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By Gore Vidal $18.00
by John W. Dean
$17
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 Warner Bros.
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By Richard Schickel — It’s understandable that the book has been a constant temptation to moviemakers. It’s also understandable that it has never been turned into a fully successful film.
Posted on Jun 11, 2013
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 YouTube
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There’s a big, built-in problem with the Motion Picture Association of America’s contested decision to slap “Bully,” a documentary about kids battering kids, with an R rating, and it’s a problem of which powerhouse producer Harvey Weinstein and a growing lineup of Hollywood stars are well aware.
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 IMDb
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By Mark O'Connell — Why does Adam Sandler’s shtick fail to elicit laughter—or anything but a furrowed brow—and what might be the significance of his profound unfunniness for broader issues of gender and media?
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Say what you will about Sacha Baron Cohen’s ribald and untoward brand of comedy, but he has at least one thing going for him in his latest big-screen venture, “The Dictator”: good timing. Speaking of which, here’s a glimpse of what Super Bowl ad-watchers will see from Baron Cohen’s camp this Sunday.
Posted on Feb 3, 2012
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 YouTube
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Perhaps the filmmakers behind the new Margaret Thatcher biopic “The Iron Lady,” with big-screen queen Meryl Streep playing the titular part, can at least be assured that their characterization of Great Britain’s first female prime minister didn’t overly pander to its famous subject, in that some of her friends ... (more)
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 Facebook/IdesOfMarchMovie
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By Richard Schickel — George Clooney is the nominal star (and director) of “The Ides of March,” a not particularly thrilling, but sort of agreeable, political thriller, in which he is largely AWOL.
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 AP / Evan Agostini
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Screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman made his name in lights with his Academy Award-winning script for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” but six more years in showbiz have apparently dimmed his Oscar afterglow, given the details on his latest project that The Wrap served up.
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 First Generation Films via IMDb
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By Richard Schickel — In the summer, when we are always in the mood for fun and frolic, “The Whistleblower” is an easy movie to ignore. But we should not.
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 imdb.com
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By Richard Schickel — “City of Life and Death,” by the Chinese writer-director Lu Chuan, is the second film about Nanking, and it is a work that aspires to the definitive and almost achieves that status.
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 YouTube
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Master of cinema bizarrité David Lynch is giving the Parisian nightlife a shot of his distinctive brand of surrealism by directing part of the production of a new nightclub, Silencio, based on his 2001 film “Mulholland Drive.”
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 The Last Mountain / Vivian Stockman
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. beamed from the big screen this weekend, featured prominently in documentary filmmaker Bill Haney’s latest film, “The Last Mountain,” which opened Friday to positive reviews in New York and Washington, D.C.
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 U.S. Dept. of Justice
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Looks like Attorney General Eric Holder is a big fan of HBO’s “The Wire”—so much so, in fact, that he has strongly suggested that the crime drama’s writers work on another season of the retired series or perhaps a made-for-cable movie.
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 imdb.com
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By Robert Scheer — It is not true, as a Wall Street Journal reviewer claimed, that the HBO movie version of Andrew Sorkin’s book “Too Big to Fail” was “Too Boring to Watch.” On the contrary, the problem with the film, as with the richly anecdotal book, is that it is all too effectively misleading.
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.jpg) SealTeam6.net
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The entertainment giant, apparently preparing to launch a new franchise, filed trademark applications for the name SEAL Team 6 two days after the elite military unit stormed Osama bin Laden’s home in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (more)
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 Wikimedia Commons / Nate Mandos (CC-BY-SA)
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We’ve seen several cases by now of entertainers crossing over into the political realm, but few treat that career-swapping switch like a revolving door. First of all, it’s unwise, and second, it’s not easily done—unless, apparently, you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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 imdb.com
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By Richard Schickel — Despite landing the Oscar for best foreign film, not to mention some good acting, “In a Better World” aims for the heart—and misses.
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 Flickr / CLF(CC-BY)
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Soon, Americans won’t be able to hide from the sometimes dismaying nutritional readouts on menus at their favorite chain restaurants—and even on some vending machines—but they still can in the soothing, darkened space of their local movie theater.
