Midnight Movies

The Cedar Lee Theatre is proud to continue its showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show the first Saturday of each month at midnight featuring our resident live cast Simply His Servants. Get a discount admission of $6.00 to Rocky Horror if you come in costume! Limited edition 20th Anniversary T-shirts will be on sale at the Cedar Lee Theatre while supplies last!

In addition to showing Rocky Horror, the Cedar Lee Theatre is proud to present its on-going Cult Film Series. All films in the Cult Film Series play at 9:30 and midnight unless otherwise noted. Admission is $5 unless otherwise noted.

BLACK DEVIL DOLL

NO ONE UNDER 18 ADMITTED!

June 19 - 21 at 10:00 PM

Admission is $5

DON’T SEE THIS MOVIE IF ANYTHING

OFFENDS YOU!

Upcoming films:
BLACK DEVIL DOLL - June 19th - 21st at 10 (no one under 18 admitted)
AMERICAN PSYCHO - July 4th
STARSHIP TROOPERS - July 18th
LIFE OF BRIAN - August 1st
THE LOST BOYS - August 15th
FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH - September 5th
ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING - September 19th
ROSEMARY’S BABY - October 3rd
UHF - October 17th
A.P.E. (3D) - November 7th
FRIDAY THE 13TH (3D) - November 13th
THE BIG LEBOWSKI - December 5th

CEDAR LEE THEATRE
2163 Lee Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
Showtime Information: 440-564-2030

For more information: www.clevelandcinemas.com

Oak Park Public Library
834 Lake Street
Oak Park, Illinois 60301
( 708) 383-8200
http://www.oppl.org/events/films.htm

Pride and Passion Film Festival
Kings on the Hill: Baseball’s Forgotten Men
Sunday, June 7, 2009
2 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Join host John Allen for a film showing and discussion related to the Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience exhibit. Showing on June 7: Kings on the Hill (1993) 60 minutes, directed by Molly Youngling.

Oak Park Viewers: Foreign Exchange
Tell No One (France)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
6:30 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
The Foreign Exchange series presents some of the finest in recent world cinema. A discussion will follow each film.

Adapted from the Harlen Coben thriller, Tell No One has won many awards, including several of France’s Lumieres and Cesars. Alexandre Beck misses his beloved wife Margot until he gets an email from her; trouble is, he was the prime suspect in her murder eight years ago.

Pride and Passion Film Festival
The National Pastime
Sunday, June 14, 2009
2 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Join host John Allen for a film showing and discussion related to the Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience exhibit. Showing on June 14: The National Pastime from Ken Burn’s “Baseball” series, 151 minutes.

Pride and Passion Film Festival
The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson
Sunday, June 21, 2009
2 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Join host John Allen for a film showing and discussion related to the Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience exhibit. Showing on June 21: The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990) 120 minutes, directed by Larry Peerce.

Oak Park Viewers: Oscar’s Overlooked
I’ve Loved You So Long
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
6:30 pm Maze Branch Library
Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of films from 2008 that were not nominated for Academy Awards. Come enjoy the cozy space and amazing sound system at the Maze Branch. A discussion will follow each film.

I’ve Loved You So Long, a powerful story of familial struggle and redemption, follows Juliette, just released from prison and having to reconcile with her younger sister.

Pride and Passion Film Festival
The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars & Motor Kings
Sunday, June 28, 2009
2 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Join host John Allen for a film showing and discussion related to the Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience exhibit. Showing on June 28: The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars & Motor Kings (1976) directed by John Badham. This film, based on the book by the same title by William Brashler, stars Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones and Richard Pryor.

French Club Film Screening
Le Chateau de ma Mere (My Mother’s Castle)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
The French film series is held on the fifth Tuesday of selected months. This 1991 film is directed by Yves Robert.

Oak Park Viewers: Cult Classics
Freaks
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Every second Wednesday from July through December, Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of cult classics: the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. A discussion will follow each film.

Freaks: “The Strangest… The Most Startling Human Story Ever Screened… Are You Afraid To Believe What Your Eyes See?” In a side-show circus, a beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance. 1932, directed by Tod Browning. 82 minutes.

