Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Friday, February 17, 2012
SXSW Announces Features Lineup For 2012 Film Festival
The Hunter (Australia)
Director: Daniel Nettheim, Screenplay by: Alice Addison, Novel by: Julia Leigh, Original Adaptation by: Wain Fimeri
A mercenary is dispatched from Europe to the Tasmanian wilderness by a mysterious biotech company to search for the last surviving Tasmanian tiger.
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, Sam Neill (U.S. Premiere)
http://insidepulse.com/2012/02/01/sxsw-announces-features-lineup-for-2012-film-festival/
Monday, November 14, 2011
Ogopogo stars in new film
Although its native name is N’Haatik, most people know the supposed sea serpent that lives in Okanagan Lake as Ogopogo.
Named in song in 1924 at a Rotary Club luncheon in Vernon, Ogopogo is now the star of an award-winning independent film, The Beast of Bottomless Lake, which will receive a theatrical release at three cinemas throughout the Okanagan this week.
The Beast of Bottomless Lake follows cryptozoologist Dr. Paul Moran as he leads a team of dedicated and not-so-dedicated adventurers on an expedition to Okanagan Lake to prove the existence of the legendary lake serpent, the Ogopogo.
The film won the People’s Choice Award at the 2010 Okanagan International Film Festival, playing there to a sold-out house. Interest was so high, a second screening was added.
Starting Sept. 9, Okanagan residents have a chance to see the film, which was shot in the valley, in its limited time run at the Landmark Theatres in Penticton, West Kelowna and Kelowna.
The film has also screened at the Mississauga Independent Film Festival (Vistek Best Feature), VCON and the Olamot Festival in Tel Aviv.
“We have built up an international following through using social media,” said producer C.S. John. “People all over the world are clamouring to see our film. Audience demand to see the film on the big screen in the Okanagan has been high.”
Featured in the cast are David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka on Stargate: Atlantis), Leanne Jijian-Hume (The L-Word), Bronwen Smith (Gunless) and Roger Haskett (Smallville).
Beast was originally conceived by author Keith Provost, who was a prominent actor in the Kelowna theatre scene in his youth, and who went on to a career in Vancouver as a writer and actor in film, TV and theatre.
In 2001, Provost died suddenly after a tragic bicycle accident. After his death, writers Craig March and Kennedy Goodkey carried their friend’s idea to fruition in his memory.
For more information on the film and screening, visit www.provostpictures.com.
http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/entertainment/129165973.html
Named in song in 1924 at a Rotary Club luncheon in Vernon, Ogopogo is now the star of an award-winning independent film, The Beast of Bottomless Lake, which will receive a theatrical release at three cinemas throughout the Okanagan this week.
The Beast of Bottomless Lake follows cryptozoologist Dr. Paul Moran as he leads a team of dedicated and not-so-dedicated adventurers on an expedition to Okanagan Lake to prove the existence of the legendary lake serpent, the Ogopogo.
The film won the People’s Choice Award at the 2010 Okanagan International Film Festival, playing there to a sold-out house. Interest was so high, a second screening was added.
Starting Sept. 9, Okanagan residents have a chance to see the film, which was shot in the valley, in its limited time run at the Landmark Theatres in Penticton, West Kelowna and Kelowna.
The film has also screened at the Mississauga Independent Film Festival (Vistek Best Feature), VCON and the Olamot Festival in Tel Aviv.
“We have built up an international following through using social media,” said producer C.S. John. “People all over the world are clamouring to see our film. Audience demand to see the film on the big screen in the Okanagan has been high.”
Featured in the cast are David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka on Stargate: Atlantis), Leanne Jijian-Hume (The L-Word), Bronwen Smith (Gunless) and Roger Haskett (Smallville).
Beast was originally conceived by author Keith Provost, who was a prominent actor in the Kelowna theatre scene in his youth, and who went on to a career in Vancouver as a writer and actor in film, TV and theatre.
