My At Meihodo
Michelle Yeoh, star of the globally acclaimed Oscar-winning film “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” will serve as guest of honor and advisor at the fifth Meihodo International Youth Visual Media Festival, a platform for young visual artists and one of the largest short film festivals in the world. The festival takes place in Fukuoka, Japan.
Other new guests include Maggie Q, film editor Gabriella Cristiani and Stephen Castor (“Spider-Man”), co-ceo of It’s Just Us Productions, Rocket Science 3D and Rocket Science Motion Capture Studios, franchise.
Returning guests include special advisor and composer Tan Dun and honorary chairwoman Yue-Sai Kan, an Emmy-winning television producer.
Since launching in 2018, Meihodo has become one of the largest and most popular short film festivals in the world. This year, the festival received a record 3,533 submissions from 122 countries and regions around the world.
“We’re so excited to welcome the incredible Michelle Yeoh,...
Michelle Yeoh, star of the globally acclaimed Oscar-winning film “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” will serve as guest of honor and advisor at the fifth Meihodo International Youth Visual Media Festival, a platform for young visual artists and one of the largest short film festivals in the world. The festival takes place in Fukuoka, Japan.
Other new guests include Maggie Q, film editor Gabriella Cristiani and Stephen Castor (“Spider-Man”), co-ceo of It’s Just Us Productions, Rocket Science 3D and Rocket Science Motion Capture Studios, franchise.
Returning guests include special advisor and composer Tan Dun and honorary chairwoman Yue-Sai Kan, an Emmy-winning television producer.
Since launching in 2018, Meihodo has become one of the largest and most popular short film festivals in the world. This year, the festival received a record 3,533 submissions from 122 countries and regions around the world.
“We’re so excited to welcome the incredible Michelle Yeoh,...
- 4/4/2023
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
NYC’s IFC Center has plans to expand, and they could use your help to let city officials know you support it.
Watch Don Cheadle analyze a scene from Miles Ahead:
Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan begins shooting on July 9th, Le Journal de Quebec reports.
Cinematographer Jeff Cutter discusses shooting 10 Cloverfield Lane with Filmmaker Magazine:
Anamorphic lenses just have a feeling that reminded Dan and I of what it used to be like watching these great widescreen movies when we were kids that were shot anamorphic. It just makes it feel like a big movie and that was something that we really,...
NYC’s IFC Center has plans to expand, and they could use your help to let city officials know you support it.
Watch Don Cheadle analyze a scene from Miles Ahead:
Xavier Dolan‘s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan begins shooting on July 9th, Le Journal de Quebec reports.
Cinematographer Jeff Cutter discusses shooting 10 Cloverfield Lane with Filmmaker Magazine:
Anamorphic lenses just have a feeling that reminded Dan and I of what it used to be like watching these great widescreen movies when we were kids that were shot anamorphic. It just makes it feel like a big movie and that was something that we really,...
- 4/4/2016
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
An Italian film director sets out to recreate an epic Chinese story as an independent film and entirely in English and goes on to win nine Oscars. Sound unlikely? Well, in most cases it probably would be, but Bernardo Bertolucci did just that with The Last Emperor in 1987 as he set out to tell the story of a 3-year-old boy who became Emperor of China with 400 million people as his subjects on an unlikely path to becoming a gardener in Peking. The success of the film is almost as unimaginable as the story behind it and Criterion has set out to ensure you know Everything there is to know about this movie and its place in history with a Blu-ray edition that takes three (of the four) DVDs worth of material and places it all on one disc. Speak ill of the high-definition format no more as the thought of...
- 1/5/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
One Night With the King has all the trappings of a biblical epic with resplendent Mogul palaces of Rajasthan, India, standing in for fifth century B.C. Persia and sumptuous costumes and design elements re-creating the Persian empire in breathtaking splendor. Yet the heart of the matter, the story of Esther, an orphaned Jewish girl who becomes a queen and saves her people from annihilation, is inert.
Director Michael O. Sajbel never gets a handle on a way to make the story come alive for modern audiences. Scenes jammed with beautifully costumed extras, exotic animals and impressive vistas of the city of Jodhpur quicken one's pulse. Yet whenever the camera moves inside those palaces for intrigues associated with empire building and bloody revenge, the movie devolves into a talky, static affair featuring a cast with wildly varying accents and acting abilities.
