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FILM GUIDEWINTER 2015
in this issue
WHO SHOULD WINOur Picks for the Oscars pg 20
SIX FROM SUNDANCEFilms You’ve Got to See pg 14
ALAN RICKMAN TALKS CHAOS pg 4
DAN FOGELMANMeet the Director of Danny Collins pg 10
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ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEEBEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
ARTWORK: ©2014 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.FILM: ©2014 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Motion Picture © 2014 British Broadcasting Corporation, Little Chaos Limited. All Rights Reserved.Artwork © 2015 Focus Features LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Inspired by the True Story of The Gardens of Versailles
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“HILARIOUS! EACH CAREFULLY WROUGHT JEWEL OF STORY IS MORE
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“SMART, TART, BEAUTIFULLY PERFORMED MINI-EPICS OF GRIEVANCE
ESCALATING TO A KIND OF SANCTIFIED MADNESS.”
-Mary Corliss, TIME
STARTS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20TH IN NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES!COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU!
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A SONY PICTURES CLASSICS RELEASE KRAMER & SIGMAN FILMS AND EL DESEO PRESENT WITH THE SUPPORT OF INCAA ICAA CO-PRODUCER TELEFE IN ASSOCIATION WITH CORNER “WILD TALES” STARRING RICARDO DARÍN OSCAR MARTINEZ LEONARDO SBARAGLIA ÉRICA RIVAS RITA CORTESE JULIETA ZYLBERBERG AND DARÍO GRANDINETTI
ORIGINAL SCORE GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JAVIER JULIÁ SOUND BY JOSÉ LUIS DÍAZ PRODUCTION DESIGNER CLARA NOTARI COSTUME DESIGNER RUTH FISCHERMAN CASTING BY JAVIER BRAIER VILLEGAS BROS. EDITED BY DAMIÁN SZIFRON PABLO BARBIERI POST PRODUCTION COORDINATOR EZEQUIEL ROSSI ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS CLAUDIO F. BELOCOPITT
GERARDO ROZÍN CO-PRODUCER AXEL KUSCHEVATZKY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS POLA ZITO LETICIA CRISTI PRODUCED BY HUGO SIGMAN AGUSTÍN ALMODÓVAR PEDRO ALMODÓVAR MATÍAS MOSTEIRIN ESTHER GARCÍA WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY DAMIÁN SZIFRON
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“HILARIOUS! EACH CAREFULLY WROUGHT JEWEL OF STORY IS MORE
DELICIOUS AND OUTRAGEOUS AND HILARIOUS THAN THE LAST.”
-Anne Thompson, INDIEWIRE
“SMART, TART, BEAUTIFULLY PERFORMED MINI-EPICS OF GRIEVANCE
ESCALATING TO A KIND OF SANCTIFIED MADNESS.”
-Mary Corliss, TIME
STARTS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20TH IN NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES!COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU!
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A SONY PICTURES CLASSICS RELEASE KRAMER & SIGMAN FILMS AND EL DESEO PRESENT WITH THE SUPPORT OF INCAA ICAA CO-PRODUCER TELEFE IN ASSOCIATION WITH CORNER “WILD TALES” STARRING RICARDO DARÍN OSCAR MARTINEZ LEONARDO SBARAGLIA ÉRICA RIVAS RITA CORTESE JULIETA ZYLBERBERG AND DARÍO GRANDINETTI
ORIGINAL SCORE GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JAVIER JULIÁ SOUND BY JOSÉ LUIS DÍAZ PRODUCTION DESIGNER CLARA NOTARI COSTUME DESIGNER RUTH FISCHERMAN CASTING BY JAVIER BRAIER VILLEGAS BROS. EDITED BY DAMIÁN SZIFRON PABLO BARBIERI POST PRODUCTION COORDINATOR EZEQUIEL ROSSI ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS CLAUDIO F. BELOCOPITT
GERARDO ROZÍN CO-PRODUCER AXEL KUSCHEVATZKY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS POLA ZITO LETICIA CRISTI PRODUCED BY HUGO SIGMAN AGUSTÍN ALMODÓVAR PEDRO ALMODÓVAR MATÍAS MOSTEIRIN ESTHER GARCÍA WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY DAMIÁN SZIFRON
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ACADEMY AWARD® NOMINEE BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
WINNERBEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW • CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARD (NOMINEE)
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since 1988, when Alan Rickman made his first unforgettable movie appearance, as Hans
Gruber in Die Hard, you’ve seen him or heard his voice in over 40 feature films. You’ve maybe also watched him on television or onstage. He’s a multi-faceted actor who for over 25 years has made his craft look easy and made us marvel at his talent. As if his acting prowess wasn’t enough, his accomplishments as a director are now fully on display when his new film A Little Chaos opens in CinéArts Theatres this spring.
