With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
Kirsten Johnson brings us her memoirs by way of a videographic scrapbook. Bits and pieces of the numerous documentaries she’s shot in her years as a Dp have been woven together into a travelogue / ethnographic study / commentary on the nature of cinematic framing. What was an establishing shot in one doc becomes, here, a study of the vagaries of a camera operator’s job. Documentary...
Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
Kirsten Johnson brings us her memoirs by way of a videographic scrapbook. Bits and pieces of the numerous documentaries she’s shot in her years as a Dp have been woven together into a travelogue / ethnographic study / commentary on the nature of cinematic framing. What was an establishing shot in one doc becomes, here, a study of the vagaries of a camera operator’s job. Documentary...
- 7/21/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This July will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces
What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).
Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*
Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces
What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).
Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*
Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...
- 6/26/2017
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
ChinaVision Media Group, which will soon be renamed Alibaba Pictures Group, has signed production deals with Wong Kar Wai’s Block 2 Pictures, Angie Chai and Giddens Ko’s Star Ritz International Entertainment and Peter Ho-sun Chan’s We Pictures.
The deals emerged in a profit warning filed by ChinaVision on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday. ChinaVision is being rebranded as Alibaba Pictures Group, following ecommerce giant Alibaba’s acquisition of a controlling stake in the company in April.
Alibaba has also reportedly hired China Film Group vice president Zhang Qiang to head Alibaba Pictures Group. However the company has not confirmed or responded to the reports.
ChinaVision reported expected losses of $12.5m (Hk$97m) to $23m (Hk$180m) for the six months to June 30, 2014. However it added that losses were due to a lack of films released during this period, and that business was expected to pick up in the second half of the...
The deals emerged in a profit warning filed by ChinaVision on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday. ChinaVision is being rebranded as Alibaba Pictures Group, following ecommerce giant Alibaba’s acquisition of a controlling stake in the company in April.
Alibaba has also reportedly hired China Film Group vice president Zhang Qiang to head Alibaba Pictures Group. However the company has not confirmed or responded to the reports.
ChinaVision reported expected losses of $12.5m (Hk$97m) to $23m (Hk$180m) for the six months to June 30, 2014. However it added that losses were due to a lack of films released during this period, and that business was expected to pick up in the second half of the...
- 7/21/2014
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
“Touch of the Light” sees Taiwanese director Chang Jung Chi adapting his 2008 award winning short “The End of the Tunnel” into a full length feature, produced by Wong Kar Wai’s Jet Tone Films. Based on a true story, the film follows the real life experiences of piano prodigy Huang Yu Siang, here played by himself, with award winning French-Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna, also known as Chang Yung Yung (“Miao Miao”) in the female lead role, both of whom featured in the original short. The film was a big hit with the critics, winning Best New Director for Chang at the Golden Horse Awards, as well as being selected for Taiwan’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 85th Academy Awards. The film begins with Huang Yu Hsiang preparing to leave the small town where he lives with his parents to study music at a university in the big city,...
- 7/17/2013
- by James Mudge
- Beyond Hollywood
Though limited by notoriously tough censorship, the horror genre is slowly but surely finding its feet in Chinese cinema, with directors coming up with new and occasionally creative ways to work around the restrictions. “The Chrysalis”, marking the directorial debut of ad director Qiu Chu Ji, is a great example of this, a film which though clearly of the horror genre, also works in enough grounded psycho drama to keep things from straying too far into taboo supernatural territory. While this approach in itself is common in Chinese chillers, Qiu here seems to have been making more of an effort to combine the film’s horror and dramatic elements rather than simply using one to justify the other. Taiwanese-French actress Sandrine Pinna (“Miao Miao”) stars as Wenxin, the film opening with her having been kidnapped by love rival Annie (Christa Yan) on valentine’s day. The film flashes forward three months,...
- 5/15/2013
- by James Mudge
- Beyond Hollywood
Directors must ask themselves, on occasion; is it really worth being part of an omnibus film? Little if anything links the trio of short films featured in the anthology E.S.F. beyond the fact each director is an up-and-coming Taiwanese. Nothing wrong with that per se, but the three are so wildly disparate in tone, length and arguably quality, getting them as a package deal is surely set to sour the effect for some potential viewers.
The opening film comes from director Chang Rong-Ji, who previously helmed the 2006 documentary My Football Summer, about a junior high sports team and their performance in Taiwan's National High School Games. At thirty-seven minutes At the End of the Tunnel is the longest of the three shorts, the story of a blind music student (musician Huang Yu-Hsiang) and a dancer (Taiwanese star Sandrine Pinna, Yang Yang, Miao Miao, Do Over) who inadvertently meet in high school,...
The opening film comes from director Chang Rong-Ji, who previously helmed the 2006 documentary My Football Summer, about a junior high sports team and their performance in Taiwan's National High School Games. At thirty-seven minutes At the End of the Tunnel is the longest of the three shorts, the story of a blind music student (musician Huang Yu-Hsiang) and a dancer (Taiwanese star Sandrine Pinna, Yang Yang, Miao Miao, Do Over) who inadvertently meet in high school,...
- 5/25/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Compared with last year, Fortissmo Films come packing with only a single title, but that doesn't mean their sales agent won't be spending pretty much the entire festival from their rented office balcony. They signed a fairly ambitious deal with Fox - first time I've heard of a major studio outputting their titles to a films sales company of this nature and they've got one receiving a world preem at the festival in Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy. - Compared with last year, Fortissmo Films come packing with only a single title, but that doesn't mean their sales agent won't be spending pretty much the entire festival from their rented office balcony. They signed a fairly ambitious deal with Fox - first time I've heard of a major studio outputting their titles to a films sales company of this nature and they've got one receiving a world preem at the...
