Movies blog

By Sandy Cohen, Associated Press LOS ANGELES — A contingency plan that would include history, film clips and out-of-the-ordinary concepts for the 80th annual Academy Awards show is in the works, academy President Sid Ganis told The Associated Press onward Wednesday.

With the writers strike dragging dangerously close to the Feb. 24 telecast, the film academy is planning two Oscar shows: “The show we would love to do and … a show that we would prefer not to do,” Ganis said.

The traditional, star-studded glamour-fest is in the works in case an agreement is reached. If not, organizers are working on a second show that order include “history and packages of film and concepts that are not normally ones that we would have for the show if we were moving straight ahead.”

The show will go on regardless of talks rank, he said.

“We have an obligation to the art form to present the Oscars, so we have to deal with the possibility of not being able to do the show because of pickets or agreements not being concluded,” Ganis said.

Meanwhile, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is talking with striking writers, said spokeswoman Leslie Unger. She declined to provide details.

“We have made contact with the guild,” Unger said. “We want to be able to do the kind of Oscar show that we always do, and we not to be present to create the circumstances that be inclined allow us to do that.”

Whether or not the strike is resolved by showtime on Feb. 24, producer Gil Cates hopes writers will decide not to picket the Academy Awards.

“This show, in my view, is really above politics,” he said. “It is wrong to treat the point out to as anything other than a gift from all the people who work in this business, actually, to the exceptional talent and the community and the country.”

He noted that the writers guild has said its members will not picket next month’s Grammy or Image awards.

“It’s hard for me to believe that they would picket a show that really honors their own,” Cates said.

Nominations for this year’s Academy Awards were announced last week. In past years, presenters were announced one-by-one before or shortly after the nominations, but none have been named so far this year.

Final ballots were mailed Wednesday to the 5,829 voting members of the academy. They are due back Feb. 19.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.
downloadable movies

by dint of. Lynn Elber, Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Many in Hollywood are nurturing new hope that an end is near for the 3-month-old writers strike that has brought the entertainment diligence to a standstill.

But they’re stopping well short of giddy optimism, even as informal talks between Writers Guild of America and studio executives enter their second week.

“I’m like everyone else. I’m hopeful,” writer Devon Shepherd, whose credits include Weeds and Everybody Hates Chris, said Tuesday

“We’re all just hoping that with time exceeding, cooler heads will prevail and people are because the bigger picture. The longer we stay out, it’s not only hurting us but hurting the industry,” he said.

The tone also was cautiously upbeat at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, where stars gathered after the writers fraternity said it would not picket.

“Every single day, everybody is making a emission,” said Big Love fate Jeanne Tripplehorn. “I think we’re all other hopeful than in the past.”

Jenna Fischer, star of the The Office, echoed that prospect on the red carpet.

“It feels hopeful for the primeval time,” Fischer said.

Away from the spotlight, however, uncertainty remained over what the guild and studio heads might achieve in the talks that began after a six-week negotiations impasse. The talks are the subject of a media blackout.

Optimists and pessimists need to moderate their attitudes, said a person familiar with the talks who was not authorized to publicly comment and requested anonymity.

The two sides are making progress on key issues involving compensation for projects distributed on the Internet, but hard work remains to be done, the person said.

The guild’s board of directors gathered Tuesday to discuss the status of the talks under the jurisdiction union again with studio executives.

The primary corporate representatives have been Peter Chernin, chief operating officer of News Corp., and Robert Iger, chief charged with execution of The Walt Disney Co.

The talks began after the Directors Guild of America reached its own deal with studios this month and studio moguls urged the writers to join the informal sessions.

Compensation for work offered on the Internet in like manner was a key issue during the directors talks and also is expected to be critical when the Screen Actors Guild begins negotiations. Its contract with studios expires in June.

The upbeat thinking about possible progress in the writers talks is being driven by more than the desire to get thousands of people back to work in New York and Los Angeles and stem losses estimated at $1 billion or more.

The film industry has a fervent desire to see the Feb. 24 Academy Awards, its biggest promotional showcase, staged in full-blown glory, without the threat of pickets.

The guild has thus far refused to confer a waiver that would take the Oscars off the list of struck shows and approve writers to participate.

Waivers have been granted to the upcoming Grammys and NAACP Image Awards.

The guild’s refusal to gain a deal with the Golden Globes, and a decision by stars to honor the strike and boycott the awards, decimated that ceremony.