The unfortunate upshot is that One Night has little chance to cross over to audiences outside its Christian demographic even when Fox Home Entertainment takes over the DVD release in the spring after its national rollout today. The film's biggest potential hook -- the reteaming of Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in their first movie since Lawrence of Arabia -- disappears in less than a minute. O'Toole appears fleetingly in a prologue, then vanishes, sharing nary a scene with Sharif.
The screenplay by writer Stephan Blinn (basing his script on the novel "Hadassah: One Night With the King" by Tommy Tenney & Mark Andrew Olsen) is filled with plots and schemes but little real action. Not that good filmmakers can't make a banquet out of palace intrigue. But all this movie can manage is meatloaf: Actors stand in awkward-looking poses to declaim dialogue often lifted directly from the Bible. The spark of genuine drama is everywhere missing.
Another problem is casting. As Esther, young American actress Tiffany Dupont's line readings are self-conscious and modern-sounding. Nor does she understand how to use her physical presence to claim scenes that should belong to her. English-born Luke Goss as King Xerxes is competent enough -- once one gets past his ill-defined accent -- but the story confronts him with a character who is more indecisive than Hamlet.
Xerxes wants to rule over a rich culture of enlightenment and tolerance. Yet his princes successfully pressure him into military adventurism. The villain, Haman (a one-note James Callis), bribes Xerxes into issuing a decree to slaughter all Jews within the kingdom. At this juncture, neither man realizes that the king's new wife, Esther, is Jewish. The key point of the story is how Esther, persuaded by her uncle Mordecai (John Rhys-Davies) that she must intervene, goes against all protocols to sway her husband's mind. And he changes his mind in a flash.
Distinguished work is turned in by the veteran Davies and by Tiny Lister Jr., who uses his deep, gravely voice and imposing physique as the royal eunuch to powerful effect. Israeli actor Jonah Lotan is effective as Esther's childhood friend, while Sharif is persuasive as a father figure to the waffling king.
The real heroes, though, are designer Aradhana Seth, costume designer Neeta Lula and cinematographer Steven Bernstein, who furnish a perfect setting for the tale. Jac Redford's generic background music, on the other hand, won't shut up.
ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING
Gener8Xion Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Michael O. Sajbel
Screenwriter: Stephan Blinn
Based on the novel by: Tommy Tenney, Mark Andrew Olsen
Producers: Matthew Crouch, Laurie Crouch, Richard J. Cook, Stephen Blinn, Lawrence Mortorff
Director of photography: Steven Bernstein
Production designer: Aradhana Seth
Music: Jac Redford
Costume designer: Neeta Lula
Editors: Gabriella Cristiani, Stephan Blinn
Cast:
Hadassah/Esther: Tiffany Dupont
Xerxes: Luke Goss
Mordecai: John Rhys-Davies
Prince Admantha: John Noble
Hagai: Tommy Tiny Lister Jr.
Haman: James Callis
Jesse: Jonah Lotan
Prince Memucan: Omar Sharif
Samuel: Peter O'Toole
Running time -- 124 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Director Michael O. Sajbel never gets a handle on a way to make the story come alive for modern audiences. Scenes jammed with beautifully costumed extras, exotic animals and impressive vistas of the city of Jodhpur quicken one's pulse. Yet whenever the camera moves inside those palaces for intrigues associated with empire building and bloody revenge, the movie devolves into a talky, static affair featuring a cast with wildly varying accents and acting abilities.
The unfortunate upshot is that One Night has little chance to cross over to audiences outside its Christian demographic even when Fox Home Entertainment takes over the DVD release in the spring after its national rollout today. The film's biggest potential hook -- the reteaming of Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in their first movie since Lawrence of Arabia -- disappears in less than a minute. O'Toole appears fleetingly in a prologue, then vanishes, sharing nary a scene with Sharif.
The screenplay by writer Stephan Blinn (basing his script on the novel "Hadassah: One Night With the King" by Tommy Tenney & Mark Andrew Olsen) is filled with plots and schemes but little real action. Not that good filmmakers can't make a banquet out of palace intrigue. But all this movie can manage is meatloaf: Actors stand in awkward-looking poses to declaim dialogue often lifted directly from the Bible. The spark of genuine drama is everywhere missing.
