Category: Film News

Posted on

Disney Expo 2015 Announces Star Wars Lands

 

The Disney Expo is the mini Comic Con event of the year and gives fans, families, and kids alike the chance to come out to the Anaheim Convention Center and check out what the happiest place on Earth is up to. The expo gave fans the opportunity to get a first hand look at everything Disney—from movies, to video games, this is the place to go to get your Disney fix. The convention ran from August 14th to August 16th and some of the biggest highlights came from the Star Wars segment, the Marvel segment, and the announcement of release dates of every Disney film from now until 2017. Captain America: Civil War was one of the biggest highlights, as well as the announcement of Star Wars parks at both Disneyland and Disneyworld. These will be the biggest additions to both parks in the history of Disney.

But the main story that came from D23 was the release dates for some of your favorite Disney movies. Some important dates and movies to put down in your calendar are: May 6th 2016 Captain America: Civil War, May 27th 2016 Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass, and July 2017 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Most notably is the moving of the highly anticipated live action remake Tarzan starring Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz and Ways to Live Forever actress Ella Purnell, which was slated for a July 2017 release, to an unannounced date in either 2018 or 2019. This comes as a huge surprise to many as the original release date was October of next year. With Tarzan moved back, it gave way to the big announcement of a live action movie based on the classic ride The Jungle Cruise, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has already been confirmed to take on the lead role.

Overall, the Disney Expo 2015 was a great success, and although the moving of Tarzan is sad, you can get your Disney fix on many other movies including the newest movies of Alice in Wonderland and yet another Captain Jack Sparrow movie.

Posted on

National Book Day 2015

 

National Book Day is August 9th, and more than ever we as a nation should celebrate this day. With fewer and fewer people reading books (myself included), we should all take time in the day to sit down and read a few pages from our favorite novel. In an ever-growing, technological-driven world, one day out of the year to just read a book would be an important thing. Why read a book when you have Twitter, the Associated Press, and CNN all at the push of a button? And although novels continue to be released, Hollywood buys many of them instantly and turns them into movies to watch. I myself, am guilty of not reading the Hunger Games series but I find myself watching all of the movies. Below are some of the biggest movies that were based off best-selling books. Jurassic Park, The Hunger Games and the Lord of the Rings Series are a few of tons of books that can be read on National Book Day.

  1. Jurassic Park (1993) is based off of Michael Crichton’s book of the same name. The first of the the film installments takes place on an island with a billionaire philanthropist and a team of genetic scientists. They find a mosquito that contains dinosaur DNA encased in tree sap, and they use it to create a park full of dinosaurs. A theme park with dinosaurs...what could possibly go wrong?
  2. Hunger Games (2011) is based off of the trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The first book in the installment, it centers around the young female protagonist Katniss Everdeen and her efforts to survive in a dystopian society ruled by the ruthless President Snow. Katniss and Peeta Mellark are chosen to fight to the death in an arena, an annual reminder of Snow’s disdain towards the old days of Panem.
  3. Lord of the Rings (2001) is the first in the film trilogy and is based off of the beloved novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. The story follows Frodo, a hobbit who has found himself in possession of a powerful ring used by the Dark Lord Sauron. Frodo, along with eight others, must destroy the ring in the fires of Mt. Doom to prevent another war between good and evil. Now that’s what I’m Tolkien about!

August 9th, 2015 is National Book Day so don’t forget to put it down in your calendars, because you may not regret it being able to pick up your favorite book once again, or expanding your horizons and starting a new one!

Posted on

Grab A Friend! It’s National Friendship Day—August 2nd 2015

 

Friends, one of the very things that we as people can't stop thinking about. We constantly think about our friends and it's only natural. In today’s technologically-driven world, people are always in contact with their friends. Whether it is through Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, we always want to know what our friends are up to and be a part of it, even if we aren’t there. National Friendship Day which is celebrated annually on August 2nd is a great way to fix a possible broken friendship, or strengthen a healthy one with a night out with a friend. It was originally founded by Hallmark in 1919 as a day to send a friend or best friend with a loving card. Although cards aren’t used widely in today’s society, a Instagram picture showing you and your friend would most definitely suffice.

Depending on what mood you and your friend are in there are plenty of flicks that could do the job. A few of my personal favorites I would watch with my friend if we are in the mood for a tear jerker would be The Fault In Our Stars, If I Stay and Ways to Live Forever. All of these movies have one thing in common, they are about two people (friends or lovers) that have extraordinary circumstances they must overcome together. All three are very moving movies and all have a great message. If you are going toward the happier and funnier route, The Toy Story trilogy, The Hangover and The Despicable Me series are all great choices. Take time this upcoming summer to mark the date for National Friendship Day, it would truly make your friend’s day and probably make yours a little better too.

