There's a critical junction for a teenager when they must start deciding which path they want to follow for their future. Do they give up on their artistic dreams and settle on something perhaps more academic and career oriented, or do they pursue their passion? It's that question that skateboarder Thalente Biyela seems to face in this exclusive clip from the upcoming documentary "I Am Thalente." Directed by Natalie Johns, the film follows the seventeen year-old South African skateboarding prodigy who sees a world of opportunity arrive after video showing off his skills goes viral. Skate world figures like Kenny Anderson and Tony Hawk soon lend support to Thalente, providing him an opportunity to chase his dream of skating and competing in the U.S. And as you'll see in this scene, Thalente is rather humble in his observations about what lies ahead. Read More: Review: 'This Ain't California...
- 6/9/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Disney's family-friendly movie tops the UK box-office charts, as rival animation Free Birds' fortunes take a dive
• More on the UK box office
• Frozen – review
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – review
The winner
Pushing The Hunger Games: Catching Fire aside after its two weeks at the top spot, Disney's Frozen opened with £4.70m. That's by no means the top number for an animation this year – Despicable Me 2 debut gathered £14.82m, including £4.87m in previews in June – but it's a solid start for a film presumed to play to the Christmas audience. Family films targeting the Christmas market have a knack of playing strongly right through until Christmas Eve, and if the festive association is not too strong can, continue to play beyond that date.
Two years ago, Aardman's Arthur Christmas debuted with a so-so £2.11m, but by Christmas Day had managed £19.66m, and eventually reached £20.84m. (A re-release...
• More on the UK box office
• Frozen – review
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – review
The winner
Pushing The Hunger Games: Catching Fire aside after its two weeks at the top spot, Disney's Frozen opened with £4.70m. That's by no means the top number for an animation this year – Despicable Me 2 debut gathered £14.82m, including £4.87m in previews in June – but it's a solid start for a film presumed to play to the Christmas audience. Family films targeting the Christmas market have a knack of playing strongly right through until Christmas Eve, and if the festive association is not too strong can, continue to play beyond that date.
Two years ago, Aardman's Arthur Christmas debuted with a so-so £2.11m, but by Christmas Day had managed £19.66m, and eventually reached £20.84m. (A re-release...
- 12/11/2013
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
The critics of La, New York and Boston have spoken. We'll be reporting on their films of the year. Plus: all the rest of today's film news
In the news
- Critics in La, New York and Boston have handed out their gongs for their favourite films of 2013.
- Christian Bale says his love/hate relationship with acting started when he was a kiddie-wink.
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is really not bad at all, say reviewers from pretty much everywhere.
- And Edouard Molinaro, director of Cage aux Folles, has died aged 85.
Elsewhere on the site today
- The Us box office report will see Jeremy Kay explain how Frozen is putting the competition on ice.
- We'll be starting our own countdown of the top ten films of 2013. Wadjda's in at number 10.
- Mark Brown reports from the British Independent Film Awards, where Sean Ellis's Metro Manila won big.
In the news
- Critics in La, New York and Boston have handed out their gongs for their favourite films of 2013.
- Christian Bale says his love/hate relationship with acting started when he was a kiddie-wink.
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is really not bad at all, say reviewers from pretty much everywhere.
- And Edouard Molinaro, director of Cage aux Folles, has died aged 85.
Elsewhere on the site today
- The Us box office report will see Jeremy Kay explain how Frozen is putting the competition on ice.
- We'll be starting our own countdown of the top ten films of 2013. Wadjda's in at number 10.
- Mark Brown reports from the British Independent Film Awards, where Sean Ellis's Metro Manila won big.
- 12/9/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
This Ain't California | Nebraska | Frozen | Kill Your Darlings | Oldboy | Powder Room | Homefront | Getaway | The Patience Stone | Big Bad Wolves | Black Nativity | Floating Skyscrapers | Klown | Rough Cut | A Long Way From Home | Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf's
This Ain't California (Tbc)
(Marten Perseil, 2012, Ger) 90 mins
Just as its East German teen subjects took skateboarding behind the Iron Curtain, so this "documentary" smuggles faked footage into its true 1980s history. The result is a fascinating parallel pop-cultural history with a moving (but imaginary) human centre. Working out what's true and what's not only adds to the fun.
Nebraska (15)
(Alexander Payne, 2013, Us) Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb. 115 mins
Stubborn old Dern and son take a quixotic road trip back into family, and American, history.
Frozen (PG)
(Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, 2013, Us) Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Idina Menzel. 108 mins
Disney's classy, sparkly assault on the Christmas holidays, with wintry vistas, musical numbers and a sister-powered fairytale.
