DISNEY’S NEWSIES: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL!, the three-day cinema event broke ticketing records to become the highest-grossing Broadway event to date from Fathom Events. An estimated 210,250 people saw the event on big screens across the U.S. on February 16, 18 and 22, amounting to $3.47 million in ticket sales. It also now ranks as the No. 2 top-performing title for Fathom Events to-date.
Due to this overwhelming fan demand, Disney’s Newsies: The Broadway Musical! returns to big screens across the country for an encore screening on Saturday, March 4 at 12:55 p.m. local time. Tickets and participating theater locations for this encore showing will be available soon at www.FathomEvents.com.
“The tremendous success of NEWSIES on the big screen stresses how well this event conveys the spirit and energy of the live stage show,” said John Rubey, CEO of Fathom Events. “The cinema events have surpassed our already-high expectations. We’re all happily carrying the NEWSIES banner today!”
“NEWSIES has always been propelled by the show’s extraordinarily passionate fan base and the success of the latest chapter in its journey is thanks to them,” Thomas Schumacher, producer and president of Disney Theatrical Productions, said in a statement. “It is clear that the themes of NEWSIES are extremely timely, perhaps now more than ever. We are thrilled to bring NEWSIES to new audiences around the world who were not able to see it live on stage and look forward to what the future holds for this title.”
Captured live on stage, the event features Jeremy Jordan, reprising the Tony nominated role he created as “Jack Kelly.” Fathom Events partnered with Disney Theatrical Productions to bring this spectacular stage show to the big screen, including special behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast and creators.
Jordan is joined by original Broadway cast members Kara Lindsay as “Katherine,” Ben Fankhauser as “Davey” and Andrew Keenan-Bolger as “Crutchie,” and NEWSIES North American Tour starsSteve Blanchard as “Joseph Pulitzer,” Aisha de Haas as “Medda Larkin,” and Ethan Steiner as “Les.” Since opening on Broadway in 2011, NEWSIES has played 1,711 performances between Broadway and the North American tour, to more than 2.5 million audience members in 65 cities across the country, concluding its run at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre last fall where it was captured live on stage for this cinema event.
The mind-bending war thriller Man Down heads home on Digital HD on February 21 and Blu-ray (plus Digital HD), DVD and On Demand on March 7 from Lionsgate. Shia LaBeouf stars as a former U.S. Marine who returns home from Afghanistan to a completely different world, and sets out on a mission to find his estranged wife and son. Nominated for Best Film at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, this psychological suspense-thriller features stellar performances from Jai Courtney, Academy Award®nominee Gary Oldman (Best Leading Actor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 2011), Emmy® nominee Kate Mara (Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, Netflix’s “House of Cards,” 2014) and Emmy® nominee Clifton Collins Jr. (Outstanding Supporting Actor, Thief, 2006). The Man Down Blu-ray and DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $24.99 and $19.98, respectively.
When U.S. Marine Gabriel Drummer (Shia LaBeouf) returns home from his tour in Afghanistan, he finds that the place he once called home is no better than the battlefields he fought on overseas. Accompanied by his best friend Devin Roberts (Jai Courtney), a hard-nosed Marine whose natural instinct is to shoot first and ask questions later, he searches desperately for the location of his estranged son, Johnathan (Charlie Shotwell), and wife Natalie (Kate Mara). In their search, the two intercept Charles (Clifton Collins Jr.), a man carrying vital information about the whereabouts of Gabriel’s family. As we revisit the past, we are guided in unraveling the puzzle of Gabriel’s experience and what will eventually lead us to finding his family.
BLU-RAY/DIGITAL HD SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentary
CAST
Shia LaBeouf Transformers franchise, American Honey, Nymphomaniac
Jai Courtney Divergent series, Suicide Squad, Terminator Genisys
Gary Oldman Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Criminal, The Dark Knight franchise
Kate Mara Netflix’s “House Of Cards,” The Martian, Fantastic Four
and Clifton Collins Jr. HBO’s “Westworld,” Pacific Rim, Star Trek
From Left: Host Rory Kennedy with Documentary (Feature) nominees Gianfranco Rosi and Donatella Palermo, “Fire at Sea”, Hébert Peck, Raoul Peck and Rémi Grellety , “I Am Not Your Negro”, Roger Ross Williams and Julie Goldman, “Life, Animated”, Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow, “O.J.: Made in America” and Spencer Averick and Howard Barish, “13th”.
