Thompson on Hollywood

SFIFF To Honor Serge Bromberg, Present His Retour de Flamme: Rare and Restored Films in 3-D

The San Francisco International Film Festival, which runs April 21 - May 5, will present the Mel Novikoff Award to Serge Bromberg, in recognition of his invaluable contributions as cinematic enthusiast, collector, preservationist, exhibitor and programmer.

By Sophia Savage
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March 9, 2011 6:25 AM
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Fairy Tale Trend Reveals Female Sex Threat; A Comprehensive Guide to Fairy Tales in the Works UPDATE

- A bit behind the curve, The Guardian warns: "Prepare for a fairytale invasion." The trend will "really get into top gear with the debut in the U.S. of [Catherine Hardwicke's] Little Red Riding Hood." While we've been tracking the abundance of fairy tales -- from the high-profile The Brothers Grimm: Snow White starring Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen to Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters to Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (we've compiled details on all the fairy tales in the works and a quiz, below) -- The Guardian is honing in on themes of sexual awakening and the supernatural -- the popular variation of which was kicked off by the Twilight series and has been picked up for Red Riding Hood (clearly aiming for the same teen demo).

By Sophia Savage
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March 8, 2011 6:44 AM
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Revivals: The Return of Schwarzenegger and the Western

Remakes and reboots are a dime a dozen these days, but roots run deeper for some more than others. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 63, is getting back to work. And having been pronounced dead, the western genre is being welcomed by a new generation in both classic and hybrid forms.

By Sophia Savage
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March 7, 2011 9:14 AM
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Academy Names Beauchamp and Keating Academy Film Scholars; Accepting Nicholl Fellowship Screenplays

One of the reasons the Academy is so eager to get good ratings at the Oscars is that the ad revenue that they raise that night funds all their ongoing activity, from exhibitions and programming to the Academy Library. They also back film scholarship and the high-profile Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship competition, which is now accepting entries for 2011. The Academy will award up to five $30,000 fellowships in November. Last year's competition drew 6,304 entries; since 1985, the Academy has awarded 118 fellowships, which function as a gateway to the industry.

By Anne Thompson
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March 7, 2011 7:20 AM
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In Development: Hoult's Giant Killer and Warm Bodies; Bardem in Dark Tower; Yet Another Fairy Tale

- A Single Man star Nicholas Hoult (pictured in a campaign for director/fashion designer Tom Ford) is on the rise with X-Men First Class, Jack and the Giant Killer, and now, Warm Bodies and the stalled Mad Max: Fury Road are in the works. X-Men opens June 3, Bryan Singer's Jack and the Giant Killer, a modern fairytale retelling (sounds familiar), is in pre-production at Warner Bros. (set to shoot mid-March with Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy, Stanley Tucci and the just-cast Brit actress Eleanor Tomlinson, set to play Princess Isabella). Summit's Warm Bodies, to be directed by Jonathan Levine off an Isaac Marion book, is set for a summer production. Described as a hybrid of Twilight and Shaun of the Dead, the story follows an existentially-tormented zombie who befriends the girlfriend of one of his victims. Hoult first got our attention in 2002's About A Boy, when he was just 12 years old.

By Sophia Savage
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March 2, 2011 6:30 AM
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Development Watch: Oscar Contenders at Work: Eisenberg & Leo, Brolin & Burton, Tarantino & Waltz

- With the award season wrapped, Oscar nominees and winners can get back to work. This summer, Best Actor nominee Jesse Eisenberg and Best Supporting Actress winner Melissa "F-Word" Leo will shoot Predisposed, an independent comedy about a drug-addict mom and her son, set on the day of his interview at Julliard and her enlistment in rehab, where she must arrive intoxicated in order to be admitted without health insurance. This is not a new role for Leo: a short of the same name went to Sundance in 2009. Philip Dorling and Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) wrote the script, and while Dorling directed the short, Nyswaner will direct the feature. 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan is rumored to be playing Leo's drug dealer.

By Sophia Savage
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March 1, 2011 7:00 AM
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Hitchcock/Truffaut Audio Interview

Every self-respecting cinephile owns a dog-eared copy of Hitchcock/Truffaut, the legendary interview between French critic/filmmaker Francois Truffaut and the great Alfred Hitchcock, translated by Helen Scott.

By Anne Thompson
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February 21, 2011 9:14 AM
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Scorsese and Luhrmann Go 3-D with Hugo Cabret, The Great Gatsby

Haven't the studios figured out yet that discerning audiences consider 3-D to be a negative? Warner Bros. got it when they returned Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 to 2-D. Why downgrade a Tiffany property?

By Anne Thompson
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February 21, 2011 12:52 AM
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Video: Hulu Pacts with Criterion--And Netflix Couldn't Care Less

Reaction is mixed to news that Hulu and Criterion Collection have announced an exclusive new content partnership that will bring more than 800 titles to the Hulu Plus subscription service, including works from such auteurs as Ingmar Bergman, Charlie Chaplin, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut and Orson Welles.

By Anne Thompson
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February 17, 2011 6:19 AM
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Legend Watch: Shakespeare as Hollywood Screenwriter, Dame Judi as Career Sage

- Ralph Fiennes's Coriolanus marks his directorial debut and reveals his admiration for William Shakespeare. His film is a contemporary retelling of the Bard's political thriller. "I can’t help thinking if he [Shakespeare] were alive and writing today, he’d be writing for cinema. His stories and language are cinematic,” he said at the Berlinale, where the film premiered. Meeting the press, he had his three producers -- Julia Taylor-Stanley, Gaby Tana and Colin Vaines -- stand and bow, wanting applause from “the roomful of film journalists who know how difficult it is these days to get an independent film made.”