In 2001, Provost died suddenly after a tragic bicycle accident. After his death, writers Craig March and Kennedy Goodkey carried their friend’s idea to fruition in his memory.
For more information on the film and screening, visit www.provostpictures.com.
http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/entertainment/129165973.html
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Imperial Woodpecker found on 1956 film but not on surveys to film location.
The largest woodpecker that ever lived and the closest relative of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker probably went extinct in Mexico in the late 20th century concludes a paper just published in the October 2011 issue of The Auk, the scientific journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union.
It was thought that no photos or film of the two-foot-tall, flamboyantly crested bird existed, until a biologist from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology tracked down a 16-mm film shot in 1956 by a dentist from Pennsylvania. The footage captures the last ever confirmed sighting of an Imperial Woodpecker.
The researchers not only restored the film to use it to describe the species’ behavior but also to study the habitat of the woodpecker by tracking down the exact filming location during a 2010 expedition to the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, in Mexico. This ’lost species’ survey, was co-funded by The British Birdwatching Fair – Founding Global Sponsor of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme. Pronatura (BirdLife in Mexico) helped with the expedition logistics.
“It is stunning to look back through time with this film and see the magnificent Imperial Woodpecker moving through its old-growth forest environment, and it is heartbreaking to know that both the bird and the forest are gone,” said Martjan Lammertink, lead author of the paper.
Read on ...
It was thought that no photos or film of the two-foot-tall, flamboyantly crested bird existed, until a biologist from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology tracked down a 16-mm film shot in 1956 by a dentist from Pennsylvania. The footage captures the last ever confirmed sighting of an Imperial Woodpecker.
The researchers not only restored the film to use it to describe the species’ behavior but also to study the habitat of the woodpecker by tracking down the exact filming location during a 2010 expedition to the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, in Mexico. This ’lost species’ survey, was co-funded by The British Birdwatching Fair – Founding Global Sponsor of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme. Pronatura (BirdLife in Mexico) helped with the expedition logistics.
“It is stunning to look back through time with this film and see the magnificent Imperial Woodpecker moving through its old-growth forest environment, and it is heartbreaking to know that both the bird and the forest are gone,” said Martjan Lammertink, lead author of the paper.
Read on ...
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
New ‘Mothman’ documentary raises more questions than answers
Guest review by Sonya Harvey
Eyes of the Mothman attempts to explain the mystery surrounding the infamous winged birdman that terrorized the small religious community of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, a story known as The Mothman Prophesies.
The Hollywood movie, featuring Richard Gere as an inquiring reporter (loosely based on the real-life author John Keel who dove head-first into UFO conspiracies) and Laura Linney as a police officer responding to strange middle-of-the-night phone calls (loosely based on the real on-scene journalist during the night terrors of Mothman), attempts to piece together the fateful events that took place in Point Pleasant from 1966-1967 that resulted in the death of 46 people.
In spite of the Hollywood hype, this new documentary actually works to break apart the historical events, piece by piece, and in an attempt to cover all possible angles of the still-unsolved mystery, it at least succeeds in formulating every feasible explanation one could fathom — apart from Mothman being a distant cousin of Mothra that is.
It begins with the Curse of Chief Cornstalk. (Say what? We can’t make this stuff up, folks.) See, there was this famed battle that took place in Point Pleasant, and as the story goes, Cornstalk and the English newcomers were in peace negations’ after the battle between the two groups led to a draw.
Unfortunately for Cornstalk, some of the Native Americans weren’t too keen on the so-called peace talks and they ambushed two newbies enjoying an afternoon hunt. This led to Cornstalk being murdered point blank by the Englishmen who held him in contempt. It’s said Cornstalk’s last words were to utter a curse over Point Pleasant and anyone who calls it home. At least that’s what the locals would have you believe. (Remember the Silver Bridge collapse of 1966, anyone?)