This Ain't California (Tbc)
(Marten Perseil, 2012, Ger) 90 mins
Just as its East German teen subjects took skateboarding behind the Iron Curtain, so this "documentary" smuggles faked footage into its true 1980s history. The result is a fascinating parallel pop-cultural history with a moving (but imaginary) human centre. Working out what's true and what's not only adds to the fun.
Nebraska (15)
(Alexander Payne, 2013, Us) Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb. 115 mins
Stubborn old Dern and son take a quixotic road trip back into family, and American, history.
Frozen (PG)
(Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, 2013, Us) Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Idina Menzel. 108 mins
Disney's classy, sparkly assault on the Christmas holidays, with wintry vistas, musical numbers and a sister-powered fairytale.
- 12/7/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Take your pick of this week's cinema releases. Plus, what's coming up on the site today
What to watch
In the UK? Have a gander at The Guardian Film Show, where we're reviewing Alexander Payne's Nebraska, Daniel Radcliffe's turn as Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, skateboarding sort-of doc This Ain't California and Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy.
Other films out there include Disney's cool-for-yule animation Frozen, Jason Statham action romper Homefront and Brit-com Powder Room.
In the Us? Have a sing-song with the Coen brothers folk drama Inside Llewyn Davis, on limited release from this week.
In the news today
- Nelson Mandela's death was announced to the guests at the premiere of Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom. Peter Bradshaw reviewed the performances that took the great man's story to the screen.
- Time magazine have named and shamed their worst films of...
What to watch
In the UK? Have a gander at The Guardian Film Show, where we're reviewing Alexander Payne's Nebraska, Daniel Radcliffe's turn as Allen Ginsberg in Kill Your Darlings, skateboarding sort-of doc This Ain't California and Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy.
Other films out there include Disney's cool-for-yule animation Frozen, Jason Statham action romper Homefront and Brit-com Powder Room.
In the Us? Have a sing-song with the Coen brothers folk drama Inside Llewyn Davis, on limited release from this week.
In the news today
- Nelson Mandela's death was announced to the guests at the premiere of Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom. Peter Bradshaw reviewed the performances that took the great man's story to the screen.
- Time magazine have named and shamed their worst films of...
- 12/6/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ Filmmaker Marten Persiel was never especially interested, as a youngster in West Berlin, in what was going on behind the Iron Curtain. Later in life however, he learnt that there was a thriving skateboarding subculture that existed in East Germany in the 1980s. It provided a rolling platform for youthful expression and he has now brought it to the big screen in the form of the spirited and compelling 'documentary' tale, This Ain't California (2012). Not only is this not California, it's also not exactly real; blending actual archive material with recreated 'retro' footage to create a lively if fictionalised look at the Berlin skating scene.
- 12/6/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
A quasi-mockumentary about the fictional skateboarding scene in the old East Germany of the 1980s leads you up the garden path
Martin Persiel's This Ain't California is a weird quasi-mockumentary whose sneaky fictional inventions have been the subject of furious debate since the film played at last year's Berlin film festival. It is ostensibly about the skateboarding scene in the old East Germany of the 1980s, with fascinating ideas about how this scene stimulated individualist anti-communist thinking and how East Berlin's brutalist concrete architecture turned out to be great for skating. But the raw Super 8 footage has now been revealed as staged and the figures played by actors, and there is some doubt as to whether the legendary skating figure at the film's centre, Panik, is real, some kind of composite, or just out-and-out fantasy. Challenging the limits of factual cinema can be enlightening and reconstructions valid: they were used,...
Martin Persiel's This Ain't California is a weird quasi-mockumentary whose sneaky fictional inventions have been the subject of furious debate since the film played at last year's Berlin film festival. It is ostensibly about the skateboarding scene in the old East Germany of the 1980s, with fascinating ideas about how this scene stimulated individualist anti-communist thinking and how East Berlin's brutalist concrete architecture turned out to be great for skating. But the raw Super 8 footage has now been revealed as staged and the figures played by actors, and there is some doubt as to whether the legendary skating figure at the film's centre, Panik, is real, some kind of composite, or just out-and-out fantasy. Challenging the limits of factual cinema can be enlightening and reconstructions valid: they were used,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Peter Bradshaw and Andrew Pulver join Henry Barnes for our weekly round-up of the big cinema releases. This week the team hit the open road with a lucky lottery winner in Alexander Payne's Nebraska; bop, jive and shuffle with the beat writers of Kill Your Darlings; question the authenticity of skateboarding documentary This Ain't California; and watch Spike Lee take a hammer to a classic with his English language version of Oldboy. Plus: interviews with Nebraska director Alexander Payne and Daniel Radcliffe, the star of Kill Your Darlings.
• This is the audio-only version of The Guardian Film Show.
Henry BarnesAndrew PulverPeter BradshawThibaut Remy...
• This is the audio-only version of The Guardian Film Show.