On Wednesday February 22, the Samuel Goldwyn Theater hosted a celebration for ten powerful stories with this year’s nominees in the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject categories. Introducing the five Documentary Short Subject contenders, Academy Documentary Branch Governor Kate Amend pointed to the heroism that united their subjects: people who saved drowning refugees or victims of airstrikes, faced end-of-life decisions and created new lives in a foreign country.
After screening clips of each film, Amend brought up “Extremis” director Dan Krauss, “4.1 Miles” director Daphne Matziaraki, “Joe’s Violin”’s Cooperman and producer Raphaela Neihausen, “Watani: My Homeland” director Marcel Mettelsiefen and producer Stephen Ellis and “The White Helmets” director Orlando Von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara.
The filmmakers discussed how they gained their subjects’ trust. To Krauss, the ICU patients who agreed to let him record such personal moments “saw the camera not as this intrusive presence, but rather as a conduit to not feel alone.”
He admitted the difficulty of tackling end-of-life care: “It’s a subject that scares me, it scares a lot of us.”
Matziaraki, meanwhile, was drawn to the refugee crisis because of how close it hit to home. Originally from Greece and living in the U.S., she “felt very removed and detached from it all.”
She decided to follow a Greek town’s coast guard, a team of ordinary people, during rescue missions at sea. Initially set on maintaining an objective eye, Matziaraki faced a moral dilemma once on the boat: “When [the captain] told me, ‘Put the camera down and hold this baby,’ I honestly couldn’t care less about making a film.”
Marcel Mettelsiefen first approached the Syrian uprising as a still photographer in 2011. In 2013, with “Watani,” he decided to tell the story through the eyes of children. He and Ellis documented a family that seemed to embody the crisis, focusing on “four little kids who could speak poetically about their pain,” Ellis said.
Telling this story “was beyond compulsion, it was a necessity,” he added.
Von Einsiedel and Natasegara felt a similar urgency with “The White Helmets,” the story of 3,000 Syrian civilians—bakers, tailors, builders—who chose not to fight or flee, but to stay and save fellow citizens.
In the second half of the evening, Documentary Branch Governor Rory Kennedy screened clips of the Documentary Feature nominees, and invited the filmmakers to the stage. “Fire at Sea” director Gianfranco Rosi and producer Donatello Palermo, “I Am Not Your Negro” director Raoul Peck and producers Rémi Grellety and Hébert Peck, “Life, Animated” director Roger Ross Williams and producer Julie Goldman, “O.J.: Made in America” director Ezra Edelman and producer Caroline Waterlow and “13th” editor Spencer Averick and producer Howard Barish spoke about their journeys and inspiration.
The seed for Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” was planted decades ago, when Raoul received his first copy of James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” As an 18 year old, “it changed my life and my way of seeing these problems,” he said.
According to Hébert, the source material’s timeliness is telling. “We feel that Baldwin has written these words this morning. That must mean two things: that he’s an incredible writer and that if those words, that have been written 40, 50 years ago, still have such meaning, then we still have a long way to go.”
According to Barish, who hopes “13th” becomes mandatory viewing, his team began with a macro look at the American prison system. This led to an investigation of its history and racial disparities. Spencer and director Ava DuVernay “found a way to connect the dots.”
Edelman’s nearly eight-hour O.J. Simpson documentary also took a historical approach. “I wasn’t interested in the murder case,” Edelman said. “That conversation was so reductive.”
Instead, he used O.J. “as a lens through which to talk about our culture”: ambition, identity, masculinity and the quest to fulfill the American Dream.
“I came very quickly to realize this was the defining cultural story of our time,” Edelman added.
Roger Ross Williams, also a Documentary Branch governor, took a unique approach to the intimate story of “Life, Animated.” When interacting with Owen—an autistic child who communicates using Disney films—he used an Interrotron camera, a system invented by Errol Morris whereby the interviewer interacts with the subject from another room through a screen.
“When we came up with that idea, it was like a eureka moment,” Williams said. Owen would be able to tell his own story, and the audience could “get inside his head… and see the world through his eyes.”
Throughout the night, the filmmakers revealed the passion and persistence that allowed them to shed light on important issues.
As Kennedy put it, “When we watch these films, we feel. And we feel not because we’re told to feel, but simply because we can’t help ourselves.”
