Films

Basketball Film LENNY COOKE Slam Dunks in Theaters on December 6 | WATCH Trailer

The basketball documentary LENNY COOKE which World Premiere earlier this year at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival will open in theaters on December 6th, 2013.   In the documentary, filmmaking brothers Joshua and Benny Safdie take a candid look and track the unfulfilled destiny of a man for whom superstardom was only out of reach.

In 2001, Lenny Cooke was the most hyped high school basketball player in the country, ranked above future greats LeBron James, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony. In an era when high school stars were forgoing college hoops in favor of the potential multi-million dollar contracts promised in the NBA draft, Lenny was supposed to be the next superstar. He had the world at his fingertips. But over a decade later, while his peers are taking home MVP awards and championship trophies, Lenny has never played a minute in the NBA. What went wrong?

With incredible access to Lenny’s story as it unfolded over the past decade, filmmaking brothers Joshua and Benny Safdie follow Lenny from his run-down home in Bushwick, Brooklyn, to the New Jersey suburbs where he spent his high school career through to the present day, with the friends and family who shared in his dreams and aspirations. Lenny Cooke is a quintessentially American story about dreaming big, the fickle nature of sports celebrity and the unfulfilled destiny of a man for whom superstardom was only just out of reach.

LENNY COOKE marks the first feature length documentary by the Safdie brothers, who received the John Cassavetes Award at The Independent Spirit Awards for DADDY LONGLEGS.   DADDY LONGLEGS premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as did their first feature THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED.

The film was executive produced by two time NCAA champion and Chicago Bull Joakim Noah.

http://youtu.be/ne61w4R20QE

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LETTERS TO JACKIE: REMEMBERING PRESIDENT KENNEDY to Air on TLC Sunday November 17th | SEE Trailer

LETTERS TO JACKIE: REMEMBERING PRESIDENT KENNEDY, the acclaimed documentary about JFK’s presidency which premiered at 2013 AFI DOCS film festival, will air at 9/8c on Sunday, November 17, 2013 on TLC. Directed and written by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Bill Couturié, the film features 18 stars, including Anne Hathaway, Bérénice Bejo, Michelle Williams, Kirsten Dunst and Chris Cooper, reading from letters sent to Jacqueline Kennedy in the days following the loss of John F. Kennedy.

LETTERS TO JACKIE: REMEMBERING PRESIDENT KENNEDY is based on the book “Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation” by Ellen Fitzpatrick. For two months after President Kennedy’s assassination, the White House received more than 800,000 letters for the first lady, who lost her husband and the father of her children. In this special two-hour event, selections from this collection are read by celebrities to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination. Readers include: Berenice Bejo, Demian Bichir, Jessica Chastain, Chris Cooper, Viola Davis, Zooey Deschanel, Kirsten Dunst, Anne Hathaway, Allison Janney, John Krasinski, Melissa Leo, Laura Linney, Frances McDormand, Chlo Grace Moretz, Mark Ruffalo, Octavia Spencer, Hailee Steinfeld, Channing Tatum, Betty White, Michelle Williams.

http://youtu.be/YYeV-F5IMi8

images via TLC
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Irish Film RUN & JUMP in U.S. Theaters in 2014 | WATCH Trailer

The Irish film RUN & JUMP which had its world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and winner of Best Irish Feature and Best First Irish Feature at the 2013 Galway Film Festival, will be released theatrically and on premium VOD platforms in early 2014 by Sundance Selects. Directed by Steph Green, ‘RUN AND JUMP’ stars Will Forte (’30 Rock’), Maxine Peake (‘Shameless’) and Edward MacLiam (‘Holby City’), and tells the unconventional love story of a happy-go-lucky Irish family and the American neuroscientist who comes to stay with them after the husband suffers a stroke.

After a stroke leaves her husband mentally disabled and fundamentally changed, spirited Irish housewife Vanetia struggles to keep her family together in the wake of tragedy. A research grant from American doctor Ted Fielding, interested in documenting the family’s recovery process, allows them to get by. Though Vanetia initially resents living under Ted’s microscope, she soon finds comfort in his calming presence, while Ted responds to Vanetia’s dynamic, unpredictable personality. As the two explore their bond within their unique situation, a new family begins to emerge.

