Tag Archives: life of pi

Bret Easton Ellis Is The Patrick Bateman Of Film Criticism

If American Psycho ‘s Patrick Bateman were a film critic, he’d be Bret Easton Ellis. When he’s not promoting his film The Canyons    — directed by Paul Schrader and starring Lindsay Lohan — on Twitter, Ellis has been blowing shotgun-sized holes in some of the awards season’s biggest films.  The Less Than Zero author contends that  Zero Dark Thirty  director Kathryn Bigelow is “really overrated,” and Les Misérables   makes him miserable. (According to him, it’s an “incomprehensible mess.” )    Life of Pi   fares better, though Ellis would like to see that film’s young star Suraj Sharma get into porn.  Oh yeah, and he also claims that the Academy “hates” The Dark Knight Rises . Below, a sampling of Ellis’ critical stylings, not necessarily in chronological order: Zero Dark Thirty: Kathryn Bigelow would be considered a mildly interesting filmmaker if she was a man but since she's a very hot woman she's really overrated.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 06, 2012 Kathryn Bigelow: Strange Days, K-19 The Widowmaker, Blue Steel, The Hurt Locker. Are we talking about visionary filmmaking or just OK junk?— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 06, 2012 Silver Linings Playbook: “Zero Dark Thirty” might win critics awards but “Silver Linings Playbook” will win the Best Picture Oscar. This is how it always happens…— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 06, 2012 Les Misérables: The film version of “Les Miserables” is so bad that it made me rethink why I ever loved the stage version. 2 hours and 40 minutes of tacky.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 05, 2012 The one actor surviving the incomprehensible mess “Les Miserables” is Eddie Redmayne, who should get an award for avoiding humiliation…— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 05, 2012 Tom Hooper blows just about every song in “Les Miserables” including “On My Own” which I didn't think possible no matter who directed it…— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 05, 2012 Oh yeah and I forgot: “Les Miserables” opens on Christmas Day and (spoiler alert!) just about everyone in it dies. Merry fucking Christmas.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 05, 2012 Life of Pi: Life of Pi is the movie I've thought about the most in 2012. As a writer I can't reconcile with its disturbing reveal: illusion vs. reality?— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 04, 2012 Suraj Sharma gives an amazing and incredibly moving performance in “Life of Pi” and seriously needs to do some porn. Misspelling: my fault.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 04, 2012 Killing Them Softly Based on the terrific source material “Killing Them Softly” doesn't work at all, but the actor Scoot McNairy is now officially on the radar.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 04, 2012 “Killing Them Softly” starring Brad Pitt is one of only eight films in Cinemascore's history to receive an “F” grade but…”Troy” didn't?!?— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 04, 2012 How the Academy will vote: The Academy is going to go for Silver Linings Playbook and not Lincoln.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 03, 2012 The Academy hates The Dark Knight Rises because I sat in that theater that night and listened to the banter in the lobby afterwards.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 03, 2012 There's not a chance in hell that Ang Lee will win best director. That will be a fight between Ben Affleck and David O. Russell. Haneke? No.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 03, 2012 I’m not sure if Ellis’ most recent tweet is a reaction to reaction to his withering perspective, but, as you might expect, he’s unrepentant: Anyone Unfollowing me should have known better and never Followed me in the first place. Wise up: pussies and snowflakes. Get the F over it.— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) December 06, 2012 Watch your back, Sandy Kenyon. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter. 

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Bret Easton Ellis Is The Patrick Bateman Of Film Criticism