ROCK DOG is not one of those crossover hits that parents can enjoy just as much as their kids. Far from it. Uninvolving, unfunny and visually inferior to its peers, ROCK DOG is a straight-to-DVD production at best. How it managed to sneak its way onto the big-screen, we may never know. Luke Wilson provides the voice of Bodi, a Mastiff introduced on Snow Mountain in Tibet. His job is guarding the wool-spinning sheep there from a nasty pack of wolves led by Linnux (Lewis Black). To avoid distractions, Mastiff leader (and Bodi’s dad) Khampa (J.K. Simmons) forbids all music from the mountain. But when a radio is dropped by a passing airplane, Bodi decides he wants to be a rock ‘n’ roll star. Defying his father’s wishes, he heads to the Zootopia-like big city, and finds the reclusive cat rock legend Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard), who needs a new song fast. If Bodi can put a band together, help Angus with his song, and defeat the wolves’ plot to take Snow Mountain, he will become what he’s always dreamed of being… a Rock Dog!!
Though I should not have expected much from a cheap animated film that gets dumped into the unholy wasteland of February, I still didn’t have my expectations sufficiently lowered for ROCK DOG. It’s a uniquely charmless motion picture, owing in no small part to the cut-rate quality of animated characters uniformly built out of the simplest possible shapes, and devoid of even the smallest hint of personality. Bears, cats, sheep, foxes, and dogs in ROCK DOG may have different shaped heads, but their noses and mouths are identical, their eyes have no life. It’s as if the artists simply threw a layer of textures on first-draft geometrical models – the physicality of these characters seems unfinished. We know Bodi is a Mastiff only because we’re told so, but he looks just as much like a beagle or a Yorkshire Terrier to me. But even if ROCK DOG weren’t as ugly as a mud fence, the film would still likely sink under the weight of its world-class awful screenplay, which turns something as straightforward as “I wanna be a rock star” into a boring mess.
There are many references to classic rock and vintage guitars and famous guitarists as if they hired a rock guitar scholar as script consultant, but kids won’t care about that and it’s not going to make things any more bearable for adults. One thing that ROCK DOG is really proud to showcase is some beastly footage of Bodi dancing to insufferable generic rock songs (direct the hate mail to songwriter Rolfe Kent). I’ve seen Christmas lights displays that are more high-tech than the first number where fireworks and stars shimmy about in the night sky in tempo for the entirety of a horrible song (which I think is actually called ‘Rock and Roll’). Yes, this is a movie for kids, but using that as justification for lazy work, as if children are inherently too dumb to know the difference, is just condescending. The bar has been raised so high in terms of quality of animation and character modeling that you simply can’t get away with a crappy sub-par cartoon anymore. Director Ash Brannon, who helmed the excellent SURFS UP and co-directed TOY STORY 3, should know better. In a post-Pixar world, where audiences have become accustomed to quality animated family films, ROCK DOG is a waste of time.
For historical film buffs, 2017 is turning out to feature a treasure trove of WWII films focused on the arduous battle Great Britain faced during the war.
Christopher Nolan’s action thriller DUNKIRK is due in theaters July 21, 2017, while Focus Features will release director Joe Wright’s DARKEST HOUR, starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, on November 24th, 2017.
Now comes the latest film THEIR FINEST. Check out the new trailer below starring Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, and Bill Nighy.
With London emptied of its men now fighting at the Front, Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) is hired by the British Ministry of Information as a “slop” scriptwriter charged with bringing “a woman’s touch” to morale-boosting propaganda films. Her natural flair quickly gets her noticed by dashing movie producer Buckley (Sam Claflin) whose path would never have crossed hers in peacetime.
As bombs are dropping all around them, Catrin, Buckley and a colorful crew work furiously to make a film that will warm the hearts of the nation. Although Catrin’s artist husband looks down on her job, she quickly discovers there is as much camaraderie, laughter and passion behind the camera as there is onscreen.
Directed by Lone Scherfig and based on the novel by Lissa Evans, with a screenplay by Gaby Chiappe, the film opens in limited cinemas on April 7.
Preparations for Hollywood’s biggest night were in full swing at Hollywood and Highland for the 89th Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2016.
Presented on Sunday, February 26, 2017 at the Dolby Theatre and televised live by the ABC Television Network, the press risers, fan bleachers and pre-show stages along the Oscars red carpet were assembled amid a flurry of photographers.
It takes approximately 270 crew members to broadcast the Academy Awards to more than 225 countries around the globe.