A Little Chaos is the story of a woman in late 17th-century France who is tasked with building an outdoor ballroom at the under-construction Palace of Versailles for King Louis XIV. The film, starring Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Stanley Tucci, and Rickman, is a period piece that strikes a commenting chord on modern-day themes. CinéArts recently talked to Rickman about his new movie, working the other side of the camera for a second time, and how he found his direction in making A Little Chaos.
To begin with, the story behind A Little Chaos is “an invention,” according to Rickman, who found something extraordinary in this tale and decided to further develop it. “A Little Chaos takes place in a time when women would not have had a job, so that’s where the invention largely is in the story –because she couldn’t possibly have existed.
“When Alison Deegan’s script arrived on my doorstep, the internals were to me a very modern relationship between and man and a woman – and all of the complexities and subtleties you would find today or 10 years ago or at any time.”
Rickman then worked with screenwriter Jeremy Brock to flesh out the rest. “I suppose the development of the film was about the structure of the story. The central narrative was whole and all of the central dialogue remained. I just got involved in structure.
“There was a lot of work, but it was working with gold dust. It was just moving scenes around or suggesting to Alison ideas about adding a scene about ‘X’ or tweaking a scene at the beginning which said, ‘We travel down the banks of the Seine; there are markets going on with hundreds and hundreds of people.’ I would go, ‘No, Alison. That’s not happening.’ We would never have been able to shoot that!”
At its basic core, A Little Chaos is a movie about relationships, some obvious, and some not so obvious; plus a lot of great scenery, sets, and costumes. But the director was very conscious of how the plot would always serve the action, so the writing had to illuminate the parallels between the relationships of men and women in past times and of those in the present day.
Rickman adds, “What I loved about the script is that it doesn’t sound like some period biopic; nobody’s
Alan RickmanFinding Directionfrom A Little ChaosBy Frank Gonzales
Photo by Fatimah Namdar
CINÉARTS FILM GUIDE | WINTER 2015 | 5
speaking with their feet two feet off the ground! Everybody is quite grounded, even the King. Any expectations you have of him are removed when he starts to talk as a human being. This is somebody who was called ‘The Sun King’ and was a kind of god-like figure.
“Hopefully in the film you see people who are in touch with emotions, and language, that the audience can recognize. That’s why I didn’t want to put a lot of biographical information on the front of the film saying ‘André Le Notre built Versailles and blah, blah, blah.’ It’s just down to ‘Paris 1682’.”
A Little Chaos is a film that unfolds beautifully, much like a rose; many of the characters, such as Winslet’s Sabine, Schoenaerts’ Le Notre, and even Rickman’s King Louis XIV, slowly blossom and change. So it was fitting that the director used a rose as a metaphor for the message he wanted to express. “Sabine’s interaction with the king teaches him to not treat women as objects. The rose is a metaphor for that; they bloom and they fade. So, treasure them.”
Rickman was very pleased that his message is being received by both sexes. “In our preview screenings, men have been really moved by the film because there is a quiet challenge to not take these wonderful creatures for granted. There is a message in the film for men. For the women it’s quite obvious, but for men, it’s one they need to watch.
“But there’s also another scene in A Little Chaos which is important and which I hope registers with people: it’s when all of the women are together. There are women of all ages there and it’s not the ‘cut-flower syndrome’ which is just the prefect bloom in the vase on display; it’s everybody from every age, and this is a scene where Kate Winslet is so wonderful. I think she’s brilliant throughout the film, because you watch her listening and learning and becoming her new self through the people she meets. So to go into that room with all of those women, and being able to talk about things that they couldn’t talk about, like what it means to be a woman in a man’s world, was remarkable.”
