MAKING THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT: An Interview with Kyle Patrick Alvarez
Berlin: Bloom’s ‘Bel Canto’ Adds Trio to Drama’s Cast
Sebastian Koch, Christopher Lambert, and Elsa Zylberstein have joined Paul Weitz’s “Bel Canto.”
Alex Walton and Ken Kao’s sales and production shingle, Bloom, introduced the pic at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, and will continue sales at Berlin’s European Film Market. WME Global is handling U.S. rights.
Watch Nas, Erykah Badu’s Powerful ‘This Bitter Land’ on ‘Kimmel’
Nas and Erykah Badu stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a stark performance of their collaboration “This Bitter Land.” The song appears on the soundtrack for the film The Land, about Cleveland teenagers who are part of the Midwestern city’s underground hip-hop scene.
NYT Review: ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ Revisits the Psychology of Power and Abuse
Fine ensemble acting brings a notorious psychological study to life in “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” The research, now 44 years old, may today seem as if it merely confirmed the obvious, but the film, by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, certainly makes you feel the claustrophobic intensity of what went on.
The film is about a 1971 study done by a Stanford University professor, Philip Zimbardo, in which students were recruited to play either guards or inmates in a make-believe prison. Guess what? People put in positions of authority, like prison guards, sometimes abuse that authority, and in startlingly cruel ways.
Billy Crudup, playing Dr. Zimbardo, is the most recognizable name in the cast, and he does nice work portraying a man who, as the experiment spirals out of control, is torn between protecting the students and protecting his research. But it’s the young actors playing the students who really make an impression.
The Land trailer: Skateboard dreams derail in Nas-produced crime drama
Directed by first-time filmmaker Stephen Caple Jr. — and executive-produced by the rapper Nas — The Land is a drama about four teenage boys who devote their summer to escaping the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, to pursue a dream life of professional skateboarding, but instead find themselves ensnared in the web of a drug queen-pin. The movie stars Erykah Badu, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Moises Arias, Rafi Gavron, Ezri Walker, Linda Emond, Natalie Martinez, Colson Baker, and the very busy Kim Coates.
“I’m so proud of that,” says the Sons of Anarchy actor. “This young actor called Jorge Lendeborg is the lead. It’s about four boys in high school. Cleveland. They’re on the wrong side of the tracks. Do they go the right side? I play his uncle, and Erykah Badu is sort of my girlfriend. It was so well-received at Sundance. So, look for that!”
The Land opens in theaters and on VOD, July 29. You can see the film’s new trailer, above.
Variety Film Review: ‘Emelie’
By GUY LODGE
Michael Thelin’s cool, collected home-invasion chiller suggests he’s seen ‘Funny Games’ a few times, which is no bad thing.
“Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Deadly” could work as both an alternate title and shorthand synopsis for “Emelie,” a familiarly premised but stringently executed home-invasion chiller that rarely goes for the straight-up scare when a more insidious one will do. Likeliest to prey on the sensibilities of younger parents — and to unnerve anyone who still thinks of gifted Irish actress Sarah Bolger as that preciously innocent pre-teen from “In America” — music-vid helmer Michael Thelin’s lean, lo-fi debut feature calmly pushes against the nastier bounds of its genre territory as it places two young children in the care of Bolger’s profoundly unhinged imposter. This ambiguous protagonist’s backstory emerges a little more predictably than it should, but even with that knowledge in place, Thelin succeeds in keeping any presumption of eventual sanctuary impressively at bay. Read more
Sundance Film Festival Unveils 2016 Competition, Next Films
The announcement of the Sundance 2016 lineup coincides with a flurry of awards buzz for titles from this year’s edition, such as “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” “The End of the Tour,” “Mississippi Grind” and “99 Homes.”
THE LAND
THE LAND tells the story of four teenage boys who devote their summer to escaping the streets of Cleveland, Ohio to pursue a dream life of professional skateboarding. But when they get caught in the web of the local Queen-pin, their motley brotherhood is tested, threatening to make this summer their last.
Rapper Nas to Executive Produce Sundance Movie ‘The Land’
He’ll also produce the soundtrack to the film from Priority Pictures, Low Spark Films and Charles D. King’s MACRO. Famed rapper Nas has come on to executive produce Steven Caple Jr.’s The Land,” for which he’ll also produce the soundtrack. The film will debut in the NEXT section at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.