NEW YORK, Jan. 23, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Over the past five years, food and wine have become "the most popular form of entertainment," according to Herb Karlitz, president of Karlitz & Company.

ONTARIO, Calif., Jan. 23, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- SOYO Inc. (OTCBB:SOYO), an innovative provider of computer and consumer electronics products, announced today that they will sponsor Alvin "KID" Robinson in his fight against "Ultimate Fighter" winner Nate Diaz at UFC Fight Night. The fight will take place, tonight, January 23, 2008 at the Pearl Palms Concert Theatre in Las Vegas, Nevada. Televised coverage begins at 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific.

Filed under: Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy

After the shocking death of Heath Ledger yesterday, some fans wondered about The Dark Knight, while others were curious about Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. While the bat-flick wrapped earlier, Variety reports that there was still a lot of work ahead for the Python alum's next movie: "The $30 million indie pic wrapped the London leg of its shoot last Saturday. The production team has moved to Vancouver, Canada, where blue-screen work was due to start next week and continue until early March." (Ledger's name was a key part of the indie flick getting so much money.)

So far, there has been no statement issued by the producers on the film's plans, as I imagine they're all suffering from a mixture of shock, grief, and panic. The project, which also includes the likes of Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, and Tom Waits, focuses on "the story of an ancient traveling show which arrives in modern London with a magical mirror that can transport its audience into fantastical realms of the imagination."

Between this and the Don Quixote turmoil, I would not want to be in Gilliam's shoes.

But I do want to leave you with this sad, yet touching, quote that Variety posted from Gilliam, which he said last month during an interview: "Heath is extraordinary. He's just so good, and he's going to be a film director. He's watching everything, and he's going to be a much better director than I will ever be." (Ledger had been planning his directorial debut with The Queen's Gambit.)

UPDATE: According to US Weekly, the production was shut down.

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Filed under: Comedy, Shorts, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Trailers and Clips

After all of the shocking and sad news yesterday, there's nothing like a refreshing laugh, or 50. I've enjoyed many of the Funny or Die shorts that have popped up, but this one is pure gold. This time around, Jerry O'Connell spoofs Tom Cruise's creepy Scientology video -- you know, the one Patrick Walsh blogged about, where Tommy reveals that he, and other Scientologists, are like an EMT/Jaws of Life combo for terrible accidents. (Oh, how I'd love to hear WHY.)

After watching this clip, my appreciation for the former Slider has increased exponentially. I could type away and share some of the jokes Jerry includes in this clip, but it's better to just see it for yourself. Suffice to say, if there is ever a Tom Cruise biopic, I want O'Connell to star. Enjoy!

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Filed under: Foreign Language, Independent, Berlin, Celebrities and Controversy, Exhibition, Cinematical Indie

In the midst of Sundance Deals and mainstream news, here are some indie bites:

• While it won't be competing, Jam! reports that Guy Maddin's wonderful film My Winnipeg will screen on the opening night of Berlinale's International Forum of New Cinema program. (Check out my TIFF review here.) Personally, I wish it could compete and then take over the world, but I realize that Maddin hasn't gotten enough recognition yet. (He's seriously one of the most accessible filmmakers of strange fare out there. Go check him out if you haven't already.) While Winnipeg isn't competing, another production with Canadian roots is -- Amos Kollek's Restless.
• Meanwhile, Til Schweiger continues to face problems. After ticking people off with his risque all-ages comedy, now Variety reports that he's quit the German Film Academy in protest. Why? Because Keinohrhasen, the movie that's been making waves, wasn't considered for a German film award. The Academy claims they didn't register in time, and that should it get registered, it could be eligible in 2009. I guess that wasn't good enough for Schweiger.
• Remember that movie ban in China? Well, now Variety reports that The Water Horse will be the first foreign film to screen to bust through the ban, over the previously announced Atonement. The latter is screening on February 22, but Horse nabbed itself a February 16 screen date. Will this "blackout" continue? Is it all just a farce? Stay tuned!

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The evening screenings in Park City began under a light snow and a heavy cloud of gloom as this town of movie nuts talked in hushed, flattened tones about the death of Heath Ledger. There are those core-meltdown stars you expect to hear via friend's IM that they finally rang down the shade, but Ledger was not one of those stars. Whatever was going on inside him, he kept it off the screen and out of the papers. Maybe he'd still be here if he hadn't.

In the circumstances, Clark Gregg's "Choke" seemed a perfectly appropriate viewing choice: a comedy of the most cynical, dysfunctional bleakness, topped off with a message-y warmth that fooled no one at the screening. Based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel, it concerns the misadventures of Victor (Sam Rockwell), sex addict, scam artist, colonial re-enactor, and momma's boy. Anjelica Huston plays mom, hospitalized with dementia, and Kelly McDonald plays a doctor with most unusual notions of patient care. (As Bill Murray said in "Tootsie," "That is one nutty hospital.")

There are as many laughs as gasps of calculated shock in "Choke," and everything to do with Victor's job at a historical theme park is blitheringly funny. The film loses focus, though, and eventually it loses its nerve, although always entertainingly. You'll get a chance to decide for yourself: Fox Searchlight has just acquired the film for $5 million. Finally, some business gets done at Sundance 2008.

