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IndieWIRE Critics: Summer Hours Best of 2009, Mulholland Dr. Best of Decade
Olivier Assayas' The Summer Hours beat The Hurt Locker and A Serious Man by a nose as the Best Picture of the Year, and a film that took me a couple of tries to acknowledge it as genius in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive was claimed tops of the 00's over my favorite of the decade, WKW's In the Mood for Love.
Habib Azar’s Top Ten Films of All Time
Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of filmmakers? As part of our monthly IONCINEPHILE profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of all time favorite films. This month we bent the rules a little, our profiled filmmaker Habib Azar explains why below, and keep in mind in less than a month, he'll be presenting his debut film, Armless at Sundance. He gave us his top seven (*) as of December 2009.
Lorber’s 2010 Campaign Begins with Videocracy
Many would say that "what comes around goes around" certainly applies if you happen to be Silvio Berlusconi. As of late, the power hungry, media mogul and prime minister (he has returned to the same seat in three separate occasions) is having his private life go public, received a bloody nose, and chipped teeth last week and hasn't been fortunate on the film fest circuit either. In February we'll get a full exposé on how Berlusconi has "added" to Italian culture with Lorber Films picking up the rights to Erik Gandini’s doc Videocracy - a film that was among the favorites from film critics who attended TIFF and Venice.
Sundance 2010: The Romantics, The Kids are Alright & It’s a Wonderful Afterlife Added to Line-Up
As I mentioned before, Sundance is a place where female filmmakers get to shine, and the festival has just announced that a trio in Gurinder Chadha, Galt Niederhoffer and Lisa Cholodenko (which I had placed high in my predictions for the upcoming edition) will be added to the line-up in the Premieres section. Honestly I'm surprised to see The Romantics get a slot, because I could have sworn I just looked at some pics from the set -- it'll be a made dash in the editing room for sure for the first time filmmaker and vet Plum Pictures producer.
Magnet Fights for ‘Survival’
Despite it playing at major fall showcases such as TIFF and Venice, it appears that Magnet Releasing did the zombie walk to obtain the U.S. rights to George Romero’s latest film. Romero’s Survival of the Dead is your standard, low grade, zombie film fare from the current grandfather in the genre, dare I say Magnet is picking up the brand and not, the actual title. The pic will be release in the Spring - obviously debuting on VOD before making what should be a quick theatrical run
