Josh Fox, whose Oscar-nominated 2010 documentary Gasland investigated communities affected by natural gas drilling, was arrested today while attempting to film a public House hearing on hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," according to Politico (via Indiewire). "This is a public hearing," Fox said as he was being handcuffed. "I'm within my First Amendment rights, and I'm being taken out."
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SXSW routinely boasts the most varied and neverending film line-up of the year, and the just-announced 2012 behemoth of a roster is no exception. So let's make it a wee bit easier to take in, shall we? After the jump find the buzzworthiest titles among the 100+ features and documentaries debuting this March in Austin, from major upcoming studio peeks (21 Jump Street) to docs (a new Jessica Yu!) and much smaller (but potentially completely awesome) fare.
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Usually, when the UK's Advertising Standards Authority bans ads with links to film culture, it's for the threat of causing "undue distress to children" or because a suggestively posed Dakota Fanning might corrupt all those virtuous British lasses you always hear about. So it came as a surprise to see the watchdog crack down on something genuinely troublesome: Rachel Weisz Photoshopped to within an inch of her life.
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Taylor Swift may have been offered a role in Tom Hooper's Les Miserables film, but has she recently been replaced? According to Broadway World, theater impresario Cameron Mackintosh, who is also producing Hooper's film, announced onstage at a curtain call for Oliver! that stage actress Samantha Barks has been chosen to play Eponine -- the role he cast her in for the 2010 25th anniversary Les Mis concert. Les Mis purists, you may exhale in 3, 2, 1...
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... and by better I mean worse, and by worse I mean now that the licensing deal between Universal and toy company Hasbro has ended, Sony has snatched up the Candy Land board game movie project -- you know, the one like "Lord of The Rings, but set in a world of candy" -- as a vehicle for none other than Adam Sandler. Said Columbia prez Doug Belgrad: "Candy Land is more than just a game. It is a brand that children, parents and grandparents know and love. The world of Candy Land offers an extraordinary canvas upon which to create a fantastical, live-action family adventure film with a larger than life part for Adam. We are thrilled to partner with Hasbro and Happy Madison on this project." [THR]
David Fincher might never have actually entertained the thought of casting Yo-Landi Vi$$er of South African zef rap duo Die Antwoord as his Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (at most, she seems to have been a rabid pixie style icon for Rooney Mara's Oscar-nommed take on Lisbeth Salander), but how much more twisted and subversive might the diminutive Visser have been in the role, tasering old pervs and getting dirty in the "Feel-Bad Movie of the Year?" Watch the video for Die Antwoord's latest grime jam, "I Fink U Freeky," and let's brainstorm ways to make Yo-Landi's movie career happen, already.
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He’s certainly no stranger to the world of entertainment, but Grammy-winning musician Common only recently began channeling his energies into acting. (His first film: Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces). And yet, relative newbie status be damned! The hip-hop veteran, currently seen on AMC's Hell on Wheels, sat down last week with Movieline to discuss his Sundance pic LUV, a Baltimore-set family/gangster tale from director Sheldon Candis, and his goals for future greatness: “God willing, I’ll become one of the great actors of our day.”
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Let's see, what day is it? Jan. 31? Oh, then it must be time for everyone to fulminate over the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue, specifically its lack of diversity among the featured cover stars. It's a seasonal ritual almost as inviolable as Groundhog Day, with equally severe implications of who made the cover (and where). To wit, a lot of white chicks. Cue six more weeks of winter! At least in the grocery checkout aisle, anyway.
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Oscar-winning Man on Wire director James Marsh is clearly unafraid of dropping real talk; during this month's Sundance Film Festival he unleashed a tongue-lashing on the Academy for its recent Oscar documentary nominations, which notably did not include Marsh's own well-received Project Nim. But that's not the real problem -- Marsh laments the entire class of '12 Academy Awards doc selections, which he claims overlooked the best films of the year and makes the entire branch "look stupid."
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Controversial Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani was recently banned from her homeland after the French fashion magazine Madame Le Figaro published topless photos of her, thus prompting a support page on Facebook featuring other Iranian activists posing topless or entirely nude. Oy, guys, you're doing it wrong.
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Joe Carnahan probably knew he was in for something of a tussle when his latest film, the survival actioner/mortality meditation The Grey, began drawing criticism from animal activist groups sight unseen even before it debuted (at #1, no less) last weekend. But then PETA posted its own twofold complaint regarding the depiction of wolves in the film and the reported eating of wolf meat on Carnahan’s set, escalating the anti-Grey fight. The question is, does PETA have a legit beef with The Grey?
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As the 2012 Sundance Film Festival drew to a close with a flurry of sales, Movieline posed THE question to a panel of critics and bloggers: What was the best film of this year’s festival? While many of Sundance’s high profile offerings came and went with a whimper, a few notable titles rose to the top of Movieline’s poll; fest darling and Grand Jury Prize winner Beasts of the Southern Wild earned wild praise among our pundits, for example, but so too did some of this year’s more controversial entries. Hit the jump to see which top films the critics picked.
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"I wanted to run Michael Parks from Red State for an Oscar this year, and I was told I'd need $250,000 minimum to do that. We thought we were eligible for SAG Awards, but it turns out that you have to actually submit to the SAG Awards, even if you're a SAG member, which doesn't make sense to me. And then the Golden Globe people didn't want to give Michael Parks consideration because we didn't screen the movie for them specifically when the movie was out in theaters, but it never was out in theaters so it was kind of ridiculous. You have to jump through these ridiculous little rings to even be considered, and then it's a popularity contest around who has the most money to run." [Moviefone]
Park City did indeed turn out to be a robust marketplace this year, with buyers snapping up over two dozen features and docs out of Sundance 2012. Ranging from genre pleasers to indie charmers to potential future Oscar picks and beyond – and veering from critical fest duds to overwhelming crowd favorites – the class of Sundance ’12 is an intriguingly mixed-but-mostly-promising bag of films that will be dotting the cinematic landscape in the year or so to come. Here’s an updated comprehensive look at what sold and which films you should be looking forward to.
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You know how when you're browsing around online, and you arrive at a news site or some other ad-supported publication that digs into your Web history for the most appropriate display ads to show you on your visit? Except they're not appropriate, like, at all? Try this recent combo found by a Movieline reader in Australia:
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