Perhaps no religious leader has been as consistently visible on the world stage over the past 50 years as the 14th Dalai Lama, the revered Buddhist monk who fled Tibet in 1959 to escape Chairman Mao’s communist regime. In the decades since, he’s patiently advocated for the Tibetan people’s autonomy while at the same time establishing a worldwide reputation for religious collaboration and innovative research into the links between Buddhism and science.
The Dalai Lama’s profile got a boost from filmmaker Mickey Lemle’s 1992 documentary Compassion in Exile, and now Lemle returns 25 years later with this follow-up reexamining the...
The Dalai Lama’s profile got a boost from filmmaker Mickey Lemle’s 1992 documentary Compassion in Exile, and now Lemle returns 25 years later with this follow-up reexamining the...
- 8/11/2017
- by Justin Lowe
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“We must confront vague ideas with clear images” (“Il faut confronter les idées vagues avec des images claires”), reads a graffito on the wall of the bourgeois apartment that is the setting for La chinoise. Jean-Luc Godard’s explosive 14th feature film (one of no less than three Godard masterpieces that were released in 1967), which Pauline Kael called “ a speed-freak’s anticipatory vision of the political horrors to come,” is getting a 50th anniversary re-release at the Quad Cinema in New York.Is there any clearer image than that of Juliet Berto in red war paint, against a red wall, surrounded by a fort of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Books, pointing a machine gun at the camera? In 1964 Godard had famously said, quoting D.W. Griffith, that all filmgoers want is a girl and a gun. And that is what René Ferracci (1927-1982), the house designer of the Nouvelle Vague,...
- 7/21/2017
- MUBI
On June 12, 1981, America met Indiana Jones when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg brought Raiders of the Lost Ark to theaters. The Hollywood Reporter's original review is below:
If George Lucas were to say that he could make terrific entertainment out of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, at this point I'd be inclined to believe him — this point being just a few hours after seeing his Raiders of the Lost Ark. And if he wanted to bring along Steven Spielberg to direct, I'd believe him even more.
I can well imagine the executive eyebrows that were raised when Lucas...
If George Lucas were to say that he could make terrific entertainment out of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, at this point I'd be inclined to believe him — this point being just a few hours after seeing his Raiders of the Lost Ark. And if he wanted to bring along Steven Spielberg to direct, I'd believe him even more.
I can well imagine the executive eyebrows that were raised when Lucas...
- 6/8/2017
- by THR Staff
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
When “Fargo” Year 3 announced its cast, Ewan McGregor was clearly the biggest name involved, and the fact that he would be playing brothers had everyone intrigued.
But in subsequent weeks, fans aren’t clamoring for McGregor’s Ray or Emmit, but they are obsessed with the character of V.M. Varga. And that’s because David Thewlis is turning in one of the spring’s darkest, most horrifying supporting performances, one that will be hard to overlook this Emmy season.
Read More: ‘Fargo’ Review: A Battle Between Ewan McGregors Has Never Felt So Wretched — And Season 3 Never More Exciting
Varga enters the world of “Fargo” cloaked in mystery, after Emmit (McGregor) discovers that a business deal he made has brought Varga into his business as an investor. As the season has progressed, we’ve come to learn more about the reedy man with a British accent and no scruples — including his eating habits,...
But in subsequent weeks, fans aren’t clamoring for McGregor’s Ray or Emmit, but they are obsessed with the character of V.M. Varga. And that’s because David Thewlis is turning in one of the spring’s darkest, most horrifying supporting performances, one that will be hard to overlook this Emmy season.
Read More: ‘Fargo’ Review: A Battle Between Ewan McGregors Has Never Felt So Wretched — And Season 3 Never More Exciting
Varga enters the world of “Fargo” cloaked in mystery, after Emmit (McGregor) discovers that a business deal he made has brought Varga into his business as an investor. As the season has progressed, we’ve come to learn more about the reedy man with a British accent and no scruples — including his eating habits,...
