ReelHeART Blogs

by Shannonn Kelly

Last minute talks have resumed on Halloween morning to help Hollywood writers and producers reach a deal on a new contract. Wednesday October 31, 2007  is the last day of the present agreement.

Failure to reach a deal will affect numerous TV and Film productions.

One of the main issues is about revenue going back to the  writers for product from DVDs and the distribution of shows via the Internet, cell phones and other digital platforms.

Read more about the ‘talking points’ by clicking here http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071031/hollywood_labor.html?.v=2

Read more about the strike would affect TV by clicking here
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2007-10-30-writers-strike_N.htm

written by RHIFF

by Shannonn Kelly

The Theatrical Katharine Hepburn, in Journals and Letters is a terrific article on the late actress published online at the New York Times Monday October 29, 2007 by By Patricia Cohen.

The article centers around a gift from Ms. Hepburn’s estate that was donated to the New York Public Library.  The collection is a ”cache of theater-related photographs, scrapbooks, journals, scripts and more”.

Bob Taylor, the collection’s curator, said the, “collection should be available to the public in February (2008) at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

ReelHeART also recommends the Slideshow which is a great companion piece to the article and an inside glimpse to one of the most forward-thinking, eloquent, witty and great actresses of this or any other time…

written by RHIFF

by Shannonn Kelly

ReelHeART always has a hard time deciding whether we actually like Ben Affleck “The Actor”. However, we have no trouble liking Ben Affleck, “the Director”.

With his feature directorial debut, “Gone Baby Gone”, Affleck has managed to do what we know he does pretty well.

We already know Ben can write. Affleck won an Oscar with co-writer Matt Damon for “Good Will Hunting”. Ben is a co-writer again (with Aaron Stockard) on the screenplay of “Gone Baby Gone” which was adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name. Lehane by the way, also penned ”Mystic River” before it too was adapted for the screen, winning Oscars for lead, Sean Penn, supporting actor Tim Robbins,  supporting actress Marcia Gay Harden and director Clint Eastwood.

Ben Affleck has also managed to do two other fairly significant things.

First: Ben has been able to further boost his 3 years and 3 days younger brother Casey Affleck’s cache as “an up and coming actor”, even though Casey’s been acting since 1990. While Casey has done some small, somewhat memorable roles in the past, this is his year.

His perfomance as Robert Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has Oscar buzz and now his stars aligned performance as Patrick Kenzie, a private investigator hunting for an abducted 4-year-old girl in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester is the low-fat, pure Tahitian vanilla bean extract icing on the Oscar buzz cake.

Which brings me to the second thing Affleck has done quite well.

Not born there, but growing up in Boston, Affleck knows these neighborhoods. He brings us inside the Boston that many outsiders aren’t aware of and he’s done a fantastic job. Like Scorcese, Ben makes the city of Boston a character in “GBG” as I will now call it (Think Oliver Stone’s “NBK”).

Sure, yeah, we know about the Bo Sox and their World Series Win. But here at ReelHeART, we think it will only be a short time before we hear: “Mayor Thomas M. Menino welcomes you Ben Affleck as the official mascot for Boston and here’s the key to our fine city. You did a wicked awesome job…”

To see the trailer and learn more about the film click here http://gonebabygone-themovie.com/

written by RHIFF

by Shannonn Kelly

ReelHeART has been reporting on this story weeks back when De Palma’s film gave the Venice Film Festival audience and judges a hard dose of reality with his Iraq war film “Redacted”.

Since the Q & A squabble over at the New York Film Festival, things are heating up and for good reason.

De Palma’s film depicts the harsh reality of war; often it being crimes against civilians by US soldiers. Because his film isn’t another “Private Ryan”, De Palma’s film is being censored and he’s damn pissed about it. Ironically, his own film is being redacted.

Redacted focuses on among other atrocities of war, the true story of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi a 14 year old girl who was gang-raped, killed and burned by US soldiers in March of 2006.

Many people, including De Palma’s own distributor have demanded De Palma redact accounts and/or blur images of real soldiers in his critically acclaimed film.

Support De Palma and demand that facts and perpetrators be shown. De Palma is bravely putting faces and names to this horrible crime and other fatalities. ReelHeART supports De Palma…

Stop watching CNN and read ‘real’ articles and accounts of this 14 year old girl’s tragedy and others in Time Magazine and Third Estate Sunday Review and at Muslim Matters.org

written by RHIFF

by Shannonn Kelly

Born Deborah Jane Kerr Trimmer on September 30, 1921 in Helensburgh, Scotland. Suffering since the 90’s from Parkinson’s disease, Kerr died, in Suffolk, England on Tuesday October 16, 2007. Her death was ‘officially’ announced on Thursday October 18, 2007 by her agent. Kerr, nicknamed “The English Rose” was 86.