Directed by Academy Award®-nominee Steph Green and featuring Saturday Night Live star Will Forte in an impressive dramatic debut, this life-affirming film embraces the healing power of love and family in all of its idiosyncratic forms. Run and Jump is an unexpected, unconventional romance, intimate family portrait and emotional journey of recovery that ultimately uplifts through its heartfelt message of human connection and the power of acceptance. via Tribeca Film Festival

http://youtu.be/xrM5BfJehfE

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Indie Sci-Fi COHERENCE Headed to Theaters in 2014 | WATCH Trailer

James Byrkit’s feature directorial debut, COHERENCE, which had its world premiere at 2013 Fantastic Fest in Austin, where it won the Next Wave Best Screenplay award, and has since gone on to play the Sitges Film Festival (where it again took home the Best Screenplay prize) and the Philadelphia Film Festival, will continue to play at festivals in the coming months on its way to a traditional theatrical release in 2014 by Oscilloscope Laboratories.

On the night that Miller’s comet is supposed to pass near the Earth, a group of old friends get together for dinner at the home of hosts Lee and Mike. Lee works for Skype while Mike is an actor, desperately trying to find new roles and hoping he didn’t peak with his appearance as a series regular on the TV series “Roswell.” They are joined by power couple Hugh and Beth, each with very different perspectives on science and reality. Then there’s Emily and Kevin, still figuring each other out. Em is passionate and creative but worried about making the wrong move, while Kevin is a go-getter, chasing what he wants. Finally there’s Amir, the lovable bachelor with his squeeze-of-the-week Laurie, a confident vixen who just happens to have a steamy past with Kevin. Dinner is cut short when the lights go out across the neighborhood, leaving only one strange house with power down the street.

What starts as a simple dinner party, quickly turns into a sci-fi meltdown. When Hugh and Amir come back from checking out the illuminated house, Hugh is bleeding from the head and Amir is carrying a locked metal box. While the group tries to decipher the meaning of the box and its contents, tension rises and emotions get heated. Another party is dispatched to the strange house only to discover an even stranger phenomenon.

COHERENCE is cerebral low-budget sci-fi that dives headfirst into a pool of quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. It’s a tightly focused, intimately shot film that quickly ratchets up the tension and mystery. COHERENCE is relationship drama turned on its head, giving you plenty to think about without spoon-feeding you any answers. via 2013 Fantastic Fest

http://youtu.be/e7cQ_FG4b58
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Documentary “WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL?” Sets U.S. Spring 2014 Release Date | WATCH Clip

Marc Silver’s documentary “WHO IS DAYANI CRISTAL?”, winner of 2013 Sundance Film Festival cinematography award and an official selection at 2013 New York Film Festival, will be released in the U.S in Spring 2004 by Kino Lorber. The body of an unidentified immigrant is found in the Arizona Desert. In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.

Following a team of dedicated staff from the Pima County Morgue in Arizona, director Marc Silver seeks to answer these questions and give this anonymous man an identity. As the forensic investigation unfolds, Mexican actor and activist Gael Garcia Bernal retraces this man’s steps along the migrant trail in Central America. In an effort to understand what it must have felt like to make this final journey, he embeds himself among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border. He experiences first-hand the dangers they face and learns of their motivations, hopes and fears. As we travel north, these voices from the other side of the border wall give us a rare insight into the human stories which are so often ignored in the immigration debate.

Who Is Dayani Cristal? tells the story of a migrant who found himself in the deadly stretch of desert known as “the corridor of death” and shows how one life becomes testimony to the tragic results of the U.S. war on immigration. As the real-life drama unfolds we see this John Doe, denied an identity at his point of death, become a living and breathing human being with an important life story.

http://youtu.be/RdJQWmvtmqQ

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Documentary HERBLOCK: THE BLACK & THE WHITE to Debut on HBO in January 2014 | TRAILER

HERBLOCK: THE BLACK & THE WHITE, directed by Michael Stevens (HBO’s “Thurgood”) will debut Monday, January 27, 2014 on HBO. The film traces the life of Herbert L. Block, who started cartooning in his teens in Chicago and went on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his 55 years at the Washington Post.

“Michael and I are happy that this film has found a home at HBO, where Herblock’s remarkable story will be presented to a new generation of viewers,” says George Stevens.

“This is the story of a courageous journalist who stood ready to take on the big guys on behalf of the little guy,” says Michael Stevens. “He stood for fairness and justice and was unafraid to challenge Senator Joe McCarthy, expose Nixon’s duplicity in Watergate, or attack corruption in government or the corrosive influence of money in politics.”

HERBLOCK traces the life of Herbert L. Block, who started cartooning in his teens in Chicago and went on to win four Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his 55 years at the Washington Post. For the better part of the 20th century, his cartoons were a must read for those in Washington and Syndicated across the country. The film features interviews with political and journalism luminaries such as Ted Koppel, David Brooks, Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, Jules Feiffer, Tom Friedman and Bob Schieffer, as well as comedians Lewis Black and Jon Stewart, who describes Block as a “touchstone” for political comics and satirists today.