“There’s no day, other than the Super Bowl, that’s bigger for American advertisers and therefore for American networks than the Oscars,” said Jonathan Handel, an entertainment industry attorney and former associate counsel for the writers guild.

“Both the studios and networks have an enormous amount riding on a successful Oscarcast,” he said.

In another development, CBS News staffers who are members of the writers guild have overwhelmingly ratified a new contract with the network.

The contract covers 500 employees who work in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago, in both TV and radio.

The deal provides raises of 3.5% once a year plus a $3,700 contract bonus. The contract, competent immediately, runs through April 1, 2010.

The staffers had been working under an expired contract for nearly three years.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For promulgation consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.
downloadable movies

downloadable movies

By Mike Clark, USA TODAY The Beatles rate a curtsy, Bob Ford plugs Jesse in the back, a mismatched couple squabble in France — all in a kinetic lineup of 2007 releases in supplies Feb. 5. Each has past cinematic cousins, the couple close and “removed,” that just might enhance your enjoyment or appreciation of what’s to come. Do note:

I Shot Jesse James (1949, unrated, see below)

For antecedents to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner, $28), there are many choices, including 1939’s Tyrone Power-Henry Fonda Jesse James and Nicholas Ray’s 1957 CinemaScope revamp The True Story of Jesse James (the couple Fox, unrated, $15). Most fitting is this, cult director Samuel Fuller’s feature debut with John Ireland (Ford) and Reed Hadley (Jesse), which focuses on Ford’s wickedness. It’s on Criterion/Eclipse’s First Films of Samuel Fuller ($45).

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978, Warner, PG, $15)

Julie Taymor’s resplendent but polarizing Beatles feast Across the Universe (Sony, $29) is all dream-like purity. But Hand, director Robert Zemeckis’ debut feature, is down-to-earth, with screaming teens, elevator mishaps and Will Jordan’s uproarious Ed Sullivan impression. Set in 1964 as the quartet invades the USA, this Beatlemania farce finds a group of rowdies (including Nancy Allen) taking over New York’s Plaza Hotel. Note how artfully the words “Topo Gigio” roll off Jordan’s tongue.

Before Sunrise and Before Sunset

Director Richard Linklater’s Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy romances arguably set up Delpy as the screen’s quintessential contemporary Frenchwoman, an image the actress parlayed into one of last year’s best comedies: 2 Days in Paris (Fox, $28), which she also directed. Sunset (1995, Warner, R, $8) establishes the flirtation in Vienna. Sunrise (2004, Warner, R, $20) reunites them nine years later with their romantic demons unpurged. Watching both films in tandem is a no-brainer.

New Tuesday:

• At long endure, El Cid.
• Turner Classic Movies’ new grade-A documentary on horror-classic producer Val Lewton.
• Nicole Kidman in The Invasion.

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the journal, send comments to erudition@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.  Enlarge Warner Independent Pictures

downloadable movies

Persepolis, Deneuve voices the mother of the main character, Marjane, a not old Iranian woman based on writer/codirector Marjane Satrapi.
“> EnlargeSony Pictures ClassicsOscar nominee: In Persepolis, Deneuve voices the mother of the main character, Marjane, a young Iranian woman based on writer/codirector Marjane Satrapi.

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY BEVERLY HILLS — Catherine Deneuve, casually dressed in black jeans and T-shirt, politely asks permission, then lights up a cigarette with distinguishing trait grace.

The strikingly attractive French actress is refreshingly punctual and sans entourage for a chat in a Four Seasons hotel suite.

She is not draped in designer silks. Instead, her black cotton T-shirt proclaims the rights of journalists without borders. Still, her glamour is intact.

In from Paris to receive a career achievement tribute from the American Film Institute, the 64-year-old actress downplays her substantial body of work and iconic image.

She would rather talk about her latest starring role, a unassuming one in which her still-luminous beauty is not visible.

She lends her distinctive voice to the inventive Oscar-nominated animated film Persepolis (in French with English subtitles), which expands to more theaters Friday.

Deneuve plays the mother of the main character, who is voiced by her daughter, Chiara Mastroianni.

The young Iranian woman, Marjane, is an autobiographical character created by Marjane Satrapi, who wrote the Persepolis memoirs as graphic novels and wrote and co-directed the film.

The story of her coming of age during and after the Islamic revolution resonated for Deneuve as much in the manner that the opportunity to work with her daughter (by the late Italian player Marcello Mastroianni).

But it wasn’t the social family get-together one might expect.

“I didn’t in reality work through her,” Deneuve says, relaxed and thoughtful despite being on a tight schedule.

