Florida Film Festival 2009 to kick off today

The Florida Film Festival 2009 (Mar 27-April 5, 2009) will kick off today. The Florida Film Festival is a core program of ENZIAN, a nonprofit organization which exists to entertain, educate, inspire, and connect the community through film. 2009 marks the 18th year of the Festival and Enzian’s 24th anniversary. Combined, Enzian and the Florida Film Festival have served more than 1.5 million guests, premiered thousands of films and hosted hundreds of celebrities.

The movies will be screened at the Enzian Theatre and the Regal Winter Park Village 20. Management, directed by first-time feature director, Stephen Belber and starring Jennifer Aniston will open the film festival.

This year’s film program is comprised of 160 films from 1,400 submissions by American and international filmmakers. This selection includes works represented from 19 countries including 40 world premieres, five North American premieres and four U.S. premieres. Highlights include the following:

Pardon Us For Living, But The Graveyard Is Full  (Geoffray Barbier)
The Attic Door (Danny Daneau)
We Are The Mods (E. E. Cassidy)
Where You From  (Sabrina Lee)
Neil Young: Don’t Be Denied  (Ben Whalley)

Click here to see the list of movies being screened at Florida Film Festival 2009.

New Moon Auditions Vancouver, Canada

“Aikins/Cossey is seeking actors between 15 and 25 years of age in three B.C. casting calls in Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna.

Candidates will receive scripts and be asked return the same day to read for a part.

Victoria: Feb. 7, Paul’s Motor Inn, 1900 Douglas St., 9 a.m. to noon

Vancouver: Feb.8, Second Avenue Studios, 225 W. 2nd Ave., 9 a.m. to noon

Kelowna: Feb. 8, Delta Grand Okanagan, 1310 Water St., 9 a.m. to noon”

-Vancouver Sun article.

If you’re Native American, and interested in the Twilight series, get your butt in gear. What have you got to lose? Vancouver is beautiful and shooting is set for spring of this year… a spectacular time of the year on the west coast of Canada.

If you audition drop us a note and let us know how you make out!

** Dakota Fanning to play Jane of the Volturri, in New Moon**

Oscar Nominees

Best Actor:

Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

Best Actress:

Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader

Best Movie: **Cast Your Vote In Our Poll On The Right Side Bar**

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

View the full list here.

Hmmm…. what do you think? Who missed out?

People’s Choice Awards: The Reel Deal

I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I won’t bother. I’ll leave you to Whitney Pastorek’s article from Entertainment Weekly. This article does not disappoint, with whit, sarcasm and honest to goodness real opinion, it’s like a slap in the face, waking you from the mundane. Enjoy!

” This is not the blog post my editors asked for. In this space, you are supposed to be reading a Best and Worst of last night’s People’s Choice Awards, one of those snarky little fiestas where I run down all the highlights of the ceremony, crack some jokes, get worked up when Sugarland doesn’t win, whatever. But PopWatchers, I can’t do it this time.

I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, it’s hard to make a list of ‘bests’ when there weren’t any.” But even if I faked it by saluting Christina Applegate‘s classy speech or the emotional fortitude it must take for Ellen DeGeneres to keep getting up there and smiling at the nice people who cheer for her when she dances her funny dance but refuse to give her the civil rights necessary to marry her “roommate,” I would be doing you, the intelligent and savvy readers of EW.com, a disservice. Because the People’s Choice Awards, by any reasonable standard, are the worst kind of pandering, artificial hooey. And we, the alleged people, deserve better.

I intend no disrespect to the winners of the “awards,” nor to enthusiastic hostess Queen Latifah (pictured), nor to the hardworking men and women who labored behind the scenes to produce these two hours of televised pap and circumstance. But with the exception of The Dark Knight — victorious in so many categories they had to shove them all into a montage at the end — do I think for a second that these “winners” are, indeed, the “people’s” choice? No. Let’s be honest: As the very clear post-show disclaimer explained, a complex system of “E-Polls” and market research and extravagant math went into choosing the nominees you saw upon your screen. And that system led to a telecast in which praise was lavished on a crassly commercial cross-section of demographically advantageous properties starring celebrities who were willing to show up.

Even as mindless distraction, this awards show was a failure. There was no suspense; every category could be easily predicted by remembering who you’d already spotted in the audience. Would the “Favorite Rock Song” be “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock, or those other two thingies performed by people who were not currently located inside the Shrine Auditorium? To quote “winner” Rock: What a surprise. Chris Brown accepted his “Favorite Combined Forces” award (for “No Air” with Jordin Sparks) “live via satellite” from Dublin, Ireland — where by my calculations it would have been approximately 3:30 in the morning. Rascal Flatts were handed a statue immediately after completing their unconvincing Rascal Flatts impersonation, and like 200 people rose as one from the good seats to collect the “Favorite TV Drama” award for House. Yes, tipping the winners off ahead of time has become pretty much de rigeur at this sort of thing, but when those “winners” stretch the limits of plausibility or common sense, I start sawing at my wrists with Twizzlers.

