The feature documentary had a limited roll out in Texas and other locations in mid-July, but after expanding to additional screens in the lead-up to the Republican convention, it has reaped more than $10.5 million to date at the box office. (The doc is second only, so far, to Katy Perry: Part of Me , which has earned in excess of $25.3 million domestically, as the top non-fiction film of the year.) Those box-office numbers could get a boost now that the anti-Obama doc has scored a high-power endorsement from conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The embattled News Corp. chairman gave 2016: Obama’s America his thumbs up via Twitter, even as questions arise about the veracity of the film’s assertions. Murdoch said via a Tweet : Just saw 2016. Truly scary if no answer. Every voter should see and decide for self what future they want for America. Obama’s America is based on Dinesh D’Souza’s 2010 New York Times -best selling book The Roots of Obama’s Rage . D’Souza and John Sullivan co-directed and co-wrote the film, and the filmmakers said that Murdoch asked for a screener of the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter . In part, the film scrutinizes Obama’s Kenyan-born father and his alleged anti-colonialist views. (What is now Kenya gained independence from Great Britain in 1964). The elder Obama’s views, according to D’Souza, explain why President Obama rejects “American Exceptionalism” and why the author-filmmaker believes he is aiming to “re-shape America” by reducing the U.S.’s overall global reach and influence. According to the AP, 2016: Obama’s America also asserts the president’s views were reinforced by his upbringing in Hawaii, which was effectively annexed by the U.S. after the overthrow of its monarchy in the 1890s. Obama’s father left his family when Barack was just 2 years old and visited only once when the future president was was 10, the AP reports , but D’Souza’s film argues that this absence actually reinforced the son’s ties to his father, who died in a car accident when Obama fils was in college. D’Souza interviews NYU psychologist Paul Vitz who studies the impact of absent fathers. Vitz says the void meant that “he has the tension between the Americanism and his Africanism. He himself is an intersection of major political forces in his own psychology.” 2016 also delves into a host of issues ranging from the Federal Deficit to Obama’s supposed “weirdly sympathetic” leanings to Muslim jihadists. While the debt has grown by $16 trillion under Obama, the film fails to mention the 2008 global financial crisis that preceded it under his predecessor, George W. Bush. And it does not mention his order to kill Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. [ Have you seen 2016: Obama’s America? Tell us what you think… ] [Sources: A.P. , THR ]
The Telluride Film Festival offers a bright spotlight, showcasing a small selection of films over Labor Day weekend just as summer movies give way to a more serious season of cinema. Later this year, moviegoers will be talking about Bill Murray as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Marion Cotillard as a woman who loses her legs to a killer whale and even a small town story starring Zac Efron as an aspiring NASCAR racer and Dennis Quaid as his father, an Iowa farmer. Those three films – Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson , Jacques Audiard ‘s Rust and Bone and Ramin Bahrani’s At Any Price – lead a roster of acclaimed and anticipated new movies that will screen at this weekend’s tony Telluride Film Festival. Telluride’s annual lineup is famously revealed just as attendees arrive in the Colorado mountain town for the four-day event. Even so Gary Meyer, one of the heads of the festival, privately previewed the lineup for a few journalists earlier this week and then swore them to secrecy. Telluride attendees consider movies sacred. Spoilers are frowned upon. “So, what do you think?” Meyer asked as he detailed the lineup for the 39th annual festival. “It was pretty much down to the wire,” he added about this year’s roster. He also teased that he and festival directors Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger have a surprise screening up their sleeves. It will screen in a still to be named slot some time between tomorrow and Labor Day. So now it can be revealed that even as it screens in the Venice Fest this weekend the anticipated American indie At Any Price will be unveiled in Telluride before heading to the Toronto International Film Festival next week. Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani has created a family drama that also explores globalization and Big Agriculture. In addition to Quaid and Efron, the film stars Heather Graham and Kim Dickens. Bahrani is expected to fly in from Venice in time for this weekend’s showings of the film here in Colorado. Also making the trek from Italy to Telluride will be French filmmaker Xavier Giannoli. His latest is described by the Telluride festival as a Kafkaesque tale. In Gianoli’s latest, Superstar , top name French actor Kad Merad plays the everyman. One day he wakes and heads to work only to discover that he’s famous. He has no idea why people are asking for his autograph and snapping his photo with their mobile phones while he rides to work on the Paris Metro. The comedy also stars Cecile de France who gained domestic attention for her turn in last year’s Dardenne Brothers drama, The Kid With A Bike . Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson was a safe bet for Telluride lineup prognosticators. It stars local Laura Linney, a festival fixture. In the film she stars alongside Bill Murray, appearing as FDR’s younger, distant cousin, Margaret Suckley. Linney’s character guides guests – in this case the King and Queen of England in 1939 – at Roosevelt’s residence in rural New York State and also falls for FDR. The new film will next head to the Toronto Film Festival. Sally Potter’s Ginger and Rosa will make the same journey. It stars Elle Fanning and Alice Englert as best friends in the 60s growing up and experiencing the anxieties and excitement of the era. The cast is rounded out by Timothy Spall, Oliver Platt, Annette Bening, Alessandro Nivola and Christina Hendricks. Also on tap are Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha starring Greta Gerwig and Michael Winterbottom’s Everyday with Shirley Henderson. Both will also go from Telluride to the Toronto fest next week. Telluride will pay tribute to a pair of European actors this weekend. Marion Cotillard will be honored and appear here alongside her latest, Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone from this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Also acclaimed at the French fest this year was Mads Mikkelsen. He turned heads for his starring role in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt and has also been on the fest circuit in Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair . Both films will screen in Telluride this weekend as festival salutes the Danish leading man. About three dozen new feature films will screen at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend, complemented by classic and retrospective entries, as well as short films, film oddities and even some Looney Tunes cartoons in honor of the 100th anniversary of director Chuck Jones’ birth. The 39th Telluride Film Festival Premieres Lineup : The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark, 2012) Amour (Michael Haneke, Austria, 2012) At Any Price (Ramin Bahrani, US, 2012) The Attack (Ziad Doueiri, Lebanon/France, 2012) Barbara (Christian Petzold, Germany, 2012) Breaking the Frame (Marielle Nitoslawska, Canada, 2012) Carriere 250 Meters (Juan Carlos Rulfo, Mexico, 2012) Celluloid Man: A Film on P.K. Nair (Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, India, 2012) Cinema Jenin (Marcus Vetter, Germany/Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory, 2012) Doueiri , Lebanon/France, 2012) The Central Park Five (Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon, US, 2012) Everyday (Michael Winterbottom, UK, 2012) Frances Ha (Baumbach, US, 2012) Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen (Gyorgy Palfi, Hungary, 2012) The Gatekeepers (Dror Moreh, Israel, 2012) Ginger and Rosa (d. Sally Potter, England., 2012) The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark, 2012) Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Mitchell, US, 2012) In Search of Emak Bakia (Oskar Alegria, Spain, 2012) Jonathan Miller (David Thompson, UK, 2012) Journal de France (Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, France, 2012) The Iceman (Ariel Vroman, US, 2012) Love, Marilyn (Liz Garbus, US, 2012) Me and Me Dad (Katrine Boorman, UK, 2012) Midnight’s Children (Deepa Mehta, Canada/Sri-Lanka, 2012) Mikis Theodorakis, Composer (Klaus Salge and Asteris Kutulas, Germany, 2012) No (Pablo Larrain, Chile, 2012) On Borrowed Time (David Bradbury, Australia, 2012) Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, Austria, 2012) Piazza Fontana (Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy, 2012) Pilgrim Hill (Gerard Barrett, Ireland, 2012) A Royal Affair (Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark, 2012) Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard, France, 2012) The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, Australia, 2012) Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, Canada, 2012) Superstar (Xavier Giannoli, France, 2012) Wadjda (Haifaa Al Mansour, Saudi Arabia, 2012) What is this Film Called Love? (Mark Cousins, Ireland/Mexico, 2012) The Telluride Film Festival takes place August 31-September 3. Follow Eugene Hernandez on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
When Lindsay Lohan signed on to play Elizabeth Taylor in Lifetime’s Liz & Dick it was tough to know what to expect. Now that three new photos from the tele-biopic have landed, we have our answer: Behold, LiLo dressed up as Liz Taylor circa 1960 on the set of Cleopatra , LiLo as Liz Taylor marrying Richard Burton in 1964, and DEAR GOD, LILO AS LIZ TAYLOR WITH GIANT POOFY ’80S HAIR AND SHOULDER PADS. Guys, poofy ’80s hair was not part of the deal. It’s the Joan Collinsesque car shot that I find most mesmerizing: Art imitating real paparazzi-hounded life, that downturned gaze, the angst emanating from that pout, that giant helmet of hair in orbit around her head. November 3 can’t come fast enough, though that does give you two months to stockpile all the booze and popcorn and Aqua Net you’ll need to plan those Liz & Dick viewing parties… [Lifetime via Vulture ]