- 5/26/2017
- by Liz Shannon Miller
- Indiewire
Xiao Zhang, a lowly construction-site driver, pilfers a bag of money from small-time local mobster in a foppish plan to make good on his girlfriend’s botched beauty surgery and remake her in the image of the Lord by being able to afford her a visit to the plastic wizard-doctors of Korea. The plan (like all comedy heist plans) takes little time to go awry, and it’s only a matter of minutes until the lovelorn protagonist loses his bag of money to Yellow Eye, an unscrupulous motel owner and inventor of X-Ray glasses, in the first passage of the money from hand-to-hand through acts of theft, random accidents, and calculated betrayals.Have a Nice Day is a tongue-in-cheek rat race of small-time crooks chasing down an enticing bag of money in an anonymous and newly-built-yet-already-run-down urban growth (concrete tumor would be the right image). The setting is but an...
- 3/1/2017
- MUBI
Gabriel Over the White House
DVD-r
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 86, 102 min. / Street Date October 20, 2009 / available through the Warner Archive Collection / 17.99
Starring: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore, C. Henry Gordon, David Landau, Samuel S. Hinds, Jean Parker, Mischa Auer.
Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Film Editor: Basil Wrangell
Original Music: Dr. William Axt
Written by: Carey Wilson, from a book by T. F. Tweed
Produced by: William Randolph Hearst, Walter Wanger
Directed by Gregory La Cava
A Review Revisit.
The unique political fantasy Gabriel Over the White House has become painfully topical lately. This is an update of a 2009 review. To my knowledge nothing has changed with the product — I saw a re-promotion of Twilight Time’s 1984 disc and thought, Gabriel is twice as relevant and at least as scary.
Unstable times in America have produced some pretty strange political-religious message pictures.
DVD-r
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 86, 102 min. / Street Date October 20, 2009 / available through the Warner Archive Collection / 17.99
Starring: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore, C. Henry Gordon, David Landau, Samuel S. Hinds, Jean Parker, Mischa Auer.
Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Film Editor: Basil Wrangell
Original Music: Dr. William Axt
Written by: Carey Wilson, from a book by T. F. Tweed
Produced by: William Randolph Hearst, Walter Wanger
Directed by Gregory La Cava
A Review Revisit.
The unique political fantasy Gabriel Over the White House has become painfully topical lately. This is an update of a 2009 review. To my knowledge nothing has changed with the product — I saw a re-promotion of Twilight Time’s 1984 disc and thought, Gabriel is twice as relevant and at least as scary.
Unstable times in America have produced some pretty strange political-religious message pictures.
- 2/4/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
If…. is an important film of its time, occasionally droll and inspiring in its provocation of middle-class establishment values but more often charged with unsettling anger and resentment toward the intense pain registered by its various characters. Focusing through a darkly comedic lens on the torments inflicted by authorities on a trio of misfits in a regimented, highly traditional English boarding school, viewers are prodded to answer the question asked in the above poster: which side will you be on? When If…. reaches its explosive conclusion, our response is likely to be urgently felt and quickly resolved, but it’s not the kind of answer that’s likely to rest all that comfortably on our conscience if we let its implications sink in.
Director Lindsay Anderson had already established himself as a creative trailblazer in the British theater and cinema scenes,...
If…. is an important film of its time, occasionally droll and inspiring in its provocation of middle-class establishment values but more often charged with unsettling anger and resentment toward the intense pain registered by its various characters. Focusing through a darkly comedic lens on the torments inflicted by authorities on a trio of misfits in a regimented, highly traditional English boarding school, viewers are prodded to answer the question asked in the above poster: which side will you be on? When If…. reaches its explosive conclusion, our response is likely to be urgently felt and quickly resolved, but it’s not the kind of answer that’s likely to rest all that comfortably on our conscience if we let its implications sink in.
Director Lindsay Anderson had already established himself as a creative trailblazer in the British theater and cinema scenes,...
- 1/17/2017
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
There’s rich allegory and inventive use of sound in this tale of a goatherd’s adventures in the big city
Tibet, a country that finds itself at a crossroads between tradition and modernity, the rudimentary rural existence and the temptations of the city, is the subject as well as the backdrop of this strikingly beautiful fable. Tharlo, a goatherd, can still recite the huge indigestible chunks of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book that he learned as a nine-year-old. A simple man, he is not sure of his own age and lives by the black-and-white moral code of a child. When he is sent to the city to get an ID card, a chain of events is set in motion.