Oak Park Viewers: Oscar’s Overlooked
Wendy and Lucy
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
6:30 pm Maze Branch Library
Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of films from 2008 that were not nominated for Academy Awards. Come enjoy the cozy space and amazing sound system at the Maze Branch. A discussion will follow each film.

In Wendy and Lucy, Wendy’s life is derailed en route to a potentially lucrative summer job when her car breaks down, her dog is taken to the pound, and the thin fabric of her financial situation unravels.

Oak Park Viewers: Cult Classics
Hard Day’s Night
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Every second Wednesday from July through December, Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of cult classics: the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. A discussion will follow each film.

Hard Day’s Night: In “the greatest rock and roll comedy adventure,” we experience a typical day in the life of the Beatles, including many of their famous songs. 1964, directed by Richard Lester. 87 minutes.

Oak Park Viewers: Oscar’s Overlooked
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
6:30 pm Maze Branch Library
Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of films from 2008 that were not nominated for Academy Awards. Come enjoy the cozy space and amazing sound system at the Maze Branch. A discussion will follow each film.

In The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a middle-school science teacher and a hot sauce mogul vie for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic Donkey Kong.

Oak Park Viewers: Cult Classics
Harold and Maude
Wednesday, September 4, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Every second Wednesday from July through December, Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of cult classics: the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. A discussion will follow each film.

Harold and Maude: “They will defy everything you’ve ever seen or heard about screen lovers!” Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral. 1972, directed by Hal Ashby. 91 minutes.

French Club Film Screening
Le Million (The Million)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
The French film series is held on the fifth Tuesday of selected months. This 1931 film is directed by Rene Clair.

Oak Park Viewers: Cult Classics
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Every second Wednesday from July through December, Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of cult classics: the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. A discussion will follow each film.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “And now! At Last! Another film completely different from some of the other films which aren’t quite the same as this one is.” King Arthur and his knights embark on a low-budget search for the Grail, encountering many very silly obstacles. 1975, directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. 91 minutes.

Oak Park Viewers: Cult Classics
This is Spinal Tap
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Every second Wednesday from July through December, Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of cult classics: the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. A discussion will follow each film.

This is Spinal Tap: Spinal Tap, the world’s loudest band, is chronicled by hack documentarian Marti DeBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour. Does for rock and roll what The Sound of Music did for hills. 1984, directed by Rob Reiner. 82 minutes.

Oak Park Viewers: Cult Classics
Hairspray
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
7 pm Veterans Room, Second Floor, Main Library
Every second Wednesday from July through December, Oak Park Viewers presents a selection of cult classics: the wild, the weird, and the wonderful. A discussion will follow each film.

Hairspray: “It’s way beyond Grease.” Pleasantly plump teenager (Ricki Lake) teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show. 1988, directed by John Waters. 92 minutes.

John Landis, Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna are now confirmed to attend the conference and SCI-FI-LONDON film festival.

To celebrate the launch of the world’s first MA programme in Cult Film and TV, the Cult Film Archive at Brunel University and SCI-FI-LONDON will be hosting an international conference dissecting and re-evaluating some of the biggest trends, icons, auteurs and periods of global cult film production. Presented across a number of key strands, the conference will supplement discussion papers and plenary sessions with screenings and talks by leading cult filmmakers.

Over the last decade there has been an explosion of critical interest around the global traditions, traits and themes of cult film. Whether defined by horror, kung-fu, sci-fi, sexploitation, blaxploitation, kitsch musical or ‘weird world cinema’, cult film has moved from the margins to the mainstream of critical respectability.

‘Cult’ is a contemporary media buzz-word and cult status has become something that many filmmakers aspire to. Cine-Excess aims to bring together the people with the power to elevate a film to cultdom. Filmmakers, distributors and exhibitors will confront critics and fans at this unique event, which will feature both academic papers and roundtable discussions by key film industry figures. Delegates will also get the chance to watch the UK premieres of some exciting new cult films.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers include Professor Martin Barker from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, an expert on cult audiences; Dr Matt Hills from the University of Cardiff, who is currently writing books on BLADE RUNNER and DOCTOR WHO and Professor Mark Jancovich from the University of East Anglia, a specialist on the American horror film and editor of the book Defining Cult Movies. Other speakers at Cine-Excess include: Mark Bould, Brigid Cherry, Mark Goodall, Robin Griffiths, I.Q. Hunter, Leon Hunt, Peter Hutchings, Geoff King, David Lavery, Ernest Mathijs, Tamao Nakahara, Julian Petley and Andy Willis.