Another problem is casting. As Esther, young American actress Tiffany Dupont's line readings are self-conscious and modern-sounding. Nor does she understand how to use her physical presence to claim scenes that should belong to her. English-born Luke Goss as King Xerxes is competent enough -- once one gets past his ill-defined accent -- but the story confronts him with a character who is more indecisive than Hamlet.
Xerxes wants to rule over a rich culture of enlightenment and tolerance. Yet his princes successfully pressure him into military adventurism. The villain, Haman (a one-note James Callis), bribes Xerxes into issuing a decree to slaughter all Jews within the kingdom. At this juncture, neither man realizes that the king's new wife, Esther, is Jewish. The key point of the story is how Esther, persuaded by her uncle Mordecai (John Rhys-Davies) that she must intervene, goes against all protocols to sway her husband's mind. And he changes his mind in a flash.
Distinguished work is turned in by the veteran Davies and by Tiny Lister Jr., who uses his deep, gravely voice and imposing physique as the royal eunuch to powerful effect. Israeli actor Jonah Lotan is effective as Esther's childhood friend, while Sharif is persuasive as a father figure to the waffling king.
The real heroes, though, are designer Aradhana Seth, costume designer Neeta Lula and cinematographer Steven Bernstein, who furnish a perfect setting for the tale. Jac Redford's generic background music, on the other hand, won't shut up.
ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING
Gener8Xion Entertainment
Credits:
Director: Michael O. Sajbel
Screenwriter: Stephan Blinn
Based on the novel by: Tommy Tenney, Mark Andrew Olsen
Producers: Matthew Crouch, Laurie Crouch, Richard J. Cook, Stephen Blinn, Lawrence Mortorff
Director of photography: Steven Bernstein
Production designer: Aradhana Seth
Music: Jac Redford
Costume designer: Neeta Lula
Editors: Gabriella Cristiani, Stephan Blinn
Cast:
Hadassah/Esther: Tiffany Dupont
Xerxes: Luke Goss
Mordecai: John Rhys-Davies
Prince Admantha: John Noble
Hagai: Tommy Tiny Lister Jr.
Haman: James Callis
Jesse: Jonah Lotan
Prince Memucan: Omar Sharif
Samuel: Peter O'Toole
Running time -- 124 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 10/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
With nearly an hour of extra footage, mostly in added shots and small sequences, Bernardo Bertolucci's much-honored "The Last Emperor" is even more impressive in distributor Artisan Entertainment's "original director's cut" -- a sumptuous feast in Los Angeles at the Nuart and for cineastes in San Francisco and Chicago.
Now running 219 minutes (and shown disappointingly without an intermission), this winner of nine Academy Awards including best picture was released in 1987 and boldly portrays the life of Pu Yi with unparalleled access to the Forbidden City, where the young emperor lived for 16 years. Few movies before or since have so successfully combined the showmanship of widescreen filmmaking with rigorous, literate storytelling and delicate psychological characterizations.
Comparing the two versions is startling, with the longer captivating one in a more satisfying, big-movie fashion -- particularly in the first two hours. Along with more exquisitely beautiful scenes from Pu Yi's youth, including the entirely new story of how his beloved wet nurse (Jade Go) came to the Forbidden City, the present version has more details of the lead's harsh transformation through imprisonment and interrogation, including his complex relationship with the prison governor (Ying Ruocheng).
While the cutting between the adult Pu Yi (John Lone) as a war criminal and his coming of age in the turbulent early years of this century is the same in both editions, this preferred length allows one to fully digest the flavors and themes of Bertolucci and Mark Peploe's Oscar-winning screenplay. Historical but dramatic and highlighted by luminous performances (Peter O'Toole, Joan Chen) and breathtaking crowd scenes, "The Last Emperor" is a masterpiece with a few reservations that are not dismissed in either case.
The interrogators themselves hurry up the story by having Pu Yi move on to his involvement with the Japanese in the 1930s and World War II. The provocative Eastern Jewel (Maggie Han) still shows up out of the blue to create a new threesome for the playboy emperor in exile, and the Cultural Revolution, near the ironic conclusion, is not as well-explained as other eras portrayed.
Also winning Academy Awards for direction, editing, art direction, cinematography, costume design, scoring and sound, "The Last Emperor" is without question a tremendously impressive work of entertainment and art that soars on the big screen and makes a handsome home-viewing collector's item.
