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Every once in a while smart people get together to do good. In this case, the Women In Film Foundation was sitting on countless hours of some 40 Legacy Series video interviews with industry achievers--including Debbie Allen, Martha Coolidge, Eva Marie Saint, Fay Kanin, Evelyn Keyes, Marcia Nasatir, Margaret O'Brien, Anna Hamilton Phelan, Meta Wilde, Joan Tewkesbury, Fay Wray, Jane Wyatt and Laura Ziskin--that needed editing. After talking to Wif's Ilene Kahn Power and Linda Feferman about the series, Barbara Boyle, UCLA's Chair of the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, figured out a clever way to kill two birds with one stone. She allocated some funding for first-round Legacy Series interviewee, legendary film editor Anne V. Coates (Lawrence of Arabia), to guest lecture ...

DVD Playhouse—February 2010

By

Allen Gardner

Hunger (Criterion) Harrowing true story of imprisoned Ira member Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and his 1981 hunger strike protesting the British government’s refusal to recognize him, and other Ira members as political prisoners. Director Steve McQueen delivers the story with true filmmaking panache, mixing startling imagery that blends both stunning beauty and stomach-churning horror. Fassbender is absolutely brilliant in the lead. Not for the faint-of-heart, but not to be missed or, particularly, ignored. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Interviews with McQueen and Fassbender; Short documentary; 1981 episode of BBC series “Panorama” that covers the Ira hunger strike; Trailer. Widescreen. DTS-hd audio on Blu-ray.

Adam (20th Century Fox) Quirky romantic comedy about an eccentric, borderline Asperger’s Syndrome, astronomy buff (Hugh Dancy) who is drawn out of his self-imposed shell by a beautiful and sympathetic neighbor (Rose Byrne). Charming film with engaging performances by the two leads,...

Chicago – It seems downright sad that “Amelia,” a movie that was so widely predicted to be a part of the 2009 awards season, would be released on Blu-ray and DVD on the same day as the Oscar announcements. On paper, “Amelia” seemed like Oscar bait through and through with important subject matter headlined by one of the few women to have more than one Oscar. On Blu-ray, it’s easy to see why this cinematic plane crashed and burned.

Blu-Ray Rating: 2.0/5.0

“Amelia” is one of those well-intentioned dramas that doesn’t necessarily do that much wrong that it’s worth getting fired up about but it’s so shockingly forgettable and sleep-inducing. Sure, it looks good, the performances are reasonably interesting, and it features an intriguing true story, but it’s so old-fashioned that it crosses into by-the-numbers, generic cinema that they don’t really make that often any more for a reason.

Love Happens: "Cliché. Studio-manufactured quirky florist (Jennifer Aniston) who scrawls odd words, like "quidnunc," behind paintings in a hotel and keeps customer's love notes. Cliché. Widowed self-help author (Aaron Eckhart), who can't seem to follow his own advice. Platitude. Cliché. Bumper-sticker pop-speak. "A-Okay!" Cliché. Let's pass around the 'candle of truth,' why don't we!

Best friend roles: Dan Fogler as arrogant agent (the best part of the movie, which says most of what you need to know about Love Happens). Judy Greer wasted as Female Best Friend (Joan Cusack™). She spouts poetry. Cliché.

Nice dimples, Eckhart." - Dustin Rowles

Amelia: "Amelia is the least interesting movie ever made about anyone who ever lived. Ever. That's not to say the movie doesn't have some minor technical joys: The set and costume design create an authentic feeling of Depression-era America (the first one), and the cinematography from Stuart Dryburgh...

Despite the differences in nationality and era, the main character and the director of the Fox Searchlight biopic "Amelia" share many traits. Indian-born director Mira Nair and world-famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart grew up in rural areas and achieved international fame. Before Earhart mysteriously disappeared on a flight over the Pacific, she captured the imagination of a Depression-ridden world by becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo. Nair is one of the few female directors to maintain a steady international career, with such diverse films as "Salaam Bombay!," "Monsoon Wedding," "Vanity Fair," and "The Namesake."Nair thought Hilary Swank, who won Oscars for her performances in gender-defying roles in "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby," would be ideal for the role of Earhart. "Hilary is an intuitive daredevil," observes Nair. "She loves the roller coaster of life. She would happily jump out in a parachute and come down just like Amelia,...

I want to see a movie about Amelia Earhart that is thrilling. That is Indiana Jones adventurous. Someday, I think, someone will make a movie like that about Earhart, about whom that kind of story is simply begging to be told. But that would be a fantasy in the opposite direction of the fantasy in which Mira Nair and screenwriters Ron Bass (Passion of Mind, Snow Falling on Cedars) and Anna Hamilton Phelan chose to take their Amelia. I wouldn’t, in fact, expect an Indiana Jones-type fantasy from Nair, whose movies are so intimate and personal that it’s as if they exist to let us see the world through the eyes of her protagonists, as they see themselves and not as how the world sees them. And so this Amelia is a quiet, reflective film, and Earhart is not an icon or a symbol: she’s a human being,...

Watching Amelia, a biopic of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, is like spending two hours reading a Wikipedia entry on the title character. With two biographies as source material, the adaptation by screenwriters Anna Hamilton Phelan and Ron Bass tries to cram in too many facets of a 10-year period in Amelia Earhart's life. This results in a film that jumps from scene to scene without flow like bullet points on a fact-sheet. The film starts with an eager but green Earhart (Hilary Swank, who is also an executive producer on the film) meeting New York publisher and future husband George Putman (Richard Gere, cast once again opposite a much younger woman). He makes her famous as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Over the next decade, we see her rise to greater heights both literally and figuratively, up until that...