With global filmmakers JOHN LANDIS and STUART GORDON scheduled to appear at the event, Cine-Excess will appeal to the film researcher and film fan alike. Whatever aspect of cult interests you; whether you make cult films, study them or just love them, Cine-Excess will inspire and inform.

Cine-Excess presents over forty-five talks and panel discussions on a wide range of global cult topics including:

• The films of Roger Corman
• Female fans of the EVIL DEAD
• Mondo movies
• The films of Dario Argento
• The reception of BATTLE ROYALE
• The cult of DONNIE DARKO
• Turkish trash cinema
• 70s British exploitation
• Latin American cult movies
• The films of John Holmes
• Nigerian horror films
• Audiences for Tarantino’s cinema
• Japanese sex flicks
• The cult persona of Peter Lorre
• THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN
• New Brit horror cinema
• Medieval sex movies
• The British censorship of violent cult material

To find out more and book your place visit www.cine-excess.com

The film company behind plans to remake the 1986 cult movie Highlander have been offered help looking at possible locations in Scotland.

Scottish Screen has passed its contact details to Summit Entertainment via the US office of the UK Film Council.

The original film, starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery, has scenes shot in the north west Highlands.

Summit Entertainment owns the rights to the remake but has not yet put it into production.

Panned by critics, Highlander was a hit with cinema audiences and was followed up by a series of sequels and a television series.

French actor Lambert played Connor MacLeod, an immortal who fought his first battle in the Scottish Highlands in 1536.

He goes on to combat other immortals on the streets of New York City in 1986, killing them by cutting off their heads.

Connery starred as Spanish sword fighter Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez.

Scenes were shot at Eilean Donan Castle, at Glen Coe, Glen Nevis, Loch Shiel and on the Cioch, a pinnacle of rock in the Cuillin mountain range on Skye.

Movie magazines, including Empire, have reported on plans for the remake and have linked writers Matt Holloway and Art Marcum to turning out the script.

The pair wrote the script for Iron Man, which starred Robert Downey Jnr.

Newspaper reports have previously linked Elgin-born actor Kevin McKidd to the role of Connor MacLeod.

He has appeared in Trainspotting, werewolf horror Dog Soldiers, Rome and US medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.

Glasgow-based Scottish Screen said it had offered its contact details to Summit Entertainment.

The film company has options on Highlander and 18 other possible titles. It means it would have first shout on making the film, if finance was raised or a script produced.

Summit Entertainment’s movies include teenage vampires blockbuster Twilight, Knowing starring Nicholas Cage and forthcoming bomb disposal film The Hurt Locker.

David Win, keeper of Eilean Donan Castle, said he has been aware of the planned remake for more than a year.

He said: “Whether or not they choose to use the same locations as the first remains to be seen. Some remakes do try and do something different from the first.”

More than 20 years after the original, Mr Win said people continued to visit the castle just because it featured in the film.

He said: “It has a massive cult following.”

A mock village that took six weeks to build next to the castle is now the site of the property’s visitor centre.

Trish Shorthouse, of the Scottish Highlands and Islands Commission, said she would be delighted to see the Highlander locations back on the big screen.

She said: “It is an iconic film.

“There have been sequels that have not been shot in the area, but if it is a true remake I would be delighted to see those prime locations used again and we would work very hard to help them.”

Source -  http://news.bbc.co.uk

“Cult favorite,” when it comes to movie descriptions, is often a polite or revisionist substitution for “just plain weird.” Meaning the only kind of people who would get anything out of it are the types who would memorize lyrics, dress up like wizards and hit the midnight sing-along at their decaying urban movie house.

In the case of “Labyrinth,” however, “cult favorite” serves the intended purpose of the phrase by encouraging people to give this overlooked family movie a try. Weird certainly does apply in some spots of this uneven 1986 film, but not run-away weird. Just odd, and occasionally a bit amateurish, while periodically hitting true notes about adolescence and the usefulness of whimsy.