Preposterous? Maybe, but how about the chemical mutations set upon the land where the McClintic Wildlife Preserve now stands. Sure, it once housed multiple TNT and bomb-making warfare bunkers put into play during WWII, through the chemical leaks didn’t come about until the 1980s when teenagers and thrill-seekers rummaged the land as their own personal playground. Needless to say it should come as no surprise that the scientific community, in an attempt to explain the unnatural or unknown, coined newspaper headlines that read: Mothman is nothing more than mutated Sandhill Crane. Really? A mutated Sandhill Crane? You don’t say?
Even weirder still it the appearance of the Men In Black and apossibly sub-human who simply referred to himself as Indrid Cold. Granted, UFOs were bound to play apart in the story of a winged birdman flying through the skies, but the story of local resident Woodrow Derenberger and his meeting with Cold is the weirdest explanation yet, and as it turns out, the story can be corroborated.
You see, Cold, dressed in a head-to-toe black suit with big weird bug eyes and a smile streaked across his face, spoke to Derenberger using telepathy and told him of fateful events that would later come true. When more locals swore UFOs could been seen hovering over their barns and reported missing dogs, more Men In Black would show up, not asking questions, but rather telling the towns folk to keep their mouth shut about what they’d seen.
Still, no one could explain the sight of a seven-foot-tall birdman with grayish skin, big red menacing eyes and wings that spanned ten feet, who could fly straight up into the air without so much as a single flutter, and odder still, no one could explain why the witnesses were plagued with symptoms like swollen pinkeye, sleeplessness and reoccurring nightmares.
Yeah, maybe it was the Curse of Cornstalk, or a mutated Sandhill Crane or UFOs, but we can assure you that it definitely wasn’t a distant cousin of Mothra.
Extras:
* Bonus interviews
* Behind-the-scenes featurette
* Psychic Walk Through
* Audio commentary
Bottom line: While it’s a very intriguing and in-depth history of Point Pleasant and the theories behind the Mothman sightings, Eyes of the Mothman leaves the viewer with way more questions then they probably ever had in the first place.
Eyes of the Mothman
Virgil Films, 155 minutes, not rated
DVD: $29.99
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/dvd/2011/02/new-mothman-documentary-raises-more-questions-than-answers/
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Ray's mythical monsters find a home
Wed 30 Jun 2010The life's work of special effects animator Ray Harryhausen is to have a permanent new home.
The collection will be housed at the National Media Museum in Bradford.
Harryhausen made his name by developing animated creatures based on legends and classical mythology.
The Ray Harryhausen Collection contains drawings, paintings and storyboards, together with his animation models and the original moulds used to make them.
Examples include the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts and the Medusa and the Kraken from Clash of the Titans.
Harryhausen, who has just turned 90, said: "I am so very pleased and honoured that my Foundation will not only be looking after my collection of 90 years but will also be ensuring that it is seen by as wide an audience as possible. It is also gratifying that the National Media Museum will, in conjunction with the Foundation, be storing and preserving my Collection for the foreseeable future."
An exhibition called Ray Harryhausen - Myths and Legends has also opened at the London Film Museum and will run for 12 months.
http://web.orange.co.uk/article/film/ray-harryhausen-collection
Monday, May 17, 2010
Snake steals Cannes limelight
Mon 17 May 2010
Indian actress Mallika Sherawat got up close and personal with a massive 22ft python as she promoted her latest movie at the Cannes Film Festival.
The fantasy/thriller Hisss is based on the Far Eastern myth of a snake woman who is able to take on human form.
Directed by Jennifer Lynch, Hisss also stars Irrfan Khan, Divya Dutta and American character actor Jeff Doucette.
Sherawat's movie Love, Barack, is also being presented at the festival. The romcom is set during Barack Obama's campaign for the US Presidency.
http://web.orange.co.uk/article/film/mallika-sherawat-hisss-cannes
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