Exclusive: Ron Bass, the scribe best known for his Academy Award-winning work on Rain Man, has been set to write and produce Music on the Bones, a new film inspired by real events.
Set in 1968. a moment in time when rock n’ roll was banned in the Ussr, the story follows young Russian doctor Max as he and his friends covertly duplicate and distribute music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and more on repurposed X-Ray film. Against a backdrop of constant surveillance, persecution, and risk of imprisonment, they listen to the forbidden music of the free world, which holds the promise of another life.
Enter Valerie, an American film student disillusioned with her country, who is invited to Moscow by the Ministry of Culture under the watchful eye of the Kbg, to make a propaganda film promoting the virtues of Communism. After a meeting with Max and his companions,...
Set in 1968. a moment in time when rock n’ roll was banned in the Ussr, the story follows young Russian doctor Max as he and his friends covertly duplicate and distribute music by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and more on repurposed X-Ray film. Against a backdrop of constant surveillance, persecution, and risk of imprisonment, they listen to the forbidden music of the free world, which holds the promise of another life.
Enter Valerie, an American film student disillusioned with her country, who is invited to Moscow by the Ministry of Culture under the watchful eye of the Kbg, to make a propaganda film promoting the virtues of Communism. After a meeting with Max and his companions,...
- 10/31/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Sony Pictures International Productions has acquired global rights to the award-winning comedy Americanish, marking the feature directorial debut of Iman Zawahry. Specifics as to plans for the pic’s distribution have not yet been disclosed.
Written by Aizzah Fatima and Zawahry, Americanish follows sisters Sam (Aizzah Fatima) and Maryam Khan (Salena Qureshi), and their cousin Ameera (Shenaz Treasury), as they navigate love, careers and familial pressures in Jackson Heights, Queens.
Zawahry’s first feature won the Audience Award in its 2021 world premiere at San Francisco’s CAAMFest before going on to win a total of 25 awards at festivals around the world. Pic’s cast also includes Mo‘s Mo Amer, as well as Lillette Dubey (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Kapil Talwalkar (Charmed), Ajay Naidu (The Good Nurse), Godfrey (South Side), George Wendt (Christmas with the Campbells), David Rasche (Succession), Natasha Chandel (Seal Team), Purva Bedi (One Of Us Is Lying...
Written by Aizzah Fatima and Zawahry, Americanish follows sisters Sam (Aizzah Fatima) and Maryam Khan (Salena Qureshi), and their cousin Ameera (Shenaz Treasury), as they navigate love, careers and familial pressures in Jackson Heights, Queens.
Zawahry’s first feature won the Audience Award in its 2021 world premiere at San Francisco’s CAAMFest before going on to win a total of 25 awards at festivals around the world. Pic’s cast also includes Mo‘s Mo Amer, as well as Lillette Dubey (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Kapil Talwalkar (Charmed), Ajay Naidu (The Good Nurse), Godfrey (South Side), George Wendt (Christmas with the Campbells), David Rasche (Succession), Natasha Chandel (Seal Team), Purva Bedi (One Of Us Is Lying...
- 1/11/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Shudder has locked down rights to the critically acclaimed feature Mad God, directed by two-time Academy Award-winning artist, animator and filmmaker Phil Tippett. The experimental animated project 30 years in the making will hit limited theaters and debut on AMC Network’s premium service for genre fare on June 16.
In Mad God, a corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city, with an Assassin emerging from it to explore a labyrinth of bizarre landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens. The inspiration for the film came to Tippett, whose VFX work can be seen in such legendary films as Star Wars, RoboCop and Starship Troopers, during a lull in his schedule following RoboCop 2.
After sketching and designing a few creatures and sets, he and his stage and stop-motion team at Tippett Studio shot the film’s first few scenes, then suspending work on the project to focus on creating the groundbreaking effects for Jurassic Park.
In Mad God, a corroded diving bell descends amidst a ruined city, with an Assassin emerging from it to explore a labyrinth of bizarre landscapes inhabited by freakish denizens. The inspiration for the film came to Tippett, whose VFX work can be seen in such legendary films as Star Wars, RoboCop and Starship Troopers, during a lull in his schedule following RoboCop 2.
After sketching and designing a few creatures and sets, he and his stage and stop-motion team at Tippett Studio shot the film’s first few scenes, then suspending work on the project to focus on creating the groundbreaking effects for Jurassic Park.