Life of Pi & On the Road Among AFI Fest Galas

AFI Fest is fast approaching and the event unveiled Centerpiece Gala and Special Screenings details with Ang Lee ‘s Life of Pi (3-D) and Walter Salles ‘ On the Road on tap for their West Coast debuts. Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the Guardians and Jacques Audiard ‘s Rust and Bone will also debut. Bone star Marion Cotillard will receive a tribute during the festival, taking place November 1 – 8. All galas will take place at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. A number of Toronto premieres will be presented as Special Screenings at AFI Fest. Eight titles including The Central Park Five , Ginger and Rosa , Holy Motors , The Impossible , Quartet , Room 237 , TIFF winner Silver Linings Playbook and West of Memphis will screen in the section. As previously announced, the World Premiere of Sacha Gervasi’s Hitchcock will open AFI Fest, while Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln will close out the event. For the fourth year, AFI Fest will off free tickets for all of its screenings (though packages are available to ensure reserved seats for Galas). AFI Fest 2012 Galas with descriptions provided by the event: Opening Night Gala: Hitchcock : The love story between the iconic filmmaker and his wife, Alma Reville, during the filming of PSYCHO in 1959. DIR Sacha Gervasi. SCR John J. McLaughlin. CAST Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Jessica Biel, Michael Stuhlbarg, James D’Arcy, Michael Wincott, Richard Portnow, Kurtwood Smith. USA. World Premiere.
Thursday, November 1, 7:00 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Centerpiece Galas: Life of Pi in 3D: Director Ang Lee ( Brokeback Mountain , Couching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ) creates a groundbreaking movie event about a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with another survivor – a fearsome Bengal tiger. DIR Ang Lee. SCR David Magee. CAST Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Rafe Spall, Gérard Depardieu. USA.
Friday, November 2, 7:30 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. On the Road : Jack Kerouac’s seminal pseudo-autobiography arrives on the big screen at the intersection of fact and fiction. DIR Walter Salles. SCR Jose Rivera, Jack Kerouac. CAST Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge, Danny Morgan, Alice Bragga, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortenson. France/UK/USA/Brazil.
Saturday, November 3, 8:00 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Rise of the Guardians in 3D: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman and Jack Frost are The Guardians – legendary characters with previously unknown extraordinary abilities charged with protecting children everywhere from an evil spirit’s attempt to take over the world. DIR Peter Ramsey. SCR David Lindsay-Abaire. CAST Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher, Jude Law. USA.
Sunday, November 4, 4:00 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Rust and Bone (De Rouille Et D’Os) featuring A Tribute to Marion Cotillard: An unusual love story between a back alley boxer and a woman who has suffered a profound loss. DIR Jacques Audiard. SCR Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain. CAST Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure, Celine Sallette, Corinne Masiero, Bouli Lanners, Jean-Michel Correia. France/Belgium.
Monday, November 5, 7:30 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Closing Night Gala: Lincoln : Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln , a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. DIR Steven Spielberg. SCR Tony Kushner. CAST Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones. USA. World Premiere. 
Thursday, November 8, 7:00 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Special Screenings: Silver Linings Playbook : When a history teacher is cuckolded by his wife and a co-worker, he goes ballistic, lands in jail, then moves in with his sports-obsessed parents. DIR David O. Russell. SCR David O. Russell, Matthew Quick. CAST Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher, Julia Stiles, John Ortiz, Paul Herman, Dash Mihok, Shea Whigham. USA.
Friday, November 2, 8:00 p.m., Rigler, Egyptian. The Central Park Five : Ken Burns’ documentary about what was known as the crime of century showcases a group of teenagers who were forced to give false confessions and were wrongfully convicted for raping and beating New York City jogger Trisha Meili. DIR/SCR Sarah Burns, Ken Burns, David McMahon.
Saturday, November 3, 3:30 p.m., Rigler, Egyptian. Holy Motors : Denis Lavant plays Mr. Oscar, a shadowy figure who inhabits many roles while fulfilling assignments from inside a white limousine in Léos Carax’s beguiling work. DIR/SCR Léos Carax. CAST Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue. France/Germany.
Saturday, November 3, 7:00 p.m., Rigler, Egyptian.  The Impossible : A family is swept up in the monumental turmoil of the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami along with thousands of strangers. DIR Juan Antonio Bayona. SCR Sergio G. Sánchez. CAST Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Marta Etura, Sönke Möhring, Geraldine Chaplin. Spain/USA. 
Sunday, November 4, 8:30 p.m., Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Room 237 : Rodney Asher’s documentary delves into the symbols and messages hidden within Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed film, THE SHINING, revealing more secrets after 30 years. DIR Rodney Ascher. CAST Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns, John Fell Ryan, Jay Weidner. USA. 
Sunday, November 4, 9:00 p.m., Chinese 1. Quartet : A birthday concert for Verdi at a home for retired opera singers is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, a diva and former wife of one of the residents. DIR Dustin Hoffman in his directorial debut. SCR Ronald Harwood. CAST Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Michael Gambon. UK. 
Sunday, November 4, 9:00 p.m., Rigler, Egyptian. Ginger and Rosa : As the Cold War meets the sexual revolution in 1960s London, the lifelong friendship of two teenage girls (Elle Fanning, Alice Englert) is shattered by ideological differences and personal betrayals. DIR/SCR Sally Potter. CAST Elle Fanning, Alice Englert, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks, Annette Bening, Oliver Platt, Timothy Spall, Jodhi May. UK/Denmark.
Wednesday, November 7, 8:00 p.m., Chinese 1. West of Memphis : Amy Berg’s film casts a light on the brutal murder of three young boys and the 18-year struggle to exonerate the teenagers who were convicted of the crimes. DIR Amy Berg. SCR Billy McMilin, Amy Berg. CAST Damien Echols; Lorri Davis; Jason Baldwin; Jessie Misskelley, Jr.; Pam Hicks. USA.
Date, time and venue TBC.