The use of sound is particularly effective. In the city, Tharlo is buffeted by layers of noise; at home on the steppes, he listens to wispy fragments of folk songs on his radio,...
Tibet, a country that finds itself at a crossroads between tradition and modernity, the rudimentary rural existence and the temptations of the city, is the subject as well as the backdrop of this strikingly beautiful fable. Tharlo, a goatherd, can still recite the huge indigestible chunks of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book that he learned as a nine-year-old. A simple man, he is not sure of his own age and lives by the black-and-white moral code of a child. When he is sent to the city to get an ID card, a chain of events is set in motion.
The use of sound is particularly effective. In the city, Tharlo is buffeted by layers of noise; at home on the steppes, he listens to wispy fragments of folk songs on his radio,...
- 10/2/2016
- by Wendy Ide
- The Guardian - Film News
Louisa Mellor Sep 30, 2016
Out now, Woody Allen’s new six-part half-hour comedy for Amazon is familiar, mild, unadventurous but serves its purpose…
In the world of chichi parties and exclusive product launches, there’s a buoyant market in celebrity personal appearances. A host will pay a star roughly the annual salary of your average Latin American dictator to turn up at their event and lend it the patina of glamour. It doesn’t matter what said celebrity does while they’re at the party, the key thing is that they’re seen to be there. So what if Beyoncé spends the entire contracted time checking her phone? They got Beyoncé.
That’s the sense coming from Woody Allen’s Amazon deal. As Allen tells it, the multinational giant “badgered and badgered [him] for two years, sweetening the pot until [he] could not afford to turn it down”. Sign the deal and he...
Out now, Woody Allen’s new six-part half-hour comedy for Amazon is familiar, mild, unadventurous but serves its purpose…
In the world of chichi parties and exclusive product launches, there’s a buoyant market in celebrity personal appearances. A host will pay a star roughly the annual salary of your average Latin American dictator to turn up at their event and lend it the patina of glamour. It doesn’t matter what said celebrity does while they’re at the party, the key thing is that they’re seen to be there. So what if Beyoncé spends the entire contracted time checking her phone? They got Beyoncé.
That’s the sense coming from Woody Allen’s Amazon deal. As Allen tells it, the multinational giant “badgered and badgered [him] for two years, sweetening the pot until [he] could not afford to turn it down”. Sign the deal and he...
- 9/30/2016
- Den of Geek
In partnership with New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center, Mubi will be hosting four films recently shown at Art of the Real, the Film Society's annual showcase for boundary-pushing nonfiction films. Poet on a Business Trip will be showing April 24 - May 23, 2016 on Mubi in the United States.Director Ju Anqi. Photo by Ma Liang“Poet on a Business Trip”: I do not know how this title reads in Chinese, but in English its matter-of-fact anomaly, a title suggestive of silent film actualities and Luc Moullet’s drollness, serves well this curiously blasé, marvelously unusual film by Ju Anqi.Poet on a Business Trip looks and feels like the time capsule it in fact is: the director took Shu, a young Chinese poet, on a road trip to the barren western (and Uygur) province of Xinjiang back in 2002, during which Shu composed poems. For reasons discussed below in an interview with the filmmaker,...
- 4/25/2016
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Hong Kong-based sales company Asian Shadows has picked up world rights (outside Greater China) to Tibetan director Pema Tseden’s Tharlo, which will receive its world premiere in Venice’s Orizzonti section.
Adapted from Pema Tseden’s novel, the film follows a 40-year-old Tibetan shepherd, who can recite Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book from memory, but whose quiet life changes when he is asked to go to the city to have his photo taken for his first ID card.
The film, which premieres in Venice on September 4, has also been selected for Busan’s Window on Asian Cinema section. It was produced by Beijing-based Heaven Pictures, which also produced Berlinale title River Road and Kaili Blues, which premiered in Locarno.
“Tharlo is typical of Tibetans of the present generation,” said Pema Tseden. “This is a story that shows them in a state of confusion, disorientation and desensitization. The film is in black-and-white as the ruggedness in the...
Adapted from Pema Tseden’s novel, the film follows a 40-year-old Tibetan shepherd, who can recite Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book from memory, but whose quiet life changes when he is asked to go to the city to have his photo taken for his first ID card.
