Archive for the ‘film’ tag
Brad Pitt blasts U.S. ‘War on Drugs,’ calls for policy rethink
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Brad Pitt has thrown his weight behind a documentary that blasts America‘s 40-year war on drugs as a failure, calling policies that imprison huge numbers of drug-users a “charade” in urgent need of a rethink.
The Hollywood actor came aboard recently as an executive producer of filmmaker Eugene Jarecki‘s “The House I Live In,” which won the Grand Jury Prize in January at the Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in wide release in the United States on Friday.
Ahead of a Los Angeles screening, Pitt and Jarecki spoke passionately about the “War on Drugs” which, according to the documentary, has cost more than $1 trillion and accounted for over 45 million arrests since 1971, and which preys largely on poor and minority communities.
“I know people are suffering because of it. I know I’ve lived a very privileged life in comparison and I can’t stand for it,” Pitt told Reuters on Friday, calling the government’s War on Drugs policy a “charade.”
“It’s such bad strategy. It makes no sense. It perpetuates itself. You make a bust, you drive up profit, which makes more people want to get into it,” he added. “To me, there’s no question; we have to rethink this policy and we have to rethink it now.”
“The House I Live In” was filmed in more than 20 states and tells stories from many sides of the issue, including Jarecki’s African-American nanny, a drug dealer, narcotics officer, inmate, judge, grieving mother, senator and others.
It also shows that although the United States accounts for only 5 percent of the world’s population, it has 25 percent of its prison population. Additionally, African Americans, who make up roughly 13 percent of the population and 14 percent of its drug users, account for 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug crimes.
FILM GETS STRONG REVIEWS
The Los Angeles Times called the film “one of the most important pieces of nonfiction to hit the screen in years,” while the Hollywood Reporter said it was a “potent cry for a drastic rethinking of America’s War on Drugs” and that the film “should connect solidly with viewers at a moment when it seems possible to change public attitudes.”
Pitt, who like his partner Angelina Jolie is no stranger to humanitarian and social causes, said that after seeing Jarecki’s documentary, coupled with his own involvement with aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina, he realized the U.S. government’s war on drugs may not just be about drugs alone.
“That was an interesting premise for me,” the “Moneyball” star told Reuters. “I hadn’t thought about it in that matter (before seeing the film), but certainly what we witnessed after Katrina proved the idea had validity.”
Some critics have attributed the slow response of the U.S. government to Katrina in 2005, and the devastating flooding of poor areas of New Orleans, to race and class issues.
Now, Pitt believes the War on Drugs is the greatest obstacle for impoverished parts of society, including African Americans, from getting ahead.
“It’s a never-ending cycle. But then when you look at it after what we experienced with Katrina – this is Eugene’s point and what he wanted to investigate – it is actually being used to cap a portion of our society and holding them back, shackling them,” the actor said, adding that he signed on as executive producer to help promote the documentary.
Jarecki contrasted the justice system’s attitude to bankers in the 2008 financial meltdown of Wall Street, who “got a slap on the hand,” with its stance toward young drug-takers.
“A kid right now a block from here is going to have a cop find an ounce of something on his person and he’s going spend 10 years in jail. These are all indicators of a society that has lost its way – and it has lost its way in the direction of injustice and unfairness,” Jarecki told Reuters.
(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brad-pitt-blasts-u-war-drugs-calls-policy-192950161.html
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“The Artist” wins over producers at Guild Awards (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? “The Artist” continued its love affair with American cinema after winning best-produced film on Saturday at the Producers Guild Awards (PGA), boosting its chances for an Oscar nod ahead of the Academy Award nominations next week.
The silent black-and-white French comedy, starring Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, is a homage to the pre-talkie era of Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s and tells the story of a fading silent movie star as sound began entering the world of cinema.
“When Michel Hazanavicius and I dreamed of making “The Artist,” we knew we were dreaming of writing a love letter to American cinema. We never knew in return we would get a taste of the American dream,” Thomas Langmann, the film’s producer, said in his acceptance speech in Beverly Hills.
The film has been sweeping awards ceremonies in the run up to the Oscars, winning best picture at the Critics Choice and Golden Globes earlier this month.
It was up against nine other films in contention for best-produced film on Saturday, including female-led comedy “Bridesmaids,” civil rights drama “The Help,” and Steven Spielberg’s epic tale “War Horse.”
“The Adventures of Tintin,” produced by Spielberg, picked up best-produced animated film.
The Producers Guild awards are significant in the race to the Academy Awards on February 26, as many of the 5,000-plus members of the PGA, are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who vote for the Oscars.