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Life of Pi & On the Road Among AFI Fest Galas

Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi To Open 50th New York Film Festival

The World Premiere of Ang Lee ‘s Life Of Pi will open the New York Film Festival September 28th. The screening launching the 50th anniversary of the annually anticipated film event will be a return for the Oscar-winning director, who screened Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the festival’s closing night event 12 years ago. Robert Altman, Pedro Almodóvar and Francois Truffaut are the only other directors to have had more than one film chosen to bow the festival. Lee’s The Ice Storm opened the 1997 edition of NYFF. The film stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tobey Maguire and Gérard Depardieu. Life Of Pi will the be the first 3-D NYFF opener. Based on the book that has sold more than seven million copies and a number o f years on bestseller lists, the feature takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years and a wide world of imagination. Lee’s vision, coupled with game-changing technological breakthroughs, haas turned a story long throughout un-filmable into a totally original cinematic event and the first truly international all-audience motion picture. Life Of Pi follows a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship’s only other survivor…a fearsome Bengal tiger. The Twentieth Century Fox release is due in theaters November 21st. Life Of Pi is a perfect combination of technological innovation and a strong artistic vision,” Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center said via a statement. “And Lee has managed to make a deeply moving, engrossing work that will delight audiences as much as it will astonish them. We’re enormously proud to have this film for our Opening Night for the 50th NYFF.” “I am both delighted and honored to be back a the New York Film Festival with Life Of Pi ,” Lee said in a statement. “I have the deepest respect for Richard Peña and his team and to be selected by them as the Opening Night Film for the 50th anniversary is extremely gratifying. I am also excited because this is my hometown, and to be unveiling this film that I am so proud of here is a real pleasure.” Last week NYFF said it will close out its festival with the world premiere of Robert Zemeckis’s Flight , starring Denzel Washington. Previous Opening Night Gala titles include Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (1963), Gill Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1967), Akir Kurosawa’s Ran (1985), Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies (1996), Stephen Frear’s The Queen (2006) and David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010). Produced by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the 50th New York Film Festival will take place September 28 – October 14th Watch the trailer on YouTube .

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Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi To Open 50th New York Film Festival

Enough, Already, With the CinemaCon Oscar Hype

Every year, studios, exhibitors and press gather in Vegas for the annual hype harvest that is CinemaCon (n

Life of Pi Changes Release Date to Avoid The Hobbit

Since The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is now slated for a December 14 release, other studios’ movies are politely rescheduling to avoid that box office bonanza. Life of Pi , the Ang Lee adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, starring newcomer Suraj Sharma, Tobey Maguire, and Gerard Depardieu, is now scheduled for a Dec. 21, 2011 premiere. It should be the greatest movie about being stuck in a boat with a Bengal Tiger since Hitchcock’s Lifeboat , where Tallulah Bankhead almost mauls all the other passengers. [ /Film ]

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Life of Pi Changes Release Date to Avoid The Hobbit

Tobey Maguire Will Reteam With Ang Lee For Life of Pi

Here’s some exciting casting news to end the week with: Tobey Maguire has joined the cast of Ang Lee’s 3D adaptation of the bestselling novel Life of Pi . The former Spider-man will play a writer who interviews the main character (played as an adult by Slumdog Millionaire ‘s Irfan Khan) about his experience aboard a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Gerard Depardieu and Adil Hussain round out the cast. Maguire previously worked with Lee on The Ice Storm and Ride With the Devil . [ Variety ]

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Tobey Maguire Will Reteam With Ang Lee For Life of Pi

Buzz Break: Moviegoers Need No Longer Ask, ‘What’s a Hesher?’