Amelia is the much anticipated film of the pioneering aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. This new, historical biopic from director Mira Nair (The Namesake, Vanity Fair), stars two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank as the legendary pilot (she also serves as executive producer), Richard Gere as her husband and agent/publisher, George Putnam, and Ewan McGregor as Twa founder and Earhart’s lover, Gene Vidal (Gore Vidal’s father). From a screenplay by Ronald Bass (Academy Award winner for Rain Man) and Anna Hamilton Phelan, based on the books “East to the Dawn” by Susan Butler and “The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell,” Amelia chronicles the life of Earhart from her early life in Kansas, the first flight across the Atlantic, and Putnam’s attempt to make her a female Lindbergh through product placement. The film also covers her...

Rating: 4/10 Writers: Anna Hamilton Phelan, Ronald Bass Director: Mira Nair Cast: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston Studio: Fox Searchlight Based on two autobiographies (East to the Dawn and The Sound of Wings), Amelia explores the life of famed female pilot, and icon of the women’s movement, Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank). From her obsession with planes even [...]...

The opening credits note that Amelia, Mira Nair’s portrait of femme flier Amelia Earhart, is based on two separate biographies, but the filmmakers could have saved time and money by merely cribbing from Earhart’s Wikipedia page, since the movie never moves beyond the superficial facts of her life. Screenwriters Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan skim through Earhart’s history like a college student cramming for a test, focusing on the years between her first transatlantic flight in 1928 and her disappearance while attempting to circumnavigate the globe in 1937. Her hair cropped, her skin freckled, and her ...

It's Oscar contender season, when the studios trot out the films they hope will capture the attention of the bearers of golden statuettes, and the box office revenue those little gold men bring.  One has to wonder just what Fox Searchlight was thinking when they chose to release Amelia.

It seems like a perfect match: Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) directing a cast of heavyweights, including Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston. Stuart Dryburgh had an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography for The Piano amongst his list of nominations and wins. Both editors, Allyson C. Johnson and Lee Percy, are seasoned professionals, and Johnson has worked on several Nair projects. The writers, Ron Bass (Rain Man, The Joy Luck Club) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted, Mask) each have an Oscar nod. Two books about Earhart are used, including Susan Butler's East to the Dawn and...

Check out twelve new stunt tape clips and new film clips from Fox Searchlight Pictures' "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Joe Anderson, Cherry Jones and Mia Wasikowska. Mira Nair directs. Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan wrote the screenplay based on the book "East to the Dawn" by Susan Butler and "The Sound of Wings" by Mary S. Lovell. Visionary. Lover. Dreamer. Fighter. Legend. Icon. Amelia. An extraordinary life of adventure, celebrity and continuing mystery comes to light in Amelia, a vast, thrilling account of legendary aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (two time Academy Award® winner Hilary Swank). After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America's sweetheart - the legendary "goddess of light," known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own,...

I’ll be showing Mira Nair’s Amelia at Sneak Previews this week. I’ve seen the biopic of the vanished aviatrix Amelia Earhart, which stars Oscar magnet Hilary Swank and Richard Gere, and look forward to grilling the screenwriters, Ron Bass (Rain Man) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Gorillas in the Mist). The question at hand: how do you tackle a movie biography these days, when authenticity is at such a premium? Some biopics …...

See new images from Fox Searchlight Pictures' "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Joe Anderson, Cherry Jones and Mia Wasikowska. The Mira Nair film opens on October 23rd and is screenwritten by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan. Ted Waitt, Kevin Hyman and Lydia Dean Pilcher produce. Visionary. Lover. Dreamer. Fighter. Legend. Icon. Amelia. An extraordinary life of adventure, celebrity and continuing mystery comes to light in Amelia, a vast, thrilling account of legendary aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (two time Academy Award® winner Hilary Swank). After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America's sweetheart - the legendary "goddess of light," known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own..

Fox Searchlight is on fire today -- they've been lighting up the Reject HQ red phone. First, they sent us details on the highly anticipated release Gentlemen Broncos, and now we've got a first look at the poster for another upcoming film, Amelia, starring Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart. Not much to say here, except that it has a sense of longing -- as if Amelia Earhart knows what is ahead of her. I don't want to spoil anything, but I think we all know what's coming for her. And if I were her and I knew how this movie ends, I'd be sad too. The film's details are below, courtesy of Fox Searchlight, followed by the poster. Directed by: Mira Nair Written by: Ronald Bass Produced by: Ted Waitt, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Kevin Hyman Cast: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston Visionary. Lover. Dreamer. Fighter. Legend. Icon...

Jeff Favreproduction: A Beautiful View, Son of Semele Theatre; Robots vs. Fake Robots, Powerhouse Theatre; Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, Geffen Playhouse.Playwriting: David Largman Murray, Robots vs. Fake Robots.Direction: Don Boughton, A Beautiful View; John Doyle, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre; Tiger Reel, Cartoon, Art/Works Theatre; Elise Robertson, The Women, Circus Theatricals.Music Direction: Sarah Travis, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Scenic Design: Simon Higlett, The School of Night, Center Theatre Group, Mark Taper Forum; Christine Jones, Spring Awakening, Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre; Anthony Ward, My Fair Lady, Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre.Lighting Design: Russell H. Champa, The School of Night; Richard Jones, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.Costume Design: Anthony Ward, My Fair Lady.Sound Design: Dan Moses Schreier, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.Perfomance In A (Primarily) Straight Play:Gregory Itzin,...