March 2, 2020

The Art of Live Sketching at Events

Source: Visual Storytelling

March 1, 2020

Jennifer Lopez Says ‘Hustlers’ Oscar Snub ‘Felt Like I Let Everyone Down’

Throughout the 2019-2020 awards season, a narrative had been building that Jennifer Lopez would receive her overdue, first-ever Academy Award nomination for her already iconic turn as a stripper in Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers.” Oscar buzz around the actress began in earnest when the film popped at the Toronto International Film Festival, and then carried well beyond its September 13 release date, after which “Hustlers” earned nearly $160 million at the global box office.

However, when nominations were announced on January 13 this year, Lopez was a no-show among the Best Supporting Actress nominees: Scarlett Johansson (“Jojo Rabbit”), Florence Pugh (“Little Women”), surprise late-breaking Kathy Bates (“Richard Jewell”), Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”), and Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”), who ultimately won.

Speaking with Oprah Winfrey as part of the mogul’s “2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus Tour” (via Deadline), Lopez got candid about her failure to land an Oscar nomination despite a season of plaudits and predictions from Oscars experts. The singer/actress, who recently rocked the house at the Super Bowl Halftime Show with Shakira, said the loss “felt like I let everyone down a little bit.”

She said, “I was sad. I was a little sad because there was a lot of buildup to it. There were so many articles, I got so many good notices — more than ever in my career — and there was a lot of: ‘She’s going to get nominated for an Oscar, it’s going to happen; if it doesn’t you’re crazy.’ I’m reading all the articles going: ‘Oh my god, could this happen?’ And then it didn’t and I was like: ‘Ouch.’ It was a little bit of a letdown.”

In spite of plenty of acclaim for “Hustlers” — which co-starred Constance Wu, Keke Palmer, Julia Stiles, Lili Reinhart, and Lizzo and Cardi B. in small roles — the movie was also shut out of the 2020 Academy Awards nominations entirely. Lopez did score Golden Globes and Indie Spirit nominations for her performance, though she lost out on those prizes as well. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association, however, did give her its Best Supporting Actress prize, helping to boost her profile throughout the awards derby.

Jennifer Lopez next appears in Kat Coiro’s pop-star comedy “Marry Me,” with Owen Wilson and Sarah Silverman.

Source: IndieWire film

March 1, 2020

‘Emma’ and ‘Saint Frances’ Score, but Two Specialty Box Office Surprises Make the Top 10

“Emma” (Focus) had a strong initial second weekend expansion, but the top news comes from two unexpected niche releases. The top 10 successes of “My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising” (Funimation) and the second weekend of “Impractical Jokers: The Movie” (truTV) suggest new paths to theatrical success.

An exclusive date for “Saint Frances” (Oscilloscope) stood out in a weekend that saw poor initial play for “Wendy” (Searchlight) and “Greed” (Sony Pictures Classics) — films with top directors and mediocre or worse reviews.

Opening

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (Funimation) – Metacritic: 71

$5,109,000 in 1,260 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $4,054; Cumulative: $8,482,000

Where did this come from? This second film from the popular Manga action comic opened on Wednesday from Funimation, a Sony Pictures-related company, with the top gross opening day. But rather than just play like an event as similar films, it continued its run to end up as the surprise #4 film overall this weekend.

It’s good to see studio-associated companies, separate from their specialized units, experiment. It’s the result of distributors and theaters thinking outside the rules, while still foregrounding theatrical potential.

What comes next: With this gross and consistent showing, expand much demand for more theaters ahead.

Oscilloscope Laboratories

Saint Frances (Oscilloscope) – Metacritic: 74; Festivals include: SXSW 2019

$16,150 in 1 theater; PTA: $16,150

Although it scored a higher-end PTA among this weekend’s openings, it opened at only one theater. Still, the result was impressive. At New York’s Angelika, it came in second only to the high-flying “Emma” and ahead of other new openers from top companies with better-known creators. The plot here revolves around a woman in her mid-30s who finds herself totally out of her element as a nanny for the child of a lesbian couple, and must confront multiple crosscurrents in her life. The originality, insight into how life can be shaped by unexpected events, and nuanced handling by Oscilloscope paid off and it now has a chance to find an audience.

What comes next: The Los Angeles exclusive date is at the Arclight Hollywood this weekend, with a specialized national rollout following.

Wendy (Searchlight) – Metacritic: 53; Festivals include: Sundance 2020

$30,000 in 4 theaters; PTA: $7,500

Benh Zeitlin’s long-gestating second feature comes after the major acclaim of his 2011 debut “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which scored a Best Director Oscar nomination. However, it fell flat with a weak initial start at major New York/Los Angeles theaters. Reviews were mostly mixed and disappointing for this Peter Pan adaptation that had a tone not unlike “Beasts.” It’s a discouraging result after such a long wait.

