On Tuesday July 21 Apothic Wines and SVEDKA Vodka teamed up to fuel the Los Angeles premiere of A24 and DIRECTV’s new film Dark Places.
When Syrian blogger Amina Arraf is reportedly kidnapped, her girlfriend Sandra Bagaria searches the world for her, only to find that the truth she seeks is more complicated than it seems.
The Knockturnal was on the scene for the documentary screening of “Meru”
The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens will be hosting its eleventh Rural Route Film Festival from July 24-26.
“Strangerland,” the story of two parents looking for their missing children in the Australian desert, loses its audience.
Actress and model Natalie Martinez speaks to The Knockturnal about her upcoming lead role in the sci-fi thriller “Self/less” during roundtable interviews.
Director Bong Joon Ho’s new film “Snowpiercer,” hits theaters today on June 27, 2014 and Examiner.com had the opportunity to see the film at a special screening at MoMA. Seventeen years after the Earth has frozen over with the last of humanity confined to a train, a hero emerges to take down the destructive world order put forth where classism is the key to keeping the train alive. Deemed the Steven Spielberg of this generation, Director Bong Joon Ho is infectious in his first English speaking film.
After years of ill-treatment of the tail end passengers, a final revolt is carried out aboard the locomotive in order to overthrow the conductor who resides at the head. In a fight to the finish between the powerless vs. power, lives are sacrificed for the greater good of mankind. And while traveling the different sections of the 20 car train – Snowpiercer, things begin to become clearer as to why a balance of chaos vs. order, anxiety vs. happiness, and the rich vs. the poor must remain in order for the human race to prevail. With distribution in over 150 countries, the film has finally made its official U.S. debut today.
Knockturnal.com did get the chance to exchange words with the creator and writer of the film Bong Joon Ho and Kelly Masterson. Read our exclusive interviews below:
Bong Joon Ho is the Director/Creator. We spoke with him via an interpreter.
Q: What were the themes in the French Graphic Novel, “Le Transperceneige” that inspired you to create “Snowpiercer”?
The original concept of the graphic novel that it takes all inside of a train, that was exciting. And then of course, inside the train are humans, the last survivors of mankind. I was driven by their struggles.
Q: “Snowpiercer” being your 1st English Speaking film, what was it like getting such a great cast together?
I feel very fortunate. Having actors like John Hurt who jumped on board very early on, even before there was a script, helped to really build and assemble a great cast. And having such esteemed actors who other actors also respect, helped to gain the interest in the project, and made it easier to put the it all together.
Q: How does it feel to be at the receiving end of all the success that has followed since first premiering the film?
In the movie, the train circles the world and it takes one year to make one revolution, and similarly, the film opened in Korea, then we took it to France, Germany, Italy and Japan, and it took almost a year to get to this point to be finally releasing the film in the US; especially to be here at this moment tonight is a real honor. This is my 307 interview for “Snowpiercer.” (laughs)
Kelly Masterson wrote the screenplay.
Q: How did this collaboration between you and Bong Joon Ho come about?
It was like a stroke of lightning. I never met him, he never met me, he picked up the phone and called me. He’d seen a movie that I’d written that he liked and thought I was the right guy, that was as simple as it was. I knew his work and jumped at the opportunity to work with him.
Q: Explain the process of putting it all together.
It was really very simple and very un-Hollywood. So he called me, we met in LA, we spent a couple days talking about it, I went home and wrote a draft, we would talk every Monday. After like 10 weeks, we had a script and that’s the script he shot. That never happens {laughs}. And the other thing that’s so strange was that I never spoke to anyone else except Bong Joon Ho, no producers, no stars, no money people, nothing, just talking to the creator. He had a clear vision of what he wanted, and my job was to help him create the characters and tell the story that he wanted to tell.
On Tuesday, June 17, 2014 at the Dolby 88 Theater in New York City, theknockturnal.com attended a very special screening. The stories of notorious gangsters have long been a fascination to the general public. We love the entertainment their lives bring to the TV screen, while at the same time hate them for the heinous crimes that they commit.
Magnolia Pictures, CNN Films, RadicalMedia’s
American Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger keenly details the 25 year tenure of legendary Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, the Irish Godfather and his refutable relationship with the FBI in his latest film “Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger,” who up until his capture in 2011, placed second behind Osama Bin Laden on America’s Most Wanted List. The question of innocence was never a question, but whether or not he violated the gangster code by becoming a rat was to be determined. Berlinger and Bulger Defense Attorney Hank Brennan joined in on the screening of the film.
The film chronicles the family members of some of Bulger’s victims as they prepare after 30 years to finally face him at his June 2013 trial, while also examining the probable corrupt dealings of specific Federal Agents whom in essence enabled Bulger to reign terror in Boston during the 1970s-mid 1980s. The known leader of the Winter Hill Gang, Bulger was a vicious thug never afraid to get his hands dirty, a man who carried out his own hits at times, but never received so much as a parking ticket. Attempts to shut down his operation would go unsuccessful due to him being somehow tipped off on various occasions, implicating certain law enforcement agents, therefore opening conversation in regards to an FBI cover-up, and furthermore creating the storyline behind this telling film.
An Oscar-nominated Berlinger stated, “I don’t profess to know if he was an informant, but I think the conventional wisdom that he was an informant and that all of his bad activities were the fault of one bad rogue agent and his supervisor is very difficult to believe. If he was an informant, there was a lot of irregularities.”