This attention to detail in the writing led Rickman to go find an A-List group of actors to portray his characters – or, rather, they came looking for him. “The actors did this movie – and I’m sure they’ll all say the same thing – because they loved the script!
“Stanley [Tucci] really kept asking to read it. With Kate it’s always a question of maneuvering around her family life and her children to a time when she’s free and in the right country at the right time to do it. But she’s always loved the script because playing an independent woman is what attracts her. And of course you see her sensitive side too.”
There was also the practical side of Rickman when it came to his role behind and in front of the lens, though “a lot of it is economics; I would not have played Louis but for the fact that it helped us get the film made.
“As a director, you make sure that you are surrounded by a phenomenal team. Ellen Kuras, the director of photography, and I used to travel into the set every day and then we were able to talk about what we were going to shoot that day. And if I was going to be in the scene, and thank God I wasn’t in very many, she had a piece of paper with a to-do list on it. For example, the final scene of the dance was a tough shot: there were five cameras and I’m standing in the middle, nowhere near a monitor. So you have to learn to rely on your team, and the good thing about a movie is that you’re surrounded by experts.”
The expertise of a good crew paid off splendidly for the director, who found all he needed in England in order to create his period film set in France. “We shot the whole thing in England. There’s no CGI in the film; it’s all real, except for the very last shot.
“The thing about the time when this story happens is that Versailles wasn’t complete. For instance, in the scene when Le Notre strides through the building works – that was the state Versailles was in when Louis moved all of the lords in. It was unfinished. So they were there dodging paint pots and scaffolding.
“There was no way we could have shot in the real Versailles; they never would have allowed us to do that to the palace. And the front of the real Versailles was covered in scaffolding then, so there was no need to shoot the front of it either.”
Rickman found many locations throughout his home country to utilize for his shoot, both interior and exterior. “In England we have plenty of stately homes, but what I also discovered is that there are a few of them with stately French interiors. The scene in the film where Sabine meets the King and gives him a rose was shot in a 19th-century building
built by the Rothschilds, complete with a room with an original 17th-century French interior.
“The Fountain Ballroom of Versailles in our film was completely constructed, although there is an actual one at Versailles; you can get a key and go into that garden to see the outdoor ballroom. The only difference between our story and what really happened is that Louis by that point wasn’t walking. He would have arrived at the ballroom in a chair, and he had stopped dancing. But you can go to Versailles and see that outdoor ballroom – and from time to time the fountains still work.”
The transition for Rickman to the director’s chair is something that he felt was very natural, whether it was because of his theatre experience as a director or because of a natural instinctive progression. “I’ve directed a fair amount in the theatre, so I’m always happy to join that band of American actors who seem to switch from acting to directing without anybody calling too much attention to it.”
He confides, “The thing about being an actor is you have to really find your center every day of your life, not to mention to look in the mirror and not be fooled. So it’s a constant source of figuring out who you are with what you do.
“It just feels like as time moves on, you have an instinctive response to a script; you read something and then pictures just start jumping around on the page, and you want to trap them as a director. I think it may have something to do with my background and my training in art and drama school. Then, after directing in the theatre, you start to connect your own dots and figure out ‘This is who I am now.’”
Focus Features’ A Little Chaos is a romantic drama directed by Alan Rickman and following Sabine (Academy Award winner Kate Winslet), a strong-willed and talented landscape designer, who is chosen to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV’s (Rickman) new palace at Versailles. In her new position of power, she challenges gender and class barriers while also becoming professionally and romantically entangled with the court’s renowned landscape artist André Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts).
A Little Chaos opens in CinéArts Theatres in April 2015.
10 | CINEARTS.COM
Karma is a good thing, especially when everything you’re working towards all seem to fall in line and
fit into its respective place. That doesn’t mean bumps don’t appear along the way, but all in all, the voyage is pleasant, the road is relatively smooth, and the lessons learned become wonderful memories that turn into valuable tools for the next trip.
Dan Fogelman’s karma has been pretty good to him lately. The writer/director of the new film Danny Collins is excited about his new movie, his experiences along the way, and the fortunate events and people that made its completion something he’ll always treasure.