“Labyrinth” has a classic teen setup: A young (and already beautiful)Jennifer Connelly plays dreamy 15- year-old Sarah, a loner who reads deeply and escapes to fantasy worlds inside her head. Her (evil?) stepmother is angry when she’s late to babysit infant half-brother Toby. In a huff, Sarah turns her back on Toby, and he’s kidnapped by goblins.

There’s the key to “Labyrinth,” the goblins and the sensibility of Muppets. Jim Henson is the director, and he mixes live-action adults with his Muppet creations as if it were the most normal thing in the world. And it works. Each new Muppet, from nasty to kind, tiny to massive, is an enchanted creation that builds the plot.

David Bowie as the Goblin King is another matter. Wearing the ugliest of shag wigs, he is alternately fey or menacing. It’s true to the fairy-tale tradition, though, as the adolescent girl is always supposed to be threatened or enticed by adulthood.

Sarah must work her way through the goblins’ labyrinth to save Toby. Connelly’s glinting eyes and native intelligence carry the film, and “Labyrinth” does indeed earn its cult status.

Source - www.denverpost.com

A terrible film that became a cult classic in Hollywood because it’s so bad it’s good hits the Cleveland Cinematheque at 9:10 p.m. Saturday, May 23. “The Room,” a drama made by Tommy Wiseau (who also stars) is simply awful, but that hasn’t stopped Hollywood funnymen like Paul Rudd, David Cross and Jonah Hill from becoming huge fans and turning into a campy hit (www.theroommovie.com.)

Their devotion to it was covered in a huge spread recently in Entertainment Weekly. The film, filled with bad writing and worse acting, is now being marketed as a “black comedy,” but the humor is in its earnestness as a drama.

The Cinematheque is inside the Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Blvd. Tickets are $8 at the door. Call 216-421-7150.

Source - www.cleveland.com

Dave Durst has showcased some pretty cool autos in his day.

But nothing compares to the vintage Dodge van he trotted out last week, a 1975 Tradesman 300 “Santana.”

It features a terrible paint job. There are messy swipes of caulk keeping water out of the top. And the air-conditioning is kaput.

But it’s Uncle Rico’s van. And if you’re a fan of the 2004 quirky cult classic flick “Napoleon Dynamite,” you’ll instantly appreciate the draw of this vehicle.

And some day soon, it’s just possible you’ll be able to rent Uncle Rico’s van for anything from a pub crawl to a wedding to your senior prom.

“I’m looking into using it as a limo or to chauffeur people around in it,” says Durst, 43, who lives on Dean Lake, just north of Grand Rapids. “I was at a car show last week, and boy, I got so much response. Even little kids recognize it.”

Durst is a married father of four who works as a mechanic at Fox Pontiac Buick GMC on Alpine Avenue NW. His love of all things auto goes back to when he was in third grade. That’s when he enrolled in his first auto mechanics class. He has been a gearhead ever since.

Over the years, he has owned some sweet sets of wheels, including a 1970 Plymouth Superbird, a 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang 4-speed hardtop, and a 1971 Barracuda.

Those turned heads.

But showing up in the van that Uncle Rico made famous in the movie puts Durst in a Hollywood sort of way.

Uncle Rico is actually Jon Gries, whose character is stuck in the year 1982, when he played football for his high school team. He longs to relive his past, and goes to the extreme of filming himself passing footballs. In the movie, he lives in a field in his camper van near Preston, Idaho.

Uncle Rico endeared himself to fans of the movie by passing himself off as someone who could have made it in the NFL but, in truth, he’s as big a nerd as key characters Napoleon and Kip.

The van figures prominently in the movie, which was an afterthought for its producers, who discovered the camper by accident after they already started shooting. It fit perfectly into the 1970s shtick they were trying to create, and so its owner loaned the van to the set for free.

It later was acquired by a gentleman who tried unsuccessfully to peddle it on eBay. That’s where Durst’s brother, Dan, noticed it and notified Dave, who tracked down the seller after the eBay auction ended.

They eventually settled on a price — which Durst prefers not to disclose — and Durst and son Cody flew one way to meet the seller near Columbus, Ohio. They drove it back to Grand Rapids two months ago and have been plotting how to best market the investment. The sale included a letter of authenticity from movie director Jared Hess.

