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Film and the Arts
Director Joe Johnston's "Captain America: The First Avenger"
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Thursday, 21 July 2011 17:09
- Written by Frank Lovece
In 1991, director Joe Johnston helmed one of the first comic-book movies outside the Batman 
and Superman franchises: An adaptation of Dave Stevens' indie comic The Rocketeer. That underrated gem, set in a winds-of-war 1930s, featured a young stunt pilot who strapped on a Howard Hughes experimental jet pack to fight Nazi saboteurs and provocateurs.
Though the film wasn't a commercial success, you couldn't argue that Johnston -- whose credits included being an Academy Award-winning visual-effects art director for the three original Star Wars and the first two Indiana Jones pictures -- wasn't the right guy to bring that pulp-adventure aesthetic to life.
The Texas-born Johnston, who'd already directed the hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), would go on to another family-friendly blockbuster, Jumanji (1995), as well as the critically acclaimed October Sky (1999), based on the memoirs of a 1950s coal-town teenager inspired by Sputnik to build his own model rockets, eventually winning science fairs that got him out of the sticks and into NASA.
Jurassic Park III (2001) followed, as did the less-than-successful Hidalgo (2004) and The Wolfman (2010).
Author Tatiana de Rosnay Turns "Sarah's Key"
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Saturday, 16 July 2011 18:18
- Written by Laura Blum
Today's July 16, nearly 60 years to the day when occupied France corralled more than 13,000 Parisian Jews for mass arrest and deportation. Originally, July 14 was notched as the date, until the planners realized -- zut! -- that was Bastille Day.
The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of 1942 spooks Tatiana de Rosnay's novel Sarah's Key (French: Elle s'appelait Sarah).
Next Friday, July 22, 2011, the movie it's based on opens in the U.S., where book clubs throughout the land are as stoked as Harry Potter fans for their big book-to-screen fix.
"You'll have snot running down your nose and shirt!" raved a fan of the novel in anticipation of the film. Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, this Weinstein Company release should generate strong word of mouth and braggable box office.
If you're among the slouches who let the book's 120 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list go by without so much as cracking the spine, here's the story in a nutshell:
In present-day Paris, American journalist Julia Jarmond (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) is researching the roundup; and in wartime Paris, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) tries to protect her family from that unspeakable fate. Haunting the two sagas is young Sarah's hope of freeing her little brother, whom she hid in a cupboard to save his life.
Mighty Movie Podcast: Oliver Schmitz on Life, Above All
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Saturday, 16 July 2011 00:24
- Written by Daniel Persons
Maybe you're gonna weep at the tale of a child paying a steep price for a community's silence. Maybe you're gonna take heart at the thought that one voice, breaking through that silence, can rescue not just the child, but all those around her, even the ones insisting on that fearful hush. Either way, Life, Above All -- the new film by director Oliver Schmitz, based on the young adult novel Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton -- is a beautifully powerful exploration of a still-troubling problem of the third world. Shooting on location in the South African township of Elandsdoorn using mostly hand-held cameras, Schmitz tells the tale of a young girl, Chanda (Khomotso Manyaka), coping with the death of her newly-born sister and the incapacitation of her mother, a task made all the more daunting in a town where the word AIDS dare not be uttered. With spare elegance and impressive performances from a largely first-time, juvenile cast, Schmitz explores how fear and superstition can destroy the lives of those whose lives have barely begun. The message is important, and the impact indelible.
Click on the player to hear my interview with Schmitz.
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Cinema Master John Carpenter Returns To Form With "The Ward"
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 14:12
- Written by Brad Balfour
When word had it that veteran director John Carpenter, one of the greats of horror and 
sci-fi filmmaking, was returning to feature films with the release of his latest, The Ward, I jumped at the chance to talk with him.
Made in 2009, the sneaky shocker premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010 but hadn't really settled into my fear monitor until now, as it finally gets a theatrical release.
For more than three decades, Carpenter made a career out of redefining what is scary through such signature films as Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and Prince of Darkness (1987). He added to his rich catalog later on by revising classic sub-genres of horror with the Lovecraftian In The Mouth of Madness (1994) and Vampires (1998).
