The story goes… Despite being a poverty stricken, isolated island of 11 million, Cuba is the world superpower of amateur boxing. In the past 40 years it has won a staggering 63 Olympic medals in the sport, 32 of them gold. But little was known about how these results were achieved until Andrew Lang and his team became the first film crew ever to be given access to the Havana Boxing Academy.
Here, a hand-picked group of 10-year old boys rise at 4am, six days a week to begin an excruciating routine of boxing training. Chanting “Victory is our duty! Fatherland or death!” as they shadow box in the dead of night, these are boys Fidel Castro has called “the standard bearers of the Revolution.”
Sons of Cuba follows the stories of three young hopefuls through eight months of training as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives so far: Cuba’s...
Here, a hand-picked group of 10-year old boys rise at 4am, six days a week to begin an excruciating routine of boxing training. Chanting “Victory is our duty! Fatherland or death!” as they shadow box in the dead of night, these are boys Fidel Castro has called “the standard bearers of the Revolution.”
Sons of Cuba follows the stories of three young hopefuls through eight months of training as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives so far: Cuba’s...
- 3/5/2011
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Well, predictable when you consider that Carrey was starring in an edgy gay prison comedy and Aniston was in a romcom opposite Gerard Butler. Meanwhile, Alice in Wonderland continues its climb into the record books
The big battle
Jennifer Aniston battled Jim Carrey for box-office honours at the weekend, with action romcom The Bounty Hunter going head to head with edgy comedy I Love You Phillip Morris. Both opened on Wednesday, a strategy that boosted their respective "weekend" tallies to include takings from five days of play.
Those vital extra days helped The Bounty Hunter crack £2m in the UK and pushed I Love You Phillip Morris through the psychologically important £1m barrier. Strip out the previews and the films grossed a less-impressive £1.58m and £800,000 respectively. Aniston's last movie Marley & Me opened last spring with £4.41m, but the strong family appeal of the doggy tale makes that an unfair comparison.
The big battle
Jennifer Aniston battled Jim Carrey for box-office honours at the weekend, with action romcom The Bounty Hunter going head to head with edgy comedy I Love You Phillip Morris. Both opened on Wednesday, a strategy that boosted their respective "weekend" tallies to include takings from five days of play.
Those vital extra days helped The Bounty Hunter crack £2m in the UK and pushed I Love You Phillip Morris through the psychologically important £1m barrier. Strip out the previews and the films grossed a less-impressive £1.58m and £800,000 respectively. Aniston's last movie Marley & Me opened last spring with £4.41m, but the strong family appeal of the doggy tale makes that an unfair comparison.
- 3/23/2010
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
I Love You Phillip Morris (15)
(Glen Ficarra, John Requa, 2009, Us) Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor. 97 mins
Jim Carrey doesn't just play gay here, he plays flaming, in-your-face, heels-and-hotpants gay. And it kind of suits him. A police officer-turned-con man, his character is led even further astray when he falls for a fellow prison inmate (McGregor), and their courtship is treated like a traditional Hollywood love affair – albeit one full of prison breaks, audacious deceptions and outrageous accessorising. Gleefully trashy, at times exhaustingly unpredictable, it's certainly a brave move.
The Scouting Book For Boys (15)
(Tom Harper, 2009, UK) Thomas Turgoose, Holly Grainger, Rafe Spall. 93 mins
High hopes have been pinned on this, with Skins scribe Jack Thorne and plenty of young talent on board. Set in a Norfolk caravan camp, it's the tale of a boy-girl friendship developing into something else – quite what is up for grabs when they hatch a fake-kidnapping plan.
(Glen Ficarra, John Requa, 2009, Us) Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor. 97 mins
Jim Carrey doesn't just play gay here, he plays flaming, in-your-face, heels-and-hotpants gay. And it kind of suits him. A police officer-turned-con man, his character is led even further astray when he falls for a fellow prison inmate (McGregor), and their courtship is treated like a traditional Hollywood love affair – albeit one full of prison breaks, audacious deceptions and outrageous accessorising. Gleefully trashy, at times exhaustingly unpredictable, it's certainly a brave move.
The Scouting Book For Boys (15)
(Tom Harper, 2009, UK) Thomas Turgoose, Holly Grainger, Rafe Spall. 93 mins
High hopes have been pinned on this, with Skins scribe Jack Thorne and plenty of young talent on board. Set in a Norfolk caravan camp, it's the tale of a boy-girl friendship developing into something else – quite what is up for grabs when they hatch a fake-kidnapping plan.
- 3/20/2010
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
This week's podcast gets down with the kids, talking to the newcomers behind British coming-of-age story The Scouting Book for Boys and the director of Sons of Cuba, a hard-hitting documentary following three young boxing hopefuls in Havana.
Written by Jack Thorne of Skins and Shameless fame, The Scouting Book for Boys is the feature debut from director Tom Harper. Starring Thomas Turgoose and Holly Grainger as two kids who hatch a plot to stay together, this is an English coastal caravan caper with a dark edge. Thorne and Harper tell Jason Solomons about how they came to work together, how they got indie folkies Noah and the Whale to soundtrack the film and how work is progressing on their miniseries spin-off of Shane Meadows's This Is England.
Sons of Cuba director Andrew Lang then reveals the lengths he had to go to to shoot his documentary in the Havana Boxing Academy,...
Written by Jack Thorne of Skins and Shameless fame, The Scouting Book for Boys is the feature debut from director Tom Harper. Starring Thomas Turgoose and Holly Grainger as two kids who hatch a plot to stay together, this is an English coastal caravan caper with a dark edge. Thorne and Harper tell Jason Solomons about how they came to work together, how they got indie folkies Noah and the Whale to soundtrack the film and how work is progressing on their miniseries spin-off of Shane Meadows's This Is England.