Henry BarnesAndrew PulverPeter BradshawThibaut Remy...
- 12/6/2013
- by Henry Barnes, Andrew Pulver, Peter Bradshaw, Thibaut Remy
- The Guardian - Film News
Leviathan | Saving Mr Banks | Carrie | Jeune & Jolie | Marius, Fanny | Saving Santa | The Best Man Holiday | Free Birds | Day Of The Flowers | Life's A Breeze
Leviathan (12A)
(Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 2012, Fra/UK/Us) 87 mins
An arthouse fishing-trawler documentary sounds like a practical joke, but this takes us to places we've never before – into the ocean depths and back out on to the decks with the catch. It's a series of dark, semi-abstract tableaux full of flapping fish, clanking machinery and tattooed fishermen doing wet, gory work. It's easy to forget this is real life you're watching.
Saving Mr Banks (PG)
(John Lee Hancock, 2013, Us) Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson. 125 mins
How Walt Disney came to make Mary Poppins was hardly a pressing movie mystery, and one suspects a spoonful of drama has been added, but the leads are eminently watchable.
Carrie (15)
(Kimberly Peirce, 2013, Us) Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore. 100 mins
Brian De Palma...
Leviathan (12A)
(Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 2012, Fra/UK/Us) 87 mins
An arthouse fishing-trawler documentary sounds like a practical joke, but this takes us to places we've never before – into the ocean depths and back out on to the decks with the catch. It's a series of dark, semi-abstract tableaux full of flapping fish, clanking machinery and tattooed fishermen doing wet, gory work. It's easy to forget this is real life you're watching.
Saving Mr Banks (PG)
(John Lee Hancock, 2013, Us) Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson. 125 mins
How Walt Disney came to make Mary Poppins was hardly a pressing movie mystery, and one suspects a spoonful of drama has been added, but the leads are eminently watchable.
Carrie (15)
(Kimberly Peirce, 2013, Us) Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore. 100 mins
Brian De Palma...
- 11/30/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
"They say if you go to the movies long enough you will finally see yourself on the screen." –Roger Ebert, review of Joe Dante's 'Matinee'
Greetings from the apocalypse! As you may have heard this past week we lost the big enchilada of film criticism, Roger Ebert. Neither as fanged as Pauline Kael nor a Peter Travers-style studio kiss-ass, Ebert's prose was both literate and fiercely proletariat, with modern film journalism positively maggoty with his influence. Yours truly is honoring his sensei by quoting him throughout this week's column, with a heartfelt tribute at the end.
Friday, April 12
You Down With VOD?
Terrence Malick is one of the true unique voices of film. Not "modern film," just "film." Period. His elliptical, transcendent style is given perhaps its most undiluted outlet in the form of "To the Wonder," this week's much-coveted "Survivor of Thunderdome." Let's get...
Greetings from the apocalypse! As you may have heard this past week we lost the big enchilada of film criticism, Roger Ebert. Neither as fanged as Pauline Kael nor a Peter Travers-style studio kiss-ass, Ebert's prose was both literate and fiercely proletariat, with modern film journalism positively maggoty with his influence. Yours truly is honoring his sensei by quoting him throughout this week's column, with a heartfelt tribute at the end.
Friday, April 12
You Down With VOD?
Terrence Malick is one of the true unique voices of film. Not "modern film," just "film." Period. His elliptical, transcendent style is given perhaps its most undiluted outlet in the form of "To the Wonder," this week's much-coveted "Survivor of Thunderdome." Let's get...
- 4/12/2013
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
Martin Persiel's splendid "documentary" could well be subtitled "And It Ain't the Truth." After having swept awards on the film festival circuit last year (including the Berlinale's Dialogue en Perspective prize for young filmmakers), the nonfiction This Ain't California was reveled to have a healthy dose of fiction in it after all—and most of the old skateboarding footage of the film's central figure, the late Denis "Panik" Paraceck, was actually that of skateboarder/model Kai Hillebrandt. Oh, and Paraceck never existed. That's just the tip of Persiel's manipulation of both reality and the very definition of "documentary." But even if you go in knowing you're watching Gm filmmaking, California (flawlessly edited by Maxine Gödecke) is engrossing. An inspired mi...
- 4/12/2013
- Village Voice
The title really says it all. Far from Dogtown and Z-boys, the burgeoning west coast punk scene and the empty swimming pools that provided endless possibility, in Germany kids were bolting wheels to pieces of wood and seeing what would happen. And with a wall up separating East from West, a government that spied on its citizens and a chance to see the world a distant prospect, it would seem that a thriving subculture in the German Democratic Republic would be impossible. But, it's just the kind of fertile ground for discontent to manifest itself in bold ways, and "This Ain't California" is a docu-drama that captures it all with energy and style to spare. But perhaps the first thing to get out of the way is the question of authenticity. Though presented and positioned as a documentary -- utilizing a blend of real '80s footage of “wheel-board-riders,” with...