Posted on

Ben Chaplin in British Import “Dates” on the CW

 

Ben Chaplin turned 46 on July 31st! Ben, born and raised in the UK, is a notable actor with roles in many films from the 1990s up until the present. In 1992, Chaplin landed his first break starring in "Bye Bye Baby" for Channel Four. He was later cast in The Remains of the Day. Continuing to advance his career, Chaplin garnered rave reviews as Tom in Sam Mendes' stage production of The Glass Menagerie (1995). Some of his more recent notable films include the independent film Ways to Live Forever, Cinderella, and the 2015 British TV series Mad Dogs. Chaplin has received a few awards during his acting career such as the Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Performer in The Glass Menagerie, and a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in The Retreat from Moscow. Ben is now appearing on the CW network in Dates, a British romantic comedy import about personal relationships.

Ben will actually be starring in a new British television show “Dates” which is set to be released in the U.S. soon. There are currently nine episodes currently acquired. The show centers around couples first dates after meeting via online dating. The premier dates are not currently set, however they show release is supposedly set for sometime this summer.

A few interesting facts about Chaplin is that his real name is actually Benedict John Greenwood and he became interested in acting after attending a school play. He later attended and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Ben Chaplin is known for concentrating on risk-taking, quality movies rather than mainstream and Hollywood films.

Posted on

Actress Emilia Fox Talks About Family, Love, and Feminism in Interview with Good Housekeeping UK

 

Actress Emilia Fox opened up to Good Housekeeping for the August 2015 issue about her hopes and views on marriage and men.

After a recent trip to Ethiopia as an ambassador for ActionAid, the 41 year-old Fox stated she “would love to get married again.” The actress describes herself as a hopeless romantic, and hopes that she can marry once again. Emilia Fox was married to Jared Harris in 2005, but the two were divorced after three years.

The Ways To Live Forever actress told the magazine, “When I was in Ethiopia and saw families with siblings who look after each other, I thought how we can get caught up in our work. But what is more important than family life? So, yes, I would love more children!” She also mentioned it would be nice for her daughter to have more siblings to grow up with.

Fox recalls that in her youth she had “a very idyllic childhood, of innocence and wild gardens and running around in Dorset pressing wild flowers, making scrapbooks and being by the sea in rock pools.”

She encourages romance and chivalry, as she wholeheartedly stated that she “believes in equality…But equally I love it when gentlemen are allowed to be gentlemen…I don’t think we want to kill that off with the word feminism—when a gentleman is kind to you and opens a door, or gives up his seat or says something nice, we must encourage that too,” and believes equality should live hand-in-hand with chivalry.

Posted on

Sixth-Generation Chinese Cinema and Academy selection The Nightingale

 

The exhibition of Chinese films in the US has not always been as common as it has become in the recent years. Cold War politics forced the two nations into an unfriendly embargo, so that the exhibition of Chinese films on US soil was non-existent. The cease of almost all artistic creation during the “cultural revolution” left China without a film industry for many years. Without a cinema to represent it in a global stage, this vast nation became an enigma to the international film community. This much was true, until China reopened their film schools, and gave students the opportunity to have their films be exhibited internationally.

The first group of film students who worked to reintroduce Chinese cinema to the world was dubbed the “fifth generation.” Their films gathered international interest, not only because they unveiled the style and point of view of inland Chinese cinema, but also because their films were of high artistic value. A certain dogma of Chinese cinema since its reintroduction to the world was unveiled with the film Yellow Earth. That film exclaims an artistic style through slow scroll-like camera tilts that embody the earth as a character that is in control of the tragic ambiance and the poverty stricken characters that live on that land. This film, along with a few others, had the opportunity to be shown in various prestigious international film festivals during the 1980’s, and with it came the exponential regrowth of the Chinese film industry.

Today, the Chinese film industry is one of the world’s largest in terms of number of pictures made. At the same time, China continues to maintain a high artistic pedigree in their productions. This is evident in one of China’s contributions to the Academy Awards: The Nightingale (to be distributed by World Wide Motion Picture Corporation). This picture is a heartfelt story about an old man traveling through rural China with a pet bird nightingale and his young granddaughter. The Nightingale emphasizes certain themes evident in contemporary transnational cinema regarding culture. In a world interconnected with the immediacy of technology — as emphasized by the young tech-savvy granddaughter in the film— Chinese culture is almost non-existent in the big cities, but it is rediscovered in the countryside. With that said, technology and the commodities brought by economic growth, have lessened the warmth and communication in families, which is seen in the transformation of Ren Xing (the grandaughter) as the journey develops.
A Chinese-French co-production, evidently falling under the transnational category — a trait it shares with a lot of international cinemas — The Nightingale also follows suit of now sixth-generation Chinese cinema — pictures such as The World, or In The Mood For Love. Like many films around the world, The Nightingale embodies a universality that makes it a film that can be understood, no matter the nationality of the audience watching it.