Sons of Cuba director Andrew Lang then reveals the lengths he had to go to to shoot his documentary in the Havana Boxing Academy,...
- 3/18/2010
- by Jason Solomons, Iain Chambers, Xan Brooks, Observer
- The Guardian - Film News
Green Zone (15)
(Paul Greengrass, 2010, Us/Fra/Spa/UK) Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear, Khalid Abdalla, Amy Ryan. 115 mins
Hoping to graft his shakycam Bourne aesthetic on to real-world politics, Greengrass wades into the Iraq fray and pulls no punches. Damon plays an honest grunt whose search for Saddam's WMDs turns into a rogue quest for the truth about dodgy Us dealings. Except this isn't the truth – it's a fictionalised version of the real events, which creates some problems. The convincing chaos of post-invasion Iraq is steadily compromised by the action plot mechanics, stranding the pic in no man's land. Still, Greengrass gets to exorcise his demons, as well as exercise his Damon.
Shutter Island (15)
(Martin Scorsese, 2010, Us) Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams. 138 mins
Scorsese tackles this convoluted mystery in the manner befitting a Big Director: with a bloated running time, and an overheated visual style and...
(Paul Greengrass, 2010, Us/Fra/Spa/UK) Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear, Khalid Abdalla, Amy Ryan. 115 mins
Hoping to graft his shakycam Bourne aesthetic on to real-world politics, Greengrass wades into the Iraq fray and pulls no punches. Damon plays an honest grunt whose search for Saddam's WMDs turns into a rogue quest for the truth about dodgy Us dealings. Except this isn't the truth – it's a fictionalised version of the real events, which creates some problems. The convincing chaos of post-invasion Iraq is steadily compromised by the action plot mechanics, stranding the pic in no man's land. Still, Greengrass gets to exorcise his demons, as well as exercise his Damon.
Shutter Island (15)
(Martin Scorsese, 2010, Us) Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams. 138 mins
Scorsese tackles this convoluted mystery in the manner befitting a Big Director: with a bloated running time, and an overheated visual style and...
- 3/13/2010
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
The 33rd Portland International Film Festival announces the Oregonian Audience Award winners. This year’s Festival wrapped up its 18 day run Sunday, February 28th after 195 total screenings at multiple theater locations in the downtown cultural district of Portland. This year’s Festival was attended by over 30,000 attendees and included 77 features and 39 shorts from over 40 countries.
Complete coverage of Piff 2010
Don’t forget to vote for the 8th Annual Tsr Movie Awards
Audience winners include Best Narrative Feature The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Sweden) and Best Documentary Feature The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (New Zealand). The winner of the Best New Director Award is Hernán A. Goldfrid with Music On Hold (Argentina).
This year’s Short Film Award goes to Portland filmmaker Kyle Bell with the film The Mouse That Soared.
This year’s Piff presenting sponsors include The Oregonian and Regal Cinemas Major sponsors include the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation,...
Complete coverage of Piff 2010
Don’t forget to vote for the 8th Annual Tsr Movie Awards
Audience winners include Best Narrative Feature The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Sweden) and Best Documentary Feature The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (New Zealand). The winner of the Best New Director Award is Hernán A. Goldfrid with Music On Hold (Argentina).
This year’s Short Film Award goes to Portland filmmaker Kyle Bell with the film The Mouse That Soared.
This year’s Piff presenting sponsors include The Oregonian and Regal Cinemas Major sponsors include the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation,...
- 3/1/2010
- by Jeff Bayer
- The Scorecard Review
Synopsis: Despite being a poverty stricken, isolated island of 11 million, Cuba is the world superpower of amateur boxing. In the past 40 years it has won a staggering 63 Olympic medals in the sport, 32 of them gold. But little was known about how these results were achieved until Andrew Lang and his team became the first film crew ever to be given access to the Havana Boxing Academy.
Here, a hand-picked group of 10-year old boys rise at 4am, six days a week to begin an excruciating routine of boxing training. Chanting “Victory is our duty! Fatherland or death!” as they shadow box in the dead of night, these are the boys Fidel Castro has called “the standard bearers of the Revolution.”
Sons of Cuba follows the stories of three young hopefuls through eight months of training as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives so far: Cuba’s national boxing championship for under 12s.
Here, a hand-picked group of 10-year old boys rise at 4am, six days a week to begin an excruciating routine of boxing training. Chanting “Victory is our duty! Fatherland or death!” as they shadow box in the dead of night, these are the boys Fidel Castro has called “the standard bearers of the Revolution.”
Sons of Cuba follows the stories of three young hopefuls through eight months of training as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives so far: Cuba’s national boxing championship for under 12s.
- 2/5/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
2009 British Independent Film Awards 2009 British Independent Film Award nominations: Oct. 26, 2009 2009 British Independent Film Award winners: The Brewery in London on Dec. 6, 2009 ("*" denotes the winner in each category) Sam Rockwell in Moon Best British Independent Film An Education Fish Tank In the Loop * Moon Nowhere Boy Best Foreign Film Il Divo The Hurt Locker * Let The Right One In Sin Nombre The Wrestler Best Documentary The Age of Stupid The End of The Line * Mugabe and The White African Sons of Cuba Sounds Like Teen Spirit Best Director * Andrea Arnold – Fish Tank Armando Iannucci – In the Loop Duncan Jones – Moon [...]...
- 12/6/2009
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
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