Under The Radar: Plus Camerimage Festival 2012: David Lynch
Posted on Tuesday November 27, 2012, 10:45 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Last night, David Lynch was treated to a rowdy, minutes-long standing ovation when he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award for directing at the opening ceremony of the Plus Camerimage festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Earlier in the evening Lynch, a regular at the festival in recent years, was presented with the key to the city of Bydgoszcz by mayor Rafał Bruski. In a brief speech, Lynch described the honour as “dangerous”, although it’s doubtful that the key bestows any real civic powers on the recipient. (If it does, his first order of business should be to fix a few potholes).
Plus Camerimage, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, is an international festival dedicated to the art of cinematography. Featuring a welter of event, including the main competition, in which nominees vie for the coveted Golden Frog award; and competitions for student films, documentary shorts and features, music videos, feature debuts and Polish films. It also boasts an extensive progra... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich 2012 - Jerry Weintraub Q&A
Posted on Tuesday September 25, 2012, 19:58 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Tonight, legendary producer Jerry Weintraub, a genuine larger-than-life Hollywood showmen in the mould of Mike Todd or Sam Spiegal, will celebrate his 75th birthday by accepting the ZFF’s Golden Eye Career Achievement Award.
Famed for producing Robert Altman’s seminal 1975 film Nashville, as well as the Karate Kid franchise (including the 2010 remake) and the Ocean’s Eleven blockbusters, Weintraub, began his remarkable career in the music business, promoting tours for, among many others, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin. He switched to movie production in the early 1970s. Forty years on, he remains very much in the game with an HBO biopic of flamboyant Vegas star Liberace in the can and a big-budget Tarzan project in pre-production at Warner Bros. The Liberace project is based on the book Behind The Candelabra, a memoir by Liberace’s lover Scott Thorson, and stars Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson. It was directed by Ocean’s helmer Stev... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich 2012 - Arbitrage Q&A
Posted on Tuesday September 25, 2012, 09:41 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 On the surface, Arbitrage, writer-director Nicholas Jarecki’s debut feature, might look like another zeitgeisty morality tale in which an evil banker gets his comeuppance (see Margin Call et al). Thanks to a whip smart script and a superb central performance from Richard Gere as financial titan Robert Miller, a flawed man in a flawed world, fighting for survival as his life begins to fall apart. An intense human drama, the film, through Miller’s plight, delves into the personal consequences that derive not just from rapacious greed but from bad judgement, something of which we have all been guilty.
Arbitrage, which also stars Susan Sarandon (playing Miller’s wife), Tim Roth, Brit Marling and Nate Parker, received its European premiere in Zurich last, and event marked by Richard Gere’s acceptance of the festival’s Golden Icon Award. So far, despite rave reviews in the states, record-breaking per-screen box office and murmurs of an Oscar nod for Gere (his first ever, wer... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich 2012 - The Sessions Q&A
Posted on Saturday September 22, 2012, 22:50 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Empire talks to the cast and filmmakers of The Sessions, writer-director Ben Lewin’s film about poet and essayist Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes), a severely disabled man and his strange, funny and ultimately moving relationship with a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt), and therapist whose controversial methods involve intimate physical contact (i.e doing it) with her patients.
How did you come to be involved in The Sessions?
Helen Hunt: I was sent the script by Ben and had coffee with him, and we didn’t fight...
Ben Lewin: There’s still time yet (laughs).
Hunt: It all happened very quickly. We didn’t do a lot of rehearsal, which was kind of perfect given the way these two people meet and how much they don’t know each other and how intimate they become so quickly.
You seem to be very selective about the roles you accept.
Hunt: A good story is almost more ... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich 2012 - The Sessions
Posted on Saturday September 22, 2012, 22:48 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 It was Helen Hunts turn to add to her already groaning trophy cabinet last night. The actress-producer-director collected a Zurich Festival Golden Eye Award to add to her collection of Emmys, Golden Globes, SAGs, People’s Choises and, oh yes, her Best Actress Oscar for 1997’s As Good As It Gets.
Following the ceremony and a convivial Q&A with Hunt, her latest film, writer-director Ben Lewin’s The Sessions, received its European premiere. Based on the writings of Mark O’Brien, a poet and award-winning essayist, profoundly disabled by a bout of polio, the film focuses on O’Brien’s experiences with a sex surrogate (a therapist whose methods include actual nookie with clients) which he recounted in a 1990 article for The Sun, an eclectic American arts mag, not to be confused with the British tabloid of Page 3 Stunnahs! fame. You can read the piece, the basis for Lewin’s script, here: http://www.readability.com/read?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pacificnews.org%2Fmar... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich 2012 - Oliver Stone Q&A
Posted on Friday September 21, 2012, 22:47 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 The 8th Zurich International Film Festival kicked off today with an early morning screening of Oliver Stone’s brutally violent, drug war thriller Savages, starring Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek and John Travolta, who tonight will receive the festival’s prestigious Golden Eye award for lifetime achievement. Later, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather in the gardens of the swanky Hotel Baur au Lac, overlooking Lake Zurich and the distant Alps, Stone took time to discuss the film (and much else besides), on the eve of its UK release.