The film, which premieres in Venice on September 4, has also been selected for Busan’s Window on Asian Cinema section. It was produced by Beijing-based Heaven Pictures, which also produced Berlinale title River Road and Kaili Blues, which premiered in Locarno.
“Tharlo is typical of Tibetans of the present generation,” said Pema Tseden. “This is a story that shows them in a state of confusion, disorientation and desensitization. The film is in black-and-white as the ruggedness in the...
- 9/2/2015
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Watching a film by Olivier Assayas is a little like wandering into the bedroom of a teenager, taking in the aesthetic décor that clings to his or her walls and bookshelves—posters, pop records, hastily cut-out collages of idols, and literature—and being left to draw a logical conclusion based on these ephemeral scraps. This idea of collage, assembling or reinventing an identity, has always been a concept inherent to punk and youth culture: British punk historian Jon Savage coined the term “living collage” to describe European teenagers in the 1970s who tore apart thrifted vintage clothing at the seams to fuse and repurpose them with safety pins. Assayas’ work is essentially the filmic equivalent of that same idea: he populates his frames with torrents of ideas and surfaces and lets loose cinematographers Yorick Le Saux and Eric Gautier to pan wildly, struggling to encapsulate everything into their widescreen, handheld compositions.
- 5/8/2015
- by Mark Lukenbill
- MUBI
The Interview and the geopolitical crisis it caused is arguably the most important movie-related story of recent weeks.
The story device featured in The Interview, the idea of a film featuring the assassination of the current ruling leader, is nothing new, and in fact is seen through much of film’s history. In 1941 a German-in-exile Fritz Lang shown an unsuccessful attack on Adolf Hitler in Man Hunt (this story was also told in BBC’s Rogue Male from 1976 starring Peter O’Toole). The Shaw Brothers used the actual newsreel footage of Queen Elisabeth visiting Hong-Kong (then a British colony) in their 1976 martial arts flick A Queen’s Ransom (a.k.a. The International Assassin) starring post-James Bond George Lazenby as an Ira assassin and Angela Mao as a heroine trying to stop him. In fact, the Queen of England might be the most popular assassination target among actual world leaders...
The story device featured in The Interview, the idea of a film featuring the assassination of the current ruling leader, is nothing new, and in fact is seen through much of film’s history. In 1941 a German-in-exile Fritz Lang shown an unsuccessful attack on Adolf Hitler in Man Hunt (this story was also told in BBC’s Rogue Male from 1976 starring Peter O’Toole). The Shaw Brothers used the actual newsreel footage of Queen Elisabeth visiting Hong-Kong (then a British colony) in their 1976 martial arts flick A Queen’s Ransom (a.k.a. The International Assassin) starring post-James Bond George Lazenby as an Ira assassin and Angela Mao as a heroine trying to stop him. In fact, the Queen of England might be the most popular assassination target among actual world leaders...
- 2/2/2015
- by Jakub Mejer
- MUBI
Datong is an overwhelming place. Home to three and a half million people, this historic mining center is now the most polluted city in China. Like many metropolises in the world’s largest nation, it also has a huge housing problem. The scale of these urban challenges is the visual foreground of Hao Zhou‘s The Chinese Mayor, the first great political documentary of 2015. New apartment blocks tower over nearby lots, which would be empty were they not brimming over with piles of rubble. Everything seems bigger in Datong, from the 21st century developments to the 5th century Buddhist temple grottoes carved out of rock. Zhou uses his camera to capture the physicality of Datong’s contradictions. He finds small dogs amidst the remains of knocked down houses, modern tourists visiting ancient sites, and newly relocated farmers stranded in the urban school system. In the middle of it all is Mayor Geng Tanbo, the...
- 1/28/2015
- by Nonfics.com
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
For one family in England, a move to a new home in rural Somerset initially brings out the best in their treatment of each other, but the walls housing their newfound harmony have perilous plans in store. The house in Kim Newman’s new novel, An English Ghost Story, is not “home sweet home” material, and readers can experience moving day in the exclusive excerpt provided to us by Titan Books.