At an auto show last Saturday at Fifth Third ballpark to benefit burn victims, Durst was ready with T-shirts bearing the likeness of Uncle Rico, as well as pins sporting a famous mantra from the movie — “Vote for Pedro.”

Fans young and old couldn’t wait to climb inside and examine the van that helped make Uncle Rico the sorry wannabe he was; it boasts a sink, stove, fridge, CB radio and 50-gallon water tank. The interior is, well, dank and dark.

But it came with a football resembling the one Uncle Rico heaved. And of all things, Durst found a pair of black moon boots that are remarkably similar to the ones Napoleon wore throughout the movie, dance scene and all. Whether they’re the real deal is anyone’s guess, says Durst.

Durst, by the way, is babying another vehicle he recently acquired — or I suppose I should say re-acquired.

It’s a 1970 Rebel Machine with a phosphorescent green paint job that’s the only one of its color known to exist. Durst first bought the machine in 1983, when he was 16. He blew the engine hot-rodding against a Porsche, sold it around 1987, and nearly two decades later was finally able to talk the last owner into parting with it three years ago.

He performed major surgery to bring it back to showroom shape. The Machine is so unusual it has been featured on Jay Leno’s garage Web site, and it owns a spot in the Snap-On Tools calendar. Durst has been offered as much as $50,000 for it.

But Durst is reluctant to entertain any offers — on the Machine or Uncle Rico’s rig, for that matter.

The cars, says Durst, “are my 401(k) plan.”

Or as Uncle Rico himself said when Napoleon wanted to spend too much money on food, “What, do you think money grows on trees in this family? Take it back! And get some Pampers for you and your brother while you’re at it.”

For more information about Uncle Rico’s van, e-mail Dave Durst at: bbgmachine@yahoo.com

Source - www.mlive.com

May 20 (Bloomberg) — Oleg Yankovsky, the star of cult films by Andrei Tarkovsky and the last actor designated as a People’s Artist of the USSR, died in Moscow today after battling cancer. He was 65.

Yankovsky, born to an aristocratic family exiled to Kazakhstan under dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s, last performed on stage this year at Moscow’s Lenkom Theater, where he spent most of his more than four-decade long career. He returned to Russia in February after medical treatment in Germany to act in The Marriage, a comedy by Nikolai Gogol.

Leading Russian politicians, actors and directors paid tribute today to the actor, who played the father in Tarkovsky’s semi-autobiographical 1975 film The Mirror and the writer star of Nostalghia in 1983.

“Oleg Yankovsky was a true master, a unique, generously gifted person, an actor from God,” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said today in a message of condolence. “Oleg Yankovsky will always live in our memories, in the brilliant, unrepeatable images that this great Russian artist created.”

Yankovsky was perhaps most famous in Russia for the title role in The Very Same Munchhausen, the 1979 television movie of the tales of an 18th century aristocrat who travels to the moon and dances with Venus. An English-language film of the stories with Uma Thurman and Sting was released in 1988.

Tsar, the Pavel Lungin film in which Yankovsky plays his last film role as Metropolitan Filipp, the childhood friend and adviser to Ivan the Terrible, screened at the Cannes film festival in the Un Certain Regard section on May 17 and is scheduled to open in Russia this fall. The role earned Yankovsky praise for a “terrific” performance from Variety magazine reviewer Derek Elley, who called the film itself “laden with Russian brooding and violence.”

Actor Robert De Niro, a friend, last month visited Yankovsky while in Moscow for the opening of the Nobu restaurant. “I was happy to see him and his son and his grandson, and have him see my son,” De Niro told reporters at the time. “It was a good reunion.”

The Lenkom Theater will hold a service on May 22.

Source - www.bloomberg.com

PARIS (AFP) — Fifty years after France’s “New Wave” raised a storm at Cannes with Francois Truffaut’s iconic arthouse “The 400 Blows”, some critics believe the cult school of cinema has stymied French film.

The term “new wave” was first coined in 1957 in the nation’s press as a general reference to the new generation. But it quickly came to refer to the upcoming auteur film-makers and critics known as the “Cahiers du Cinema” group, in reference to France’s learned cult film magazine.