The number of Red Carpet bleacher seats for lucky film fans is 735. Some Oscar trivia – there have been 3,048 Oscar statuettes presented since the first Oscars. A stylized figure of a knight holding a crusader’s sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes signifying the five original branches of the Academy (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers). No model was used during the design process.
Jimmy Kimmel will be host to the 89th Oscars. Bob Hope holds the record with 19 host
appearances.
The official prologue to ALIEN: COVENANT introduces the crew of the mission as they gather for a final meal before entering cryosleep.
Set aboard the Covenant, a colonization ship on its way to a remote planet to form a new human settlement, the main crew (all couples) and their android, Walter, enjoy their final meal together before cryosleep.
Conceived by Ridley Scott and 3AM, directed by Luke Scott, and produced by RSA Films.
Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created, with ALIEN: COVENANT, a new chapter in his groundbreaking ALIEN franchise.
The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world. When they uncover a threat beyond their imagination, they must attempt a harrowing escape. (Trailer)
ALIEN: COVENANT stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby and Demián Bichir.
In the week leading up to the 89th Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present a series of public programs celebrating this year’s nominees in the Animated Feature Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Foreign Language Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Animated and Live Action Short Film categories. All events will be held at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
WAMG attended the annual AMPAS reception featuring the 2016 Oscar nominated films in the Animated and Live-Action Short Film categories. The program featured screenings of all the nominated films in these categories, plus an onstage discussion with the filmmakers.
The evening was hosted by director Tim Miller (Deadpool), who himself was nominated in the Animated Short category in 2005 (Gopher Broke). In his opening comments, a clearly emotional Miller spoke about shorts being, for most filmmakers, a labor of love rather than a means to getting awards and accolades. “That’s not why we do this,” he said. “The reason to do this is because you love it… Never get caught up in the other stuff.”
Short Film (Animated) “Blind Vaysha” – Theodore Ushev “Borrowed Time” – Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj “Pear Cider and Cigarettes” – Robert Valley and Cara Speller “Pearl” – Patrick Osborne “Piper” – Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer
Short Film (Live Action) “Ennemis Intérieurs” – Sélim Azzazi “La Femme Et Le TGV” – Timo von Gunten and Giacun Caduff “Silent Nights” – Aske Bang and Kim Magnusson “Sing” – Kristof Deák and Anna Udvardy “Timcode” – Juanjo Giménez
The nominated animated shorts were the usual fare, including the now expected entry from Pixar (Piper), as well as some interesting takes on suicide and loss (Borrowed Time), family bonds and memories (Pearl), and ultimate friendship and compassion (Pear Cider and Cigarettes).
For Ushev (“Blind Vaysha”), receiving the nomination wasn’t just personal. “It’s the first time ever that Bulgaria is nominated for an Oscar,” he said to applause.
His film’s message, however, is universal. “I always wanted to make a film about our inability to live now, about our nostalgia for the past and our fear for the future,” Ushev said. The subject is a woman who can see only the past in one eye and the future in the other.
His style was influenced by woodcut prints, which allowed the story to resemble an “old book you found in your grandparents’ attic,” a relic of “lost knowledge” in the style of Middle Age paintings and manuscripts.
Lou Hamou-Lhadj and Andrew Coats, writer-directors of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Borrowed Time“, Patrick Osborne, director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Pearl“, Alan Barillaro, writer-director and Marc Sondheimer, producer, of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Piper“ and Theodore Ushev, writer-director of the Oscar® nominated animated short film “Blind Vaysha“ prior to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Oscar Week: Shorts” event on Tuesday, February 21, 2017.
The live action category was populated with 5 foreign films representing the best of the year, the most touching being a story about standing up for yourself and others (Sing), and the timeless tale of not letting life pass you by (La Femme Et Le TGV).
The group discussed the emotional currents of their films and how they hope their work is received. “We wanted to be unpredictable,” Giménez said of his short, which follows two parking lot security guard during their shifts. “Maybe everyone in the audience knew what was going to happen… but I doubt it.”
Aske Bang, writer-director and Kim Magnusson, producer, of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Silent Nights“, Sélim Azzazi, writer-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Ennemis Inteérieurs“, Juanjo Giménez, writer-producer-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Timecode“, Giacun Caduff, producer, and Timo von Gunten, writer-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “La Femme et le TGV“, and Kristof Deák, writer-director of the Oscar® nominated live action short film “Sing“ prior to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Oscar Week: Shorts” event on Tuesday, February 21, 2017.