The documentary journeys through Block’s career as his cartoons comment on everything from World War II, the Red Scare and the fight for Civil Rights, to Vietnam and Watergate and the conflicted media world of today, concluding with an unexpected end to the journey of the cartoonist-journalist known to millions as simply Herblock.

http://youtu.be/J3fTy8S6Jmc
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“Dog Day Afternoon” Documentary Sets Summer 2014 Release Date | TRAILER

THE DOG, directed by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren, which premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival is set to be released in Summer 2014 by Drafthouse Films and Cinedigm. THE DOG is described as a documentary portrait of the late John Wojtowicz, whose attempted robbery of a Brooklyn bank to finance his male lover’s sex-reassignment surgery was the real-life inspiration for the classic Al Pacino film “Dog Day Afternoon”.

THE DOG is a feature-length documentary about John Wojtowicz, the real-life bank robber behind the film Dog Day Afternoon. In August 1972, John robbed a bank in Brooklyn to pay for the sex-change operation of his lover, Ernie. Things didn’t go as planned, and as John and his collaborator Sal Naturile tried to leave the bank with the loot, they found themselves surrounded by the New York City Police Department, the FBI, and hundreds of spectators. What was supposed to last only a few minutes became a 14-hour standoff, involving 9 hostages and unfolding live on television. The story would later reach an even broader audience through Al Pacino’s unforgettable performance in Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 film.

The documentary, THE DOG, is John Wojtowicz’s own account of what happened that day, of his relationship with his lover, Ernest Aron — and so much more. This is John Wojtowicz, an unforgettable, larger-than-life character, telling his life story in his own words. Through John’s personal photographs and letters, as well as incredible archival footage of the actual bank robbery and the day’s aftermath, the film reveals an outrageous, unapologetic, hilarious and perplexing man who chose to live his life by his own rules, for better or for worse.

Reality and fiction, celebrity and infamy, memoir and myth — the lines get blurred as John Wojtowicz entertains us, offends us, and enthralls us by sharing the tales of his unusual life.

http://youtu.be/9hFg-_SESpo

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Watch TRAILER for Indie Horror Film ALICE D

ALICE D, the indie horror film written and directed by Jessica Sonneborn released the official trailer. Who is Alice D? In the early 1900’s the Davenport House was a famous and successful brothel, until a young prostitute named Alice died there. After her death, the brothel became haunted by young Alice’s ghost, and was eventually abandoned.

One hundred years later, the old structure is renovated into a beautiful mansion. It is still rumored to inhabit the ghost of Alice, but that doesn’t stop the new owner; the young and arrogant heir to the Davenport fortune, from throwing a wild party during his first night at the house.

ALICE D stars Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th), Al Snow (WWE wrestler), Juan Riedinger (Jennifer’s Body), Eliza Swenson (Dorothy and the Witches of Oz), Chanel Ryan (Bad Kids Go to Hell), Michael Reed (Exhumed), Sarah Nicklin (The Disco Exorcist), Julianne Tura (Bloody Bloody Bible Camp), Megan Hensley (The Crazies), Aaron Massey (On a Dark Stormy Night), Barry Ratcliffe (Army Wives), Deborah Venegas ( Bloody Bloody Bible Camp), Nick Apostolides (The Witching Hour) and Kaylee Signore (The House Across the Street).

http://youtu.be/cXgcL4tn5ng

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Watch TRAILER for Action Packed Horror Film RUN LIKE HELL

Check out the awesome trailer for the horror film RUN LIKE HELL, the first film from director James Thomas of Two Guys and a Film. The film centers on Luke, Maggie, Dan, and Sam, two young married couples in the middle of a cross-country road trip, when they are sidetracked in the desert town of Spaulding. Their car is stolen, prompting them to be taken in by local residents Harold and Nancy. What starts as a place to rest their heads and regroup turns into a fight for their lives, utilizing any and all attempts to Run Like Hell.

“Run Like Hell is an action-packed horror film that will make you question taking that next road trip. The film shows the gritty side of humanity and has an eerie realism to it that makes you wonder if this type of thing actually happens. An interesting point we make in the film is that horrifying things don’t only happen at night or when no one is looking. They can be happening all around us, at any moment. Sometimes people we would call normal can even do them. And that is what makes them frightening.” – James Thomas, director

http://youtu.be/n1OCK2ADARA

via DreadCentral
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Watch TRAILER for Pakistani Street Children Documentary THESE BIRDS WALK

THESE BIRDS WALK directed by Omar Mullick and Bassam Tariq, documents the struggles of street children in Karachi, Pakistan, and the samaritans looking out for them. The film which had its world premiere at the 2013 True/False Film Festival and an Official Selection at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival and hot DOCS Canadian international documentary film festival, opened at the Village East Cinema in New York City on Friday November 1, 2013, with other cities to follow.

