It all comes through in a large format biopic fitting for the legendary impact of an artist who fiercely insisted that the music and the message were the same. And his raw vocals about peace, love, and understanding (channeled without cynicism), remain the best way to experience him.
I have worked film sets with hundreds of people on set at a time, but I enjoy intimate productions much more. The ability to craft a film with only a small number of cast and crew can be very stressful and limiting but has the payoff of being more nimble and able to adapt to changes quickly, as was the case with the following filmmakers.
In exploring their motivations as filmmakers, Jonathan Robert Andrus described his unique focus on the filmmaking process itself, particularly enjoying the on-set experience and interaction with diverse individuals.
Looking back, the filmmakers acknowledged areas where they might have made different choices, with Andrus expressing a desire for more efficient planning and different prioritization of shots. However, the overall sentiment was one of learning and growth.
To be clear, making a documentary film about Emerson is a tough assignment. Filmmaking is storytelling through the use of moving images. How do you make a film about someone whose primary reason for living was thinking?
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The Stranger I Love is an independent British film. It is an important film about PARENTAL ALIENATION AND is still open for funding to help us take it out to as many international film festivals as possible.
I wrote this film based on personal experience of having my only son coerced away from me in 2019, and then the added trauma of navigating family court alone and trying to make them see that a child suddenly and vehemently turning against their loving, safe parent is not normal but and due to manipulation from the other parent.
After researching and trying to find answers, I was shocked (and strangely comforted in a way), to learn that Parental Alienation which is the name given to the coercive control of a child, is a global issue affecting millions of mothers and fathers in every country across the world.
I began writing a screenplay, whilst alone in lockdown and fighting for my son in court - the worst time of my life. Two and a half years later, and after seventeen drafts I raised finance to assemble my crew and shot the film in September 2023 with an experienced cast and crew. I played the lead which was the most challenging role of my life, re-living very upsetting moments in time, I also produced the film which is the hardest job I've ever done and a real baptism of fire!
The film is made, it is in post production currently and we have crowdfunded to help with the costs involved, this money is helping so much, but if we are to get the exposure we need to raise awareness about this psychological child abuse being allowed to continue unpunished, we must submit to as many international film festivals as possible. This costs a lot, as well as marketing and publicity to get the film and myself out into the media.
If you would like to find out more about how filming went and see some behind-the-scenes photos and videos and learn more about the cast and crew, please click the link and if you are able to donate anything you can spare we would be so grateful. If you doubt the power of film, let's remember the effect 'Mr Bates v The Post Office' (ITV Drama) had recently and how the government actually sat up and took notice!
Instead of reviewing "For Love of Ivy," I would like to write something about how it should be reviewed. I find this an interesting question, since I suspect I've missed the point of Sidney Poitier's recent films.
"For Love of Ivy" is a warm and delightful comedy. It isn't exactly a masterpiece, but it is well made and I enjoyed it. So did the audience. If it starred Cary Grant and Doris Day, that would probably be the essence of the review. But it doesn't. It stars Sidney Poitier as a trucking tycoon, and Abbey Lincoln, as the maid he falls in love with.
Because the two central characters are black, I found myself asking all kinds of ideological questions: Is the movie "honest"? How does it portray the racial situation in America? Does it sell out? Does it deal in stereotypes? Does Poitier play another impossibly noble character?
This is the mental routine movie critics seem to go through whenever a Poitier movie opens. Since Poitier is an authentic superstar (and possibly today's top box-office draw), all sorts of moralists try to advise him on whether he's doing his duty, whatever that is. Usually they decide that Poitier movies ignore the racial crisis and paint an unrealistically rosy picture of black-white relations.
I think this criticism misses the point, and may even be a sort of triple-reverse racism. You have to begin by realizing that all movies are dishonest, just because they're fiction. Comedies are especially dishonest: They depend upon artificial situations and stereotyped characters, and you laugh when the guy in the baggy pants slips on a banana peel (even though you have never, ever, seen anybody slip on a banana peel).
