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John Turturro is to receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award at the 30th Sarajevo Film Festival in Bosnia, which runs from Aug. 16 to 23. The award is in recognition of his contribution to the film industry and his talent as an actor, director and screenwriter.

Jovan Marjanović, director of Sarajevo Film Festival, said: “With a career spanning over four decades, he has delivered unforgettable performances in a diverse range of roles. His dedication to his craft, versatility, and ability to bring depth and authenticity to every character he embodies have made him a joy to look at every time he enters the scene.”

Turturro studied at Suny New Paltz and the Yale School of Drama. He has worked with a number of acclaimed filmmakers, appearing in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Color of Money,” Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show,” Francesco Rosi’s “La Tregua,...

Once upon a time, Roger Ebert held that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." The Stanton-Walsh rule could be violated, as Ebert noted in his scathing review of the unfathomably awful "Wild Wild West," but you only did yourself a favor if you cast one of these gentlemen. The script could be dire and the direction poor, but an appearance from Stanton and/or Walsh was/is – we lost Stanton in 2017, but Walsh is still going strong at 88 years old — only ever a joyous occasion.

The Stanton-Walsh rule applies to other character actors, and I can't think of many performers who've given me more pleasure over the last few decades than Sam Rockwell. He first popped for me in Tom Dicillo's hugely underrated indie comedy "Box of Moonlight" as a ball of non-conformist energy who...

Mubi is closing the year out on a high note with their December lineup, featuring some of 2021’s most acclaimed U.S. releases.

Highlights include Tsai Ming-liang’s Days (along with his previous feature Afternoon), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Wife of a Spy, Andreas Fontana’s Azor, Anders Edströ & C.W. Winter’s eight-hour epic The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin), Frank Beauvais’ Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream, and Michael M. Bilandic’s soon-to-premiere Project Space 13.

Also among the lineup is Arnaud Desplechin’s Esther Kahn, a quartet of Godard classics, Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña’s short The Bones, produced by Ari Aster, and much more.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

December 1 | Pierrot le fou | Jean-Luc Godard | The Cinema of Marx and Coca-Cola: Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960s

December 2 | Le bel indifferent | Jacques Demy | Scenes from a Small Town:...

Annabelle Attanasio’s impressive debut, “Mickey and the Bear,” premiered at SXSW, but over Columbus Day weekend it returned to the Hamptons Film Festival, which developed the project at its screenwriting lab. At one point, star Camillia Morrone jokingly pitched herself to “The Farewell” director Lulu Wang, a fellow member of the Winick Talks: Breakthrough Artists panel. “My schedule is open,” Morrone said.

Not for long.

Watching Morrone’s performance as a small-town Montana teenager working overtime to support her opioid-addicted vet father (James Badge Dale) reminded me of that “star is born” moment at the Sundance Film Festival when I first saw Sam Rockwell in “Box of Moonlight,” Tilda Swinton in “Orlando,” Ashley Judd in “Ruby in Paradise,” Kerry Washington in “Lift,” and Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone.”

This is what film festivals do. Of course, they help push awards contenders up the hill every fall; since 2010, Hamptons...

Annabelle Attanasio’s impressive debut, “Mickey and the Bear,” premiered at SXSW, but over Columbus Day weekend it returned to the Hamptons Film Festival, which developed the project at its screenwriting lab. At one point, star Camillia Morrone jokingly pitched herself to “The Farewell” director Lulu Wang, a fellow member of the Winick Talks: Breakthrough Artists panel. “My schedule is open,” Morrone said.

Not for long.

Watching Morrone’s performance as a small-town Montana teenager working overtime to support her opioid-addicted vet father (James Badge Dale) reminded me of that “star is born” moment at the Sundance Film Festival when I first saw Sam Rockwell in “Box of Moonlight,” Tilda Swinton in “Orlando,” Ashley Judd in “Ruby in Paradise,” Kerry Washington in “Lift,” and Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone.”

This is what film festivals do. Of course, they help push awards contenders up the hill every fall; since 2010, Hamptons...

During one of his many award speeches in 2018 for his supporting role in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri,” Sam Rockwell proclaimed himself a character actor as opposed to your traditional leading man. The line between those two types of actors is often blurry and Rockwell himself has vacillated from supporting roles to lead roles throughout his career.

Rockwell’s success has been a long time coming. He moved to New York at a very young age after attending a school for the arts in San Francisco. He worked steadily on the stage and television building up a resume of small roles. He would eventually gain name recognition during the 1990s heyday of independent film, in particular with the films “Lawn Dogs” and “Box of Moonlight” starting to get the actor noticed.