Examples: We were told early in the broadcast that voting was still open in the “Favorite New TV Comedy/Drama” categories. And yet when the time came, the casts of Gary Unmarried and The Mentalist — which, oh wow, just happen to air on the network we’re watching! — were in the house and ready to go. The cast members of the losing shows? Conspicuously absent. (Okay, there were 90210 people milling about, but I’m willing to believe they, like Paris Hilton, have nothing better to do.) But wait, there’s more: Britney Spears losing to Robin Williams for “Favorite Scene Stealing Guest Star” — in an Internet-based voting competition? Kate Hudson (movie to promote) and Latifah (host) going head-to-head for “Favorite Leading Lady”? The Secret Life of Bees winning “Favorite Movie Drama”?? People. Bees made $37 million at the box office. That is just slightly more money than Marley and Me made opening weekend.” Full article here.

Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards

I need to get on one of these boards… I’m sure that I can offer just as much useless feedback.

” Among the nominees announced for the 2008 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, French-language films made a strong showing, and actors from both Hollywood and Bollywood were nominated in Canadian film categories.” – Craig Takeuchi, Straight.com – Read the entire article here.

Valkyrie: Tom Cruise Does The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

Tune in and turn on, Tuesday, December 9th at 11pm EST on CBC, as Tom Cruise is interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulus, on his new WWII movie, Valkyrie.

Valkyrie is a based on true life events of the attempted assasination of Adolf Hitler lead by Cruise’s character, Col. Claus von Stauffenberg. This film has been plagued by bad press, including the controversy raised by the German Government surrounding shooting sites for the movie and Cruise’s religion.

With a Christmas release date, Valkyrie is positioned to be an Oscar contender. Check out The Hour tomorrow night to see what Tom Cruise has to say about this film, and to see if it is Old Tom Cruise who shows up, or whacky New Tom Cruise.

Heath Ledger – Australian Film Institute Award

Heath Ledger was postumously awarded a top Australian Film Institute award last night in Melbourne, Australia. The International award for Best Actor was received by Ledger’s sister and parents on behalf of his beloved daughter, Matilda, for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

Ledger’s mother is quoted as saying this about the late actor:

“We are immensely proud of him, not only for his professional achievements, but in the way he truly cherished his family, friends and his precious Matilda.”

“Heath was never one to accept mediocrity, he put his heart and soul into achieving what he believed was required and followed his passions with great enthusiasm and an insatiable curiosity.”

 View a portion of the clip here on Youtube (beginning at 1:05)

Trailer Park Boys – Finale

Tune in tonight on Showcase (Canada) for the series finale, a must see by Canadians, and those who wish they were

Though this is the series finale, there is apparently a 2nd movie in the works due out in October 2009.

“When asked what made the show successful, Canada’s favourite fictional felons sum it up pretty simply: “There’s a lot of heart in the show. People can relate to the characters. It’s just one big family. It’s like Little House on the Prairie from hell, with lots of cursing and swearing,” says Tremblay. ” – Raju Mudhar – The Star.

Thank you Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles – for all of the laughs, you boys ‘dun us proud!

Reel Babies

Perhaps in the place you call home there is something similar. Here in our little piece of Canada, Empire Theatres, offers a program driven to new moms called Reel Babies. A fabulous concept really; a first run movie shown to an audience of new moms and teary-eyed babies, during daylight hours. It comes complete with changing tables, bottle warmers, and floor toys. What a bang up idea for moms who love movies, don’t you think?

Reel Babies has been offered here in Halifax for a couple of years now, and is becoming rather popular. Perspective movie-going moms subscribe their email address to Empire and a week before the bi-monthly movie date, they are offered three titles to vote for as the upcoming film choice.

The one negative… even after the couple of years that this program has been in existance, is that every time the wee one and I have gone to see a movie, the volume is never adjusted and every baby in the place bawls until one of the moms goes out and asks the tools running the movie to turn the freakin’ volume down! Holy frustrating Batman. Seriously, how many times does this have to happen before you catch on and turn the volume down BEFORE you flick the switch and roll the tape?!

End Rant.

Blindness at Cannes

Opening at the 61st annual Cannes Film Festival tonight will be a film by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles. Blindess, is an apocalyptic thriller about a plague of blindness that sweeps the world, save a doctor’s wife in a small town. Doesn’t that sound terribly fascinating?? I am chomping at the bit after reading that little tidbit of information… I can’t wait to get an opportunity to see this little beauty.

Blindness stars, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. Meirelles is known for his direction of The Constant Gardener in 2005.

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