"Sugar" is directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's follow-up to the much-loved "Half Nelson," and while the new film couldn't be more different on the surface, it continues the duo's love affair with characters who are gifted and unhappy and far out of their element. Here that character is Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), a young pitching sensation in the Dominican Republic who's drafted into the U.S. farm system and finds himself spinning out of control. It's a long, observant, quietly eventful drama -- an epic boy's life, in a sense -- that looks at Middle America through alien eyes and that ultimately says some rather trenchant things about professional sports and their casualties. "Sugar" ends on a note of muted regret that becomes less and less regretful the more you think about it. After today, I needed that.

Filed under: Documentary, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Celebrities and Controversy, The Weinstein Co., Politics, Cinematical Indie

Morgan Spurlock -- whose mix of affable good humor, wise guy populism, shameless showmanship and participatory journalism made Super Size Me a breakout hit at Sundance in 2004 -- is back in Park City with his follow-up feature documentary, Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? And those elements are all still very much in effect in Spurlock's sophomore feature film, even if they may occasionally feel in need of slight fine-tuning. Inspired by the impending birth of his first child, Spurlock hits upon one thing he can do to make the world a safer place for his yet-to-be-born offspring; find and capture Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind September 11th and the leader of Al Qaeda. As Spurlock notes in his introduction, "If I've learned anything from big budget action films, it's that complicated world problems are best solved by one lonely guy. ...." And while Spurlock may not actually answer the question of where, he actually tackles, with humor, probing wit and a certain grace, the much more important question of why.

And while Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? offers more than a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, at least there is a little medicine. After security training and an extensive battery of shots, Spurlock begins touring the globe to find out who Osama is and where he came from. A quote from Dick Cheney gives a party-line take on the roots of terrorist hatred for America: "They hate us, they hate our country, they hate the liberties for which we stand." But, as comedian David Cross notes in one of his charged stand-up bits, if the terrorists really hated freedom, then the Netherlands would be dust long before America got attacked. ...

So why do they hate us? Spurlock goes out into, as the op-ed pieces call it, 'the Arab street,' in Jordan and Morocco and Palestine and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to not only ask about Osama's whereabouts but also ask the people there how they feel about 9-11 and America. And with a mix of interviews and escapades and animations, Spurlock lays out a simple thesis: That America's image has been hurt and sullied for years by its own conduct, primarily by propping up authoritarian regimes that deny their citizens economic and political freedoms, with those angry, disenfranchised poor embracing Islamic fundimentalism as the only thing that will listen and violence as the only way they can be heard. (Oh, and invading Iraq. And supporting Israel's efforts in the contested territories. And ...) Al Franken notes that when Liberals say they love America, it's like the love in a long marriage -- "I love you, but I'm mad you didn't take out the trash ... " or "I love you, but I can't believe you gave billions of dollars in arms and aid to Iraq during the '80s." It's still love, but it's tough love -- which includes asking hard questions and raising ugly facts. Spurlock says, flat-out, that in our desire to support two precious resources -- anti-communism during the Cold War and oil right now -- we have helped create the poverty, hopelessness and anger that is the meat and drink of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism.

Continue reading Sundance Review: Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

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It seems surreal to be in Park City given what's going on elsewhere: the tragic passing of Heath Ledger (see below), the studiously wacky Academy Award nominations ("There Will be Blood" gets 8 nominations?! And not one for Jonny Greenwood?!?)

But here I am, in a town without pity or much in the way of compelling movies, it seems. The first film one screens in any festival is almost always pot-luck, and it usually turns out to be the worst thing you see. All I can say in the case of "Pretty Bird" is that it had better be. Written and directed by the engagingly rumpled young actor Paul Schneider ("Lars and the Real Girl," "All the Real Girls"), this strident comedy about a deluded entrepeneur (Billy Crudup) trying to invent a rocket belt with the help of a paranoid scientist (Paul Giamatti) is notable for having no real people in it whatsoever. The stars must have realized they've been dealt a set of mannerisms rather than actual characters, so they mug endlessly and mirthlessly. Schneider has a tin ear for dialogue, too, and even a reliable farceur like SNL's Kristen Wiig flails. It's the kind of precious oddball whimsy that Sundance used to take to the bank and that here reaches a thundering dead end. It's not a good feeling to start a festival with what feels like the death of indie cinema.

I'm going to see "Choke," based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel, followed by "Sugar," about which I'm hearing very good things. Fingers crossed.

Maybe drugs. Maybe suicide. What a goddamned waste. The Times city desk has the latest, but it's a whole bunch of nothing at this point. He was 28.

This was a guy who was growing further and further into himself as an actor. His performance in "Brokeback Mountain" trumped anything he had done up to that time -- it remains one of the most daringly internalized things I've ever seen. The trailers alone of his turn as The Joker had me excited about the prospect of seeing another "Batman" movie, something I didn't think was possible.

All the things he could have done, and now we'll never see them. Stupid, stupid, stupid. My deepest condolences to his family.

Like The Goonies, The Monster Squad congers up memories of my childhood. I remember the first time I saw it, when I was around 8 or 9 years old, and thought how awesome it was that you had all these classic movie monsters on one screen AND have a group of kids fight them. So when I finally got the chance to watch it again after nearly two decades, I was enthusiastic as ever. It was like opening up a time capsule, now encased in a two disk DVD. Yet, after about half-way through I realized that like Pop Rocks and Santa Claus, I had outgrown The Monster Squad. (more…)

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