Here’s wishing the best of luck come Oscar night to the filmmakers who clearly put their heart and souls into each of these films!
The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
“The legal drinking age is now ten, but you will need I.D. . Let’s be real!”
NIGHT OF THE COMET screens Wednesday, March 1st at 8pm at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143) as part of Webster University’s Award-Winning Strange Brew Film Series. Admission is $5
Imagine the horror of being stuck with 80s fashion, style, and music for the rest of your life: that’s the fate facing teenage sisters Regina and Samantha (Catherine Mary Stewart and blonde cutie Kelli Maroney) when civilization comes to a standstill after a passing comet turns most of the human race into orange dust in the 1984 cult-sci-fier NIGHT OF THE COMET. Amazingly, Regina and Sam have survived desiccation thanks to the fact they were both surrounded by steel when the Earth passed through the comet’s tail, but that doesn’t mean that they are no longer in danger: those who were partially exposed to the cosmic rays are slowly disintegrating, becoming bloodthirsty zombies in the process.
Possibly inspired by 70s TV movie WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE?, with which it shares a lot of similarities, director Thom Eberhardt’s enjoyable end of the world B-movie is a quirky, tongue-in-cheek effort that deliberately piles on the clichés, but also delivers some smart dialogue, solid performances from its great cast (including B-movie regular Mary Woronov, and the recently departed Geoffry Lewis), and even a decent shock or two. Special effects are limited to red and orange filters for the sky, and basic sunken-eye zombie make-up, but Eberhardt more than makes up for this with his spirited direction and some beautiful and very eerie shots of a completely deserted Los Angeles.
If you think you can stomach the overload of neon colors, big hair, and dreadful clothing that pervade the movie, then you could do a lot worse than to give NIGHT OF THE COMET a whirl. And you’ll have the chance Wednesday, March 1st at 8pm at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143)
A Facebook invite for this event can be found HERE
THE MISSION COMES HOME! Get ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY early on MARCH 24TH on Digital, and on Blu-ray April 4th. Fans go behind the scenes with filmmakers and cast for a revealing look at the stories behind the first Star Wars standalone film
Announced today on The Star Wars Show and StarWars.com, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” will be coming home on Digital HD on March 24th and Blu-ray on April 4th. This news comes on the heels of the start of production announcement of the untitled Han Solo Star Wars Story. “Rogue One” has established its place within the Star Wars universe and the hearts of moviegoers, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S.
Check out the brand new trailer:
Arriving early on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere on March 24, and on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD and On-Demand on April 4, the release includes never-before-seen “Rogue One” bonus material that will take fans behind the scenes with the movie’s diverse, dynamic cast and inspired team of filmmakers. An intimate collection of stories reveals how the film came to life, as well as hidden Easter Eggs and film facts that audiences may have missed in the theater.
Bonus features include*:
A Rogue Idea – Hear how ILM’s John Knoll came up with the movie’s concept – and why it’s the right film to launch the Star Wars stand-alone films.
Jyn: The Rebel – Get to know Rogue One’s defiant, resourceful survivor, and hear what it was like for Felicity Jones to bring her to life onscreen.
Cassian: The Spy – Diego Luna shares insights into his complex, driven character, who becomes a hero through selflessness, perseverance and passion.
K-2SO: The Droid – Explore the development of this reprogrammed Imperial droid, from initial pitch and character design through Alan Tudyk’s performance.
Baze & Chirrut: Guardians of the Whills – Go deeper into the relationship between these two very different characters, with Chinese superstars Jiang Wen and Donnie Yen.
Bodhi & Saw: The Pilot & The Revolutionary – Forest Whitaker and Riz Ahmed reflect on Saw Gerrera, the broken Rebel leader, and Bodhi Rook, the Imperial pilot who defects.
The Empire – Meet a dangerous new Imperial adversary…and cross paths once more with the most iconic villain of all time.
Visions of Hope: The Look of “Rogue One” – The filmmakers describe the challenges and thrills of developing a bold new look for the movie that can fit within the world of the original trilogy.
The Princess & The Governor – See what it took to bring the vibrant young princess of “Star Wars: A New Hope” – as well as one of her most memorable foes– – back to the screen.
Epilogue: The Story Continues – Filmmakers and cast celebrate Rogue One’s premiere and look forward into the future, to the Star Wars stories yet to be told.
Rogue Connections – Uncover Easter eggs and film facts hidden throughout the movie that connect “Rogue One” to the Star Wars universe.