For those that are unaware of the back story to Danny Collins, Fogelman read an online article about a British singer/songwriter who later learned that John Lennon had written him a letter. As Fogelman tells the tale, “I was on the internet, procrastinating from my writing one morning and I saw one of those odd articles about a musician in England named Steve Tilston. He was in his late 50’s, early 60’s who had received a phone call one day alerting him to the fact that John Lennon three or four decades earlier had written him a letter that had never been delivered to him.
“He had been a young man who had done an interview with a small music magazine who had said he was going to be the next
big thing. Tilston said he was terrified of that and what fame and wealth might do to him, and if it would corrupt his songwriting. Then John Lennon, unbeknownst to Steve, read that interview and wrote him a letter in care of the magazine. What he wrote was to caution him saying he controlled his destiny and his art and that no money or fame could affect that. The letter never made it to him.”
Fogelman took the seeds of that story and developed the Danny Collins script, taking it in a new direction which was more intriguing to him. “My fascination with the story became ‘what if the guy went slightly the other way? What if exactly what he worried about as a 19 year old man had happened to him: wealth and fame would make him lose sight of his art and all of the things he wanted out of his life?’ Then in the second chapter of his life, he receives this letter which serves as a kind of spark to recapture that kind of ‘what if ’ story.”
Another new direction Fogelman moved in was to make the central character someone who audiences could relate to, starring an actor of larger than life proportions. “Steve is still a folk musician in England, with an artist following, who has made a career out of music, but he never ‘sold out’ in any way. So it was important for this film to see Danny as this kind of mega-star, and that’s why having Al Pacino in the role was so important. He
brings his own iconic self into the role of Danny.”
Wait…Danny Collins is an aging, iconic singer and you have Al Pacino singing? Fogelman says it isn’t as far-fetched as you think. “I wrote the movie imagining Al in the role, so in your wildest dreams when you’re sitting and writing the script and your picturing Al Pacino, you don’t envision that he’s really going to do it!
“So what’s great about Al and the characters in the script is that so many movies are trying to cast off somebody who can sing. That’s not what Danny Collin’s journey is about. This is a guy who has lost his way as it pertains to his art and who has abused his body as he says in the movie ‘for the better part of four decades.’
“It’s a real spectacle and you see how out of control Danny’s life has become, and how the specter of his life has grown. Danny barely is singing and he doesn’t have a big, giant voice anymore. It’s now a more of call-and-response type of performance, where the song is kind of a second class citizen to the persona. It’s what Danny Collins has become.”
“So now Danny’s musical journey is: what happens if right now someone who is big star decided he wants to be one of those coffee house singers, playing his original music in a very cool space? That’s what Danny is now
By Frank Gonzales
Good Karma Goes a Long WayCinéArts Interviews Dan Fogelman, Director of Danny Collins
CINÉARTS FILM GUIDE | WINTER 2015 | 11
trying to recapture in his life. And Pacino nailed it! Even the singing.”
The beginning of Danny Collins opens with a big concert setting theatre, which sets the stage for the title character’s over-the-top lifestyle and his second act renewal. Fogelman recalls the shooting of the concert sequence as fun and fortuitous. “We shot this gigantic performance on stage at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, actually during a Chicago concert! We brought out a rig of twelve cameras, and during the intermission of the concert taught the audience the song Hey Baby Doll.
“I was trying to capture something like Sweet Caroline, which is less about the singer singing the song, but about the audience experience of everybody knowing and singing it. In about two minutes we had the entire Greek Theatre audience really catch on to the lyrics and learn the song. Imagine ten thousand people singing en masse, and we only had a couple of minutes to teach it to them.”
And how did the band Chicago and the concertgoers react? “They loved it! Al came out during intermission to shoot the scene. We were very worried because you never know how these things will go in Los Angeles. We announced what we would be doing and we prayed the audience would not leave and go to the bathroom! I didn’t want to have to CGI in the crowd and wanted Al to really sing to an audience. We didn’t have the money to create our own concert and make a separate shoot for that.