- 3/30/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
The Indiedoco campaign to save the single documentary has been supported by every major documentary organisation.
Launched at the Australian Directors Guild conference, the campaign calls on the ABC and Sbs to follow the example of BBC2 by reinstating a single documentary strand. It urges Screen Australia to remove the requirement for a broadcaster pre-sale for the National Documentary Program and to set up a new panel to select projects for Ndp funding based on creative, cultural and artistic criteria.
The organisers also want Screen Australia to revive a slate development program for documentary filmmakers similar to the Australian Film Commission.s General Development Investment Program; a substantial boost to Screen Australia's Signature Fund; and for the agency to change the definition of 'bona fide release' for feature documentaries to enable more feature docs to qualify for the 40% producer offset.
Indiedoco reps are arranging meetings with commissioning editors at the...
Launched at the Australian Directors Guild conference, the campaign calls on the ABC and Sbs to follow the example of BBC2 by reinstating a single documentary strand. It urges Screen Australia to remove the requirement for a broadcaster pre-sale for the National Documentary Program and to set up a new panel to select projects for Ndp funding based on creative, cultural and artistic criteria.
The organisers also want Screen Australia to revive a slate development program for documentary filmmakers similar to the Australian Film Commission.s General Development Investment Program; a substantial boost to Screen Australia's Signature Fund; and for the agency to change the definition of 'bona fide release' for feature documentaries to enable more feature docs to qualify for the 40% producer offset.
Indiedoco reps are arranging meetings with commissioning editors at the...
- 12/1/2013
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
HBO goes back in time with Hemingway & Gellhorn, about the lives of writer Ernest Hemingway and journalist Martha Gellhorn. Director Philip Kaufman revealed to The Hollywood Reporter how he got involved with the project starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman. "Somebody presented me with a very long screenplay [by] Barbara Turner [and Jerry Stahl], which I came to think had some potential," Kaufman says. "We spent about eight years, producer Peter Kaufman and I, trying to develop this project eventually." As time went on, Kaufman became enthralled by Hemingway and Gellhorn, who were married from 1940-45. Photos:
read more...
read more...
- 5/29/2012
- by Philiana Ng
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Robert Duvall has been cast in Hemingway & Gellhorn, joining Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman in the HBO Films release. Duvall will apparently have a small role in the film as a Russian general. Also in the cast of the pic which has begun filming in San Francisco, are David Strathairn, Molly Parker, Rodrigo Santoro, Parker Posey, Lars Ulrich, Santiago Cabrera, Saverio Guerra, Peter Coyote, Diane Baker and Tony Shalhoub. James Gandolfini is serving as an executive producer for Hemingway & Gelhorn which follows Ernest Hemingway's volatile relationship with Martha Gellhorn, a rising war correspondent., during as well as after the Spanish Civil War. Peter Kaufman directs from the writing by Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner. Also executive producing are Alexandra Ryan, Trish Hofmann, Turner and Kaufman.
- 3/14/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Welcome to your Wednesday morning television briefing. Vulture's Josef Adalian is reporting that Kevin Spacey is in attached to star in Rod Lurie's drama pilot The Crux, about a charismatic cult leader, which is currently being pitched to various networks. (Should the project go forward, Spacey would executive produce with Lurie, Dana Brunetti, and Marc Frydman.) While Adalian reports that talks have begun between Spacey's camp and Showtime (as well as possibly HBO), Deadline's Nellie Adreeva adds that the project is currently being pitched to Showtime, HBO, FX, and Starz, with all four said to be in the running to land the much buzzed project from Lurie (Commander In Chief), who will write the script. Timing, however, may be a key factor. "One stumbling block could be Spacey's schedule," writes Adalian. "In addition to various film roles, a big chunk of Spacey's day planner is filled fulfilling (and...
- 6/16/2010
- by Jace
- Televisionary
Hollywood screenwriter Rose Kaufman has died at the age of 70.
Kaufman, wife of director Philip Kaufman and mother of producer Peter Kaufman, passed away at her San Francisco, California home on Monday following a four-year battle with cancer.
Kaufman began her career in the 1970s, teaming up with her husband to write the screenplay for 1979 's The Wanderers. The husband and wife team went on to write the screenplay for 1990 movie Henry & June, starring Uma Thurman and Kevin Spacey, which was the first film in the U.S. to be given an Nc-17 rating, because of the scenes of sex and violence.