Hollywood comedies, as everybody knows, paint a totally unrealistic picture of life. Go see Doris Day in "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?" Or Dean Martin in "How to Save A Marriage and Ruin Your Life." Do all Americans live in ranch homes in Connecticut and fancy split-level bachelor pads, like Doris and Dean? Not quite; they sit on the back porch with a can of beer, feeling like a slob and wishing it weren't so hot. Even the so-called "serious" comedies like "The Graduate" paint an unreal America. They make a relevant point, but through exaggeration, not reality.
Anyhow, we usually get along without finding it necessary to point out the basic dishonesty of movie comedies. But then "For Love of Ivy" comes along and everybody jumps on Sidney Poitier for wearing a tuxedo to dinner.
To which I say: Nuts. "For Love of Ivy" is the first-the very first-movie to use Negro actors in the same situations that Rock Hudson and Sandra Dee and the gang have been playing for years. So all of a sudden we discover comedies don't show life the way it really is. Big deal.
Anyway, "For Love of Ivy" is a delightful movie, as I began by saying. Miss Lincoln is charming; her smile illuminates the screen. Beau Bridges, as the hippie kid who plays matchmaker, has a canny sense of comic timing, and was an audience favorite.
"Ivy" is a movie you can enjoy-and for that I think we should thank Poitier. He wrote the story, and it is a good deal more "honest" than "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." This time Poitier stays for breakfast, and it's about time.
Love is a 2015 erotic drama art film[5] written and directed by Gaspar No.[6] The film marked No's fourth directorial venture after a gap of six years. It had its premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and was released in 3D. The film is notable for its unsimulated sex scenes. The film received mixed reviews.
Murphy (Karl Glusman) is an American film student living in Paris. On a rainy January morning, he receives a call at the small apartment he shares with Danish partner Omi (Klara Kristin) and their 18-month-old son, Gaspar. The surprise visitor is Nora, the mother of his ex-girlfriend Electra (Aomi Muyock), who asks if Murphy knows of her daughter's whereabouts. She hasn't heard from Electra in three months, and is worried, given her issues with depression and previous suicide attempts.
For the rest of this day, Murphy recalls his relationship with Electra in a series of fragmented, nonlinear flashbacks. They depict their first meeting; their quick hook-up; and their lives over the next two years, which are filled with drug abuse, rough sex, and tender moments. Murphy and Electra eventually met and had a no-strings-attached threesome with Omi, then a young adolescent, as a way to add some excitement to their love life.
However, Murphy continued his sexual relationship with Omi, without Electra's knowledge. This eventually resulted in an unplanned pregnancy, due to a broken condom. Omi refused to terminate the pregnancy, as she was against abortion. Admitting the truth to Electra ultimately ended her and Murphy's relationship, leading to the present-day set up of Murphy and Omi raising the child together. Electra's whereabouts and ultimate fate are left unresolved at the end of the film.
Gaspar No said that some of the sex scenes in the film are real while others are simulated. The director also preferred not to reveal which ones were simulated and leave the possibility to the spectators to detect the true from the false. "I think the experience of sex should be represented in all its power - instead of being caricatured as it is too often", he explained before specifying that he also did according to wants and needs of the actors: "I also composed with the limits of the actors. For Karl Glusman (Murphy), the representation of ejaculation was done in a natural way; actresses experience this differently and I respected their limits."[16]
Love was selected to be screened out of competition in the Midnight Screenings section at the 68th Cannes Film Festival,[17] where it had its world premiere on 20 May 2015.[18] The week before its debut at Cannes, the film's U.S. distribution rights were acquired by Alchemy.[19][20] It was selected to be screened in the Vanguard section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.[21] The film also screened in The International Film Festival of Kerala, held in Thiruvananthapuram, India.[22]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 42% with an average rating of 5.1/10, based on 96 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads: "Love sees writer-director Gaspar No delivering some of his warmest and most personal work; unfortunately, it's also among his most undeveloped and least compelling."[24] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[25]
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