How are you enjoying Zurich?
It’s great. This is easy for me because it’s John’s night. The people are nice, it’s a beautiful city. It’s quiet, everybody goes to bed at ten o’clock, but apart from that...
What reaction to Savages are you anticipating from British audiences?
Well, the British love it when I jump up ... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich 2012 - John Travolta Q&A
Posted on Friday September 21, 2012, 22:24 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Empire talks to John Travolta, this year’s recipient of the Zurich Film Festival’s Golden Eye Award for Life Achievement.
Winning a lifetime achievement award must put you in a reflective mood. How do you feel about winning the Golden Eye and, looking back, do you have any regrets?
I’m very proud of the award. It means people have looked at my life and deemed it worthy of acknowledgment, and that’s always an honour. I don’t believe in regrets, I believe your future is in your tomorrows. I do believe you learn from your past, but it’s been a good life, filled with ups and downs, with fascinating adventures.
Talking about ups and downs, you’ve certainly had your share. How important has it been to have a strong wife and family by your side?
Well, as long as it’s the right wife and the right family it’s marvelous (laughs). If it’s the wrong wife and the wrong family then it’s not. I... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Zurich International Film Festival 2012
Posted on Friday September 21, 2012, 22:22 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Zurich rolled out the green carpet last night - literally, it was green; they have to be different, the Swiss - for the opening ceremony of the 8th Zurich International Film Festival.
Following speeches from festival co-directors Karl Spoerri and Nadja Schildknecht, both welcoming the event’s honoree John Travolta and highlighting the festival’s burgeoning reputation (it’s not Cannes or Venice yet, but it’s getting there), the crowd was treated to a rip-roaring showreel of Travolta’s career highlights. It was a reminder, if one was needed, of just how many great films Travolta has made, and how many indelible characters he’s played, from Saturday Night Fever’s Tony Manero, Grease’s Danny Zucko and Hairspray’s Edna Turbland, to Primary Colors’ Governor Jack Stanton, Get Shorty’s ubercool Chili Palmer, Face/Off’s Sean Archer and the iconic, immortal Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction (sadly, there was no footage from The Boy In The P... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Aruba 2012: Jonathan Vieira Q&A
Posted on Friday June 29, 2012, 09:16 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Arubafest 2012 winds up today with a red-carpet dance display and a closing night party at which, it seems, it is mandatory to leap into the pool fully clothed. The Empire tuxedo will remain in the closet.
To be honest, the AIFF is not a tuxedo kind of affair. As you might expect, given its setting, it is extremely laid-back. And if it doesn’t have the star-wattage of the big festivals, it doesn’t have the insanity either. It’s been a charming, intimate event with thoughtfully programmed films, several of which were outstanding, and, with the Caribbean Spotlight Series, a celebration of local filmmakers and local subjects - which is what a film festival should be about. In addition, there was the Aruba Flavor short films competition, a subdivision of the Caribbean Spotlight Series. The jury prize here went to Wake Up (which got Empire’s vote), directed by Ken Wolff, an animated comedy in which a depressed canary contemplates suicide by leaping off a building, only to realiz... Continue reading... Comment Now
Back To TopUnder The Radar: Aruba 2012: Ray Liotta Q&A
Posted on Wednesday June 27, 2012, 22:44 by Simon Braund in Under The Radar
 Another festival highlight: Ray Liotta giving an inept Italian journo a steely-eyed, Henry Hill stare when she informed him during a press conference that she’d recently interviewed him for a movie but hadn’t got a clue what it was, so could he list all his recent projects to remind her. Incompetent and rude. Just the way to endear yourself to a movie star.
Film-wise, for Empire, the stand-out of the AIFF is still the documentary Children Of The Wind, a) because it’s a compelling story of triumph over adversity, b) because it is extremely well made, c) because of the irresistible personalities of the subjects, and d) because it achieves the impossible feat of making windsurfing interesting to non-aficionados. Elsewhere, Laurent Bouzerou’s documentary Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir was a huge disappointment, a craven puff piece offering little or nothing we don’t already know. Another documentary, Nochi No Ke Lagami Bai (The Night Holds Me Back) had a lot of promise. Scr... Continue reading... Comment Now
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