All posts by cecil
Deadline ‘Ride’ Review: Helen Hunt Catches The Indie Wave & Stands Tall
By Pete Hammond
May 4, 2015
For me one of the real discoveries of the 2015 movie year to date is the heartfelt independent Ride written and directed by Helen Hunt. She also stars as an overprotective mother (with reasons slowly revealed from her past) who follows her son (Brenton Thwaites) from New York City to the beaches of Southern California (where his father lives) when he secretly drops out of school and decides to try his hand at surfing. After stalking him in a hired limo, they finally confront each other and she decides to show him she’s not as resistant to change as he thinks — so, without his knowledge, she takes up surfing with a local beach dude (Luke Wilson) in an effort to come to terms not only with her son but also herself. Read more
Sundance: IFC Films Picks Up U.S. Rights to ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’
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The film stars Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller and Michael Angarano.
IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s The Stanford Prison Experiment.
The film, which was written by Tim Talbott, stars Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller, Michael Angarano, Tye Sheridan, Johnny Simmons, Olivia Thirlby, Nick Braun, Thomas Mann, Ki Hong Lee, James Wolk, James Frecheville and Moises Arias.
The film is based on the real-life research of Dr. Zimbardo, who in the summer of 1971 launched a study on the psychology of imprisonment in which 18 male undergraduates are randomly assigned the role of either guard or prisoner. The test subjects rapidly begin to embody their roles: the guards becoming power hungry and sadistic, while the prisoners plot a reprisal to the degradation they suffer. As Zimbardo and his team monitor the escalating conflict, they begin to question their own role in the experiment. Read more
Sundance Hands Out Science-In-Film Prizes
Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s The Stanford Prison Experiment won the $20,000 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize today as the Sundance Instituteunveiled its Science-in-Film Prizes in Park City. The film is based on the infamous 1971 psychological exercise in which college students exhibited shockingly cruel and sadistic behavior when divided into camps of prisoners and prison guards.
Archive writer-director Jonathan Minard and writer Scott Rashap picked up the Sundance Institute/Sloan Fellowship, and Jon Noble (Tyfus) and Cutter Hodierne & John Hibey (Otzi) received the Sundance Institute/Sloan Commissioning Grants, presented through Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program. Archive follows two lovers who face the intangibility and distance that characterized their relationship — a virtual affair lived entirely through email and chat. In Tyfus, two Polish doctors try to protect their town from the Nazis by secretly engineering a fake outbreak of typhus. Otzi sees two hikers discover a perfectly mummified corpse high in the Italian Alps, revealing a 5,300-year-old murder mystery that becomes a legend around the world.
Alvarez takes home a $20,000 prize, and the grantees pick up $12,500 apiece.
NYT Review: The Trick an Animal Cannot Learn: How to Be Wild Again
There’s no denying the “aww” appeal of a man and an elephant walking down a street, hand in trunk. That is one truth in “One Lucky Elephant,” a sweet, heart- and trunk-tugging, modestly sized documentary — except for its 10,000-pound title subject — about a circus man and the wild animal he foolishly bought, helped to train, loved like a (captive) daughter and finally, tearfully, tried to do right by, mostly by letting her go. Read more
One Lucky Elephant – Film Trailer
What happens to a circus elephant when its time to retire? After 16 years in the spotlight, Flora, an African elephant living in St. Louis, must find a new home, and David, the circus producer who has cared for her all these years, must say goodbye. The road to Floras retirement, however, is a difficult and emotional one as the bond between man and elephant is tested in unexpected ways. Ten years in the making, this touching, thought-provoking film deftly investigates the problems and mysteries posed by keeping wild animals in captivity while never losing sight of the delicate love story at its heart.