What comes next: Ten new cities come on board this weekend.

 

Greed (Sony Pictures Classics) – Metacritic: 50; Festivals include: Toronto 2019

$28,496 in 4 theaters; PTA: $7,124

Veteran British director Michael Winterbottom (recently popular for his franchise “The Trip,” which will see its fourth installment this year) often makes films that combine serious themes with a more commercial veneer. This one reunites him with frequent star Steve Coogan as a billionaire fashion mogul whose empire is built on the back of poorly paid Asian workers. The satire got flat reviews, and a flatter result in its initial top-drawer New York/Los Angeles theaters.

What comes next: This will get a wide big-city release from SPC, but expect results that are not much better.

The Whistlers (Magnolia) – Metacritic: 76; Festivals include: Cannes, Toronto, New York 2019

$(est.) 19,000 in 3 theaters; PTA: $(est.) 6,333

Coreliu Porumbolu has been the best known of the Romanian New Wave directors. This is his first film with some scenes outside his native country, and has more of a genre feel than his earlier serious dramas. With strong reviews, it had a decent initial result on the scale of most subtitled films in its first New York/Los Angeles dates.

What comes next: This should see dates ahead in most prime arthouse locations across the country.

 

Burden (101) – Metacritic: 58;  Festivals include: Sundance 2018

$20,142 in 5 theaters; PTA: $4,028

The triumph here was finding a release, two years after its Sundance Audience Award. It lacks the kind of review support that might have boosted this. A true story of a white supremacist and his journey to change, this was always likely to be a tougher sell even with some names in the cast. Newer distributor 101 gets credit for scoring top initial New York/Los Angeles theaters, but this initial result won’t propel wide interest.

What comes next: Expect this to see further play though of the limited variety ahead.

Focus Features

Week Two

Emma (Focus)

$1,170,000 in 97 theaters (+92); PTA: $12,000; Cumulative: $1,471,000

This latest Jane Austen adaptation reaffirms a lesson of Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women”: Classic novels with strong female characters remain a viable source of IP for film adaptations. The fairly rapid second weekend expansion is performing at a level that looks particularly strong outside the awards window, while benefiting from being a fresh film at a time when newness is needed. A much wider national expansion is set for this Friday.

Impractical Jokers: The Movie (truTV)

$3,545,000 in 1,900 theaters (+1,543); PTA: $1,866; Cumulative: $6,622,000

The Funny or Die troupe goes on a road trip, with its big second-weekend expansion after a surprisingly strong start. It landed at #7 with a marketing campaign driven by social media. This is an offshoot of Warner Bros., and along with “Academia,” a case of big-studio forces capturing a niche response. Well played.

Seberg (Amazon)

$207,534 in 373 theaters (+370); PTA: $556; Cumulative: $260,499

Disastrous second weekend expansion for Kristen Stewart’s turn as the iconic actress. She got fine reviews, but the film didn’t. The remaining question is how much this release will add to its Prime interest when it streams.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band (Magnolia)

$(est.) 150,000 in 136 theaters (+132); PTA: (est.) $1,389) in ; Cumulative: $(est.) 199,000

Second weekend saw a big expansion for this documentary about one of the most important groups in rock history. This is a modest result, but enough to see more play.

CatVideoFest 2019 (Oscilloscope)

$157,000 in 30 theaters (-4); PTA: $5,223; Cumulative: $397,787

Terrific second weekend hold for this now perennial event that looks to have more potential ahead.

Ongoing/expanding (Grosses over $50,000)

1917 (Universal) Week 10

$2,670,000 in 2,292 theaters (-493); Cumulative: $155,870,000

$23 million post-Oscars and still in the top 10 is a major triumph for Sam Mendes’ film. It has reached $362 million worldwide.

Parasite (Neon) Week 21; also on Video on Demand

$1,506,000 in 1,324 theaters (-479); Cumulative: $51,553,000

Out of the top 10 (though still ranking there on rental charts, multiple weeks into its home debut), the Best Picture winner continues on its way to around $54 million-$55 million domestic. So far, it has added $17 million post-win.

NEON

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Neon) Week 4

$730,000 in 268 theaters (+133); Cumulative: $2,453,000

Celine Sciamma’s French period romance, one of the best-reviewed releases of 2019, barely increased its gross despite doubling its screens. It should get close or ahead of the recent ceiling for specialized subtitled films not named “Parasite” ($4 million-$5 million, perhaps a little higher), but it is not breaking out quite as much as initially seemed possible. It remains impressive that it has gotten out to so many theaters so soon.

The Lodge (Neon) Week 4

$256,000 in 393 theaters (+71); Cumulative: $1,440,000

While this saw early interest from younger audiences at hipper theaters, this genre entry petered out with expansion. At its widest point, this fell short of $1,000/theater this weekend.

