Weekend Newsreel - September 30, 2005

Compiled by the FilmBuffOnLine Staff

 

Best Foreign Film Oscar Contenders Begin To Be Announced- With the application deadline looming, several of the 91 countries invited to submit films for consideration for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Feature Oscar have announced their submissions. China will be entering the fantasy epic The Promise from director Kaige Chen (Farwell, My Concubine, 1993) which, with a budget of $30 million, is the most expensive Chinese film ever. Denmark’s entry is the comedy Adam’s Apples. Hong Kong has entered director Peter Chan’s musical Perhaps Love. The love story Paheli (Riddle) from director Amol Palekar will represent India’s thriving film industry. Iran has submitted the father/son drama Too Far, Too Close for consideration. South Africa has submitted the drama Tsotsi, which has already been receiving positive reviews at the various festivals it has screened at. Films are selected by various groups within each country. Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Foreign Language Film Award Committee then screen the films to determine the five nominees for Oscar voting. The deadline for submissions is this Monday, October 3, 2005.

 

 

Stunt People Honored- Kill Bill, Vol. 2 and The Bourne Supremacy each earned a pair of awards at the 2005 Taurus World Stunt Awards held this past Sunday at the Paramount Pictures lot. Kill Bill stunt women Zoe Bell and Monica Staggs shared the trophies for Best Fight and Best Overall Stunt by a Woman. Bourne Supremacy won for Best Work with a Vehicle for a breakneck car chase sequence and Best Stunt Direction and/or 2nd Unit Direction in a feature film. The prize for best overall stunt by a man went to Chris Daniels and Michael Hugghins for their work on Spiderman 2. Honorary awards were also presented to Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino, Sylvester Stallone and Vic Armstrong, who received a lifetime achievement award for a career that included doubling for Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series. The awards ceremony will air on the E! cable channel on October 13 at 8pm.

 

 

Francis Ford Coppola Announces New Film- After an eight-year hiatus, Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola is set to return to the director’s chair with Youth Without Youth, an adaptation of Romanian author Mircea Eliade’s novella. Financed by Coppola himself and produced under his American Zoetrope production banner, the film is the story of a college professor who suddenly finds himself a pursued fugitive through pre-World War II Europe. The production is set to begin early next week in Bucharest with Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara and Bruno Ganz set to star. Coppola’s last film was 1997’s The Rainmaker.

 

 

IN REMEMBRANCE-

 

Thomas Bond - (September 24) Actor, 79.

Joel Hirschhorn - (September 18) Songwriter, 67.

Constance Moore - (September 16) Actress, 84.

Sadamasa Arikawa - (September 22) Special Effect Cameraman, 80.

 

 

Opening This Week In Theaters-

 

Today

  • Capote (NY, LA)

  • Duma (LA)

  • Going Shopping (NY, LA)

  • The Greatest Game Ever Played

  • A History Of Violence (wider)

  • Into The Blue

  • Little Manhattan (NY)

  • MirrorMask (NY)

  • Oliver Twist (wide)

  • The Prize Winner Of Defiance, Ohio (limited)

  • Proof (top 40 markets)

  • Separate Lives (LA)

  • Serenity

  • Sueno (limited)

  • Three Days Of Rain (NY)

  • The War Within (limited)

 

October 5

  • The Squid And The Whale (NY)

  • Wallace & Gromit: The Tale Of The Were-Rabbit (NY, LA)

 

October 6

  • The Overture (SF)

 

DVD Best Bets- Judging from the number of releases on this week’s schedule, it looks as though the studios are already starting to push out numerous titles for the upcoming holiday shopping season. There are numerous box sets being released to satisfy any film fan’s genre tastes- Hitchcock fans have the mega-sized Masterpiece Collection (with The Birds, Family Plot, Frenzy, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Marnie, Psycho, Rear Window, Rope, Saboteur, Shadow Of A Doubt, Topaz, Torn Curtain, The Trouble With Harry and Vertigo) Comedy fans get The Best Of Abbott and Costello: Volume 4; and fans of 50s horror have The Val Lewton Horror Collection (with Bedlam, Body Snatcher, The Cat People, Curse Of The Cat People, The Ghost Ship, I Walked With A Zombie, Isle Of The Dead, The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim) to look forward to… Spaghetti western fans might want to look into picking up Sabata (1969) and The Return Of Sabata (1971) both starring Lee Van Cleef… Director Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) gets an Ultimate Director’s Cut release this week… You can see the complete list of this week’s DVD Releases here.