“We were never in the sort room since the voices were done before the drawings,” she says. “We didn’t have to sync it. We were able to read it as we wanted.”

So Deneuve recorded her lines, and Satrapi comprehend the other parts.

“The actors just recorded one by one,” Deneuve says. She and her daughter did have an opportunity to work in the like room when they recorded an English-language version of the animated film.

Gena Rowlands takes Danielle Darrieux’s place as the voice of Marjane’s grandmother, and Sean Penn has a key speaking component as Marjane’s uncle.

Speaking of mother-and-child reunions, Darrieux, who voiced the part of Deneuve’s character’s mother in Persepolis, also played Deneuve’s mother in 2002’s 8 Women.

Satrapi had very specific directions, Deneuve says, while allowing the veteran actress who began her acting career in her teens to call upon her breadth of experience. “She paid attention to everything but also gave me a lot of freedom.”

Iranian-born author/illustrator Satrapi has lived in Paris for several years, and Deneuve had met her before she was cast for the part.

“I like her very much,” Deneuve says. “I knew her work and loved all her books. I singly like her graphic black-and-white drawings and the way she uses them in a way that’s both surreal and realistic.

“I did a special issue of Vogue acting as chief editor a hardly any years ago, and I asked her to do a special drawing for it, a one-page comic strip, and it was wonderful.”

Deneuve speaks glowingly of the spirit of Satrapi’s volume and movie: “It is fresh and wistful, funny and self-mocking.”

Similar words could be used to describe Deneuve herself.

As she lights another cigarette, Deneuve notes that one of the first things she liked about Satrapi when they met was that the maker smoked as much as she did.

As a mother herself (Chiara is now 35), Deneuve tapped into some universal characteristics of parents coping with teen daughters. Her character, she says, is “concerned and understanding.”

Deneuve says she relished acting with only her voice.

“It’s a different style of acting, a bit more exaggerated and a great challenge.”

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.  Enlarge By Yves Herman, Reuters

Family and friends of the late Heath Ledger, including his ex-girlfriend Naomi Watts, have gathered at a memorial service for the actor.

Watts and Ledger’s ex-fiancee Michelle Williams were among the mourners at the private service at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles after the Brokeback Mountain star’s body was flown from New York City.

The 28-year-old was lay the foundation of dead in his downtown Manhattan apartment last Tuesday with an autopsy proving inconclusive as to the cause of death.

Though it was reported that prescription drugs were found in the SoHo bedroom, it has since been reported that the actor’s death may have been a result of natural causes.

According to celebrity web site TMZ.com, sources "intimately connected with the investigation" have said Ledger may have died from a heart attack.

"It’s now appearing that the level of toxicity (from medication) in Ledger’s system was low enough that it may not have caused his death. These sources say Heath’s heart stopped," the website reported.

Some 1,000 guests at the G’Day USA Australia Day Ball at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City held a minute’s silence in honour of the Perth-born actor on Saturday night.

According to Melbourne newspaper The Age, the Australian consul-general furthermore read a letter written by the late actor’s father Kim.

"Heath did not become an actor for the fame or fortune," he wrote. "He loved his craft and he loved helping his friends. He loved chess and skateboarding too."

The letter added: "My image of Heath in New York is him with his skateboard, a canvas bag and his beanie.

"That was Heath to me… Heath is and always will be an Australian."
 

downloadable movies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The board of directors of the Directors Guild of America voted unanimously Sunday to recommend ratification of a conduct one’s self with Hollywood studios.

The three-year collective bargaining agreement reached Jan. 17 establishes key provisions involving compensation for programs offered on the Internet.

“We achieved our three primary goals: jurisdiction in new media, which was absolutely essential; compensation because of the use and reuse of our work in new media; and significant gains on issues of real importance for our work in traditional media,” DGA President Michael Apted said in a statement Sunday.

The deal between directors and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios, has been lauded by top executives from eight major companies, including News Corp.’s Fox divisions, Paramount Pictures Corp., The Walt Disney Co., CBS Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros., MGM and NBC Universal.

The ballot will now business to the DGA’s 13,500 members for ratification.

The issue of compensation for internet distribution has also been a key sticking point between striking writers and the studios, which broke off talks on Dec. 7.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not have existence published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication reason in the journal, inflict comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.
downloadable movies

downloadable movies

 SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDSWe're seeing red (carpet) againBackstage: Seen and heard behind the scenesPhotos: Vote for your favorite red carpet fashionWinners: Who took home an actor?
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, which finally put some celebrities on a red carpet, reunited long-separated television casts and even elicited some signs of work solidarity.