In a Tuscon, Arizona prison where he will spend the rest of his days for the 31 out of 32 counts, and 11 out of 19 murders of which he was convicted of, Bulger stands firm in his statements saying he was never paid for any services for being an Informant, he was in fact the one paying off folks. Yes, he is a murderer, a drug dealer, a bank robber, a loanshark, all these bad things, but never can you call him a Rat. With the key members of his team already detained and sentenced from in the late 90s, it would take 16 years after that to finally catch up with him.
These 107 minutes of real life events sheds bright lights on the crooked world of our legal system blatantly caught in the act of aiding the bad guys; something that has been known to occur for years. In theaters June 27, it’s a must see if you ask me.
Yesterday on May 28, 2014, TheKnockturnal.com was on the scene at the New York premiere of HBO’s latest documentary “The Case Against 8” at the Time Warner Center Screening Room. Five years in the making, the film takes a riveting inside look at the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that overturned Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage.
With exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of both the powerhouse legal team of David Boies and Ted Olson and the four plaintiffs in the suit, the documentary is a powerful emotional account of the journey that took the fight for marriage equality all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read our exclusive red carpet interviews below:
Director Ryan White
Q: What was the intension going in to keep this story interesting on camera?
A: We filmed 600 hours of footage over the course of five years, as legal nerds and people who became really entrenched in the lives of the plaintiffs, Kris and Sandy and Paul and Jeff, we thought most of those minutes were really interesting in the end. It was a really big challenge in the editing room to distill a massive five year legal drama into an hour and fifty minutes that makes sense to a non-legal audience at the same time keeping the legal audience happy as well. Going in and out of the personal lives of the plaintiffs while keeping the legal story compelling was the goal.
Q: Now that Prop 8 is out, what are your hopes for the film?
A: The end of the film is very bitter-sweet, we followed Kris and Sandy, Jeff and Paul for five years, and their families as well. So it’s incredibly celebratory to see them reach their fairytale ending after 5 years of trials and tribulations. But the film ends bittersweet with gay marriage still being illegal in 33 states. We hope the film can be an inspiration to the people in those states to start a conversation. We want people to get to know the Plaintiffs in our film and maybe rethink their stance on the issue.
Plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Krier
Q: Can you explain the feeling of being a part of this gripping time of modern history.
A: It feels really important to be a part of group of people that could accomplish something like what we did. The lawyers and the team behind them were all extraordinary and trusting. We weren’t just talking to a judge, we were talking to all of America about why marriage equality matters so that if we did lose, we could maybe open the eyes of other people in America.
Q: After five years, besides your personal gain of being able to marry the one you love, what was your bigger picture of it all?
A: We learned to be disciplined and clear about what we were really in it for which was to repeal Proposition 8. We’ve been able to bring our personal story into the bigger story about how harmful a law is to exclude a group of people based on a characteristic that cannot be changed. We wanted to be a part of that history where things would be corrected.
The film will be in select theaters Friday, June 6 and premieres Monday, June 23 on HBO.
World-renowned journalist, executive producer and narrator, Katie Couric together with Stephanie Soechtig (director) and Laurie David (executive producer) all attended the New York premiere of their new documentary “Fed Up” on May 6, 2014. They brought many influencers to the MoMA. The evening was presented by Aloha.
It’s been almost 30 years since the obesity epidemic started in this country, and if Americans continue on this path, we may just eat ourselves to death. “Fed Up” is more than just a film, but a movement with a powerful message. The film goes beyond the conversation of the effects of fast food, but weighs heavily in on the actual miscreants behind the contagion, and how the food industry has knowingly used these secret weapons to manipulate what we eat for private profit and special interests.
Ninety-two minutes of video diaries, interviews and some undisclosed legislative doctrines was enough to enlist a brilliant army, and remove every sugary, starched, and processed food item out of your pantry. Sugar is equated to a drug six times more addictive than cocaine, a poison to the liver, and a major ingredient to most American food regimens. We have been bamboozled, misled, taken for complete imbeciles. The film says that instead of strategizing on how to handle issues overseas, we ought to be planning the war against our own food industry right here in the US.
With kids as a target, this generation of Americans will face more sicknesses and die younger than our parents, while the food industry just gets richer and richer. There is a whole business behind the fattening of America, even down to the marketing of diet products, the funding of food health research programs by these corporations, and a product placement system in line to entice further bad eating behaviors.
Notables who attended last night’s screening included Jodi Applegate, Jon Cryer, Yaya Dacosta, Claire Danes, Shep Gordon, Adrien Grenier, Dorothy Hamilton, Bridget Moynahan, Arizona Muse, Norah O’Donnell, Suze Orman, Chuck Scarborough, Mary Alice Stephenson, Susan Ungaro and Naomi Wolf. Afterwards guests headed to Venus over Manhattan for a sugar free supper. The menu was inspired by Laurie David’s cookbook entitled “The Family Cooks.”
Catering was done by Mary Giuliani Catering & Events. Light bites included chicken sausage with caramelized onions on cheesy grit cakes, black bean burgers topped with guacamole with wweet potato fries, miso-glazed black cod lettuce wraps, whole grain quesadillas with crunchy cabbage, quinoa cakes with green Goddess aioli, salmon cakes with cucumber yogurt sauce, kale sesame seed salad summer rolls and for dessert guests enjoyed mini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and mini almond cake.
In theaters this Friday May 9, “Fed Up” is an important source to uncovering the facts surrounding our food intake. Tell a friend to tell a friend until the truth is bigger than this widespread.