THE LAST EMPEROR ORIGINAL DIRECTOR'S CUT
Artisan Entertainment
In association with Recorded Picture Co. Hemdale Film Corp.
A Jeremy Thomas production
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Screenwriters: Mark Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci
Director of photography: Vittorio Storaro
Production designer: Ferdinando Scarfiotti
Editor: Gabriella Cristiani
Costume designer: James Acheson
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, Cong Su
Color/stereo
Cast:
Pu Yi (adult): John Lone
Wan Jung: Joan Chen
Reginald Johnston: Peter O'Toole
The Governor: Ying Ruocheng
Chen Pao Shen: Victor Wong
Eastern Jewel: Maggie Han
Ar Mo: Jade Go
Running time -- 219 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Now running 219 minutes (and shown disappointingly without an intermission), this winner of nine Academy Awards including best picture was released in 1987 and boldly portrays the life of Pu Yi with unparalleled access to the Forbidden City, where the young emperor lived for 16 years. Few movies before or since have so successfully combined the showmanship of widescreen filmmaking with rigorous, literate storytelling and delicate psychological characterizations.
Comparing the two versions is startling, with the longer captivating one in a more satisfying, big-movie fashion -- particularly in the first two hours. Along with more exquisitely beautiful scenes from Pu Yi's youth, including the entirely new story of how his beloved wet nurse (Jade Go) came to the Forbidden City, the present version has more details of the lead's harsh transformation through imprisonment and interrogation, including his complex relationship with the prison governor (Ying Ruocheng).
While the cutting between the adult Pu Yi (John Lone) as a war criminal and his coming of age in the turbulent early years of this century is the same in both editions, this preferred length allows one to fully digest the flavors and themes of Bertolucci and Mark Peploe's Oscar-winning screenplay. Historical but dramatic and highlighted by luminous performances (Peter O'Toole, Joan Chen) and breathtaking crowd scenes, "The Last Emperor" is a masterpiece with a few reservations that are not dismissed in either case.
The interrogators themselves hurry up the story by having Pu Yi move on to his involvement with the Japanese in the 1930s and World War II. The provocative Eastern Jewel (Maggie Han) still shows up out of the blue to create a new threesome for the playboy emperor in exile, and the Cultural Revolution, near the ironic conclusion, is not as well-explained as other eras portrayed.
Also winning Academy Awards for direction, editing, art direction, cinematography, costume design, scoring and sound, "The Last Emperor" is without question a tremendously impressive work of entertainment and art that soars on the big screen and makes a handsome home-viewing collector's item.
THE LAST EMPEROR ORIGINAL DIRECTOR'S CUT
Artisan Entertainment
In association with Recorded Picture Co. Hemdale Film Corp.
A Jeremy Thomas production
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Screenwriters: Mark Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci
Director of photography: Vittorio Storaro
Production designer: Ferdinando Scarfiotti
Editor: Gabriella Cristiani
Costume designer: James Acheson
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, Cong Su
Color/stereo
Cast:
Pu Yi (adult): John Lone
Wan Jung: Joan Chen
Reginald Johnston: Peter O'Toole
The Governor: Ying Ruocheng
Chen Pao Shen: Victor Wong
Eastern Jewel: Maggie Han
Ar Mo: Jade Go
Running time -- 219 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 11/30/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
War dehumanizes people. Not exactly a scoop, but in "Savior" it's vividly and graphically presented when an American career soldier goes killer-numb after the murder of his wife and child by terrorists.
Starring Dennis Quaid and billing Nastassja Kinski (she appears in one scene), this Oliver Stone production is a bluntly forged drama that puts a face on the way human beings deal with warfare: They demonize the other side, among other things.
Intelligently conceived, "Savior" should engage decent select-site numbers, while the Lions Gate release should make more of an impact on the foreign circuit, based on its international cast.
In a thought-provoking scenario, Quaid stars as Guy -- he could be any guy, the film seems to posit -- whose loving wife (Kinski) and child are blown to bits at a Parisian bistro. The culprits are fundamentalist terrorists. Guy wastes no time in taking matters into his own hands. He wreaks vengeance on a mosque of praying Arabs, wantonly slaughtering them before his friend and fellow soldier (Stellan Skarsgard) hustles him to safety.