- 4/11/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
This Ain't California doesn't simply capture the development of skate culture in East Germany and one of the central figures of the movement, it also captures the lust for life and the energy that was beginning to permeate through the country prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Skateboarding was seen by the government as both an opportunity for the sports dominant country to gain a stronghold on yet another sport and also a constant nagging reminder on western culture staking a foothold on a country that openly dismissed anything foreign. [Continued ...]...
- 10/10/2012
- QuietEarth.us
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Caesar Must Die has won the Golden Bear at this year's Berlinale. The other awards, presented by Mike Leigh and his International Jury (Anton Corbijn, Asghar Farhadi, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jake Gyllenhaal, François Ozon, Boualem Sansal and Barbara Sukowa):
The first Silver Bear, the Jury Grand Prix, goes to Bence Fliegauf's Just the Wind. (Last year, this prize went to a Hungarian as well, to Béla Tarr for The Turin Horse.)
Silver Bear for Best Director: Christian Petzold for Barbara.
Silver Bear for Best Actress: Rachel Mwanza for her performance in War Witch.
Silver Bear for Best Actor: Mikkel Følsgaard for A Royal Affair.
The Silver Bear for an Outstanding Artistic Contribution goes to Director of Photography Lutz Reitemeier for his work on White Deer Plain.
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg for A Royal Affair.
The Alfred Bauer Award...
The first Silver Bear, the Jury Grand Prix, goes to Bence Fliegauf's Just the Wind. (Last year, this prize went to a Hungarian as well, to Béla Tarr for The Turin Horse.)
Silver Bear for Best Director: Christian Petzold for Barbara.
Silver Bear for Best Actress: Rachel Mwanza for her performance in War Witch.
Silver Bear for Best Actor: Mikkel Følsgaard for A Royal Affair.
The Silver Bear for an Outstanding Artistic Contribution goes to Director of Photography Lutz Reitemeier for his work on White Deer Plain.
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg for A Royal Affair.
The Alfred Bauer Award...
- 2/18/2012
- MUBI
From Aleksandr Andriyevsky's Gibel Sensatsii (Lost Sensation, 1935)
The Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen, which has organized the Berlinale's Retrospective program since 1977, and New York's Museum of Modern Art have worked together on this or that series in the past, but today the festival has announced that the cooperation is going long-term. Starting with this year's Retrospective program, The Red Dream Factory. Mezhrabpom-Film and Prometheus 1921-1936, the Berlinale, Kinemathek and MoMA will be working closely to select and curate future Retrospectives. The Red Dream Factory, screening in Berlin from February 9 through 19, will be presented at MoMA from April 11 through 30, and here's the gist from the Berlinale's announcement in October:
Moisei Aleinikov, a Russian film expert and producer from tsarist times who had a great instinct for the right topics, and Willi Münzenberg, a German communist and "red media entrepreneur," joined forces in 1922 to combine clever business ideas,...
The Deutsche Kinemathek - Museum für Film und Fernsehen, which has organized the Berlinale's Retrospective program since 1977, and New York's Museum of Modern Art have worked together on this or that series in the past, but today the festival has announced that the cooperation is going long-term. Starting with this year's Retrospective program, The Red Dream Factory. Mezhrabpom-Film and Prometheus 1921-1936, the Berlinale, Kinemathek and MoMA will be working closely to select and curate future Retrospectives. The Red Dream Factory, screening in Berlin from February 9 through 19, will be presented at MoMA from April 11 through 30, and here's the gist from the Berlinale's announcement in October:
Moisei Aleinikov, a Russian film expert and producer from tsarist times who had a great instinct for the right topics, and Willi Münzenberg, a German communist and "red media entrepreneur," joined forces in 1922 to combine clever business ideas,...
- 1/10/2012
- MUBI
The 62nd Berlinale has rounded out its Perspektive Deutsches Kino lineup, which highlights young German cinema. Thirteen films, including three full-length documentaries and four features, make up the program. As previously announced, the selection will open with Katarina Peter's second documentary feature "Man for a Day," which follows a group of women who attend a workshop hosted by performance artist and drag king Diane Torr. Other highlights include Tamer Yiğit and Branka Prlić's self-financed production "Karaman," which tells the story of a Muslim woman seeking to immirgate to Germany against her family's wishes; Marion Hütter’s documentary "Rhymes and Rivals," which accompanies four "word acrobats" as they tour the world for a year; "This Ain't California," which Marten Persiel compiled from super-8 home movies and looks at the underground culture of "Rollbrettfahrer" (as...
- 1/10/2012
- Indiewire
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