He began to work frequently with playwright turned film director Martin McDonaugh, eventually leading to the point where McDonaugh described him as his muse.

He plays a zany waterpark manager in The Way, Way Back, but the actor isn't quite the joker his on-screen personas often suggest

• Interview with The Way, Way Back's writer-directors

• First look review: The Way, Way Back

As the best thing in the occasionally appealing, frequently cheesy summer schmaltzfest that is The Way Way Back, Sam Rockwell also delivers the movie's greatest moment. Faced with two kids stuck halfway down a waterslide, Rockwell, in gravelly mock-heroic mode as waterpark manager Owen, stands up to address to the waiting line of gormless boys. "I need a hero," he appeals to the crowd. Then, with impeccable timing, he adds, "I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night."

But Rockwell doesn't even need to borrow the words of Bonnie Tyler to be hilarious. As always, he crackles with comic energy, but with something wild and potentially dangerous flowing underneath.

His turn in Seven Psychopaths is another of his hyperactive puppy roles – but it may be his last. Sam Rockwell is happy to be getting lines on his face and growing up

The hotel room where I am waiting for Sam Rockwell feels fit for a torture session: it is bare save for two clapped-out chairs, a couple of lamps and a bathtub. But when Rockwell bowls in, he brings his own ambience. Interviewing him is like being the only audience member at a one-man acting masterclass. He's not averse to leaping to his feet to demonstrate how posture and movement affect characterisation. His conversation is focused but there's a twitchy energy about him. Within a few seconds of declaring that he has stopped impersonating his friend Christopher Walken ("I really didn't feel good about doing it once I got to know him"), he has a silent change of heart.

By MoreHorror.com,

The complete legacy of one deadly experiment, 'Mimic: 3-film Set' (which includes Guillermo Del Toro's Director's Cut of Mimic) will be unleashed to DVD and Bly-ray on May 1. Read the official details below.

Audiences will experience thrills and chills from the franchise that brought the epic battle of man and nature to life as Lionsgate debuts the Mimic: 3-Film Set on Blu-ray Disc this May. Available for the first time as an HD collection, the set includes Mimic: The Director’s Cut, along with Mimic 2 and Mimic 3: Sentinel – both on Blu-ray Disc for the first time and available exclusively in the set. Telling the complete story of one deadly genetic engineering experiment, each film includes a host of special features, certain to excite and terrify fans of the sci-fi series.

Mimic: The Director’S Cut Synopsis

Directed by Oscar® nominee Guillermo Del Toro (Best Writing,...

Catherine Keener has been a supporting actor for years, with a reputation for being interesting in valuable, offbeat pictures

Catherine Keener is a beloved figure among the several million who are always hoping for the best from American independent pictures. She promises feeling, humour and a sense of life as it is really lived, plus a nice acidity. Keener has been attractive without threatening outright beauty or glamour. Her persona springs from ironic intelligence and that's what any wise man or woman should be searching for in life. The trouble is that in America, women actors are often supposed to be knockouts who dominate their pictures just by virtue of standing there and letting themselves be photographed.

So Keener has been a supporting actor for more than 25 years, with a reputation for being different and interesting in valuable, offbeat pictures. Indeed, she has often been taken as a talisman and even a guarantee.

In his 2007 review of the film Elizabethtown (reviled by many, owned by me), Nathan Rabin of The Onion coined the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl." The term has since entered the general lexicon and is much used and abused by sneering film reviewers and smug film-goers alike. (That's me! I'm both of those things!) Rabin defines the term thusly:

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is an all-or-nothing-proposition. Audiences either want to marry her instantly (despite The Manic Pixie Dream Girl being, you know, a fictional character) or they want to commit grievous bodily harm against them and their immediate family.[Source Av Club]

Those industrious little Av Club monkeys, knowing gold when they saw it, wrote a fairly comprehensive follow-up piece listing notable Mpdg.

On Tuesday afternoon, I had the opportunity to chat by phone for about 30 minutes with the veteran character actor Sam Rockwell, who has generated some of the best reviews of his career — and not inconsiderable buzz for a best supporting actor Oscar nod, which would be his first in any category — for his performance in Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction.”

Click Here To Listen To Audio Of Our Conversation!

Rockwell, 42, portrays Kenny Waters, a real person with a checkered background who was sentenced to life in prison for a murder that he — and, to an even greater degree, his sister (Hilary Swank) — insisted he did not commit. (It’s a part, he tells me, that Eric Bana, Colin Farrell, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and John C. Reilly all passed on!) Though some have argued that the film plays like a Lifetime TV movie or an extended episode of “Law & Order,” precious few...

