P.O.V. Blog
http://www.pbs.org/pov/blog

Broadcast Date:
June 24, 2008

Clips and Trailers on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/pov2006

Find out about local P.O.V. screening events around the country:
http://www.amdoc.org/outreach_news.php

One good thing to do when you feel tired after a hard day's work is to watch a movie with a twisted plot. so I watch Teeth, a movie by Mitchell Lichtenstein. This was first shown in Sundance last year (2007).

The story is about a girl with a vagina dentata--a condition where the vagina has teeth. The movie is hilarious in the sense that the plot alone gives you stomach stiches. I will not discuss the movie here so you can enjoy it.

The movie is widely available in DVD.

While watching the Zeitgeist documentary, I was immediately alarmed by the comparisons of religion to the early Egyptians and their assertions that Judeo-Christian religions were falsified with the purpose of manipulating the public.

Although not a complete saint, I do consider myself a Christian for all debatable and spiritual purposes. However, faith is something that goes beyond "historical" origin. I do believe that all religions as well as political structures have foundations in the first civilizations, especially in Egypt and other tribal societies. This film is obviously slanted to influence the masses and perpetuate the bottomline of mass manipulation.

The Zeitgeist goes on to explain the details of 9/11 with footage to debunk the popularly publicized media spins surrounding the terrorists,the crashes, and the intentional malfunctions and so forth. I had heard many of these conspiracy theories prior to watching the movie; some of which I do believe.

However, the things that really scared me were the parallels between Hitler and Bush's motives and speech. As an African- American woman looking at how easily our civil liberties were removed through the Patriot Act, I am uneasily wondering when we will become slaves again. In fact, I began to realize in broader terms that all of Americans regardless of ethnicity, cultural background, language, or any measure of outward diversity, we are all truly slaves in this country because we pay taxes, we are bound by either poverty or wealth, pride or humility. We work hard. Most of us sacrifice quality times with our families and friends and put our personal healths in jeopardy, just to make a buck that we will never see.

The cost of living is always proportionate to our living wages. Whether slightly more or horribly less, our wages are truly never more than enough. Therefore, people are either bound by extreme debt that they will never be able to pay off in their lifetimes. Or they just drop dead due to a heart attack imposed by the BS that they have to endure on their super-stressful, unfulfilling, lackluster jobs that they are more than likely over qualified for and yet they are still trying to prove their worthiness just to keep it. Which, by the way does not provide enough to live on.

The points in the film are valid in the larger sense. Something is going on behind the scenes and somebody does not want us to have an opinion about them. And you know why I know this is so? Because there are too many "coincidences" like passing bills in the middle of the night, reversing laws that are God given, and so on all to support an agenda that doesn't support us. So how should I feel as an American? No, I think the question is "How DO I feel as an American?"

I feel really unappreciated. That is the bottom line and no $600.00 check can resolve that for me. By the way, I am in debt 6 figures for being sold on the American dream of higher education and, like many of us, trying to figure out how to not only eat 3 square meals a day, but clothe myself, BUY GAS, AND pay back my student loans...the extras? Forget about it! Who needs fun anyways? LOL!

I digress. Anyhoo, back to the film. Zeitgeist goes on to talk about the banks controlling our government and economy. So not only can't we eat, but our government is borrowing money on interest every time they need more money...??? Ok... I learned that basic economics in undergrad is based on supply and demand. If you have a surplus of something then the value goes down. And that, my friends, was probably the only thing I remember from macro economics. LOL! In any case, I see a correlation here between our dollars' value, the war, our economy, and international markets buying up our businesses for cents on the dollar.

There are so many items for exploration in this film that truly got me thinking. If the total goal of the movie was to make people think, then I believe they have achieved this goal. I am now thinking about all the people in power, especially those running for the Presidential office, their campaign supporters, and which side of the fence they truly stand.

I am an Obama supporter, not because I am Black, but because Hilary's own words have lessened my respect for her. I was truly undecided until I saw that she was hitting below the belt. I will write another blog about that issue alone. It's hard to respect someone who does not play fair especially after this past horrible 8 years with you know who. In any case, Obama has John D. Rockefeller as a supporter.

The film ties in the Rockefellers with banking and corruption. With this said, I wonder what their agenda is as a family with such influence in our country. And more importantly, I wonder how that influence will affect Obama as President.

Hopefully, Obama will use the Rockefellers' influence and prestige as a resource to revitalize the state of our country for the benefit of all and not just a few. I keep hoping that our leaders will turn it around and miraculously want to improve the lives of ALL Americans and not just pretend only to get elected.

Lastly, the movie goes over education, implanted tracking devices, unification of all of North America, unified money among North America, and so on. Supposedly my friend has done some research on the items in the film and he mentioned that they do hold true. I am too depressed right now to do any research because like I said above, there are way too many coincidences for it not to be true. There is a little nudging inside that recognizes truth when I hear it because then and only then does everything else make sense also. When you pull back the blanket, you bring light to other things.

So, I will pray to my Judeo-Christian Savior, because right now ,at this point, that is all I can do about any of this...

JSC

The film follows a fiercely logical 10 year old called Anna whose comfortable middle-class existence undergo a serious upheaval when her parents turn into radical political activists.

Adapted with considerable grace and style from an Italian novel by Domitilla Calamai, this beautifully observed, terrifically acted production screened as part of the expanded dramatic World Cinema Competition at Sundance where it was met with an enthusiastic audience response.

The screening takes place on 7.30pm on Thursday 19th June.

Full screening and ticket info can be found on the 'CineGuernsey' page.

I just saw the trailer for a new movie called "The Wackness" if features Josh Peck, Ben Kingsely, Mary Kate Olsen (yes I know, she was good in Weeds).

It’s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana—but change is in the air. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against “crimes” like noisy portable radios, graffiti and public drunkenness. Set against this backdrop, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends his last summer before college selling dope throughout New York City, trading it with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) for therapy, while crushing on his step daughter (Olivia Thirlby). Famke Janssen, Mary Kate Olsen,and Method Man round out the cast in this edgy, bittersweet, and funny coming of age story.

The film has been called 'Juno' for boys. I am really looking forward to the soundtrack.

Trailer

Interview with Josh Peck and Method Man