Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell were edged out of the pack in today's Directors Guild Award nominations announcement, giving way to a rather conservative quintet of Oscar hopefuls. So let the DGA backlash begin: Between Ben Affleck (Argo), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), Tom Hooper (Les Miserables), Ang Lee (Life of Pi), which nominee should have gotten the shaft to make the DGA race even remotely interesting?
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The Twilight actor will star in Tatua based on an original script. Also in Tuesday's round-up of film news, John August is eyeing an adaptation of Wonder. Ang Lee is set for a Sound Editors fete and more.
Twilight's Kellan Lutz to Star in Tatua
The Twilight Saga's buffets vampire has signed on to star in indie genre film Tatua, based on an original concept. The story revolves around a man with a rare blood type that can handle being tattooed with a powerful ink that allows him to pull weapons straight off his skin allowing him to be an effective covert assassin, Deadline reports.
John August Eyes Wonder Adaptation
Lionsgate is in final negotiations to pick up rights to R.J. Palacio's debut novel Wonder and is in talks with Frankenweenie writer John August to adapt the pre-teen story about a 10 year-old boy whose facial deformity prevents him from attending a mainstream school. The story explores the theme of bullying and told from multiple points of view, Variety reports.
Ang Lee to be Honored by Sound Editors
The Life of Pi filmmaker will receive the 2013 Filmmaker Award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors at the group's 60th MPSE Golden Reel Awards on February 17th in Los Angeles. Lee won an Oscar for Best Director in 2006 for Brokeback Mountain, THR reports.
Larry Hagman Remembered Privately
Two private services will take place in Dallas and L.A. for the actor best known for playing J.R. Ewing in Dallas. He played the scheming oil tycoon on the popular television series beginning in 1978 through the '80s. He took up the character in a Dallas reboot 20 years later. His film roles include Fail-Safe, Nixon and Primary Colors, BBC reports.
R.I.P. Marty Richards
The producer and philanthropist died at 80. His Broadway credits include Chicago, Sweeney Todd, La Cage aux Folles, and Crimes of the Heart. His film credits include Chicago, The Boys From Brazil, Fort Apache, The Bronx, and the Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Deadline reports.
Ang Lee's Life of Pi is a doubled-edged argument for the transcendent capabilities of film. Its central section uses the latest technological achievements to transform the fantastical, fable-like tale of Yann Martel's award-winning novel into some of the most innovative and wondrous images to flicker across the big screen this year. And in its framing story, one it returns to periodically as if needing to keep the audience from getting too caught up in the gorgeous abstraction of its narrative at sea, it provides a reminder of why we should trust more in those images, as it ploddingly trots out its source material's heavy-handed and unnecessary delineation of its own themes.
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Friday night saw the opening gala for the fantasy adaptation Life of Pi at the 50th Annual New York Film Festival, and oh boy the times they are a'changing! Who'd have ever guessed that a 3-D flick would open a prestigious film festival?
Well, apparently if it's from Ang Lee all bets are off. The director got major kudos from his peers for embracing 3D, with Fox head honcho Tom Rothman saying Lee has even topped Scorsese's use of the medium in Hugo! more »
Years in the making, director Ang Lee was apparently still tweaking his ravishing Life of Pi up until the Friday morning pre-gala screening of his latest for press and industry Friday morning. The epic 3-D adaptation of the book by Yann Martel delivered a rare cinematic experience about a young Indian boy who endures a seemingly endless time at sea. Fox released visuals from the film during summer, but suppositions about what the film is about may be dashed — at least for those who have not read the book. One thing is predictable, however: Oscar night will certainly reserve some — and likely many — spots for Life of Pi, Lee will certainly be up for another Best Director nomination, and the feature will undoubtedly be up for Best Picture. The Film Society of Lincoln Center scored a coup debuting this spectacle on its opening night of the 50th New York Film Festival.
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Just in time for its World Premiere at the New York Film Festival this Friday, a new and more sweeping trailer for Ang Lee's Life of Pi has hit the web, setting up the 3-D adventure based on the 2001 novel by Yann Martel. The fantasy-adventure follows "Pi," an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck and is stranded on a boat in the ocean with a Bengal tiger along with some other charming critters.
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Also in Thursday afternoon's round-up of news briefs thriller Maniac is heading to North American theaters. An Icon Productions exec joins The Weinstein Company as head of acquisitions. And an Artist actress will replace Marion Cotillard in Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi's follow-up project.
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The World Premiere of Ang Lee's Life Of Pi will open the New York Film Festival September 28th. The screening launching the 50th anniversary of the annually anticipated film event will be a return for the Oscar-winning director, who screened Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the festival's closing night event 12 years ago. Robert Altman, Pedro Almodóvar and Francois Truffaut are the only other directors to have had more than one film chosen to bow the festival. Lee's The Ice Storm opened the 1997 edition of NYFF.
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Oscar-winning director Ang Lee's upcoming 3-D adventure Life of Pi is based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The fantasy-adventure follows "Pi," an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck and is stranded on a boat in the ocean with a Bengal tiger along with some other charming critters.
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Every year, studios, exhibitors and press gather in Vegas for the annual hype harvest that is CinemaCon (née ShoWest), glimpsing first looks, clips and other previews of hotly anticipated movies to come. Surprises invariably appear, for better or worse, and conversations naturally ensue. Fine. What is not fine — at all — is grounding an Oscar frenzy in 10 minutes of footage from an unfinished film with a release date eight months away.
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Martin Scorsese has long proven his mastery of filmmaking, passion for storytelling and an infectious worship of the medium in which he's produced nearly five decades of singular, sometimes legendary work. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that man of such fervency and skill would take so well to one of the rapidly developing hallmarks of contemporary cinema culture: Trolling.
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