“But Al is one of probably five people on earth that is instantly recognizable and iconic as anybody, so as soon as he got out there the place went berserk. They did the song ad nauseam for about five minutes and it was like a surgical precision strike. Al was great, the crowd loved it, and Chicago kind of stood back with us and watched. Then for the second half of their concert, they brought Al out on stage to sing one of their classics with them. It was a magical and fun night.”
To create a character like Danny Collins takes inspiration and a little bit of ingenuity on the part of the actor and director. As Fogelman recalls, “We talked about a lot of different people to model the character of Danny after, but we had to be careful not to rely on just one person so much that it would become a caricature of not just that person, but also of a type of person. You want to create your own character.
“We certainly pulled images of wardrobes from everyone from Neil Diamond to Barry Manilow, Rod Stewart and Tom Jones. We
love all of these people so we really tried to take little bits and pieces of inspiration, but really left it up to Al to create his own guy.”
Pacino in turn made the Danny Collins character indelible. “When I sent him the script and went to New York to meet him for the first time it was backstage while he was performing The Merchant of Venice on Broadway. After the show, we met and he said, ‘I can tell you wrote this for me, you know, I can feel it. But how’d you know I can sing?’ And I said, ‘Can you?’ The rest was all up to him.
“Al is intrinsically musical and the reason why so many people do the bad imitations of Pacino is that there is a cadence to his voice. It’s a little bit Shakespearean; a little up and down, that kind of thing, so there’s something
musical in the way he speaks already.”And to accompany the great performance
of Pacino is a great song that speaks of the character’s new road to travel. “Ryan Adams, who for my money, is the best and coolest songwriter out there, wrote Al’s original song that he goes back to in a stripped down version over the course of the film. To me it’s part Bob Dylan, part Tom Waits; haunting and very simple. It’s the kind of song Dylan or Johnny Cash would do. So you feel it’s really Al and you don’t feel like we have to fake a voice. It’s really Al. It’s this guy really trying
to recapture something. And it’s beautiful.”
Dan Fogelman’s last movie was the script he wrote for 2014’s Last Vegas and previous credits include the script for The Guilt Trip in 2012. So does he like working with more mature actors like Barbara Streisand, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and now Al Pacino? It might seem that way, but he begs to differ.
“Those last two movies have had a slightly older cast, and in the case of Danny Collins, the story lent itself to work with these mature kinds of actors. It was such a high for me to have been sitting in the backyard with Al, Annette
[Bening], and Christopher [Plummer], and just reading through my script with them. It was incredibly exciting.
“But then Bobby Cannavale and Jennifer Garner are exceptional in the film as well. So their youthfulness balances everything out. I mean everyone is so youthful in the film. Christopher Plummer is the oldest person in the film, but he has a very youthful, energetic and kind of comedic performance from him, which people haven’t seen him do before, really. He’s really a scene stealer in the film, both heart-breaking and really funny.”
So was it intimidating to work with such accomplished actors or was it easy because you knew they were going to show up and work every day? Fogelman sings high praises for his actors and concedes, “It was a combination of
both. I’ve been in the business a while, so I’ve spent time with some gigantic people, and that helps brace you a little bit.
“In the case of Danny Collins, Al and I have been talking about and trying to get this movie made for five years! The timing of his life and the timing of my life and getting the financing, all of these things made making this movie into a process. The whole of those years encompassed many, many lunches and dinners and talking about the movie and script and where and how we were going to do it.
“Al’s an artist. He’s an unusual person who is gentle and quiet. He wasn’t necessarily built for fame in a way that some people’s personalities love that spotlight. Al just loves acting. So yes it is intimidating in the first meeting because he is Al Pacino! But you quickly get comfortable with him because he is so kind, which makes a big difference.
“Annette [Bening] had myself and my fiancé over to her house for dinner with Warren [Beatty] to just hang out and get to know one another a little more than we got to know each other just talking about the script. Christopher Plummer showed up on day one ready to go. I really lucked out in that these are not just the most talented, but also the nicest actors out there. So it could have been more intimidating if they were more mad at me or not nice people because then I really would have fallen apart.”
