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Exclusive: Arrested Industries Talent has signed The Smell of Apples co-writer Christopher Ciancimino and actress-director Bryerly Long.

The talent management division of Anthony Kimble’s Arrested Industries has been building its international talent roster since launching in February, and will represent Ciancimino and Long going forwards.

Ciancimino has over 20 years’ experience in TV and film as a writer and exec, and most recently co-wrote wrote the upcoming adaptation of the acclaimed South African novel The Smell of Apples with John Trengove for Portobello Productions.

His other credits include the Zimbabwean wine-tasting comedy Blind Ambition with co-writer Nathan Boyd for Impact X and Goodgate Media, and producing Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, John Krasinski’s directorial debut, with a cast that included Timothy Hutton, Corey Stoll, Will Forte and Julianne Nicholson. The film was produced by Woodshed Entertainment, a company that Ciancimino co-founded and that was also home to his debut feature,...

The Canadian writer-director is adapting Gilbert’s acclaimed 2012 book about a reclusive novelist and his three sons for Brett Ratner’s film company

Stories We Tell writer-director Sarah Polley is to adapt & Sons, an acclaimed book by David Gilbert about a reclusive novelist and his three sons, which was published in 2013..

According to Deadline, Polley has been commissioned by Brett Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment to work on the film. While it is not specifically stated that Polley will direct the project, her increasing status as an auteur means it is highly likely she will. If so, it will be her fourth feature as director, which has developed in parallel with a high-profile acting career.

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Exclusive: Sarah Polley is adapting David Gilbert’s acclaimed novel & Sons for Brett Ratner and his RatPac Entertainment. John Lesher is also in talks to come aboard as a producer. The novel, which was showered with critical praise on its debut last year, follows a legendary – and reclusive- Great American writer who, in the midst of delivering a eulogy at his oldest friend’s funeral, suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt. Principal amongst them are his three sons, who he reconvenes for the first time in years in an attempt – or so it would seem- to make amends.

Polley is an inspired choice for the classy source material. The Canadian filmmaker, who started her career as an actress in the likes of Atom Egoyan‘s Exotica and Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of The Dead, has since emerged as one of the...

Exclusive: Sarah Polley is adapting David Gilbert’s acclaimed novel & Sons for Brett Ratner and his RatPac Entertainment. John Lesher is also in talks to come aboard as a producer. The novel, which was showered with critical praise on its debut last year, follows a legendary – and reclusive- Great American writer who, in the midst of delivering a eulogy at his oldest friend’s funeral, suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt. Principal amongst…...

From new voices like NoViolet Bulawayo to rediscovered old voices like James Salter, from Dave Eggers's satire to David Thomson's history of film, writers, Observer critics and others pick their favourite reads of 2013. And they tell us what they hope to find under the tree …

Curtis Sittenfeld

Novelist

My favourite books of 2013 are Drama High (Riverhead) by Michael Sokolove, Sea Creatures (Turnaround) by Susanna Daniel, and & Sons (Harper Collins) by David Gilbert. Drama High is incredibly smart, moving non-fiction about an American drama teacher who for four decades coaxed sophisticated and nuanced theatrical performances out of teenage students who weren't privileged or otherwise remarkable and in so doing, changed their conceptions of what they could do with their lives. Sea Creatures is a gripping, beautifully written novel about the mother of a selectively mute three-year-old boy; when she takes a job ferrying supplies to a hermit off the coast of Florida,...

Ashley Cole built a home casino which he used to escape from Cheryl's mother, according to a source. The former owner of the Coles' mansion reportedly said that the Chelsea footballer used to hide from his mother-in-law in his custom-built gambling den. David Gilbert, who sold the five-bedroom house in Godalming, Surrey to the couple for £3.5 million in 2007, told thisismoney.co.uk that the Coles were "a charming and rather diffident couple". Speaking about his return (more)...

Two seconds may not seem like much in the real world (in fact, there's two seconds you'll never get back right there). In TV, however, it can mean an eternity (there goes another two seconds).

ABC News has admitted that footage from Brian Ross' report on recalled Toyota and their sudden acceleration problems contained a misleading shot of a speedometer.

Ross and Southern Illinois University professor David Gilbert went for a ride in a Toyota to recreate the supposed electrical failure that causes the sudden acceleration. Footage of the speedometer's needle spiking was actually taken when the car was idle and not while the car was in motion.

 

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Toyota has faced some seriously bad press about its recall of millions of vehicles due to "sudden acceleration" flaws. It's now pushing back, intimating that its electronics is not at fault. It'll be a tough battle, but an important one for future electric vehicles.

Toyota's forced recall of some eight million vehicles included 2.3 million cars and trucks for issues that may cause the throttle to stick open, with potentially disastrous runaway-car results. Accusations have been leveled at Toyota that the fault in these vehicles lies with dodgy programming or flawed electronics.

The chief source of this is research performed by Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University, who was able to demonstrate "unintended acceleration" in Toyota-produced vehicles. Gilbert even testified at a Congressional hearing on the matter. It precisely this research that Toyota is now calling foul at, pointing out that while Gilbert did indeed cause the acceleration to run wild,...