“A dysfunctional British nuclear family seek a new life away from the big city in the sleepy Somerset countryside. At first their new home, The Hollow, seems to embrace them, creating a rare peace and harmony within the family. But when the house turns on them, it seems to know just how to hurt them the most – threatening to destroy them from the inside out. A stand-alone novel from acclaimed author Kim Newman.
Kim Newman is a well known...
“A dysfunctional British nuclear family seek a new life away from the big city in the sleepy Somerset countryside. At first their new home, The Hollow, seems to embrace them, creating a rare peace and harmony within the family. But when the house turns on them, it seems to know just how to hurt them the most – threatening to destroy them from the inside out. A stand-alone novel from acclaimed author Kim Newman.
Kim Newman is a well known...
- 10/1/2014
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
China loves Transformers: Age of Extinction more than any other movie: With a $93 million three-day opening, it's breaking records with every screening. Yet, even in a country used to lengthy product placements in movies — see founding father Chairman Mao Zedong’s Omega watch in the propaganda movie Founding of a Great Party — Transformers: Age of Extinction is like the shopping channel for the new middle class, and the rich, in China. Photos Cut, Censored, Changed: 10 Hollywood Films Tweaked for International Release Ernst & Young estimates that between now and 2020, the number of middle-class households
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- 7/1/2014
- by Clifford Coonan
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Chinese director Ning Hao has urged Oliver Stone to mind his own business after the Wall Street director caused controversy last week at the Beijing International Film Festival by calling for the Chinese industry to deal with its history and address the painful legacy of state founder Chairman Mao Zedong. “He is being belligerent. If we wanted to shoot a film about 9/11, would they be happy? Some questions or areas are sensitive. And China’s problem is not that simple,” Ning said, quoted in the Global Times newspaper, which is operated by China’s ruling Communist Party. Photos: Beijing Film Fest Brings
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- 4/23/2014
- by Clifford Coonan
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Oliver Stone has criticised China's film industry during an appearance at the Beijing International Film Festival.
The famously outspoken director called upon Chinese filmmakers to properly address Chairman Mao's impact on the country and the legacy of the Cultural Revolution.
"Mao Zedong has been lionised in dozens and dozens of Chinese films, but never criticised," said Stone on a panel about co-production which also included Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron and Paramount Pictures COO Frederick Huntsberry (via The Hollywood Reporter).
"It's about time. You got to make a movie about Mao, about the Cultural Revolution. You do that, you open up, you stir the waters and you allow true creativity to emerge in this country. That would be the basis of real co-production.
"You talk about co-production but you don't want to face the history of China. You don't want to talk about it. Three times I've made efforts to...
The famously outspoken director called upon Chinese filmmakers to properly address Chairman Mao's impact on the country and the legacy of the Cultural Revolution.
"Mao Zedong has been lionised in dozens and dozens of Chinese films, but never criticised," said Stone on a panel about co-production which also included Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron and Paramount Pictures COO Frederick Huntsberry (via The Hollywood Reporter).
"It's about time. You got to make a movie about Mao, about the Cultural Revolution. You do that, you open up, you stir the waters and you allow true creativity to emerge in this country. That would be the basis of real co-production.
"You talk about co-production but you don't want to face the history of China. You don't want to talk about it. Three times I've made efforts to...
- 4/17/2014
- Digital Spy
Composer Max Richter on Zadie Smith, the Edinburgh festival and why he has a soft spot for James Joyce's Ulysses
Composer Max Richter was born in Germany, and moved to the UK as a child. As a founding member of the contemporary classical group Piano Circus, he commissioned and performed music by composers including Brian Eno, Philip Glass and Julia Wolfe. On the solo albums that followed, he collaborated with the likes of actress Tilda Swinton, musician Robert Wyatt and DJ/ producer Roni Size. In 2008, the Royal Ballet commissioned him to compose the music for Infra, choreographed by Wayne McGregor, with whom he later worked on the chamber opera, Sum (2012). Richter's work has featured in films such as Shutter Island (2010), and he penned the original soundtrack to Waltz with Bashir (2008). He has also provided music for several art installations, including rAndom International's Rain Room at the Barbican. In 2012, Richter...