It’s this level of commitment to the characters and the actors who embody them that make Danny Collins such a rich
and fertile ground. Fogelman even went back to his own childhood to bring out certain aspects of the real world that Danny encounters. “The city in New Jersey where Danny returns to connect with his family is very much where I grew up. The hotel he stays in is basically the same hotel where I’ve gone to three-quarters of every wedding I’d ever been to since childhood. And the kind of life that Bobby Cannavale and Jennifer Garner are living is very much a real world, normal existence.
“In Danny Collins, there’s a young valet driver played by Josh Peck, whose character’s name is Nicky Ernst. His first and last name is said by Al Pacino many, many, many times in the film. And Nicky Ernst is really my best friend from high school! So when Nick sees the movie he’s going to freak out because Al says his name every five seconds! So lots of elements like that from my life went into this movie, but it’s not necessarily autobiographical.”
Finally, in telling the story of Danny Collins, the director hopes to connect with his audience in a very meaningful way. “This is a redemption tale. But for Al’s character, this redemption story starts out with someone who is in that .001 percent of the world where Danny lives at the outset of the movie. This group clamors and claims to want to get back to the real stuff, to real life.
“But reality is really complicated and real messy. It’s small mortgages that seem like nothing to Danny, but are everything and weigh over a regular family. Children and
adults with health issues, and money issues; real life is complicated and beautiful.
“So for Danny it’s a kind of getting out of the bubble of superstardom and reestablishing himself in the real world and having a family for the first time. That’s really what the movie’s about. This letter from John Lennon serves as a lightning rod to turn him around and give him a less glamorous but much more rewarding second chapter.
“And when I talk about how kind the actors are, I hope when people watch the movie they also feel the warmth from this group of actors coming together to make a movie they believed in. So you feel that when you watch Danny Collins.”
Yep, the karma is very good indeed for Dan Fogelman, who has set his sights on a fine directorial debut and with the help of some truly talented and accomplished actors, will get everything to fall in line and fit in place. And when Danny Collins hits screens everywhere, audiences will enjoy the good karma too.
Inspired by a true story, Al Pacino stars as aging 1970s rocker Danny Collins, who can’t give up his hard-living ways. But when his manager (Christopher Plummer) uncovers a 40 year-old undelivered letter written to him by John Lennon, he decides to change course and embarks on a heartfelt journey to rediscover his family, find true love and begin a second act.
Danny Collins opens in CinéArts Theatres in March 2015.
Celebrate Earth Day • In Theatres April 17
See it opening week and a donation will be made in your honor to protect monkeys and other
endangered species in their natural habitats.See Disneynature’s MONKEY KINGDOM opening week (4/17‑4/23/15), and Disneynature will contribute $.20 per ticket to Conservation International through the Disney Worldwide
Conservation Fund, with a min. donation of $100,000. The ticket purchase is not tax deductible. Information about Conservation International http://www.conservation.org.
True Story (Fox Searchlight)
Opens: April 10, 2015
Director: Rupert Goold
Cast: Jonah Hill, James Franco, Felicity Jones
Synopsis: On-the-rise New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel receives troubling news from his editors that he is accused of falsifying part of an investigative piece on child laborers in Africa. Jobless and disgraced, Michael retreats from the city and falls into a depression. One day, he hears startling news that a fugitive accused of murdering his family was captured in Mexico claiming the identity of “Michael Finkel of The New York Times.” Intrigued by the story, he travels to interview the accused, identified as Christian Longo, to help save his name.
The End of the Tour (A24)
Director: James Pondsolt
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Segel, Joan Cusack
Synopsis: In 1996, shortly after the publication of his groundbreaking novel Infinite Jest, acclaimed author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) sets off on a five-day interview with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg). As the days pass, a tenuous yet significant relationship develops between journalist and subject. Lipsky and Wallace bob and weave around each other, revealing as much in what they don’t say as what they say. They share laughs, expose hidden frailties, yet it’s never clear when or to what extent they are being truthful. The interview is never published. Five days of audio tapes are packed away in Lipsky’s closet, and the two men never meet again.
The End of the Tour is based on Lipsky’s critically acclaimed memoir about this unforgettable encounter that he wrote following Wallace’s suicide in 2008.