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Tom Cruise were among those at the awards, which perhaps gave an Oscar boost to winners No Country for Old Men, American Gangster’s Ruby Dee and There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Day-Lewis. On the TV side, the guild bade its final last look to The Sopranos with three awards.

But the guild honors, which usually serve as a boisterous warm-up — and uncannily accurate predictor — for the Oscars, were sometimes as gray as the Los Angeles skies. Day-Lewis offered a somber tribute to Heath Ledger. And though the awards were spared picket lines of striking writers, some actors wore WGA buttons and many skirted red-carpet press interviews.

30 Rock’s Tina Fey accepted her award for best actress in a comedy by remembering her writing colleagues. “I share this by everyone in our ensemble,” she said. “It takes a lot of people to make me look like a good actor.”

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for authentication.  Enlarge By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY

downloadable movies

 SUNDANCING AS FAST AS I CANUSA TODAY's Anthony Breznican blogs live from Sundance

---

 OTHER VOICES FROM THE WEB
By Harlan Jacobson, Special for USA TODAY PARK CITY, Utah — Nothing went as planned this year at Sundance. The buyers sat on their hands till mid-festival. The wallflower films were crowned prom king and queen, and the premiere films with the cool people faced shrugs of indifference.

Star-studded films were left in the absence of distribution, including father-son pairing Tom and Colin Hanks in The Great Buck Howard, Amy Adams and Emily Blunt in the crime-scene comedy Sunshine Cleaning, and Paul Giamatti’s rocket-pack entrepreneur comedy Pretty Bird.

MORE: All-access pass to Sundance

WINNERS: Who won?

The only thing that was business as usual: There were a fair contain of quality films, but the delirium for parking spots and dinner slots seemed to consume more attention.

Still, more movies did region away with deals. In the end, though, that is perhaps not the most important thing, as festival founder Robert Redford says, “Over the years, what happens is the films that come through and get the word of grimace … that’s the best PR and marketing there is.”

Among films that emerged from Sundance with distribution and which eventually may show up in theaters near you:

•Hamlet 2. Stars British comedian Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People) playing a Tucson high school drama teacher staging a cracked sequel to “Shakespeare’s bummer.” Focus Features purchased in spite of distribution for a reported $10 million, near the feast record.

•Up the Yangtze. A Canadian-financed documentary by Chinese director Yung Chang that examines the impact of China’s Three Gorges Dam on the place where Yung’s grandfather grew up. Zeitgeist Films plans to release it in April.

•Frozen River. By first-time director Courtney Hunt, it tells the story of couple women in upstate New York: one white working-class, the other Native American. They sneak illegal immigrants in from Canada who want a piece of the American Dream, which has collapsed for the smugglers. The film will be released by Sony Pictures Classics.

•The Wackness. Writer/director Jonathan Levine’s story of a wacked-out, drug-gulping shrink (Ben Kingsley) who trades therapy sessions to a tall school drug dealer (Josh Peck) for pot. The fragmentary couple goes out on the town, carousing at night, and by epoch pushing the small tub’s weed. It was bought by dint of. Sony Pictures Classics.

•Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. Marina Zenovich’s documentary about the famous 1977 rape envelop that led Polanski to abscond Hollywood for Paris. HBO purchased domestic distribution.

•The Black List: Volume One. A documentary by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, List features the likes of Chris Rock and Sean “Diddy” Combs talking about the black experience in America. The film was bought by HBO.

•Choke. Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston and Kelly Macdonald star in the adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel about a scarecrow (Rockwell) who fakes choking to scam those who have knowledge of to save him. The film went to Fox Searchlight.

•Henry Poole Is Here. Stars Luke Wilson as a dying man through a stain on his stucco wall that neighbors think strength be Jesus. Poole was purchased by Overture Films.

•Kicking It. Susan Koch’s documentary chronicles the lives of seven soccer players at the Homeless World Cup games. It was bought by ESPN.