The writer also dabbled in acting with cameo appearances in a string of her husband's films including 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
She is survived by her husband and son, as well as two grandchildren.
Kaufman, wife of director Philip Kaufman and mother of producer Peter Kaufman, passed away at her San Francisco, California home on Monday following a four-year battle with cancer.
Kaufman began her career in the 1970s, teaming up with her husband to write the screenplay for 1979 's The Wanderers. The husband and wife team went on to write the screenplay for 1990 movie Henry & June, starring Uma Thurman and Kevin Spacey, which was the first film in the U.S. to be given an Nc-17 rating, because of the scenes of sex and violence.
The writer also dabbled in acting with cameo appearances in a string of her husband's films including 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
She is survived by her husband and son, as well as two grandchildren.
- 12/11/2009
- WENN
CANNES -- David Strathairn is set to star in Challenger, a drama about Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman's investigation into the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger that Philip Kaufman will direct from a screenplay by Nicole Perlman. Media 8 Entertainment Inc. will co-produce, finance and distribute the feature in association with Code Entertainment and Carol Baum Prods. Carol Baum, Rick Berg and Peter Kaufman will serve as producers. Media 8 will sell international rights to the film at the Cannes Film Market. With the project, Kaufman returns to the subject of the U.S. space program, which he explored in 1983's The Right Stuff, which won four Academy Awards.
- 5/17/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Opens
Friday, Feb. 27
Combining the ludicrous with the lurid, "Twisted" is twisted all right. Characters get distorted and motivations warped in this police thriller in order to keep bodies piling up and clues pointing in all directions. This movie also marks one of the strangest portrayals of a police department ever in a Hollywood movie. The San Francisco P.D. here is populated with short-tempered, predatory psychos and drunks on the prowl for constant fights or sexual gratification, and at least one of them is a serial killer. Even a solid cast of Ashley Judd as a police detective who sleeps around, Samuel L. Jackson as the police commissioner with a personal stake in her career and Andy Garcia as her enigmatic partner can't bring credibility to the nonsensical story.
Veteran director Philip Kaufman gets maximum tension from the twists and turns in Sarah Thorp's woeful screenplay, but its sheer silliness ultimately defeats him. The Paramount release will have only a quick look in theaters before moving on to the greener pastures of the ancillary markets.
What's remarkable about Judd's Jessica Shepard is not her promotion to the homicide division by commissioner John Mills (Jackson), but her being on the force at all. She drinks herself into a nightly stupor, punches out fellow cops as quickly as she does perps in handcuffs and suffers psychological torment from the murder-suicide of her mother and dad years before. She also displays little moral sense as she will pick up the first man she meets in a bar for casual sex.
However, Jessica is less a character than a walking provocation for a series of crimes. In her very first case as a detective, she is shocked to realize that every butchered body belongs to a former lover. Which explains the need for her multiple sex partners. Her daily drinking leads to blackouts, which explains her inability to account for her whereabouts at the time of each murder. And the trauma of her promiscuous mom and her jealousy crazed dad explains the "bad seeds" of sexual irresponsibility and homicidal rage in her blood.
Mills raised her following the death of her father, his partner, and has shepherded her career with the SFPD. Her new partner, Mike (Garcia), immediately falls for her, but the other detectives develop an instant dislike, presumably preferring to keep the homicide division all male. Meanwhile, in a series of awkwardly written and staged scenes, police shrink Dr. Frank David Strathairn) struggles to get to the bottom of her mental disarray.
Thanks to Jessica's intimate connection to each victim, she is suspect No. 1. The viewer, on the other hand, scrutinizes the behavior and body language of all the male cops around Jessica to determine which one is following her and beating to death her sex partners once they leave her sweaty embrace. With logic on holiday and the filmmakers feeling the need for a new twist every few minutes, this proves a fruitless exercise. Basically, it's the last guy standing.
The movie at least looks slick. Cinematographer Peter Deming plays with shadows and fog and dark exteriors to make San Francisco nicely eerie. Peter Boyle's editing propels the story along even when the narrative stalls. Mark Isham's score is rich in atmosphere and dread.