For the last four years, the producers’ best-produced film picks have gone on to win the best picture Oscar, with “No Country For Old Men” in 2008, “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2009, “The Hurt Locker” in 2010 and “The King’s Speech” in 2011.
Other PGA award winners on Saturday included “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest” for best-produced documentary, which explores the journey of influential hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest.
Angelina Jolie received the Stanley Kramer award for “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” which she wrote, directed and produced, an accolade reserved for contributions that highlight provocative social issues.
The Oscar-winning actress delivered a sober acceptance speech, noting that when war-film “Schindler’s List” won a PGA in 1994 during the Bosnian war, “the world turned a blind eye” to the atrocities happening in Eastern Europe at the time.
Spielberg was awarded the coveted David O’Selznick achievement award and comic-book legend Stan Lee received the Vanguard award, presented by “Spiderman” actor Tobey Maguire. Both received standing ovations as they took the stage.
ABC’s “Modern Family” was named best-produced television comedy for the second year running, while HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” was named best-produced TV drama. PBS’ British period drama “Downtown Abbey” was named best-produced long-form television series.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Paul Simao)
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Former trailblazer Kodak files for Chapter 11
FILE – In this late 1920′s file photo, Eastman Kodak Co. founder George Eastman, left, and Thomas Edison pose with their inventions. Edison invented motion picture equipment and Kodak invented roll-film and the camera box, which helped to create the motion picture industry. The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. (AP Photo)
FILE – In this late 1920′s file photo, Eastman Kodak Co. founder George Eastman, left, and Thomas Edison pose with their inventions. Edison invented motion picture equipment and Kodak invented roll-film and the camera box, which helped to create the motion picture industry. The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. (AP Photo)
FILE – In this Sept. 4, 2008 file photo, old Kodachrome slides are seen in Clarence, N.Y. The Eastman Kodak Co. is retiring its most senior film after 74 years in the company’s portfolio because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age. The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. (AP Photo/David Duprey, File)
FILE – In this undated file photo released by Eastman Kodak Company an unidentified Kodak technician displays image sensors embedded on a silicon wafer at Eastman Kodak Inc., in Rochester, N.Y. The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. (AP Photo/Eastman Kodak Company, file)
In this Jan. 5, 2012 photo, the George Eastman Memorial, where Eastman’s ashes rest in an urn beneath the central stone, is shown with a closed sign in Rochester, N.Y. The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
An unidentified person enters Kodak Headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Eastman Kodak Co. said early Thursday Jan. 19, 2012 it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) ? Kodak’s moment has come and gone.
The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. Then came a stunning reversal of fortune: cutthroat competition from Japanese firms in the 1980s and a seismic shift to the digital technology it pioneered but couldn’t capitalize on. Now comes a wistful worry that this icon of American business is edging toward extinction.
Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, raising the specter that the 132-year-old trailblazer could become the most storied casualty of a digital age.
Already a shadow of its former self, cash-poor Kodak will now reorganize in bankruptcy court, as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business. The Rochester, N.Y.-based company is pinning its hopes on peddling a trove of photo patents and morphing into a new-look powerhouse built around printers and ink. Even if it succeeds, it seems unlikely to ever again resemble what its red-on-yellow K logo long stood for ? a signature brand synonymous in every corner of the planet with capturing, collecting and sharing images.
“Kodak played a role in pretty much everyone’s life in the 20th century because it was the company we entrusted our most treasured possession to ? our memories,” said Robert Burley, a photography professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Its yellow boxes of film, point-and-shoot Brownie and Instamatic cameras, and those hand-sized prints that made it possible for countless millions to freeze-frame their world “were the products used to remember ? and really define ? what that entire century looked like,” Burley said.
“One of the interesting parts of this bankruptcy story is everyone’s saddened by it,” he continued. “There’s a kind of emotional connection to Kodak for many people. You could find that name inside every American household and, in the last five years, it’s disappeared.”
Kodak has notched just one profitable year since 2004. At the end of a four-year digital makeover during which it dynamited aged factories, chopped and changed businesses and eliminated tens of thousands of jobs, it closed 2007 on a high note with net income of $676 million.
It soon ran smack into the recession ? and its momentum reversed.
Years of investor worries over whether Kodak might seek protection from its creditors intensified in September when it hired major restructuring law firm Jones Day as an adviser. Its stock, which topped $94 in 1997, skidded below $1 a share for the first time and, by Jan. 6, hit an all-time closing low of 37 cents.
Three board members recently resigned, and last week, the company announced that it realigned and simplified its business structure in an effort to cut costs, create shareholder value and accelerate its long-drawn-out digital transformation.