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 Lakeshore Entertainment Group LLC and Lionsgate Films Inc. / Saeed Adyani
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By Richard Schickel — Fine work by the actors, the writer and the filmmakers makes a noirish spin in L.A. feel like a drive back to the day when audiences considered such good movies a birthright.
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 Flickr/pheaber (CC-BY-SA)
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What America really needs is another film festival, especially one sponsored by Whole Paycheck Foods, right? The health food superstore is bringing to theaters across the country a series of films about, you know, the planet and eating right and stuff ...
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 Wikimedia Commons / nicolas genin (CC-BY-SA)
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Tina Fey might have been too busy (or too obvious), but luckily for HBO, the lovely and talented Julianne Moore has agreed to play the world’s most famous Wasillan, Sarah Palin, in HBO’s upcoming movie based on the book “Game Change.”
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By Richard Schickel — I don’t know when the practice began or who had the initial brainstorm, but it is now written in fiery letters that at the end of every year that movie reviewers must set aside the really fun stuff and spend a day or two tripping down short-term memory lane to concoct a list of the year’s 10 best movies.
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 imdb.com
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By Richard Schickel — As its title forthrightly states, writer-director Mike Leigh’s “Another Year” simply records the spring-to-spring passage of the annual round of days in these very ordinary lives. I think, for reasons difficult to explain, that it is a near-to-great film.
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 Illustration by Jennifer Grey
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The path out of the proverbial closet is still riddled with potential career pitfalls for gay actors, according to veteran screen star Richard Chamberlain, who himself came out in 2003 but, as he tells The Advocate, wouldn’t recommend that closeted actors angling for leading roles follow his example.
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 imdb.com
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By Richard Schickel — It’s not quite “Ozzie and Harriet with Security Clearances,” but there is something inescapably unedifying in watching the Wilsons bicker their way through the clichés of marital disaffection in a case that—let’s face it—was of small import in the context of the much larger crimes perpetrated by a pusillanimous power elite.
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 bbc.co.uk
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As executives from Warner Bros. visited New Zealand to deliberate about whether to film the studio’s pair of planned “Hobbit” prequels there, people from around the country joined in demonstrations in an attempt to tip the balance in their favor.
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 waitingforsuperman.com/gallery
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By Marcia Alesan Dawkins — This depiction of our nation’s teachers is typical of those who promote a particular reform agenda calling for charter schools, anti-unionism and merit pay based on high-stakes test scores. While it’s fine to promote this agenda, it’s also ethical to provide a balanced critique.
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 youtube.com
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Using the same terminology one might employ to describe the plot of “The Lord of the Rings,” President Obama has agreed that the country’s economic recovery has been “painfully slow” and has indicated he understands the vitriol aimed toward Democrats as the 2010 midterm elections approach.
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 imdb.com
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Historically, the notion of cross-promotion in the film world has frequently involved plastic products optimized for Happy Meals—collect ’em all! But with changing times and audiences come all new ways to part moviegoers with their pocket money.
Posted on Aug 17, 2010
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 Flickr / awynhaus
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McDonald’s is recalling 12 million “Shrek”-themed drinking glasses after it was found that the painted designs on the vessels contained toxic, but quite delicious-sounding, cadmium.
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 Wikimedia Commons
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India is about to enter taboo test mode as it prepares for the release of “Dunno Y ... Na Jaane Kyun,” a film many are calling India’s “Brokeback Mountain.” It’s hoped that the film’s depiction of a gay relationship between two men will help break down social anxieties toward homosexuality.
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 youtube.com
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Maybe Dubai is onto something. Sarah Jessica Parker had hoped to give “Sex and the City 2” a different kind of cosmopolitan twist by setting the girlie gabfest in the Middle Eastern metropolis, but despite months of concerted effort the Arab emirate wasn’t, as they say, having it.
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 pleaserobme.com
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A Dutch developer has created a website called Please Rob Me that takes Twitter data and compiles a list of people who say they are away from home and at a restaurant or movie—with geocoded information and the likelihood of an empty house being broadcast throughout the Internet.
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 Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
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DreamWorks Studios is moving forward with its planned Martin Luther King Jr. feature film after the project suffered a setback last year because of a dispute between members of the late civil rights leader’s family. On Tuesday, the studio announced that it had hired screenwriter Ron Harwood, who penned the Oscar-winning script for “The Pianist,” to write the screenplay for the MLK movie.