TWISTED
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures presents in association with
Intertainment
a Kopelson Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Philip Kaufman
Screenwriter: Sarah Thorp
Producers: Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson, Barry Baeres, Linne Radmin
Executive producers: Stephen Brown, Robyn Meisinger, Michael Flynn
Director of photography: Peter Deming
Production designer: Dennis Washington
Music: Mark Isham
Co-producer: Peter Kaufman, Sherryl Clark
Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Editor: Peter Boyle
Cast:
Jessica Shepard: Ashley Judd
John Mills: Samuel L. Jackson
Mike Delmarco: Andy Garcia
Dr. Frank: David Straithairn
Lt. Tong: Russell Wong
Lisa: Camryn Manheim
Jimmy: Mark Pellegrino
Dale Becker: Titus Welliver
Ray Porter: D.W. Moffett
Running time -- 97 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Friday, Feb. 27
Combining the ludicrous with the lurid, "Twisted" is twisted all right. Characters get distorted and motivations warped in this police thriller in order to keep bodies piling up and clues pointing in all directions. This movie also marks one of the strangest portrayals of a police department ever in a Hollywood movie. The San Francisco P.D. here is populated with short-tempered, predatory psychos and drunks on the prowl for constant fights or sexual gratification, and at least one of them is a serial killer. Even a solid cast of Ashley Judd as a police detective who sleeps around, Samuel L. Jackson as the police commissioner with a personal stake in her career and Andy Garcia as her enigmatic partner can't bring credibility to the nonsensical story.
Veteran director Philip Kaufman gets maximum tension from the twists and turns in Sarah Thorp's woeful screenplay, but its sheer silliness ultimately defeats him. The Paramount release will have only a quick look in theaters before moving on to the greener pastures of the ancillary markets.
What's remarkable about Judd's Jessica Shepard is not her promotion to the homicide division by commissioner John Mills (Jackson), but her being on the force at all. She drinks herself into a nightly stupor, punches out fellow cops as quickly as she does perps in handcuffs and suffers psychological torment from the murder-suicide of her mother and dad years before. She also displays little moral sense as she will pick up the first man she meets in a bar for casual sex.
However, Jessica is less a character than a walking provocation for a series of crimes. In her very first case as a detective, she is shocked to realize that every butchered body belongs to a former lover. Which explains the need for her multiple sex partners. Her daily drinking leads to blackouts, which explains her inability to account for her whereabouts at the time of each murder. And the trauma of her promiscuous mom and her jealousy crazed dad explains the "bad seeds" of sexual irresponsibility and homicidal rage in her blood.
Mills raised her following the death of her father, his partner, and has shepherded her career with the SFPD. Her new partner, Mike (Garcia), immediately falls for her, but the other detectives develop an instant dislike, presumably preferring to keep the homicide division all male. Meanwhile, in a series of awkwardly written and staged scenes, police shrink Dr. Frank David Strathairn) struggles to get to the bottom of her mental disarray.
Thanks to Jessica's intimate connection to each victim, she is suspect No. 1. The viewer, on the other hand, scrutinizes the behavior and body language of all the male cops around Jessica to determine which one is following her and beating to death her sex partners once they leave her sweaty embrace. With logic on holiday and the filmmakers feeling the need for a new twist every few minutes, this proves a fruitless exercise. Basically, it's the last guy standing.
The movie at least looks slick. Cinematographer Peter Deming plays with shadows and fog and dark exteriors to make San Francisco nicely eerie. Peter Boyle's editing propels the story along even when the narrative stalls. Mark Isham's score is rich in atmosphere and dread.
TWISTED
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures presents in association with
Intertainment
a Kopelson Entertainment production
Credits:
Director: Philip Kaufman
Screenwriter: Sarah Thorp
Producers: Arnold Kopelson, Anne Kopelson, Barry Baeres, Linne Radmin
Executive producers: Stephen Brown, Robyn Meisinger, Michael Flynn
Director of photography: Peter Deming
Production designer: Dennis Washington
Music: Mark Isham
Co-producer: Peter Kaufman, Sherryl Clark
Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick
Editor: Peter Boyle
Cast:
Jessica Shepard: Ashley Judd
John Mills: Samuel L. Jackson
Mike Delmarco: Andy Garcia
Dr. Frank: David Straithairn
Lt. Tong: Russell Wong
Lisa: Camryn Manheim
Jimmy: Mark Pellegrino
Dale Becker: Titus Welliver
Ray Porter: D.W. Moffett
Running time -- 97 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
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