ReelHeART is saddened to see this passing of this graceful beauty who just last month went back to watch her in one of her more ‘gritty roles’ as a boozy “used” woman in 1953s “From Here To Eternity” co-starring Burt Lancaster (whom she was rumored to be having an affair with), the lucious Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra, for which Kerr was nominated for an Academy Award. The beach scene is aguably one of the most well-known and well acted love scenes in cinema.

Kerr won a Golden Globe for playing “Mrs. Anna” in The King and I (1956) with Yul Brynner. She held the record for the most Oscar nominations for a female with 6 nods, until she was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 1994.

Read more abour Kerr in an article from the San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/MNSHSS9VT.DTL

Read more history on Deborah Kerr at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Kerr

written by RHIFF

by Shannonn Kelly

Francis Ford Coppola cast Al Pacino in The Godfather and again along with Robert De Niro in The Godfather II.

Yet, according to columnists Rush & Molloy at the New York Daily News Coppola “disses Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino in a surprising critique of three of America’s greatest actors”, during an interview in GQ Magazine.

Read more at http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/r_m/2007/10/17/2007-10-17_failure_to_act_coppola_disses_pacino_de_.html

written by RHIFF

By Shannonn Kelly

THE O’REILLY FACTOR  is supposed to be a source for news, not a source screeching Bill O’Reilly’s personal right-wing views, yet that’s what he gets paid for.

ReelHeART thinks this time O’Rielly has gone too far.

First it was French Bashing, then his suprise at how civilized the patrons of Harlem Restaurants are; and now he’s taking on De Palma’s film because it ”explicitly shows American soldiers raping and murdering Iraqi civilians. This, while our military is on the battlefield.”.

Mr. O’Reilly—that’s the point!!

O’Reilly’s fear is that “ReDacted”, De Palma’s film could “lead to the deaths of Americans”, because “every jihadist in the world will be able to see it.”

Because O’Reilly like the many people in favor of the Iraq war, believe that Iraq had something to do with 911. O’Reilly believes  like many people, that we should all live in fear and pretend horible things happening to people in countries where the US asserts its miltary weight, aren’t having crimes committed against them by US soldiers.

We have our POV –Read more about O’Reilly’s POV http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301182,00.html

written by RHIFF

By Shannonn Kelly 

Director Brian De Palma has a right to ask.

Remember those Abu Ghraib prison photos. Who do you think took them? Soldiers. Yep that right. Soldiers.

That’s because anyone (including soldiers) can get a hold of a digital camera and shoot whatever they want. The soldiers are real, the pictures are real-

So why was De Palma forced to redact, or black out soldiers faces in photos in his film “ReDacted”?.

It was at the strong request of the distributor Magnolia Pictures owned by Mark Cuban also owner of the Dallas Mavericks (currently seen competing on Dancing With The Stars), which is releasing the movie in mid-November. Apparently Cuban was disturbed by the pictures.

ReelHeART says: “Uhm, isn’t that the point…”

Read what DePalma had to say at the 2007 New York Film Festival for the Q & A on “Redacted”…

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3if4ef26bbb490c2c50004c7fa32e93368

written by RHIFF

By Shannonn Kelly

If you follow the bulk of writing from suspense screenplay master Tony Gilroy, you’ll find Gilroy, according to Philadelphia Daily News, “specializes in stories of hunted men who ultimately find that they are running from themselves”.

With three Bourne screenplays behind him and the writer of 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate, as well as the horribly named and quite good film starring Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman, 1996’s Extreme Measures; Gilroy takes control of one of his own screenplays by directing “Michael Clayton”.

George Clooney is the lead playing Michael Clayton, with an excellent supporting cast of the always ’spot on’ Tom Wilkinson, (writer/director) Sydney Pollack and the incredible Tilda Swinton.

Read what writer Gary Thompson has to say in his article http://www.philly.com/dailynews/features/20071005_Clayton_screenplay_is_a_script_Bourne_of_suspense.html

written by RHIFF

by Shannonn Kelly

Roger Ebert gives Michael Clayton 4 Stars!!!

George Clooney plays a “fixer” in the new critical fave “Michael Clayton”, directed by 3-time Bourne series screenwriter Tony Gilroy.

See an awesome production still of Clooney as Michael Clayton and read a terrific review by our main man Roger Ebert at the Chigaco Sun Times.

Our favorite line uttered by Clooney ”I’m not a miracle worker, I’m a janitor…”

written by RHIFF