| Last 'Harry Potter' to come out July 21 | | Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 12:53:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | Some Harry Potter fans were already agog over news that Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the boy wizard in films, is appearing nude in a West End revival of the controversial drama Equus on a London stage. Now comes word that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling's seventh and last installment of the mega-selling books, will be published July 21 - at midnight, of course. In it she is expected to wrap up the magical adventures of the boy wizard, his friends and his enemies. The author posted a brief announcement on her Web site yesterday, followed soon by releases from her British publisher, Bloomsbury, and U.S. publisher, Scholastic Inc. The print run and number of pages have yet to be revealed, but judging from the suggested cover price, a meaty $34.99, $5 more than Potter 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the last book will likely match or exceed the 600-plus page length of previous releases.... | |
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| | | World-class films at new Italian cinema | | Posted Wednesday, November 15, 2006 10:56:18 AM by Blog57 Team | | From the end of World War II through the 1960s, Italian cinema was the dominant foreign cinema in the United States, with filmmakers such as Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti emerging as household names, and later artists such as Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini exerting a real influence on American cinematic life. A new film from one of these masters was a cause for excitement, and virtually anyone who knew anything about movies could recognize a neorealist film or differentiate a Fellini from an Antonioni effort. These films were foreign but not foreign in feeling any more than the experience of wearing Italian shoes or an Armani jacket. Things have changed since the 1970s. Even in San Francisco, which gets just about everything New York and Los Angeles get, there's been a dearth of Italian films.... | |
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| | | Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 7:05:36 AM by Blog57 Team | | Pacific Film Archive continues its series of classic foreign and arthouse cinema from Janus Films with three screenings this weekend: Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water (1962) at 7 p.m. Friday; Juan Antonio Bardem's Death of a Cyclist (Spain, 1955) at 9 p.m. Friday; Carl Dreyer's Day of Wrath (Denmark, 1943) at 3 p.m. Sunday; and Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (Sweden, 1957) at 6-5 p.m. Sunday. 2575 Bancroft Way. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. ‘METANOIA, A UNIVERSALIST MASS' Local composer Daniel Zwiekel ben Avram will premiere “Metanoia, A Universalist Mass" as a benefit for the School of the Americas Watch at 7 p.m. Saturday at St. Joseph the Worker Church. $10 donation.1640 Addison St. (925) 427-9611. KENYAN NOVELIST READS IN OAKLAND Kenyan novelist, playwright and poet Ngugi wa Thiong'o will read from his latest novel, Wizard of the Crow, at 2 p.m.... | |
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| | | STAR presents night of food and foreign films | | Posted Thursday, November 09, 2006 1:10:36 PM by Blog57 Team | | The UST Box Office has 50 tickets available today, Wednesday, Nov. 8, for STAR's (St. Thomas Activities and Recreation) Foreign Film and Food Series that will be held Tuesday, Nov. 14. The films "Amelie" and "Eat Drink Man Woman" will be shown beginning at 6 p.m. Patrick's Bakery and Cafe and the Evergreen Taiwanese Restaurant will provide the dinner. Tickets are $5 with a UST ID and $10 for a guest. For more information, e-mail STAR or visit the STAR Web site. .... | |
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| | | Unpredictable pays off | | Posted Monday, November 06, 2006 11:04:38 PM by Blog57 Team | | A suburban American mother struck by random gunfire in a remote Moroccan village. A North London art teacher swept into an affair with a 15-year-old boy. A married German woman in 1945 Berlin who's romantically entangled with an American war correspondent. In a string of films that open before the end of the year, Cate Blanchett inhabits a collection of characters offering a strong sampling of her range. "She's clearly interested in trying a lot of different things, and she isn't concerned about the size of the part," says Steven Soderbergh, who directed her in "The Good German," opening Dec. 15 in Los Angeles and New York. "She's very director-driven and content-driven, so she gives herself more options than a lot of people might have ordinarily." .... | |
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| | | French foreign legion's allure fading in all-volunteer army | | Posted Thursday, November 02, 2006 6:54:17 PM by Blog57 Team | | AUBAGNE, France -- The Foreign Legion isn't what it used to be. Murderers on the run are no longer welcome, and unhappy recruits have a year to back out without being branded deserters. These days a bigger issue faces the 175-year-old force that made its name fighting France's overseas battles. Its key role -- to be a crack professional force available for far-flung conflicts -- has all but evaporated. In campaigns from Algeria to Vietnam, Madagascar to Mexico, Legionnaires made up the bulk of the combat forces and suffered most of the casualties. But this summer, when Paris contributed a 2,000-strong contingent to the U.N. force in Lebanon, it included only 200 Legion engineers. For a 7,770-strong force, boasting 130 nationalities, with an identity epitomized by its trademark white hats, or kepis, there's no longer much to set the Legion apart from the rest of the French army.... | |
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| | | HIFF: Samoan bachelors get laughs | | Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006 11:03:25 AM by Blog57 Team | | The Hawaii International Film Festival is, by definition, a hodgepodge of foreign films, some more foreign than others. Part of the fun is seeing how the other half of the world lives. Oh, make that the other 90 percent. But every once in a while there's a film that breaks through on all levels. "Samoan Wedding" could very easily become a legitimate international hit. .... | |
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| | | Janus presents 50 years of foreign films | | Posted Wednesday, October 25, 2006 6:59:25 AM by Blog57 Team | | You need only hear their last names ? Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut, Kurosawa ? to know you're in the company of the giants of international cinema. The pioneering distributor that has kept good company with these and other premier filmmakers is celebrating half a century of foreign classics with Tuesday's release of the mammoth DVD collection "Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films." .... | |
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| | | 'Time to Leave' doesn't make the most of melodrama | | Posted Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:54:29 AM by Blog57 Team | | ``Time to Leave" is an unintended litmus test for lovers of foreign films. The brief, oblique tale of a young Frenchman told he has three months to live, it does absolutely nothing that previous movies dealing with this subject haven't done, from Bette Davis in ``Dark Victory" through Meryl Streep in ``One True Thing" to Queen Latifah in ``Last Holiday." It has subtitles, though, and the main character's gay, and the writer/director is François Ozon, who has delivered dependably ambiguous art-house hits in ``Swimming Pool," ``8 Women," and ``Under the Sand." So it's your call: Does ``Time to Leave" work because it strives for chic Gallic discretion? Or does it fail because it doesn't have the courage of its own built-in mawkishness? In the grand tradition of terminal-disease movies, Romain (Melvil Poupaud) starts out a thoroughly unlikable cuss.... | |
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| | | Foreign films pass muster at Chicago film fest | | Posted Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:54:21 PM by Blog57 Team | | A quick primer: The Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF) is organized into competitive and showcase categories. Foreign films can be entered into the main competition, the first and second feature competition, or slotted in the non-competitive world cinema category. Whatever their status is, imports usually garner some of the most buzz at the CIFF, since oftentimes the festival circuit is the only time American audiences will be able to see these films on the big screen. Two foreign features this year are The King and the Clown, a controversial Korean smash hit, and Darkbluealmostblack, a less well known film from Spain. The King and the Clown is something of an anomaly in the budding Korean film industry. Ostensibly based on a small passage from Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (the annual records of the longest-ruling single dynasty in history), which mentions King Yeonsan's favorite court clown, the film is a period drama that, despite its strong homoerotic themes, smashed box-office records in the relatively conservative South Korea.... | |
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