Category Archives: Film/Cinema

From news source:

Arguably the most powerful film presented at this year’s Cannes Film Festival was screened with virtually no promotion and out of competition Thursday night. The film, The Central Park Five, by Ken Burns, America’s leading documentary filmmaker ( The Civil War, Baseball, The War ) and his daughter Sara and son-in-law David McMahon, tells the story of the five teenagers who were arrested following the Central Park jogger attack in 1989 and how New York police and prosecutors employed manipulative interrogation to crack them, coerce their confessions, and send them to prison. Their convictions were overturned only after they had served their lengthy sentences, when the actual attacker, Matias Reyes, already serving time for multiple rapes, confessed and DNA evidence established his guilt. “I hope you will find this film unsettling,” Burns told the audience before the screening. And there can be little doubt that it must have raised disturbing questions about America’s criminal justice system among the international audience in attendance. It is Burns’s first feature-length documentary dealing with a contemporary controversy, and perhaps his most affecting — especially as it shines a glaring spotlight on the often racial politics of American justice and the lynch mentality of some right-wing extremists that fuels it. Reviewer David Rooney concluded in the Hollywood Reporter “As a dense procedural, this is fascinating stuff; its miscarriage of justice stokes righteous anger and its account of lost youth and irreparably damaged lives is conveyed with moving solemnity.” The film ends on a particularly rankling note. A decade after they were exonerated, it alleges, the five have received no apology — indeed police and prosecutors continue to contend that they were guilty — and no restitution.

Ken Burns’ documentary The Central Park 5 getting good reviews…

Scene from The Paperboy

Feature film The Paperboy on the BUZZ list…

Nicole Kidman stars in The Paperboy

From Indiewire.com:

Fresh off news confirming its appearance at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, we now have a few new stills fromLee Daniels‘ “The Paperboy,” his forthcoming film featuring the leading trio of Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey.

An adaptation of a Pete Dexter novel, the ’60s-era thriller follows respected journalist Ward James (McConaughey) and his brother Jack (Efron), a college dropout, as they investigate the possible wrongful conviction of a death row inmate who was found guilty of killing a sheriff. Kidman has already been touted by producer Cassian Elwes as a performance to watch out for playing the convict’s correspondent love interest who Efron’s character falls for.

The film also co-stars John Cusack as the inmate; David Oyelowo as Yardley, who teams with Ward James on the investigation; and Scott Glenn as the James brothers’ father and the newspaper’s Editor-in-chief. And here’s a fun fact: the project was developed by Pedro Almodóvar for nearly a decade as his potential English-language debut. And while he eventually moved on, the script we saw last year was credited to both Almodóvar and Daniels, so perhaps it will have some of the former director’s edge? We’ll soon find out.

“The Paperboy” will play In Competition at Cannes. The festival runs from May 16-27.

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On the lighter side, Vince Vaughn will be starring in the remake of the classic American TV show Rockford Files, portraying a private investigator who spent 5 years in prison for a wrongful conviction

A Separation won best foreign language film at the Academy Awards Sunday night.  Not only is this a really interesting, well-acted movie, but the plot revolves around a possible wrongful conviction in progress.  As the story unfolds, and the viewer learns more and more about the case, one gets a sense of how the Iranian criminal justice system operates.  The judge in the case hears “evidence” and rules on the merits in a small office with each witness and the defendant just sort of hashing it out and arguing with each other until the judge gets a feel for what he thinks happened.  In the process, questions are raised about the reliability of different forms of evidence, and how wrongful convictions can happen to anyone–even the respected and privileged in society.  The bottom line is that the film is wonderful, and I’d recommend to anyone regardless of his or her interest in wrongful convictions or comparative criminal justice systems.  I’m not the only one who liked it, as it got a rare 99% approval rate from the critics on rottentomatoes.com.  Save it to your Netflix queue here.