The human toll reaches back to the 1980s, when Tokyo-based Fuji, an emerging archrival, began to eat into Kodak’s fat profits with novel offerings like single-use film cameras. Beset by excessive caution and strategic stumbles, Kodak was finally forced to cut costs. Its long slide had begun.
Mass layoffs came every few years, unraveling a cozy relationship of company and community that was perhaps unequaled in the annals of American business. Kodak has sliced its global payroll to 18,800 from a peak of 145,300 in 1988, and its hometown rolls to 7,100 from 60,400 in 1982.
Veteran employees who dodged the well-worn ax are not alone in fearing what comes next. Some 25,000 Kodak retirees in this medium-sized city on Lake Ontario’s southern shore worry that their diminished health coverage could be clawed back further, if not disappear, in bankruptcy court.
It’s a long cry from George Eastman’s paternalistic heyday.
Founded by Eastman in 1880, Kodak marketed the world’s first flexible roll film in 1888 and turned photography into an overnight craze with a $1 Brownie camera in 1900. Innovation and mass production were about to put the world into cars and airplanes, the American Century was unfolding, and Kodak was ready to record it.
“It’s one of the few companies that wiggled its way into the fabric of American life and the American family,” said Bob Volpe, 69, a 32-year employee who retired in 1998. “As someone at Kodak once said, ‘We put chemicals in one end so our customers can get memories out the other.’”
Intent on keeping his work force happy ? they never organized a union ? Eastman helped pioneer profit-sharing and, in 1912, began dispensing a generous wage dividend. Going to work for Kodak ? “taking the life sentence,” as it was called ? became a bountiful rite of passage for generations.
“Most of the people who worked at Kodak had a middle-class life without a college education,” Volpe said. “Those jobs paid so well, they could buy a boat, two cars, a summer place, and send their kids to college.”
Propelled by Eastman’s marketing genius, the “Great Yellow Father” held a virtual monopoly of the U.S. photographic industry by 1927. But long after Eastman was stricken with a degenerative spinal disorder and took his own life in 1932, Kodak retained its mighty perch with a succession of innovations.
Foremost was Kodachrome, a slide and motion-picture film extolled for 74 years until its demise in 2009 for its sharpness, archival durability and vibrant hues. In the 1960s, easy-load Instamatic 126 became one of the most popular cameras ever, practically replacing old box cameras. In 1975, engineer Steven Sasson created the first digital camera, a toaster-size prototype capturing black-and-white images at a resolution of 0.1 megapixels.
Through the 1990s, Kodak splurged $4 billion on developing the photo technology inside most of today’s cellphones and digital devices. But a reluctance to ease its heavy reliance on film allowed rivals like Canon Inc. and Sony Corp. to rush largely unhindered into the fast-emerging digital arena. The immensely lucrative analog business Kodak worried about undermining too soon was virtually erased in a decade by the filmless photography it invented.
“If you’re not willing to cannibalize yourself, others will do it for you,” said Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester’s business school. “Technology is changing ever more rapidly, the world’s becoming more globalized, so to stay at the top of your game is getting increasingly harder.”
In November, Kodak warned it could run out of cash in a year if it didn’t sell 1,100 digital-imaging patents it’s been shopping around since July. Analysts estimate they could fetch at least $2 billion.
In the meantime, Kodak has focused its future on new lines of inkjet printers that it says are on the verge of turning a profit. It expects printers, software and packaging to produce more than twice as much revenue by 2013 and account by then for 25 percent of the company’s total revenue, or nearly $2 billion.
CEO Antonio Perez said in a statement Thursday that the bankruptcy filing is “a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak.” The company has secured $950 million in financing from Citigroup Inc., and expects to be able to operate its business during bankruptcy reorganization and pay employees.
On its website, Kodak assured customers that the nearly $1 billion in debtor-in-possession financing would be sufficient to pay vendors, suppliers and other business partners in full for goods and services going forward. The bankruptcy filing in the Southern District of New York does not involve Kodak’s international operations.
“To be able to hop from stone to stone across the stream takes great agility and foresight and passion for excellence, and Kodak is capable of that. They have some killer stuff in inkjet printing. It’s becoming a profitable product line but what they need is the runway to allow it to take off,” Zupan said. “As the saying goes, ‘the best way to anticipate the future is to invent it.’”
The company and its board are being advised by Lazard, FTI Consulting Inc. and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Dominic DiNapoli, vice chairman of FTI Consulting, will serve as chief restructuring officer. Kodak expects to complete its U.S.-based restructuring during 2013.