Z for Zachariah (Roadside Attractions)
Director: Craig Zobel
Cast: Chris Pine, Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejoifor
Synopsis: In the wake of a disaster that wipes out most of civilization, a young woman who believes she is the last human on Earth meets a dying scientist searching for survivors. Their relationship becomes tenuous when another male survivor appears. As the two men compete for the woman’s affection, their primal urges begin to reveal their true nature.
14 | CINEARTS.COM
Digging for Fire
Director: Joe Swanberg
Cast: Jake Johnson, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Orlando Bloom
Synopsis: Young married couple Tim and Lee have planted the seeds of a family in their East L.A. duplex. Three years after the birth of their son, they’re still adjusting to the joy and pain of life with kid, navigating potty talk at the dinner table, disagreeing over preschools, and putting off doing their taxes. For a change of pace, they decide to house-sit for one of Lee’s Westside yoga clients. Once there, Tim discovers something suspicious in the yard that gets the wheels in his head turning, and Lee, worried that he will become obsessed with digging deeper, decides to drop their toddler off with her mother for a much-needed night out on the town. Sans-wife, Tim invites his buddies over, and a “boys-will-be-boys” scenario ensues, full of drinking, awkward joint-passing, and perhaps getting a bit too close to a girl who isn’t the mother of his child.
Mistress America (Fox Searchlight)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke
Synopsis: Tracy, a lonely college freshman in New York, is having neither the exciting university experience nor the glamorous metropolitan lifestyle she envisioned. But when she is taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke—a resident of Times Square and adventurous gal about town—she is rescued from her disappointment and seduced by Brooke’s alluringly mad schemes. Mistress America is Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig’s new comedy about dream-chasing, score-settling, and cat stealing.
Don Verdean (Lionsgate)
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Danny McBride, Jermaine Clement, Will Forte
Synopsis: Don Verdean is a man of faith who has devoted his life to biblical archaeology, scouring the globe in search of artifacts that back up the teachings of Jesus Christ. Now, traveling from town to town, he and his devoted assistant, Carol, spread the gospel by peddling books and DVDs out of his shabby RV, while his Holy Land contacts, Boaz and Shem, do the digging from afar. When evangelical preacher Tony Lazarus offers to bankroll Don’s modest roadside operation, the escalating pressure to find increasingly significant relics leads Don and his team down a less-than-righteous path. With more than just the word of God on the line, Don finds himself in the midst of a spiteful feud between two opposing congregations, leaving him to question what is truly important in life.
Two things mark the beginning of a new year in the film world: The Academy Awards and the Sundance Film
Festival. The Oscars celebrate the best in filmmaking from the previous year and Sundance showcases the films we will surely
be talking about in the year that has barely begun. Worlds collided this year, at the 87th annual Academy Awards, when two films that
premiered at Sundance 2014 were nominated for Best Picture: Boyhood and Whiplash. This is the beautiful thing about the Sundance Film Festival,
without any air of pretention it will release into the world films that will unknowingly become cult classics (The Blair Witch Project
and Super Troopers), Academy Award winners (Precious), and launch the careers of future mega-stars (Winter’s Bone
starring a little known Jennifer Lawrence).
This year the CinéArts team agrees that there are many films in the Sundance line-up that
could fit into any one of those three categories. Here are just a few of
the movies we are excited about coming out of the festival.
By Hannah Hembree
Sundance Insider
CINÉARTS FILM GUIDE | WINTER 2015 | 15
FOR PARTICIPATING CINEMAS AND TICKET INFORMATIONVISIT FATHOMEVENTS.COM
KING LEAR 2/25KING JOHN 4/8
ANTONY & CLEOPATRA 5/21
ROMEO AND JULIET3/8
BOLSHOI BALLET
REMBRANDT – 2/24VAN GOGH – 4/14
WINTER’S TALE - 2/17SWAN LAKE – 3/19
LA FILLE MAL GARDEE – 5/5
THE ROYAL BALLET
Iolanta/Bluebeard’s CastleLive 2/14, Encore 2/18
La Donna del LagoLive 3/14, Encore 3/18
Cavalleria Rusticana/PagliacciLive 3/25, Encore, 3/29
PRESENTSPRESENTS
Assuming that the Academy Awards will likely get it wrong, the CinéArts Film Guide
staff resoundingly and emphatically declare that the following nominees should win.