Sometimes, there comes a moment in a working actor's life where just the right role suddenly galvanizes awards attention. I've been tracking Sam Rockwell since he broke out at Sundance in 1996 with Tim Dicillo's Box of Moon Light. Rockwell has been knocking out great juicy performances ever since--often in smaller indie films such as George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, or David Gordon Green's Snow Angels. He's also a stalwart supporting player in Frost/Nixon, The Green Mile and The Assassination of Jesse James, and hilarious in Galaxy Quest and Iron Man 2. He held his own opposite Mickey Rourke--not an easy thing to do. Jon Favreau rewarded Rockwell with a role in the upcoming sci-fi western Cowboys and Aliens. And Rockwell also held ...

Filed under: Features

Opening this Friday is the true story-inspired 'Conviction,' starring Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters, a single mother who puts herself through law school to avenge her brother, wrongfully convicted of murder. While Swank is undoubtedly excellent in her role, we're counting on Sam Rockwell, as the locked-up Kenny Waters, to hit it out of the park.

Since his breakout role in 1997's 'Box of Moonlight,' in which he played a free-spirited rebel, Rockwell has been thrilling us with his edgy, funny, soulful, often off-kilter characters and deeply committed acting style. (Not to mention his excellent dance moves.) If he isn't a household name yet, it's due mainly to the less-than-commercial films he's chosen to work in -- though he recently held his own with Robert Downey Jr. as evil arms mogul Justin Hammer in 'Iron Man 2.'

Whatever your degree of familiarity with the man,...

/Film La is my attempt to highlight the coolest film screenings and events happening in Los Angeles. In today's edition, we take a sneak peek at Disneyland California's Tron: Legacy night-time weekend dance party ElecTRONica, Cinefamily's Japanese Gore Night, see Halo: Reach The Show hosted by Paul Scheer featuring Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, and your chance to watch The Usual Suspects with director Bryan Singer,  a double feature of Pet Sematary/Pet Sematary II with Director Mary Lambert., Winnebago Man at Kevin Smith's Smodcastle with Director Ben Steinbauer and Producer Joel Heller , or Box of Moonlight/Conviction double feature with star Sam Rockwell. Hit the jump! Beginning October 8th, Disney will hold a nighttime dance party/experience called ElecTRONica every Friday, Saturday and Sunday this Fall at Hollywood Pictures Backlot in Disney California Adventure park. You might recall that we posted about this on the front page in early September.

Sam Rockwell grew up on the movies of the 1970s—films he adored such as "The Deer Hunter" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." So when he lists the various teachers he has learned from, he cites some of his favorite actors. "My teachers are all those people I grew up watching: De Niro, Walken, Streep, Robert Duvall, Ellen Burstyn," he says. "When young actors ask me about studying, I tell them, 'You've got to watch those movies. If you're not, you're not doing your job. Respect your elders, and more than that, learn from them.' "Rockwell has sometimes even found himself in the strange position of acting opposite his mentors, using tricks he picked up from them. In last year's drama "Everybody's Fine," he played the son of Robert De Niro's character and had a scene in which the father accuses the son of lying. "I kept saying,...

Tom Dicillo's second movie, Living in Oblivion, is a weird and funny look at indie filmmaking from the point of view of first-time director Nick Reve. Reve, who is played by Steve Buscemi, is a former cinematographer making his feature-length debut on a shoestring budget with a team full of colorful weirdos and/or pains in the asses. Nick's leading man Chad Palomino (James LeGros) is handsome, blond, and obsessed with his position in every frame. Chad has drama with the leading lady Nicole (Catherine Keener), who's actually in love with Nick. Then there's the crappy Dp Wolf (Dermot Mulroney), literally vomitrocious craft services, forgotten lines, bad shots, an angry small person (Peter Dinklage as Tito), and dream sequences. Also, everyone is sleeping with everyone else. It's messy.

Living in Oblivion and its characters have just enough in common with Dicillo's first movie, Johnny Suede, that people assume that's what Oblivion is about.

(Jim Morrison in his experimental film, Hwy, from When you're Strange.)

By Terry Keefe

(Currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)

Many a visitor to Venice Beach has spent some time wondering the exact location where Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek reportedly ran into each other in 1965, after having attended UCLA Film School together previously, and decided to form the Doors. The legend of the band needs no recounting here, not after a number of books, the 1991 Oliver Stone film, and endless television clip show assemblies, along with various live albums and re-releases of recordings. Which does raise the question of whether a 2010 documentary on the Doors fills any real need, at least that was the initial reaction from this Doors fan when hearing about director Tom Dicillo’s When You’re Strange - A Film About the Doors. Then, Morrison appeared on screen in the Dicillo documentary, in pristine,...