- 5/12/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
Compared with last year, Fortissmo Films come packing with only a single title, but that doesn't mean their sales agent won't be spending pretty much the entire festival from their rented office balcony. They signed a fairly ambitious deal with Fox - first time I've heard of a major studio outputting their titles to a films sales company of this nature and they've got one receiving a world preem at the festival in Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy (see pic) has the unique distinction of being from a first-timer – it's a rare feat to see a first timer in the Main Comp – so, we might be looking at a gem here folks. Among the hot titles on the sales side of things is Anh Hung Tran's Norwegian Wood – a pic that I was sure was going to land a spot in Cannes this year, but appears to still be in post prod.
- 5/12/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
'Stick to what you know' is theoretically sound advice that's launched many a promising career, but it's just as often led to aspiring writer/directors crowbarring the familiar in where it doesn't belong. Cheng Yu-Chieh's 2005 debut Do Over expended far too much effort working a mish-mash of garbled sub-plots and disparate visual styles around the central story of a director shooting a film he didn't believe in, and while the production values were fantastic the result was a pretentious mess that failed to make any lasting impact.
For his second feature, Yang Yang, Cheng brings back his most promising cast member - French-Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna, impressive in last year's winningly sweet little drama Miao Miao. The plot centres around Yang Yang, a Eurasian girl (like Pinna, half-French) struggling to balance her responsibilities to her new step-family with her inner conflict over her mixed parentage.
The tighter focus and...
For his second feature, Yang Yang, Cheng brings back his most promising cast member - French-Taiwanese actress Sandrine Pinna, impressive in last year's winningly sweet little drama Miao Miao. The plot centres around Yang Yang, a Eurasian girl (like Pinna, half-French) struggling to balance her responsibilities to her new step-family with her inner conflict over her mixed parentage.
The tighter focus and...
- 12/19/2009
- Screen Anarchy
Now a look back a few years to a little flick featuring the breakout performance from current Taiwanese box-office it girl Sandrine Pinna (Miao Miao, Yang Yang). Cheng Yu-Chieh’s debut feature film is the story of one seemingly innocuous event and how it leads several different people to think about how their lives have ended up. Are you going to want to give it another chance or will Do Over have you wishing you’d never watched it? Review after the break.
- 8/16/2009
- by Eight Rooks
- Screen Anarchy
It seems there’s always room for one more piece of Taiwanese queer cinema – Cheng Hsiao-Tse’s debut film Miao Miao continues the newly established tradition of fluffy, soap-opera teen angst packaged to appeal to straight girls and lesbians alike, but does the backing of Wong Kar-Wai’s Jet Tone Pictures and some relatively new faces in the cast set this apart from the competition? Find out after the break.
- 6/16/2009
- by Eight Rooks
- Screen Anarchy
Which will include Coppola's Tetro which premiers at Cannes for a total of 392 films which includes 31 world premiers and 203 narrative features. Man, Siff always has good stuff, I wish I could go. Any writers in Seattle want to provide coverage for us?
Check out some of the premiers after the break.
World Premieres
Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle, directed by Kevin Tomlinson (USA, 2009)
Dancing Across Borders, directed by Anne H. Bass (USA/Cambodia, 2009)
Facing Ali, directed by Pete McCormack (Canada, 2009)
The Hills Run Red, directed by Dave Parker (USA, 2009)
Icons Among Us, directed by Michael Rivoira, Lars Larson, Peter J. Vogt (USA, 2009)
I’m No Dummy, directed by Bryan W. Simon (USA, 2009)
Pop Star On Ice, directed by David Barba (USA/Canada/Russia/Japan, 2009)
The Spy and the Sparrow, directed by Garrett Bennett (USA, 2009)
talhotblond, directed by Barbara Schroeder (USA, 2008)
The Whole Truth, directed by Colleen Patrick (USA,...
Check out some of the premiers after the break.
World Premieres
Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle, directed by Kevin Tomlinson (USA, 2009)
Dancing Across Borders, directed by Anne H. Bass (USA/Cambodia, 2009)
Facing Ali, directed by Pete McCormack (Canada, 2009)
The Hills Run Red, directed by Dave Parker (USA, 2009)
Icons Among Us, directed by Michael Rivoira, Lars Larson, Peter J. Vogt (USA, 2009)
I’m No Dummy, directed by Bryan W. Simon (USA, 2009)
Pop Star On Ice, directed by David Barba (USA/Canada/Russia/Japan, 2009)
The Spy and the Sparrow, directed by Garrett Bennett (USA, 2009)
talhotblond, directed by Barbara Schroeder (USA, 2008)
The Whole Truth, directed by Colleen Patrick (USA,...
- 5/1/2009
- QuietEarth.us
Berlin -- Richard Loncraine's "My One and Only," a '50s-era comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Kevin Bacon, was squeezed into the competition lineup for this year's Berlin International Film Festival, barely a week before the event kicks off.
Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.
Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.
All three films should give an added boost of star power to...
Zellweger plays a glamorous single mom on the hunt for a rich man to foot the bill for her and her sons' lifestyle. Produced by Merv Griffith Entertainment and Ray Gun Prods., "My One and Only" will have its world premiere in Berlin. Essential Entertainment is handling international sales.
Berlin also added Lone Scherfig's Sundance favorite "An Education" with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina and Emma Thompson and Davis Guggenheim's music documentary "It Might Get Loud" for its Berlinale Special Galas, ensuring the films will get the red carpet treatment without any of the pressure of competition.
All three films should give an added boost of star power to...
- 1/27/2009
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.