AND THE AWARD SHOULD GO TO...
BEST PICTURE
American Sniper
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game Selma
The Theory of Everything Whiplash
Boyhood
Birdman
PATRICIA ARQUETTE
Boyhood
MERYL STREEP
Into the Woods
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
STEVE CARELL
Foxcatcher
MICHAEL KEATON
Birdman
ROBERT DUVALL
The Judge
ETHAN HAWKE
Boyhood
EDWARD NORTON
Birdman
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
The Imitation Game
MARK RUFFALO
Foxcatcher
MARION COTILLARD
Two Days, One Night
REESE WITHERSPOON
Wild
JULIANNE MOORE
Still Alice
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY
The Imitation Game
BRADLEY COOPER
American Sniper
ROSAMUND PIKE
Gone Girl
EMMA STONE
Birdman
EDDIE REDMAYNE
The Theory of Everything
J.K. SIMMONS
Whiplash
LAURA DERN
Wild
FELICITY JONES
The Theory of Everything
Gloomy Sunday
20th Annual East Bay International Jewish Film Festival March 7–15, Century 16 Theatres, Pleasant Hill
Exclusive screening of award-winning international dramas and documentaries including films from Argentina, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Uruguay and Venezuela
eastbayfilmfest.comJEWISH FEDERATION OF THE EAST BAYTHE JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
JOB DESCRIPTION DATE
ID Destination — PRINT FINAL 9/2011
PMS BLACK 6 U (R ICH BLACK)
PMS 3005 U
PMS
City National
P R O U D L Y S U P P O R T S T H E
20th Annual East Bay International Jewish Film Festival
East Bay Regional Center2001 N. Main St., Suite 200
Walnut Creek, CA 94596(925) 274-5133
cnb.comCNB MEMBER FDIC
BRUCE WAYNE
WAYNE ENTERPRISES
FESTIVAL PASS
Thursday, April 9 - Sunday, April 19
TONY STARKSTARK INDUSTRIES
STAR PASSThursday, April 9 - Sunday, April 19
2015 DIFF Passeson sale now. VisitDallasFilm.org to buyyour passes today.
APRIL 9–APRIL 19, 2015
24 | CINEARTS.COM
Baltimore. Pretty much everything I know about Baltimore I learned from watching movies. As it turns out, Baltimore has a rich history of being depicted in film and TV shows. For me, I suppose it all
started with Barry Levinson’s wonderful film Diner, which was the first of a series of films set in his hometown. Levinson clearly loved Baltimore, as he went on to make several other films in the Baltimore area, including Tin Men, Avalon, and Liberty Heights. At the other end of the spectrum are the high art / low brow trashy cult films of Baltimore’s own John Waters, whose films Pink Flamingos and Polyester, among others, were filmed in the Baltimore area. And at even the other end of the spectrum from that was the fantastic, dense, complicated saga The Wire, that explored a wide variety of facets about life in Baltimore.
So these were the films and programs going through my mind when my boss told me we were taking a road trip to Baltimore to visit our new theatre site in Towson. For the short time I was there, and from what I saw, I thought Baltimore was a really cool city. The Harbor area downtown was alive and vibrant, right in the shadow of Camden Yards. The densely populated suburb of Towson was also bustling with activity with its narrow streets lined with quirky bars, shops, boutiques, and restaurants that cater to the university students at nearby Towson University and Goucher College. And even though the theatre was still a year away from opening, we could tell that this movie theatre was going to be something special.
As you can see from the pictures here, Cinemark Towson and XD is one of our crown jewels in the Northeast. The theatre sits in the beautiful Towson Town Center, home to many upscale shops and restaurants. The theatre opened for business the weekend of July 11, 2014 and made a big splash with a huge opening weekend attendance on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Our guests here enjoy a wide array of amenities and options, from our grand XD auditorium, five auditoriums that offer luxury seating, and our Reserve Level, which includes a full bar and lounge for all to enjoy.
The theatre has had great success on a wide variety of films and genres, from action, thriller and horror films, to smart, sophisticated art films, which have been a welcome addition to Towson and the great city of Baltimore.
By Eric Bond
Theatre Spotlight:
Cinemark Towson and XD