My first interview regarding the fantastic new film, When You’re Strange was with Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek. Next up, I found myself chatting with the film’s writer/director Tom Dicillo and The Doors drummer, John Densmore. Not only was I thrilled to meet Densmore, but I have a lot of respect for Dicillo as a filmmaker. From Box Of Moonlight to Living In Oblivion, he is a skilled director with a knack for character. And in many ways, his latest may be his best. To truly capture the spirit of Jim Morrison and of course, Krieger, Manzarek and Densmore is a tough job. While many of these stories have been told, he truly brings it all to life. And when I finished talking to both John and Tom, they stated that it was one of their favorite interviews they had done, I’m sure somewhat jokingly, but...

I started listening to the The Doors when I was about fourteen, and bought every one of their albums. I have great affection for their music, especially Strange Days, at the same time that I often question how seriously to take it. At the behest of Rhino Records and producer Dick Wolf, after directing some Law and Order episodes, filmmaker Tom Dicillo--whose idiosyncratic films I like, from Johnny Suede and Living in Oblivion to Box of Moonlight--took three years to fashion the mysterious documentary When You're Strange: A Film About the Doors. He leans on found footage from concerts, interviews of the period and even a remarkably pristine 1969 35 mm short film (Google video on jump) of Jim Morrison driving in the desert to ...

In the science fiction drama "Moon," Sam Rockwell spends most of his time acting opposite himself, playing two clones of a man working in a lunar laboratory. And how did Rockwell find working with Rockwell as a scene partner? "Very difficult," the actor says, sighing. "He's a very selfish actor."It seems like Rockwell is everywhere lately, and not just playing multiple versions of himself in "Moon." He also stole scenes in November's "Gentlemen Broncos" and can now be seen as Robert De Niro's son in the comedy-drama "Everybody's Fine." In that film, Rockwell is extremely effective as a man desperate not to disappoint his father. It's a surprisingly low-key performance for the actor, who seems to veer toward more-offbeat roles—think the sex addict who might be related to Jesus in last year's "Choke" or the game-show host who doubles as a CIA spy in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Billy Bob Thornton will star in the indie feature Chrystal, which will mark the big-screen directorial debut of Oscar-winning short filmmaker Ray McKinnon. McKinnon's wife, Lisa Blount, who shared the Oscar with her husband, will star in the title role. McKinnon wrote, directed and starred in the short film The Accountant, with Blount co-starring and executive producing. Chrystal is the husband-and-wife team's follow-up project. Chrystal, produced by Bruce Heller, David Koplan and Blount, goes into production May 28 in Arkansas. The project, written by McKinnon, sees Blount star as the title character, a rural woman whose convict husband (Thornton) returns home from prison only to see that the vacancy in her life left by the death of her child years earlier becomes even more acute. Walton Goggins (The Shield) also stars. As an actor, McKinnon has appeared in such films as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Apollo 13. Blount, repped by McCabe/Justice and manager Darris Hatch, most recently starred in the WB Network pilot Trash. She also starred in the Tom DiCillo feature Box of Moonlight. Thornton, repped by CAA, is shooting the Walt Disney Co.'s The Alamo. Upcoming projects include Intolerable Cruelty and Bad Santa.

Billy Bob Thornton will star in the indie feature Chrystal, which will mark the big-screen directorial debut of Oscar-winning short filmmaker Ray McKinnon. McKinnon's wife, Lisa Blount, who shared the Oscar with her husband, will star in the title role. McKinnon wrote, directed and starred in the short film The Accountant, with Blount co-starring and executive producing. Chrystal is the husband-and-wife team's follow-up project. Chrystal, produced by Bruce Heller, David Koplan and Blount, goes into production May 28 in Arkansas. The project, written by McKinnon, sees Blount star as the title character, a rural woman whose convict husband (Thornton) returns home from prison only to see that the vacancy in her life left by the death of her child years earlier becomes even more acute. Walton Goggins (The Shield) also stars. As an actor, McKinnon has appeared in such films as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Apollo 13. Blount, repped by McCabe/Justice and manager Darris Hatch, most recently starred in the WB Network pilot Trash. She also starred in the Tom DiCillo feature Box of Moonlight. Thornton, repped by CAA, is shooting the Walt Disney Co.'s The Alamo. Upcoming projects include Intolerable Cruelty and Bad Santa.