Coraline wins 3 Annies

by Peter Bowen | On February 08 @ 07:02 AM

The 37 annual Annie Award were presented by the International Animated Film Society on Saturday February 6 at UCLA's Royce Hall. While the Pixar megahit Up took away Best Picture, Coraline was congratulated with three major awards: Shane Prigmore won...

USA Today meets the stars of Babies

by Peter Bowen | On February 08 @ 06:48 AM

Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today got to profile four upcoming movie stars: Ponijao, Bayarjargal, Mari, and Hattie––the underage stars of upcoming film Babies. The article looks at the lives, famies and locations of the four babies with...

Mark Ruffalo on The Kids Are Alight

by Peter Bowen | On February 05 @ 12:13 PM

Mark Ruffalo, who stars in the recently acquired Focus film The Kids are Alright, directed by Lisa Cholodenko, has had a quite a year. In addition to staring in Kids, Ruffalo made his directorial debut with Sympathy for Delicious (which appeared in...

Mark Duplass Talks Greenberg, Noah Baumbach & Mumblecore

by Nick Dawson | On February 04 @ 12:12 PM

A Greenberg-centric post at The Playlist blog has pointed us towards an entertaining interview from last summer in which actor-writer-director Mark Duplass, one of the leading figures of the Mumblecore movement, chats with Movieline's Kyle Buchanan about...

LA Times on Oscar's Jewish Themes

by Peter Bowen | On February 04 @ 12:04 PM

In the recent post in Los Angeles Times blog “The Big Picture” entitled “Jews in Oscar films: Are they vile throwbacks to Jewish stereotypes?”, Patrick Goldstein takes up the issues that is being hotly debated in the Jewish...

Ned Vizzini wraps up It’s Kind of A Funny Story

by Peter Bowen | On February 04 @ 07:27 AM

Ned Vizzini is the author of the novel It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which is being adapted into a film by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden for Focus Features. Vizzini has been blogging about the production––and quite a witty blog it...

Beliefnet Believes in A Serious Man

by Peter Bowen | On February 03 @ 10:21 AM

Beliefnet, an all-purpose, all-denomination site for all things spiritual, just announced their nominations for their 2010 Beliefnet Film Awards. We thrilled to see that two Focus films got noms, each in different categories. The Coen brothers’ A...

A Serious Man, Coraline Oscar Nominated

by Peter Bowen | On February 02 @ 05:55 AM

This morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the list of major awards and we proud to announce that both Coraline and A Serious Man were given serious notice. A Serious Man was nominated both for Best Picture (Joel and Ethan...

Focus Features Acquires The Kids Are All Right

by Nick Dawson | On January 29 @ 10:11 AM

Last night, Focus Features announced that it had acquired the distribution rights to writer-director Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival a few days ago. The film, about two teenage children...

Africa First @ Sundance

by Nick Dawson | On January 28 @ 01:58 PM

Three of the short films made by Focus Features' Africa First program winners from 2008 -  are at Sundance - Jenna Bass' The Tunnel, Wanuri Kahiu's Pumzi, and Dyana Gaye's Saint Louis Blues - and indieWIRE's Brian Brooks has a short write-up on...

JAMES MURPHY'S LOS ANGELES

by Scott Macaulay | On January 27 @ 02:42 PM

LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy has done the music for Noah Baumbach's new L.A.-set Greenberg. Whether the L.A. of the movie bled into his new movie or the recording of his new album bled into his film soundtrack no one can conjecture, but as the below...

Gothamist talks to Fred Melamed on A Serious Man

by Peter Bowen | On January 26 @ 10:11 AM

Recently the Gothamist spoke with the character Fred Melamed. In A Serious Man, Melamed plays Sy Abelman, teh overly serene widower who is having affair with Judith Gopnik. It is for him his wife is demating a get, or Jewish divorce. Melamed talks about...

Africa First films at Sundance

by Peter Bowen | On January 25 @ 10:53 AM

Three of last year's Africa First program––Wanuri Kahlu's dystopic sci-fi tale Pumzi, Jenna Bass' work of historical magical realism The Tunnel, and Dyana Gaye's upbeat road-trip musical Saint Louis Blues--have been programmed in a section...

James Schamus feted at Sundance

by Peter Bowen | On January 25 @ 08:56 AM

Last Friday, friends of Focus CEO James Schamus gathered at Cafe Terigo to pay homage to the writer/producer/professor The Hollywood Reporter’s third annual Indie Icon of the Year award. Among those present were the newly appointed Sundance...

Sundance 2010: Dispatch #1

by Scott Macaulay | On January 22 @ 12:47 PM

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. Premiering with a James Franco-starring drama by The Celluloid Closet filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman about Allen Ginsberg’s canonized countercultural poem, ...

9, Coraline and A Serious Man make cut by MPSE

by Peter Bowen | On January 22 @ 12:08 PM

In the latest flurry of award nominations, the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) picked films and television shows for recognition during this years awards. We are happy to see that 9 and Coraline were nominated for Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects,...

President Obama picks Away We Go

by Peter Bowen | On January 22 @ 11:59 AM

In an exclusive interview that People Magazine recently did with the Obamas to celebrate his first year in office, the President and the First Lady let known their favorite movies. The following is the exchange: Mrs. Obama: I liked An Education. And...

Henry Selick is the CAS "Filmmaker of the Year"

by Peter Bowen | On January 21 @ 12:22 PM

Among the many awards that Coraline’s director Henry Selick has received this year, he can add the unique honor of being selected Filmmaker of the Year by the Cinema Audio Society. CAS President Edward L. Moskowitz commented that CAS “is...

BAFTA for Serious Man and Coraline

by Peter Bowen | On January 21 @ 06:44 AM

The Britiish Academy of Film and Television Arts (aka BAFTA) announced their nominataion for the BAFTAs (the British equivalent of the Oscars).  The full list can be found at the BAFTA site, but we're happy to see that both A Serious Man (for...

Hollywood Reporter Talks with James Schamus

by Peter Bowen | On January 20 @ 02:55 PM

Focus CEO James Schamus is being honored this Friday at the Sundance Film Festival as Indie Icon of the Year by the Hollywood Reporter. In preparation, Hollywood Reporter's reporters Matthew Belloni and Stephen Galloway interview him for "Q&A: James...