Composer Max Richter was born in Germany, and moved to the UK as a child. As a founding member of the contemporary classical group Piano Circus, he commissioned and performed music by composers including Brian Eno, Philip Glass and Julia Wolfe. On the solo albums that followed, he collaborated with the likes of actress Tilda Swinton, musician Robert Wyatt and DJ/ producer Roni Size. In 2008, the Royal Ballet commissioned him to compose the music for Infra, choreographed by Wayne McGregor, with whom he later worked on the chamber opera, Sum (2012). Richter's work has featured in films such as Shutter Island (2010), and he penned the original soundtrack to Waltz with Bashir (2008). He has also provided music for several art installations, including rAndom International's Rain Room at the Barbican. In 2012, Richter...
- 1/26/2014
- by Leah Harper
- The Guardian - Film News
Albert Einstein once said, “If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live”. More Than Honey director Markus Imhoof looks to explore the validity of this theory, creating a film that not only questions why the bees are dying out, but whether it would be such an agricultural disaster if they did.
Described in Britain as the ‘Mary Celeste Phenomenon’ (named after the ship whose crew vanished in 1872) and more succinctly by scientists as ‘colony collapse disorder’ it is believed that between 50 to 90% of all the world’s bees have disappeared. It’s a startling statistic, especially considering that 80% of all plants require the assistance of bees to pollinate. Imhoof presents us with an all-encompassing perspective on this disquieting epidemic, exploring everything from the mating rituals of bees to the true extent of the damaged caused by the human manipulation of these colonies.
Described in Britain as the ‘Mary Celeste Phenomenon’ (named after the ship whose crew vanished in 1872) and more succinctly by scientists as ‘colony collapse disorder’ it is believed that between 50 to 90% of all the world’s bees have disappeared. It’s a startling statistic, especially considering that 80% of all plants require the assistance of bees to pollinate. Imhoof presents us with an all-encompassing perspective on this disquieting epidemic, exploring everything from the mating rituals of bees to the true extent of the damaged caused by the human manipulation of these colonies.
- 9/4/2013
- by Patrick Gamble
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
If anything, Ashton Kutcher was certainly an outside-the-box choice to play Steve Jobs in "Jobs," the late Apple founder's biopic debuting this month for which no one asked.
But could the well-meaning producers of the film have ventured even more outside the box with the starring role? If the intention of casting Kutcher was to create a preliminary buzz around the film that may not have been there otherwise (and, really, what else could it have been for?), could the choice have been better?
Don't answer that, because the answer is "Yes." Here were ten better options for the role of Steve Jobs.
1. Christopher Walken
2. The guy who played "Yeah Yeah" in 'The Sandlot'
3. Former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker
4. This guy
5. Zangief from 'Street Fighter 2'
6. Wilson the Volleyball
7. Geraldo's Twitter selfie (but not Geraldo himself)
8. Chairman Mao
9. A Peruvian Mountain Lion
10. Bill Gates...
But could the well-meaning producers of the film have ventured even more outside the box with the starring role? If the intention of casting Kutcher was to create a preliminary buzz around the film that may not have been there otherwise (and, really, what else could it have been for?), could the choice have been better?
Don't answer that, because the answer is "Yes." Here were ten better options for the role of Steve Jobs.
1. Christopher Walken
2. The guy who played "Yeah Yeah" in 'The Sandlot'
3. Former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker
4. This guy
5. Zangief from 'Street Fighter 2'
6. Wilson the Volleyball
7. Geraldo's Twitter selfie (but not Geraldo himself)
8. Chairman Mao
9. A Peruvian Mountain Lion
10. Bill Gates...
- 8/19/2013
- by Nick Blake
- NextMovie
In the 1960s, a number of China's best and brightest followed Chairman Mao's call to find their roots by going "up to the mountains and down to the villages." One student named Lu Jiamin traveled to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, where he found a culture that had lived in harmony with nature for a thousand years. Key to that culture was the Mongols' relationship with the local wolves; the species was smart, aggressive, and ruthless, and the people who survived alongside them worshiped them as the earthbound servants of their god, Tengger. Years later, Lu (under the pen name Jiang Rong) wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about his time in Mongolia, and how the Mongol philosophy could be more relevant to Chinese society than Mao and his cohorts would've ever believed. Wolf Totem follows Chen Zhen, a Lu stand-in who develops an obsession with the grasslands' most effective predators.
