When it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, it caused ripples for the damning portrait it painted of the Bush government's mishandling of the Iraq War. On its release later that year, it received huge critical acclaim. At the 2007 Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Documentary. All along, No End in Sight has been an intrinsically political film and now its director Charles Ferguson – a political expert and former White House advisor – has attempted to let the film's message reach an even broader audience by allowing people to view it for free on YouTube between September 1 and November 5 (the day after the presidential election). "I wanted to make the film, and the facts about the occupation of Iraq, accessible to a larger group of people," Ferguson said in a press release. "My hope is that this will contribute to the process of making better foreign policy decisions moving forward in Iraq and elsewhere. During this election year, it's important to examine the leadership mentality and policies that caused Iraq to descend into such a horrific state that after 4,000 American deaths, at least a quarter million Iraqis killed, 4 million refugees, and over $2 trillion spent, Iraq remains in a state of near collapse."
In recent days, Hollywood is being given a run for its money as the film capital of the world – although not much of a run. The Tennessean.com reports how two Christian-inflected development companies (Tower Investments and 821 Entertainment) are pushing a proposal to turn the Tennessee State Fairground into film studio. In conjunction with a series of state tax incentives to entice film production, the tentatively named "Browns Creek Media Village" will be looking to cash in on film projects hoping to shoot in Tennessee. But more to the point, the project looks to target a "heartland" audience. According to the Tennessean.com, "[821 Entertainment's Eric ] Geadelmann said the success of films such as The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia series presented a compelling business case for films that appeal to people who live in between the coasts. But it's not just Christian themes the brand would focus on. Meanwhile, further North, Michigan is also making a push to be a filmmaking destination. Grand Rapids Press reports that three movie studios are being planned in the Wolverine State. California-based company V-One Entertainment is behind these studios, which they are planning for West Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Grand Rapids, albeit right now these are just plans.
If I had a dollar for every time we have written in this space about the converging mediums of musical theatre / opera and the movies, then by now I would be able to buy something worth, um, about ten dollars. Recently, film directors have been flocking to direct operas, and movies are being turned into musicals and operas at a rate of knots. (Traditionally, of course, Hollywood used to plunder from Broadway, not vice versa.) The latest news conforming to this fascinating trend is that David Cronenberg's The Fly will be hitting the stage in September as a production performed by the Los Angeles Opera. Cronenberg and his regular screen composer Howard Shore are both heavily involved in proceedings as is librettist, David Henry Hwang (who worked with Cronenberg previously on adapting his own M. Butterfly), but the Canadian director has stressed that this is not just a rehash of the film. "I didn't want to remake the movie. I didn't want to rewrite the screenplay again," he told Reuters. "This production has a power and charisma all its own." It will be interesting to see what aria Seth Brundle (played by Jeff Goldblum in the original movie, but here by bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch) will sing when, already mutated into Brundlefly, his body parts begin falling off.
When you look over the audience, it seems like everyone is here: Oprah, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Hudson, Sheryl Crow, Steven Spielberg, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Garner, Rosario Dawson, George Lucas, Forest Whitaker, Daniel Dae Kim, Susan Sarandon, Anne Hathaway, Taye Diggs, Josh Brolin, Kanye West, Kal Penn, Jamie Foxx, Fran Drescher, Ashley Judd, and Annette Bening – to name just a few. Is it the Golden Globes? No, the Democratic National Convention which has been celebrity central, especially for those hoping to hear Barack Obama's historical acceptance speech. And while most were hanging out in the VIP rooms, soaking up the history, a few were actually working. LA Times reports that Kal Penn (of the Harold and Kumar movies) will be working as a political whip for the Virginian delegates. Penn, who has been actively involved with the Obama campaign for the last few months, explained to the LA Times his passion for politics: "The majority of kids I've met on the road are struggling. A lot of their parents have lost jobs that have gone overseas. They don't have health care. A lot have buddies in Iraq. This is the regular story across the country."
Aaron Sorkin is a real go-to guy when it comes to showing the way that organizations work: in his TV work, his three shows broke down the how a sports show (Sports Night), the White House (The West Wing) and a comedy sketch programme (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) all functioned. He has, of course, also been involved in a number of films – including A Few Good Men, The American President and Charlie Wilson's War – many of which have been about government and leadership. However Sorkin is moving into new territory with his next screen project: a movie about the development of Facebook, currently the world's most popular social networking website. It will be particularly interesting for Sorkin given that, as he announced on a Facebook page (created by his assistant) for the forthcoming film, "my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she's been dead for 33 years." Having McCain-esque online familiarity will certainly allow Sorkin to approach the story of Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and cohorts Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, the Facebook founding family, with a fresh (and un-geeky) perspective on the story. That said, Sorkin may be a cyber wiz by the time the script is done as on his Facebook page he pledges to "get better at this as I get more practice."
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