Nine--Opening Dec. 25th

Director Rob Marshall Talks About Casting

The corridors of New York’s historic Waldorf-Astoria Hotel are lined with black-and-white photographs of famous visitors and guests who have stayed there in the past. But it is unlikely that the hotel has ever before seen such an august gathering of stars as the group of six Oscar winners and one nominee who met there the other day to talk about their roles in the lavish movie adaptation of the stage musical Nine.

“I was just upstairs with the entire cast, and I still can’t believe it,” says the film’s director, co-writer and choreographer Rob Marshall as he joins me in a fourth-floor suite. “It’s overwhelming.” Read the whole UK article here.

About the film
Arrogant, self-centered movie director Guido Contini finds himself struggling to find meaning, purpose, and a script for his latest film endeavor. With only a week left before shooting begins, he desperately searches for answers and inspiration from his wife, his mistress, his muse, and his mother. As his chaotic profession steadily destroys his personal life, Guido must find a balance between creating art and succumbing to its obsessive demands.

The movie boasts the highest density of Academy Award-winning talent than any film this holiday season: Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, Sophia Loren and Penelope Cruz. For a movie about moviemaking -- the plot is inspired by Fellini's "8 1/2" -- the casting is a triumph.

What's being said about it
"...the movie is a feast for the eyes, highly stylized like "Mad Men" all’italiana..."—New York Times

So many openings this week

We've got a huge slate of openings this week. Because we have so many to cover, I'll be posting more in-depth bits about them all week. We wish you and yours a safe holiday--and we hope to see you at the movies!

Openings:

Dec. 23rd
Up in the Air (Directed by Jason Reitman, Starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga)

Dec. 25th
Nine (Directed by Rob Marshall, Starring Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, Fergie and Kate Hudson. Holy cow--all of them in one film?! Screenplay by the late Anthony Minghella and Michael Tolkin)

Sherlock Holmes (Directed by Guy Richie, Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law and Rachel McAdams)

The Young Victoria (Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Starring Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany)

Opening this week: La Danse - The Paris Opera Ballet (one week only)

About the film:
The Paris Opera Ballet is one of the world’s great ballet companies. The film follows the rehearsals and performances of seven ballets: Genus by Wayne McGregor, Le Songe de Medée by Angelin Preljocaj, La Maison de Bernarda by Mats Ek, Paquita by Pierre Lacotte, Casse Noisette by Rudolph Nureyev, Orphée and Eurydice by Pina Bausch, and Romeo and Juliette by Sasha Waltz. The film shows the work involved in administering the company and the coordinated and collaborative work of choreographers, ballet masters, dancers, musicians, and costume, set, and lighting designers.

Acclaim:
“La Danse,” however, does more than offer intimate access to great dancers. It showcases performers like Nicolas Le Riche and Agnès Letestu and choreography by Rudolf Nureyev and Pina Bausch, but it also ventures beyond the stage and studios and into sewing rooms, cafeterias and administrative offices. Like most of Mr. Wiseman’s movies it is above all a portrait of an institution.–Dennis Lim, The New York Times

About the Director:
In 1993, in Frederick Wiseman's film BALLET, he followed the American Ballet Theatre rehearsals in New York and performances in Europe. For a long time Wiseman had wanted to make a film in France and in 1995 he tackled that most French of institutions, The Comedie Francaise. Both in BALLET and LA COMÉDIE-FRANÇAISE Wiseman raises questions about the conditions necessary for artistic creation: how to create those conditions which allow a director, an actor, or a dancer to achieve the goal of a perfect even sublime performance; how the specific dialect for the theatre works, the dialect which both places in opposition and transcends the solitude of individual creation and group collaboration. Read more about him here.

Opening this week: Amreeka (playing one week only)

About the film:
Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the West Bank with Fadi, her teenage son, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small town Illinois. In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle.

About the Director:
Amreeka is a film that writer/director Cherien Dabis very much needed to make. It’s a personal story that draws on her own memories of growing up with her Palestinian/Jordanian family in rural Ohio.

“My parents immigrated to the U.S. right before I was born. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and grew up in rural Ohio and Jordan. When people ask me where I’m from, it’s always a confusing question,” Dabis explains. “For most of my life I felt like I wasn’t American enough for the Americans, nor was I Arab enough for the Arabs. And as a Palestinian, I inherited my father’s quandary in not having a nation or a national identity, which only exacerbated my sense of not belonging anywhere. My own desire for a place to call home, a place where I belonged, was always a very big part of my identity.”

In Ohio, during the first Gulf War, Dabis’s family was ostracized. Dabis, who was 14 at the time, says, “We got death threats and the Secret Service even came to my high school to investigate a rumor that my 17-year-old sister threatened to kill the President.”

As Dabis’s family returned to Jordan regularly, she was able to see what was happening in the world from different perspectives. “In my travels to and from the Middle East, watching and reading news from different perspectives, from Arabic satellite to English news, I started to see how the media often made way for more conflict and misunderstanding, perpetuating stereotypes that affected me and my family in this small Ohio town.” Read the whole interview here.

Acclaim:
Amreeka made its world premiere in dramatic competition at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and played as Opening Night of New Directors/New Films, a co-presentation of The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. "Amreeka" made its debut internationally in Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. The film has been nominated for three Film Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature.

Twitter and its box office impact

Once upon a time, word-of-mouth about a film used took days to circulate; now it can happen directly from the movie theater. It used to be when films opened strongly their first day of an opening weekend, they would stay strong all weekend. But now studios are noticing new patterns--upswings or dropoffs (and dramatic ones at that) before the weekend is even over.

More and more people are Twittering opinions as they leave the theater--likewise, they are listening in to Twitter chatter to determine if they will attend a film or not. Generally, people will pay attention to what the people in their network have to say because they have things in common with them.

When "Inglourious Basterds" (which played here) was being marketed, the Weinstein Company went all out to court Twitter users. A couple of examples include: their screening at San Diego's Comic Con was filled with people who won their seats on Twitter, they also conducted the first "Red carpet Twitter meetup" which generated lots of celebrity-level tweets about the experience.

What do you think? Do you pay attention to Twitter input when deciding about movies? Do you like the ways studios are trying to use it as a marketing tool?

Golden Globes are Golden for The Little

The 67th Annual Golden Globe Award nominations were announced this week and films that played (or will be playing very soon) at The Little accounted for 41 total nominations!

Films receiving nominations include: Julie & Julia, (500) Days of Summer, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, An Education, A Serious Man and Invictus.

Nominated films showing on our screens in the coming weeks include: Up in the Air, Nine, The Young Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, Crazy Heart, Broken Embraces and The Messenger.

For a complete list of nominations please click here.

What are your opinions? Overlooked films? Performances? Any nominations you are particularly happy about? Let us know.

--Beth

Why We Blog

Welcome to the Little Theatre's blog. We've been connecting with our friends, fans and supporters via Facebook and Twitter--however, there are topics we'd like to cover in more detail than those formats allow. This is our inspiration for the blog. Our goal is to pull back the curtain a bit and share our take on modern cinema from many different viewpoints.

We'll also keep you in the loop on doings here at The Little. Let us know what you think by commenting on our posts--we love opinions and dialogue.

See you online--and at the movies!