- 4/17/2008
- by Zack Handlen
- avclub.com
In the 1960s, a number of China's best and brightest followed Chairman Mao's call to find their roots by going "up to the mountains and down to the villages." One student named Lu Jiamin traveled to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, where he found a culture that had lived in harmony with nature for a thousand years. Key to that culture was the Mongols' relationship with the local wolves; the species was smart, aggressive, and ruthless, and the people who survived alongside them worshiped them as the earthbound servants of their god, Tengger. Years later, Lu (under the pen name Jiang Rong) wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about his time in Mongolia, and how the Mongol philosophy could be more relevant to Chinese society than Mao and his cohorts would've ever believed. Wolf Totem follows Chen Zhen, a Lu stand-in who develops an obsession with the grasslands' most effective predators.
- 4/17/2008
- by Zack Handlen
- avclub.com
SYDNEY -- Kyle McLachlan and Joan Chen will star in Bruce Beresford's upcoming feature Mao's Last Dancer, set to begin filming in and around Beijing next month, producers said Tuesday.
Beresford is directing from Jan Sardi's adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Li Cunxin. Set during China's Cultural Revolution, it centers on Li, chosen at age 11 to leave his peasant family to train with the Beijing Dance Academy, then run by the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong.
Li defected to the U.S. after becoming one of two cultural exchange students to the West, and spent 16 years with the Houston Ballet. He settled in Melbourne, Australia, after marrying Australian dancer Mary McKendry and becoming a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet.
McLachlan will play Li's attorney, while Chen will play his mother. Also signed for key roles are Bruce Greenwood, Jack Thompson, Aden Young, Amanda Schull and Shungbao Wang. Casting of the actors who will play Li at three stages of his life is yet to be finalized.
Beresford is directing from Jan Sardi's adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Li Cunxin. Set during China's Cultural Revolution, it centers on Li, chosen at age 11 to leave his peasant family to train with the Beijing Dance Academy, then run by the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong.
Li defected to the U.S. after becoming one of two cultural exchange students to the West, and spent 16 years with the Houston Ballet. He settled in Melbourne, Australia, after marrying Australian dancer Mary McKendry and becoming a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet.
McLachlan will play Li's attorney, while Chen will play his mother. Also signed for key roles are Bruce Greenwood, Jack Thompson, Aden Young, Amanda Schull and Shungbao Wang. Casting of the actors who will play Li at three stages of his life is yet to be finalized.
- 2/26/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
SYDNEY -- Kyle McLachlan and Joan Chen will star in Bruce Beresford's upcoming feature "Mao's Last Dancer", set to begin filming in and around Beijing next month, producers said Tuesday.
Beresford is directing from Jan Sardi's adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Li Cunxin. Set during China's Cultural Revolution, it centers on Li, chosen at age 11 to leave his peasant family to train with the Beijing Dance Academy, then run by the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong.
Li defected to the U.S. after becoming one of two cultural exchange students to the West, and spent 16 years with the Houston Ballet. He settled in Melbourne, Australia, after marrying Australian dancer Mary McKendry and becoming a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet.
McLachlan will play Li's attorney, while Chen will play his mother. Also signed for key roles are Bruce Greenwood, Jack Thompson, Aden Young, Amanda Schull and Shungbao Wang. Casting of the actors who will play Li at three stages of his life is yet to be finalized.
Beresford is directing from Jan Sardi's adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Li Cunxin. Set during China's Cultural Revolution, it centers on Li, chosen at age 11 to leave his peasant family to train with the Beijing Dance Academy, then run by the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong.
Li defected to the U.S. after becoming one of two cultural exchange students to the West, and spent 16 years with the Houston Ballet. He settled in Melbourne, Australia, after marrying Australian dancer Mary McKendry and becoming a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet.
McLachlan will play Li's attorney, while Chen will play his mother. Also signed for key roles are Bruce Greenwood, Jack Thompson, Aden Young, Amanda Schull and Shungbao Wang. Casting of the actors who will play Li at three stages of his life is yet to be finalized.
- 2/26/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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