Jojo Rabbit (Searchlight) Week 20; also on VOD

$225000 in 307 theaters (-78); Cumulative: $33,119,000

Now doing decently in home rentals, Taika Waititi’s long-running film still is getting theater interest in its final weeks.

Just Mercy (Warner Bros.) Week 10

$171,000 in 300 theaters (-123); Cumulative: $35,733,000

What keeps propelling this now long-running death penalty legal drama? Weekday group sale shows, which are keeping it on screen.

Downhill (Searchlight) Week 3

$175,000 in 677 theaters (-1,634); Cumulative: $8,129,000

Token shows at remaining theaters will average only around $300 each. This initially wide Julia Louis-Dreyfuss/Will Ferrell effort will fall short of $9 million, despite hopes for much better.

The Assistant (Bleecker Street) Week 5

$105,090 in 155 theaters (-130); Cumulative: $986,655

After its widest play, this very well-reviewed drama about the toxic culture affecting those close to sexual predators is not getting the viewing it deserves.

Ordinary Love (Bleecker Street) Week 3

$83,174 in 70 theaters (+48); Cumulative: $179,387

Liam Neeson and Leslie Manville as a Northern Irish couple dealing with a medical crisis is falling short of traction as it goes into more cities.

Bombshell (Lionsgate) Week 12

$55,000 in 113 theaters (+33); Cumulative: $31,724,000

A final addition of theaters pushes this initially platformed, then Oscar-winning #MeToo themed film close to its mixed-result total of $32 million.

Also noted:

And Then We Danced (Music Box) – $26,755 in 20 theaters; Cumulative: $128,278

The Last Full Measure (Roadside Attractions) – $24,950 in 60 theaters; Cumulative: $2,898,000

The Traitor (Sony Pictures Classics) – $18,435 in 31 theaters; Cumulative: $261,586

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Source: IndieWire film

March 1, 2020

Berlin Golden Bear Winner Mohammad Rasoulof on Making Movies Despite Government Ban

When Mohammad Rasoulof won the Golden Bear at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, the Iranian director wasn’t there to accept his prize. Since 2017, when he returned to his home country after living abroad, Rasoulof has been banned from traveling internationally, and sentenced to a year in prison on propaganda charges.

However, the government has yet to imprison Rasoulof, permitting him to continue making the sort of brilliant, incendiary movies about life under Iranian autocracy that put him on the map. “There Is No Evil,” the final movie to screen in the Competition section of the Berlinale, turned out to be its most triumphant achievement — a defiant statement and galvanizing work of art. (At the festival, the filmmaker’s daughter Baran accepted the Golden Bear on his behalf, and brought him into a press conference via teleconference.)

“What I can observe from my own story,” Rasoulof said through a translator in a Skype interview from Tehran, two days before his festival win, “is that the satisfaction that you receive once you resist oppression and despotism can be higher than the price you have to pay.”

Like many Iranian directors, Rasoulof has clashed with authorities over the nature of his work many times. A decade ago, after the international reception of his film “The White Meadows,” the government charged him with a 20-year ban on filmmaking at the same that fellow Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi received the same sentence. (Panahi responded with the wry 2011 diary project “This Is Not a Film,” which was famously smuggled into Cannes on a hard drive buried in a pastry.)

In 2012, Rasoulof left the country with his wife and daughter, resettling in Germany. “I was so haunted by the fear of something happening to them, because we were facing so much pressure, so left together,” he said. After his 2013 feature “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” a thriller about dissident writers tortured and killed by government operates, Rasoulof’s passport was confiscated when he returned to Iran for another project. He later recovered it, but it was once again confiscated when he came back in 2017 in the midst of the Green Movement protests.

He’s been there ever since, but the latest challenges have only toughened his resolve, and the Golden Bear win has validated that commitment. In early September 2017, Rasoulof attended the Telluride Film Festival with his drama “A Man of Integrity” and teared up during a public conversation about his inability to return home. Now he’s there, and while his wife and daughter remain in Europe, they are able to visit him, which was how Baran managed to make her acting debut in the movie’s closing passage. “At least what is left for me is the satisfaction of not having submitted to despotism,” Rasolouf said.

That mentality extends to “There Is No Evil,” by far the most sophisticated and powerful achievement from one of the country’s best working directors. The anthology film unfolds across four stories, each of which involves men faced with execution orders. The first passage revolves around a family man who follows orders, as he internalizes the emotional turmoil of his profession, but the other three passages complicate the equation: In one, a young military man engages in a daring escape instead of pulling the trigger, while the two closing passages involve flights to the countryside.

Viewers familiar with Rasoulof’s previous outings will find some measure of surprise in the different outcomes, and he said he embraced the opportunity to strike a different tone. “Until now, all my films had dealt with the dark side,” he said, “with the darkness of people who either submit to oppression or — if they resist — they fail, and they have a feeling of loss because of their resistance.”