Posted on Jan 19, 2010
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 Flickr / Rennet Stowe
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Let’s get something straight, America. Charles Darwin was right. Only 39 percent of you believe that, but his theory of evolution is the basis of modern biological science. Deal with it. A new film about the man can’t get distribution in the U.S. because—this is embarrassing just to type—150 years after “On the Origin of Species,” he’s too controversial in these parts.
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Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest cultural satire is upon us—and the host of the “Tonight Show.” Conan O’Brien does his best, but all the lap-dancing and Kugel-staring is just too much for him to bear. [Update: Video fixed]
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 Flickr / AtomicPope
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By Chris Hedges — I visited the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles a few days ago. It is advertised as “the final resting place to more of Hollywood’s founders and stars than anywhere else on Earth.” We all have gods, Martin Luther said, it is just a question of which ones. And in American society, our gods are often celebrities.
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 myspace.com / presidentiscoming
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“The President Is Coming,” an Indian mockumentary opening this weekend in the subcontinent, tells the story of six contestants fighting for “the greatest prize”—a chance to shake the hand of George W. Bush. Needless to say, it’s a comedy.
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Frank Langella as Nixon in the new Ron Howard movie does his best, but no one did Nixon like Nixon.
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 filminfocus.com
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By Sheerly Avni — Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is a movie to be thankful for. Go see it, tonight if you can, and in a crowded theater. Then open up some merlot and watch the documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk,” by Robert Epstein—because these two films belong together.
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 AP photo / Phil Bray
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By Larry Gross — Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” is the first major Hollywood “gay themed” film since “Brokeback Mountain,” and moreover (unlike “Brokeback”), this one is about openly gay activists, not tortured closet cases. Yet, once again, the lead gay roles couldn’t be filled by openly gay actors. What’s going on here?
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 Flickr/dcJohn
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Just after Barack Obama was elected president, The Washington Post published the affecting story of former White House butler Eugene Allen—and Hollywood was definitely paying attention.
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 independent.co.uk
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By Robert Fisk — Incredibly, as Afghanistan sinks back into the anarchy which became its natural state these past 29 years, Afghan film-makers are producing movies of international quality, turning out pictures which prove—even amid war—that a country’s tragedy can be imaginatively recreated for its people.
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 lasvegasvegas.com
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What would Gordon Gekko, the ruthless corporate raider from Oliver Stone’s 1987 classic cautionary tale “Wall Street,” have to say about the current state of the American economy? Well, we just might find out.
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Thespian and concerned citizen Matt Damon would like some answers about this Sarah Palin person we keep hearing about whose unlikely career arc might just catapult the bouffant-wearing hockey mom from the snowy wilds of Wasilla, Alaska, into an international staring match with tiger-slaying Russian judo master Vladimir Putin.
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Just in time to remind some Americans that the fight for gay rights is about much more than driving Wedge IssuesTM between political parties every election year, Sean Penn and what looks to be a promising lineup of co-stars are bringing the story of San Francisco city councilman and gay activist Harvey Milk to movie screens this fall.
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Maybe this isn’t precisely how George W. Bush played his cards the first time he met his wife, Laura, or maybe it is, but it’s how director Oliver Stone has recreated the mating dance of the would-be president and his future bride in this scene from Stone’s upcoming film, “W.”
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By David Sirota — Millions of Americans will flock to movie theaters in the coming months to escape their troubles, but they’d be better off renting one of these five classic political films.
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The first teaser for Oliver Stone’s new biopic has landed. The clip features George W. Bush as a young, drunk screw-up who goes from fighting with Dad and crashing a car to stretching out in the Oval Office. Video fixed.
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 wbcn.com
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Right, so it was clear that things were going to change a bit at The Wall Street Journal when it became a part of the Murdochian Empire, but this is a little much: In this somewhat startling essay, Andrew Klavan sees a “W” where others see Batman’s bat symbol in “The Dark Knight” and believes the film is a “paean of praise” to President Bush.
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 AP photo / William Fernando Martinez
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Well, that didn’t take long: Just a week after former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages were rescued from their FARC captors by Colombian forces, plans are in the works to make a movie version of the story, with Simon Brand on board to direct the drama.
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