5 Broken Cameras won Outstanding Feature at the 6th annual Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking Wednesday night during a ceremony at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore accepted the prize for co-directors Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi whose film centers on Israeli settlements encroaching on Burnat's Palestinian village.
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Fifteen docs advanced to the final stages for Oscar consideration Monday. While the films making the cut are, of course, notable, some others that did not are also. Today's winner of the New York Film Critics Circle for Best Non-Fiction film of 2012, Central Park Five, which made headlines recently because New York City officials attempted to gain access to the film's outtakes related to a pending civil suit, did not make the cut. Other high profile docs also left out were Toronto's West of Memphis and Sundance's Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present as well as Magnolia's The Queen of Versailles. While distributor IFC Films will likely be disappointed by the CP5 omission by the Academy, it will celebrate the inclusion of How To Survive a Plague, an AIDS doc that opened quietly, but to acclaim for its bravery. The distributor also had its Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry in the list.
[Related: Movieline's Central Park Five coverage]
Tribeca's Bully, which opened to controversy for its R-rating from the MPAA to pushback from distributor The Weinstein Company, also made the cut.
The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies (information provided by AMPAS):
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Never Sorry LLC
Bully, The Bully Project LLC
Chasing Ice, Exposure
Detropia, Loki Films
Ethel, Moxie Firecracker Films
5 Broken Cameras, Guy DVD Films
The Gatekeepers, Les Films du Poisson, Dror Moreh Productions, Cinephil
The House I Live In, Charlotte Street Films, LLC
How to Survive a Plague, How to Survive a Plague LLC
The Imposter, Imposter Pictures Ltd.
The Invisible War, Chain Camera Pictures
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Jigsaw Productions in association with
Wider Film Projects and Below the Radar Films
Searching for Sugar Man, Red Box Films
This Is Not a Film, Wide Management
The Waiting Room, Open'hood, Inc.
Also in Tuesday morning's Biz Break: Horizon Movies picks up an ode to '70s and '80s thrillers, Martin Scorsese is driving a new Rolls Royce pic, movies are top for consumers, and more...
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After allllllll that, the PG-13 cut of Harvey Weinstein's shameless cause célèbre Bully grossed $534,000 over the weekend in expanded release to 158 theaters. That would amount to an aromatic $3,380 per screen — dramatically less than foreseen following the R-rated cut's $23,000-per-screen opening two weeks ago. Who would have ever guessed? Oh. [Box Office Mojo]
As usual, South Park has looked into the abyss of self-serious cultural absurdity and spotted a gleaming beacon of common sense. That Trey Parker and Matt Stone applied it to Bully's manufactured ratings "controversy" — and Harvey Weinstein's blatant hucksterism — only makes the payoff sweeter.
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Mmm-hmm: "'I am not being Harvey Weinstein, showman,' he said in a separate interview on Friday. 'I am not using the ratings system for publicity. Yes, I’ve done it in the past. Mea culpa for that.' But, he said of Bully, 'this is completely out of passion.'" [NYT]
You don't need me to explain to you how Harvey Weinstein is half huckster-genius and half megalomaniac witch doctor (even though I have, again and again and again). Find all the evidence you need in Thursday's announcement that Bully — the "controversial" documentary chronicling America's bullying epidemic — would finally receive the PG-13 rating it so conspicuously sought from the MPAA. The best part: It won't even have to trim the offending scene at the heart of all the publicity to date. Surprise! Suckers.
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No Bully-style quibbling here: Per a just-issued press release email, the Weinstein Co. approves of the MPAA's decision on their other Very Important Movie of the year, the boobtacular June sequel Piranha 3DD. "PIRANHA 3DD accepts a well deserved Rated R for 'sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language, and some drug use,'" writes a rep for the company. See, they can totally accept the MPAA's decision without turning it into a shameless opportunity for publicity!
So did all that MPAA ratings nonsense and media outcry pay off for Bully? What do you think? Lee Hirsch's film achieved the year's best documentary opening to date with $115,000 on five screens in New York and Los Angeles — a $23,000-per-theater average that amounted to the best of the week by nearly $10,000 over The Hunger Games. But now that The Weinstein Company has to take its unrated baby out of the doc-friendly megamarkets and into the mainstream wilds, a new report suggests that Harvey Weinstein may be preparing to make the cuts required for a PG-13. Surprise!
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How do you come to the rescue of the millions of children who need someone — anyone — to do what they can’t: get their bullies off their backs? Director Lee Hirsch has sounded a call to action with his new documentary Bully, which exposes bullying from the front lines.
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How do you come to the rescue of the millions of children who need someone — anyone — to do what they can’t: get their bullies off their backs? Director Lee Hirsch has sounded a call to action with his new documentary Bully, which exposes bullying from the front lines.
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The schoolyard bully may be a stock character, a cliché, but in the world of Lee Hirsch’s earnest documentary Bully, he’s very real: The picture tells the stories of several kids — all of them from fairly rural parts of the United States — who suffer daily at the hands of their classmates, fielding everything from hurtful taunts to physical assault.
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It has come to this for "unaccompanied" teenagers desperate to see the unrated Bully: "An AMC spokesman said it will indeed allow that, but only if the child presents a signed permission slip from a parent, either via a form letter made available by the theater or an improvised note on a standard piece of paper. The move is an apparent attempt to support the film -- AMC executive Gerry Lopez has two teenagers and has been vocal about its importance -- while still paying deference to the Motion Picture Assn. of America and its ratings system." Related: Is Harvey Weinstein just recycling tricks from his Kids playbook? [LAT]
With the MPAA ruling in favor of upholding Bully's R-rating, the Weinstein Co. has announced that they'll release the documentary as planned on March 30 -- in its full, explicit language-laden unrated cut. The question is, will theaters let minors see it? "I know the kids will come, so it’s up to the theaters to let them in,” said director Lee Hirsch in a press release, with TWC marketing head Stephen Bruno adding pressure to the theaters to "step up and do what's right."
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While the latest chapter in the rapidly expanding mythology of Harvey Weinstein involves the mogul shooting down a pitch from President Obama ("I sent him an e-mail back saying he was the most overqualified book scout I've ever had"), I remain preoccupied with the saga surrounding Bully, the Weinstein Company doc still embroiled in a battle with the MPAA ratings board to overturn its R for strong language. The publicity clamor continued Wednesday with a young bully victim dropping off a petition with a reported 200,000 signatures to MPAA HQ and Ellen Degeneres discussing the "controversy" on her show. But it's what quietly came the day before that seems the most intriguing.
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