This time, he wanted to celebrate the stakes of pushing back, “to turn my camera to the light side and to show that, although because of the act of resistance and refusing to take part in your repression you may have a price to pay, you may be harmed, but your life can still be joyful. This light was something that I really decided to put at the heart of my stories.”

Rasoulof was first inspired to make the movie after spotting one of the government agents who interrogated him leaving the bank. That inspired the film’s first passage, with a character trapped by his sense of duty. “He seems to have a happy, well-off city life in which he can have whatever he dreams of — his comfort, his family, all the benefits of a city life,” Rasoulof said. “But his world is completely locked and small, and he doesn’t have the benefit that his life seems to give him.”

“There Is No Evil” also deals with the impact of Iran’s required military service, which Rasoulof himself managed to dodge. He chuckled when thinking back on it. “This was something I really had a hard time with since I was young,” he said. “There was one period of time in which you could buy your exemption. This was when the country was in a time of peace. You could pay a toll and be exempted from national service, and that’s what I did.”

While “There Is No Evil” begins in the familiar backdrop of Tehran, it eventually travels to more isolated settings, providing a unique window into the country’s diverse geography. The second half of the movie takes place in the countryside. “People who refuse to obey oppression and stand for their opinion are naturally marginalized,” Rasoulof said. “At some point they have to withdraw from social standards and distance themselves from city life.” He discovered when he traveled to the northern Iran for the penultimate passage, which involves a soldier who returns to propose to his girlfriend, that the local mood matched his subject. “I found it very inspiring when I went there that people were very engaged in political struggles,” he said.

For the closing passage, Rasoulof ventured to an even more remote location, to tell the story of an ailing man who confronts his niece (the filmmaker’s daughter) about the military obligations that he escaped. The climactic moments unfold against golden fields and expansive rocky scenery. “I wanted vast landscapes, these places that were more like the desert, for very wide angles and uncluttered large spaces,” he said. “This man doesn’t have the attributes of a successful city life, but what he has is his personal freedom and personal joy. His life is filled with the satisfaction of being true to himself.”

Rasoulof found financial support for “There Is No Evil,” which has yet to secure U.S. distribution, from Germany and the Czech Republic. The production budget supported his ability to shoot on location as well as on the set of an abandoned building for the second installment. His producers circumnavigated the government ban on Rasoulof’s filmmaking by submitting requests to shoot four short films throughout the country, and didn’t include his name on the paperwork.

Rasoulof bemoaned the limitations of the Iranian film industry, which supported commercial comedies above all else. “These are extremely low-quality mediocre comedies and they are very popular,” he said, noting that the government also financed propaganda films. “There is so much money injected into this part of the industry that they don’t have any box office concerns because the government wants them to exist,” he said. “There are totally financed by military and paramilitary services specifically aimed at building propaganda films.”

RONALD WITTEK/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Meanwhile, his own movies never secure official distribution in the country, though he said they do find audiences through film clubs and underground festivals. He acknowledged peers like Panahi and two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi, who works abroad. “And there are many more less famous very active filmmakers trying to keep this vein of independent cinema alive,” Rasoulof said.

He added that he had found sufficient collaborators to keep his projects in flux. “Although my situation is more and more difficult, I find it easier and easier to make my films,” he said. “I have to struggle less to find collaborators. Once I gathered a team around the movie, I realized that the mutual understanding happens earlier and earlier. It’s easier to find people with which I have common vision.” His ability to finish “There Is No Evil” and get it into competition in Berlin left him in an optimistic mindset. “This brings me hope,” he said. “But the more hope you have, the more situation gets tense and difficult around you.”

Rasoulof’s Golden Bear win arrives as the world confronts fears of a global pandemic with the spread of the coronavirus. The disease has been especially potent in Iran, which has the highest mortality rate in the world and faced backlash for not taking proper measures to contain the outbreak. “The main concern now is how politicians are using and abusing this subject,” Rasoulof said. “There have been so many lies and distortion of truth that now people are living in this permanent state of mistrust. Of course there is concern but also a difficulty in seeing how the government confronts this situation. This kind of crisis can happen anywhere but in Iran everything becomes a matter of political manipulation and lies without facing the phenomenon itself.”

Coincidentally, the filmmaker said he has been paying daily visits to the hospital in Tehran while his mother undergoes surgery for an unrelated ailment. “I was very touched to see the solidarity between people, how people take care of each other,” he said. “It was very beautiful to see that in spite of all the difficulties, there is still this warmth and concern and this generosity between people.”

As for Rasoulof’s own future, the Golden Bear win raises even more questions about how the government will react to his ongoing filmmaking career. “To be honest, there is nothing you can predict,” he said. “My only resolution is to take advantage of this period, to not lose my energy to keep working just because of this situation. I do not want to waste my time.”

Source: IndieWire film