Search results for: Gus Van Sant

So how does Yojiro Takita's Departures (Okuribito) beat out heavy favorites Israel's Waltz With Bashir and France's The Class? Smart pick ups and adequate marketing plans just don't cut it when it comes to promoting titles for Oscar campaigns and Sony Pictures Classics seemed to have botched, undersold both titles the moment the final five titles were announced.

Werc Werk Works are backing some “out there” filmmakers in Todd Solondz (Forgiveness) and Bela Tarr's rumoured last feature film (The Turin Horse), and now they are backing an “out there” project in Rob Esptein (The Times of Harvey Milk) and Jeffrey Friedman’s Howl.

I’m not sure what to make of this – but this year Top 20 batch of film’s have death as a focal point in the plot or use bereavement thematically: death of a dream, death of a soul, death out of defiance and death of a culture, society and way of life. I don’t really have a fascination with death, but I’ve noticed that my own mortality and the eventual passing of my loved ones seem to have embedded itself in some aspects of my daily routine.

Slumdog Millionaire continues it domination of year-end kudos locking up Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Assn. Top Film and Top Director awards. Among the more noteworthy selections is Anne Hathaway’s win for Rachel Getting Married which bets out some stiff competition and the most successful picture with subtitles this year picked up the best Foreign Language film of the year. Tell No One had a miracle run at the box office and made over six million and some change in a crazy theatrical run.

Essentially, the Annual Satellite Award nominations (now in their 13th year) is some crazy round up that resembles what the Golden Globes usually looks like, and with the extra categories it comes as no surprise that we find a horrible picture like Baz Luhrmann's Australia leading the nominations (thankfully it covers the tech categories and not the main) with Van Sant's Milk and Boyle's Slumdog leading the main caegories.