• Today Variety confirms what filmmaker George Ratliff told Ioncinema.com back in July (read our Q & A with Ratliff here). During his press tour for Sundance film festival  favorite Joshua, Ratliff let us know that he was zoning in on his next project End Zone. Today the trades share some pre-production good news - Josh Hartnett, Sam Rockwell and Kat Dennings are set to star in the book to film adaptation. Scripted by Ratliff and David Gilbert, this is based on Don DeLillo novel and will see Hartnett play a gifted running back who is fumbling his attempts to acclimate to stardom. Dennings plays a student who captivates the jock. Rockwell plays the school's excitable publicist. Another pivotal character is that of a teacher of international terrorism and mass destruction who sees the running back as the perfect soldier/student.This will be Rockwell's second time out with Ratliff

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• Unlike most film directors George Ratliff is unpretentious, down-to-earth and a really nice guy, although you might not get that impression by the films he’s directed. He helmed the intense documentary Hell House in 2001 and his first feature film, a psychological thriller, Joshua opens in limited release today. Joshua is set in Ratliff’s beloved New York and deals with a well-to-do Manhattan couple, played by Sam Rockwell and Vera Farminga, who are expecting their second child. This does not bode well with their first child, Joshua, (Jacob Kogan) a sociopath child prodigy who wants his parents to love him exclusively. The film was produced through Ato Pictures and was picked up at Sundance by Fox Searchlight.The film is disturbing, intense and exquisitely shot by Gaspar Noé’s regular cinematographer Benoît Debie. I met with Ratliff in New York to talk about his transition from documentary to narrative.

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• If you are like me – you’re probably itching more for what the autumn season offerings have in store, but as usual there are still some films worth considering and some treasure troves to discover. Minus the superheroes, talking robots and pirates, I’m proud to present a Top 20 offering of films that will make you think, reflect and better yet are worth the investment in both time and money. So beat the heat, beat the crowds and beat the smog – and enjoy Ioncinema’s Top 20 Summer Preview! 20. Charlie Bartlett Release date: Aug.03 Wide ReleaseDistributor: MGMIoncinema Preview : View hereThe Gist: Gustin Nash-scripted project, sees Yelchin who plays a wealthy teen who goes to a new public high school and ingratiates himself into its social fabric by using his charm to become the school's resident "psychiatrist."Fact: How many times have we seen a film editor become a director?

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PARK CITY -- He plays the piano rather than the horn here, but like his Biblical namesake, 9-year-old Joshua has the power to make things come tumbling down. With this superbly crafted psychological thriller, Fox Searchlight has made another savvy Sundance move. "Joshua" will win critical accolades and draw superbly through word-of-mouth.

With his affluent yuppie parents, brilliant and beatific Joshua Jacob Kogan) leads a loving and enriched life among the upper denizens of Manhattan. In his preppie sports coat, he's a poster-boy child, precocious and way ahead of his gifted classmates. His family is loving, and he's even got a brand-new baby sister, who, admittedly, grabs attention because she incessantly cries.

It's a charmed household, enlivened by doting grandparents and a charismatic and musically talented uncle. Yet, like any normal family, there are fissures of discontent: The grandparents' evangelical-Christian proselytizing annoys his free-thinking parents, in particular his Jewish mother, who is further frazzled by her daughter's nonstop bawling. On the paternal side, Dad is under big-time pressure at his brokerage firm.

Through an ever-darkening scope, filmmaker George Ratliff elegantly turns our perspective. In the best Hitchcockean sense, we now see the affluent prosperity and the benign richness of the family's life through more skeptical and sinister eyes. Things seem to be going awry, way beyond the bounds of normal family dynamics.

Layered with smart red herrings and enlivened by rich and misleading visual textures, "Joshua" descends into a house of horror. So superbly calibrated is Ratliff's direction of narrative misdirection that we're never sure what is behind this gradual and unsparing descent: The picture-perfect family is horribly imploding.

"Joshua" is a first-rate horror-of-personality tale, one enlivened by the psychologically astute and brilliantly textured writing of Ratliff and David Gilbert. Under Ratliff's superb modulation, the performances are exemplary, including Sam Rockwell as the courageous father and Vera Farmiga as the brittle wife and mother.

As the remarkable Joshua, Kogan recalls a patrician version of Lukas Haas in "Witness". His cool aplomb and precocious manner are both endearing and daunting.

Technical contributions are marvelous, especially cinematographer Benoit Debie's luminous compositions and evocative framings. Nico Muhly's score is provocatively lush and moody, pitched high by Joshua's own somber Beethoven piano playing and his deliriously assaultive rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".

JOSHUA

Fox Searchlight

ATO Pictures

Credits:

Producer: Johnathon Dorfman

Director: George Ratliff

Screenwriters: David Gilbert, George Ratliff

Executive producers: Temple Fennell, Dan O'Meara

Director of photography: Benoit Debie

Editor: Jacob Craycroft

Music: Nico Muhly

Costume designer: Astrid Brucker

Casting: Patricia DiCerto

Cast:

Brad Cairn: Sam Rockwell

Abby Cairn: Vera Farmiga

Hazel Cairn: Celia Weston

Ned Davidoff: Dallas Roberts

Chester Jenkins: Michael McKean

Joshua Cairn: Jacob Kogan

Running time -- 105 minutes

No MPAA rating...