It was also in the mid-1950s that Truffaut, then a young writer for the Cahiers who also directed “Shoot The Piano-Player”, attacked the great French film-makers of the time — Claude Autant-Lara or Marc Allegret — as a bunch of “bourgeois people making bourgeois films for the bourgeoisie”.

Thanks to technical advances in the late 1950s — lighter cameras and increasingly light-sensitive film — he and cohorts Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, brought a fresh breath to movies, shooting outside in natural settings with trimmed-down budgets and crews, and no stars.

For some movie-lovers, Godard’s “Breathless”, Resnais’ “Hiroshima Mon Amour” or Chabrol’s “Bitter Reunion” (aka Le Beau Serge) were no more than a passing trend, but for others they epitomized a cultural revolution turning cinema on its head.

Today some academics would argue that Truffaut’s 1959 “400 Blows”, which won a prize at the Cannes film festival that year, is not that very different to the traditional-style movies criticised at the time by the rebel directors.

And some critics claim that by raising the New Wave to the status of a national cult, the film establishment in the long term has undermined the emergence of fresh new talent on French cinema screens and on the festival circuit.

Critic Michel Ciment, who heads the rival magazine to the Cahiers du Cinema, “Positif”, said in an interview that the New Wave film-makers “represent one of the key international movements in the history of film, much like Neorealism or the German Expressionists”.

The historical importance of the school was illustrated by the fact that its main proponents continue to make films even today, he said. Resnais for one, who turns 87 this year, has a movie in competition for Cannes’ prestigious Palme d’Or this month.

And Rivette, Godard, Chabrol, Agnes Varda and Chris Marker too are still making movies 50 years on.

“But the mythology has become dogma and has left a pernicious legacy,” Ciment said.

“A whole generation of young film-makers have been trained to believe that plot no longer matters, that you can improvise a shoot, use non-professional actors.

“Yet Truffaut and Chabrol used star actors and professional screenwriters, as well as the best cameramen and set specialists they could find on the market.”

Ciment said many of the well-respected critics at the Cahiers du Cinema over the decades had waged war against France’s more mainstream film-makers such as Claude Sautet, Alain Cavalier, Louis Malle or Bertrand Tavernier.

“They’ve been almost systematically demolished,” he said.

Film historian Marc Ferro agreed, saying “the New Wave has exercised a form of terrorism against other film-making styles.”

“They were iconoclasts who carved out a place for themselves, but their descendants are still on the attack today.”

Earlier this year, the influential monthly newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique carried a piece by writer Philippe Person asking “Do we have the right to criticise the New Wave?”

Person said the New Wave’s taste for using non-professional actors and its love of navel-gazing autobiographical fare had alienated filmgoers, who came to believe that auteur cinema was necessarily amateurish and boring.

Source - www.google.com

IFC Films has acquired US rights from Studio Canal to The Red Riding Trilogy based on David Pearce’s cult noir novels about the investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper slayings in the UK during Seventies and Eighties.

The trilogy includes Julian Jarrold’s 1974, James Marsh’s 1980 and Anand Tucker’s 1983, three self-contained dramas that combine to create a broad portrait of murder, corruption and obsession set against the Ripper’s tyrannical reign in the North of England.

Michael Winterbottom and Andrew Eaton’s Revolution Films produced the trilogy, which stars Sean Bean, Mark Addy, Paddy Considine, Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall, Eddie Marsan and David Morrissey. Tony Grison adapted Pearce’s books.

IFC plans to release The Red Riding Trilogy this autumn in theatres and on demand through its IFC In Theaters platform following a festival circuit run.

Vice-president of acquisitions and co-productions Arianna Bocco negotiated the deal with Studio Canal’s Harold Van Lier and Anna Marsh.

IFC Entertainment president Jonathan Sehring called The Red Riding “an absolutely thrilling work of cinema and one of the great true crime adaptations of recent times.

Van Lier said IFC “really offer the best possible model for the trilogy: a serious theatrical commitment on all three films, and a VOD release reaching out to 50million homes. We could not have hoped for a better fit.”

“We are very excited to be working with IFC Films,” Eaton said. “They are the perfect partner in the US for a project like this.”

Source - www.screendaily.com