Associated Press
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HBO says no political agenda behind Palin film (AP)
PASADENA, Calif. ? In a politically polarized country, the people behind HBO’s upcoming movie on Sarah Palin’s vice presidential campaign are being careful not to take one side or the other.
“There is no agenda here,” Danny Strong, writer of the film “Game Change,” said at a news conference Friday. Filmmakers said they sought historical accuracy.
The movie debuts March 10. It is based on John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s book about the 2008 presidential campaign, but focuses specifically on Palin. Director Jay Roach said he wrote a long letter to the former Alaska governor seeking an interview with her to help the film, “but I got a very quick email back from her attorney saying, `I checked, she declined.’”
Roach and Strong were the team behind HBO’s Emmy-winning “Recount” about the disputed 2000 presidential election.
“I don’t think this movie is going to change people’s minds one way or another,” Strong said. “People are very polarized. It’s not designed to change people’s minds.”
Actress Julianne Moore looks strikingly like Palin in her depiction. Asked what she thought of Palin after getting so close to the story, Moore said she had “profound respect” for the historical nature of the candidacy.
“There was a tremendous amount of pressure,” Moore said. “That was what I was trying to capture, the pressure that she was under.”
Actor Ed Harris portrays John McCain. Although the resemblance to his character isn’t quite as sharp as Moore’s, it’s pretty close.
One unusual casting was Woody Harrelson, who plays McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. The film’s story is largely seen through Schmidt’s eyes. Harrelson, who describes himself politically as “probably more an anarchist,” said he met Schmidt and liked him.
“The concept of playing this guy who I think ideologically couldn’t be any farther away from me felt like a real challenge,” he said.
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89% The Trip
All Critics (79) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (70) | Rotten (9)
Much more than an appetizer, if not quite a main course, it definitely goes down a treat.
Think The Odd Couple with sartorial style and more bickering. Add hints of truisms about middle age, sex, family, mortality and the limits of friendship and The Trip reveals itself to be more than it initially appears.
The joy of this small, unimportant contest is weirdly addictive; you come out of the film as if from a concert, playing the music of false voices in your head.
The film is a wickedly funny joy ride that offers keen, unflatteringly honest insights on fame, midlife crises and the rivalrous nature of male friendship.
It’s rife with observations about men of a certain age, actors of a certain career — and for a bonus, restaurants of a certain moment.
Have you ever been trapped in the back seat of a car while the old married couple up front bickers and banters for hours? It’s either sheer torture or, if the couple happens to be Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, wildly entertaining.
If the idea of going on a minibreak with Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom sounds like your cup of crazy, then run, don’t walk, to see The Trip.
So, this is new: a frequently hilarious comedy that is also totally satisfying on an emotional level. A satire of fame that is never mean-spirited, and isn’t filled with obnoxious jokes aimed only at insiders.
Fuelled by some inspired and very funny improvisations – their duelling Michael Caine impersonations are a scream – the film gradually settles into a meditation on mid-life malaise.
Rejoice, Coogan and Brydon fans.
The Trip is light and easy to watch. It won’t blow you away but you’re likely to leave the theatre in a better mood than when you arrived.
…the feature is almost entirely improvised, yet displays some of the sharpest, funniest dialogue in recent memory.
Director Winterbottom has worked with these two before, in the quirky and underappreciated Tristram Shandy for one, and nurtures verisimilitude in the narcissistic and neurotic persona Coogan displayed in that movie and others.
The pinch of pathos in this tart comedy makes the “The Trip” a transportive experience.
Your enjoyment of the film rests entirely on enjoying the company of Coogan and Brydon. I find the duo extremely talented and funny, and many sequences in the film are very, very, funny indeed.
The Trip boasts a pervasively agreeable atmosphere that proves instrumental in compensating for its flaws.
Though the film is genuinely blessed by the inspired improvised banter of its stars, it is the melancholy air of the movie’s quieter moments that really get you in.
The Trip is a very funny film about friendship that has a surprisingly touching twist in its tail.
If the narrative is just a touch out of puff by the end, it’s worth it for such subtly hilarious scenes along the way. With The Trip it really is the journey that matters, not the destination.
While this offers up the odd laugh, the continual banter grows tedious and wearying, and the whole affair seems pointless.
The Trip works surprisingly well on the big screen as one continuous tale. That’s down to its two leading men, who clearly relish sharing screen time with one another.
Starting on Monday, Coogan and Bryden share meals . . . and what passes for conversation. When they’re not insufferable, they’re boring
If you’re up for a chatty riff, this is an entertaining one.
More Critic Reviews
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_trip_2011/
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