Legendary cult-film impresario Lloyd Kaufman and the rest of those crazy Troma Entertainment kids were missed this year in Park City, where their annual TromaDance Film Festival had offered a blend of scintillating, schlocky and sincerely independent cinema for over a decade. (At the suggestion of Trey Parker, no less, whose own Cannibal!: The Musical went out through Troma and who proposed an alternative to the bloated celebrity zoo of Sundance.) In 2010, though, Kaufman has reeled the 'Dance back to the East Coast, where it will unspool 22 films over April 16-17 in Asbury Park, N.J. But that doesn't diminish the real joy of TromaDance, to wit: What outrageous film titles has the Troma gang gathered under its big top this year?
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With Tribeca's closing-night slot already locked up, the documentary adaptation of the best-selling book Freakonomics has officially found a U.S. distributor in Magnolia Pictures. It's not especially surprising considering the relationship Magnolia has with half the filmmakers involved, having helped boost the likes of Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) and Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) to Oscar nominations over the last few years. Meanwhile non-fiction stars Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) and Seth Gordon (The King of Kong, not to mention his Hollywood narrative debut Four Christmases) are also involved; click through for a breakthrough of which directors are doing what.
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There's good news and bad news about the first film by songwriting great Lou Reed. First the good: His documentary Red Shirley, about his centenarian cousin who fled the Nazis before settling in New York and helping guide the labor movement there, will have its world premiere at a festival next month. The bad news: The festival, Visions du Reel, is in Switzerland. All of which naturally raises the question: Was Reed's film too good or not good enough for Tribeca? What happened here? [Variety]
It was always just a matter of "when," not "if," we could expect to see a screen adaptation of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Exposes the Hidden Side of Everything, the celebrated best-seller by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. But how would they do it? New Yorkers will find out next month as the documentary Freakonomics will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival (which announced the selection this morning), but let it suffice to say it's the equivalent of Valentine's Day for nonfiction filmmakers. Oh -- and not to be outdone, Amanda Seyfried is dropping by as well.
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Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe's big-budget retelling of Robin Hood was announced this morning as the opening-night selection of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. It's a total 180-degree turn from last year's opener Up, bringing bloody, epic, Hollywood-style action to the Croisette on May 12. Not a bad coup for Universal Pictures, either, which could stand to rob a little from the rich right about now. [THR]
A representative from the Tribeca Film Festival has issued this statement in response to GLAAD's campaign to have the "transploitation" film Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives barred from screening:
"The filmmakers provided a copy of this film to GLAAD in February, and for weeks the organization had been supportive to the filmmakers. In fact, GLAAD representatives advised the film's producer, director and cast on how to describe the film to its core constituency."
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GLAAD is a funny little organization, on the one hand these self-appointed sentries for positive representation of gays in media, on the other a kind of nutless institution reluctant to get their Pradas dirty on the way to the awards show by, say, recognizing important but confrontational work like Kirby Dick's Outrage. It's baffling, really, when you then consider where they do choose to pick their battles.
Consider today's "call to action" against the Tribeca Film Festival, what essentially boils down to a campaign to have a particular selection -- a self-described "transploitation" film from writer/director Israel Luna called Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives -- removed from the program. Here's an excerpt from their takedown:
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Heaven forbid the Tribeca Film Festival should really showcase front-and-center anything made in New York, but this is just embarrassing: The opening film of its annual ESPN Sports Film Festival sidebar is Straight Outta L.A., director Ice Cube's documentary filmmaking debut about the relocation of the NFL's Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles in the early '80s. As our bloggy cousin Mike Fleming points out at Deadline, was the NY Mets-inflected stadium doc Last Play at Shea not good enough? Arrgh. Deep breath. OK. Anyway, Cube, congrats. Find the rest of the fest program here and here.
Congratulations to this year's award-winners at South by Southwest, where Movieline watched from afar as director-actor Lena Dunham's self-discovery dramedy Tiny Furniture (right) took the fest's top prize. Read on for more works by Guy Maddin (Night Mayor), Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void) and a spectrum of up-and-coming titles hopefully heading soon to an art house/DVD distributor/cable box near you.
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Some people's student films never see the light of the day, but James Franco's NYU shorts are another story. Not only can he approach Michael Shannon at a Boston train station to star in them, but they're virtually guaranteed film festival debuts, from the homoerotic The Feast of Stephen to the Sundance-pedigreed Herbert White. Franco's latest short Saturday Night premiered this week at South by Southwest, and it's an intimate look into the backstage process of Saturday Night Live. Let's round up some reactions to it, shall we?
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The second half of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival slate was announced today (see the first, including competition selections, here), and things are looking up. Or at least kind of up: There are some promising world premieres from folks including Murderball co-director Dana Adam Shapiro, another new one from Alex Gibney (his second film in the fest), the Andy Serkis-as-Ian Dury biopic sex & drugs & rock & roll, documentaries about subjects ranging from Rush to the New York Mets, and a midnight movie called Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives. And then there's The Killer Inside Me, making its New York debut as the crowd-tweaking, Alba-destroying festival sensation of the spring.
And so much more. The new announcements follow the jump; the fest gets underway April 21.
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This just in from a horror panel over the weekend at SXSW: Against all odds, the MPAA ratings board has upheld the stomach-turning integrity of Ti West, director of the upcoming The Innkeepers: "In figuring out how he was going to get a prosthetic member discharging pus past MPAA, he recalled shooting three different scenes only to see the most graphic version slip right by. 'I want to hate them, but I don't,' said [West]." That does it: I never want to hear the "automatic-R for smoking" argument ever again. [THR]
The Tribeca Film Festival is preparing for its ninth iteration to launch next month in Manhattan, today announcing this year's competition lineups, Showcase selections and special presentations. Among the most notable, find:
· James Franco as a man attempting to rescue the woman he loves from a crime syndicate in William Vincent (formerly known as In Praise of Shadows);
· Vincent Gallo as the lead voice talent in the animated futuristic-Euronoir Metropia, also featuring Juliette Lewis, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård, and Alexander Skarsgård;
· A work-in-progress screening of Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney's new, untitled study of fallen New York Gov. and hooker enthusiast Eliot Spitzer;
· A 45th-anniversary screening of David Lean's Doctor Zhivago, which I guess is New Yorkier than I remember.
And dozens more selections you'll find after the jump, with more to come in the days ahead. Shrek Forever After gets the festival underway April 21.
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The Tribeca Film Festival announced this morning that Shrek Forever After will open this year's fest April 21 in New York, marking the first time an animated (let alone) 3-D feature has kicked off the eight-year old event. It's kind of a step back from the New Yorkiness of last year's opener Whatever Works, but Mike Myers's return to public life after The Love Guru is surely worth something all by itself. More to come as Tribeca announces its remaining selections on March 10 and 15. [TFF]
The South by Southwest Film Conference has revealed the complete program for its festival commencing in March, with films by auteurs Michel Gondry (The Thorn in the Heart) and Shane Meadows (Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee) joining the previously announced opening-night blockbuster Kick-Ass and populist non-fiction fare about subjects from Bill Hicks to George Lucas. Also floating near the top of the must-see bracket is the premiere of the SNL spin-off MacGruber -- a festival coup except for the minor detail that its primary influence is trying to have it killed.
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