The duo enlist in the anonymity of the French Foreign Legion, learning to become brutal killing machines. Guy, it is obvious, is entrenched in a state of severe antisocial psychosis -- the shock of his family's death has traumatized him, and he's become an unfeeling, automatic weapon himself.
Not surprisingly, he becomes a very efficient executioner, devoid of mercy and utterly capable of the most atrocious actions. His arena is Serbia, but, for all that matters, it could be anywhere in the world where there is a genocidal, ethnic war going on. Guy does not care; he merely shoots everything in his sights.
How a decent and otherwise devoted family man could snap and become a monstrous instrument of sadistic murder is convincingly presented in Robert Orr's smart, psychological scenario.
Under director Peter Antonijevic's steely hand, "Savior" offers supple visuals and a haunting, grainy film score. The performances are strong, including Quaid as the shattered soldier who loses, then redeems, his humanity.
SAVIOR
Lions Gate Films
An Oliver Stone production
A film by Peter Antonijevic
Credits: Producers: Oliver Stone, Janet Yang; Director: Peter Antonijevic; Screenwriter: Robert Orr; Executive producer: Cindy Cowan; Co-producers: Naomi Despres, Joseph Bruggeman; Line producer: Miryana Mijojlic; Associate producers: Molly M. Mayeux, Scott Moore; Director of photography: Ian Wilson; Editors: Gabriella Cristiani, Ian Crafford; Music: David Robbins; Casting: Mary Vernieu. Cast: Guy: Dennis Quaid; Maria: Nastassja Kinski; Dominic: Stellan Skarsgard; Vera: Natasa Ninkovic; Goran: Sergej Trifunovic; Vera's brother: Neboisa Glogovac; Woman on Bus: Vesna Trivalic. MPAA rating: R. Color/stereo. Running time -- 105 minutes.
Starring Dennis Quaid and billing Nastassja Kinski (she appears in one scene), this Oliver Stone production is a bluntly forged drama that puts a face on the way human beings deal with warfare: They demonize the other side, among other things.
Intelligently conceived, "Savior" should engage decent select-site numbers, while the Lions Gate release should make more of an impact on the foreign circuit, based on its international cast.
In a thought-provoking scenario, Quaid stars as Guy -- he could be any guy, the film seems to posit -- whose loving wife (Kinski) and child are blown to bits at a Parisian bistro. The culprits are fundamentalist terrorists. Guy wastes no time in taking matters into his own hands. He wreaks vengeance on a mosque of praying Arabs, wantonly slaughtering them before his friend and fellow soldier (Stellan Skarsgard) hustles him to safety.
The duo enlist in the anonymity of the French Foreign Legion, learning to become brutal killing machines. Guy, it is obvious, is entrenched in a state of severe antisocial psychosis -- the shock of his family's death has traumatized him, and he's become an unfeeling, automatic weapon himself.
Not surprisingly, he becomes a very efficient executioner, devoid of mercy and utterly capable of the most atrocious actions. His arena is Serbia, but, for all that matters, it could be anywhere in the world where there is a genocidal, ethnic war going on. Guy does not care; he merely shoots everything in his sights.
How a decent and otherwise devoted family man could snap and become a monstrous instrument of sadistic murder is convincingly presented in Robert Orr's smart, psychological scenario.
Under director Peter Antonijevic's steely hand, "Savior" offers supple visuals and a haunting, grainy film score. The performances are strong, including Quaid as the shattered soldier who loses, then redeems, his humanity.
SAVIOR
Lions Gate Films
An Oliver Stone production
A film by Peter Antonijevic
Credits: Producers: Oliver Stone, Janet Yang; Director: Peter Antonijevic; Screenwriter: Robert Orr; Executive producer: Cindy Cowan; Co-producers: Naomi Despres, Joseph Bruggeman; Line producer: Miryana Mijojlic; Associate producers: Molly M. Mayeux, Scott Moore; Director of photography: Ian Wilson; Editors: Gabriella Cristiani, Ian Crafford; Music: David Robbins; Casting: Mary Vernieu. Cast: Guy: Dennis Quaid; Maria: Nastassja Kinski; Dominic: Stellan Skarsgard; Vera: Natasa Ninkovic; Goran: Sergej Trifunovic; Vera's brother: Neboisa Glogovac; Woman on Bus: Vesna Trivalic. MPAA rating: R. Color/stereo. Running time -- 105 minutes.
- 11/17/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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