In Karachi, Pakistan, a runaway boy’s life hangs on one critical question: where is home? The streets, an orphanage, or with the family he fled in the first place? Simultaneously heart-wrenching and life-affirming, THESE BIRDS WALK documents the struggles of these wayward street children and the samaritans looking out for them in this ethereal and inspirational story of resilience.

Now playing – Village East Cinema, New York, NY
11/08/2013 – Hippodrome, Gainesville, FL
11/08/2013 – Roxy, Missoula, MT
11/29/2013 – Laemmle Music Hall Los Angeles, CA

http://youtu.be/UaLSrOvHo_Q
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WHOOPI GOLDBERG PRESENTS MOMS MABLEY Documentary to Debut on HBO in November 2013 | SEE Clip

Whoopi Goldberg’s directorial film debut, and homage to the iconic African-American standup comedienne Jackie “Moms” Mabley, WHOOPI GOLDBERG PRESENTS MOMS MABLEY is set to debut on HBO on MONDAY, November. 18, 2013 (9:00-10:15 p.m. ET/PT).

Other HBO playdates: Nov. 18 (4:45 a.m.), 21 (1:45 p.m.), 24 (5:45 p.m.), 26 (11:15 a.m.) and 30 (1:30 p.m.). HBO2 playdates: Nov. 20 (8:00 p.m.) and 28 (3:00 p.m.), and Dec. 24 (4:45 p.m.).

“Moms Mabley has been a huge inspiration to me and so many others, but not a lot of folks outside of the comedy world know about her legacy,” says Goldberg. “There are a lot of us who wouldn’t be working today without pioneers like her. HBO gave me my first break on TV, so it’s only fitting that Moms has a home there now.”

Featuring recently unearthed photographs, rediscovered performance footage and the words of entertainers and historians, the film includes interviews with Eddie Murphy, Joan Rivers, Sidney Poitier, Kathy Griffin, Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby, Quincy Jones, Arsenio Hall, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, who emphasize how Mabley paved the way for female comedians and performers everywhere in provocative stand-up routines that challenged racism, sexism and ageism.

In addition, archival footage showcases Mabley in performance at the Playboy Mansion with Sammy Davis, Jr., and on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”

Born Loretta Mary Aiken in Brevard, NC on March 19, 1894, Jackie “Moms” Mabley was one of the most successful entertainers to perform on the black vaudeville stage, also known as the “chitlin’ circuit.” Mabley’s monologues touched on traditional topics such as family, as well as more controversial subjects that were typically avoided by comedians of the era, regardless of race, including infidelity, poverty, welfare and alcohol.

Mabley’s successful career spanned five decades (though white audiences generally did not learn of her until the early 1960s). In 1939, she became the first female comedian to play the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where she earned $10,000 a week at the peak of her career. Mabley performed at Carnegie Hall in 1962, and appeared on such mainstream TV programs as “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” (1967), “The Ed Sullivan Show” (1969) and “The Bill Cosby Show” (1970).

Jackie “Moms” Mabley passed away from heart failure at age 81 on May 23, 1975 in White Plains, NY. She was survived by her children, Bonnie, Christine, Charles and Yvonne Ailey.

http://youtu.be/_Av5MkVfdLY
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Roman Polanski & Director Frank Simon’s WEEKEND OF A CHAMPION, Gets A November 2013 Release Date | TRAILER

Frank Simon’s documentary WEEKEND OF A CHAMPION, described as an entertaining vérité look at world champion driver Sir Jackie Stewart as Roman Polanski follows his attempt to win the Monaco Grand Prix will be released in the US by Submarine Deluxe. WEEKEND OF A CHAMPION which had its world premiere at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival, will be released theatrically across the country beginning November 22ndin NYC, with a nationwide rollout to follow.

In 1971, Motor Racing fan Roman Polanski spent a weekend with world champion driver Sir Jackie Stewart as he attempted to win the Monaco Grand Prix. Polanski was given intimate access to Stewart’s world for three days, both on the track and off. The result is an extraordinarily rare glimpse into the life of a gifted athlete at the height of his powers.

Forty years on, Polanski and Stewart meet once again. In a remarkable post-script, they discuss the sport, both past and present, with a unique and unmatched perspective.

Presented by Brett Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment’s documentary arm Rat Documentary Films, who first acquired and restored the film, WEEKEND OF A CHAMPION will also be released later on Netflix after its theatrical run.

http://youtu.be/8DeQcpcV_R8
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