To mention corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. For literary production consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and pomp for verification.  Enlarge Reuters

downloadable movies

 SUNDANCING AS FAST AS I CANUSA TODAY's Anthony Breznican blogs live from Sundance

---

 OTHER VOICES FROM THE WEB
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY The first part of the Sundance Film Festival belonged to the stars — Colin Farrell, Tom Hanks and son Colin, Amy Adams, U2 and more. But the latter half of the 10-day film showcase in Park City, Utah, belonged to a Russian mermaid, a group of despondent Midwestern teens, a Nobel Prize winner and a guy who runs around with a bag on his chief part. USA TODAY’s Anthony Breznican highlights some discoveries:

MORE: All-access pass to Sundance

‘Mermaid’

This modern fairy tale features a Russian girl (Masha Shalaeva) who may have the power to grant wishes or just an active imagination. She moves from her family’s peculiar home on the seashore to the equally mystical city of Moscow, where she falls in love with a guy who doesn’t deserve her and ultimately disappears.

“It’s very much a kind of poem film,” Shalaeva said through a translator. “I’m saying the love comes not from your brain, but from your heart. And at intervals you cannot explain why it happens.”

Many moviegoers described the tone in the manner that Amlie-esque, and adviser/screenwriter Anna Melikyan was named one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch.

Baghead

Jay and Mark Duplass scored with this low-fi, high-concept comedy about four out-of-work actors who go to a cabin for the weekend with dreams of writing a breakthrough script. Assorted jealousies and lusts arise when they start playing pranks on each other like, who is that in the woods with the bag on his head? Seriously.

Sony Pictures Classics picked it up for distribution, and the not-so-famous stars became instant celebs; cries of “Baghead!” followed them in the streets.

Both squirmingly funny and spookily unsettling, the movie was a gamble, Mark Duplass said. “You can gauge by which time the earliest laugh comes in, and it came in a lot earlier than we anticipated and louder.”

American Teen

If this documentary were one of the students it chronicled, it would be the overachiever. After Nanette Burstein’s documentary screened, it was the talk of the festival, and Paramount Vantage purchased it for distribution.

It tells the story of a group of seniors at a Midwestern high school, each very different, but struggling with the love, responsibility and dreams that come with the transition from childhood to adulthood.

“It was just the last three years of my lifetime, determined by this moment,” Burstein said, laughing nervously at the end of the festival. “I was feeling ready to accept whatever it was. It was species of an out-of-body experience, not to be overly dramatic about it.”

Triage

Subtitled Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma, the documentary features the Nobel Prize-winning former head of Doctors Without Borders and explores why civilian doctors risk their lives to enter war zones and the heart-wrenching compromises that must be made to save the afflicted. A real-life action hero’s story.

Orbinski attended the festival, where documentaries such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and March of the Penguins launched, and aforesaid he hopes his film can deal a similar nerve.

“If the film provokes people to ask themselves what can they do to be a better citizen or member of their common,” he said, “then the film is successful.”

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Reader Editor Brent Jones. beneficial to publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.

By Thomas K. Arnold, Special for USA TODAY It was a good weekend for 20th Century Fox. The studio’s Meet the Spartans opened at No. 1 with an estimated gross of $18.7 million, beating back stiff competition from fellow newcomer Rambo and holdover Cloverfield.

Spartans’ showing is stunning; most prognosticators had figured the spoof comedy would bring in maybe $12 million and open at No. 3 or No. 4.

Sylvester Stallone appears well on his way regarding repeating his Rocky box office comeback with a new take on his other famous on-screen character, released by Lionsgate and the Weinstein Co. Coming two decades after Rambo III, the fourth installment fought back a wave of unbelief for a strong No. 2 finish, bringing in $18.2 million.

It was another Fox film, the comedy 27 Dresses, that finished the weekend at No. 3, with $13.6 million.

Paramount’s monster film Cloverfield, after a bigger-than-expected opening last weekend, experienced a bigger-than-expected drop of 72% this weekend to finish at No. 4 with $12.7 million.

Sony Pictures comedy Untraceable opened at No. 5 with an estimated gross of $11.2, breaking lacking of its expected female-oriented audience to capture a fairly even split.

And the season’s little charmer Juno keeps chugging along, picking up another $10.3 million (good for No. 6) after its four Oscar nominations, to push its total box office take past the vaunted $100 million mark.

Another notable milestone: Alvin and the Chipmunks, Fox’s attempt to revive a baby boomer franchise, passed $200 million.

It could be said everyone had a good weekend, as the box office overall is projected to be up 32% from the comparable weekend last year.

The rest of the top 10: The Bucket List, $10.2 million; There Will Be Blood, $4.9 million; National Treasure: Book of Secrets, $4.7 million; and Mad Money, $4.6 million.

To report corrections and clarifications, junction Reader Editor Brent Jones. in spite of publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to culture@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification.
downloadable movies