Story Archives of 'Film'

If you’re in Brattleboro this weekend and you bump into a guy who looks a lot like poet Robert Pinsky, it’s probably really him. He’s one of dozens of accomplished writers gathering in Vermont for the annual Brattleboro Literary Festival.

It’s the seventh year for the event. It includes workshops on historical fiction, nature writing, poetry, children’s books - all the stuff you’d expect at a lit fest. This year, though, the organizers added a new workshop – a session on how to get your book optioned for a film. Some purists might think that’s a bit of a sellout, but in an age of intense competition in the publishing world, getting your story on the big screen is one of the best ways to make all your hard work pay off.

William Akers teaches screenwriting at Vanderbilt University. Three of his screenplays have been turned into movies. He’s author of the book Your Screenplay Sucks: 100 Ways To Make It Great. Suzanne Kingsbury is the author of two books, The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me and The Gospel According to Gracey. Both have been optioned for films. Suzanne and William will both be talking about this topic at this weekends’ Brattleboro Literary Festival.

And, you may see yourself as a film buff, but imagine this herculean task: compiling a list – a very long list, in fact – of 1,000 significant movies for good and bad reasons, and writing a short introduction for each. That’s just what British-born American-based critic David Thomson has done with his new book, Have You Seen?, and it’s full of his unique takes on masterpieces and classics, but also oddities, and some films other critics will regard as just plain boring. The volume is huge: half a million words, and over a thousand pages. He recently visited the BBC The Ticket with Mark Coles.

(Photo by Professor Bop)

Your neighbor, your local cop, your checkout clerk, your grandmother, maybe even you. Millions of people around the world spend countless hours interacting in virtual worlds, playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPG’s.

Seated behind a flickering screen, they can log on to games like World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest, and become idealized version of themselves - the chiseled knight mounted on a bucking steed, or the svelte female warrior, skilled at fighting monsters - online personaes that battle with other players, able to make friends, tell their secrets, even flirt.

It's also a major economic industry. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade earned $96 million in one day. Compare that to the highest one-day gross for a film last year – $60 million. And Blizzard Entertainment, the company that makes World of Warcraft, has an annual gross of $1.2 billion.

A new documentary called Second Skin explores the lives of those people. We meet couples who fall in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts whose lives fall down around them, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, and wealthy online entrepreneurs - all living in a world that doesn't quite exist.

To find out more about this world we’re joined by Second Skin's director, Juan Carlos Pineiro. The film’s New York premiere is set for September 5th. We also hear from Marie Harriman from Antrim, NH. She isn’t able to leave home often due to a disability, and says that playing Second Life allows her to feel less secluded.

Watch the trailer for Second Skin:

Immigration is another hot topic this election season. Senators John McCain and Barack Obama both favor increasing security along the U.S.-Mexican border. But a new documentary film questions the use of the military to patrol the border.

In 1997, U.S. Marines patrolling the border shot and killed Esequiel Hernández Jr., an 18-year-old U.S. citizen and high school student. He was out herding goats with his .22 rifle when the Marines mistook him for a drug smuggler.

It was the first death of an American citizen by active U.S. military since Kent State in 1970. The story of his tragic death and its aftermath is told in a new documentary, "The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández," and the film’s director, Kieran Fitzgerald, joins Word of Mouth with more.

"The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández" premieres nationally on Tuesday, and airs at 11 p.m. on Sunday, July 20 on New Hampshire Public Television.

The success of the 2007 movie Juno represents almost every independent filmmaker’s dream. The breakout hit won an Academy Award and grossed $143 million domestically. Critically, reviewers praised the film’s tone, style, and its trademark quirky dialogue. Juno’s success put industry insiders on the lookout for the next big indie hit. Unfortunately, they’re still looking. Meanwhile, the independent film industry as a whole is suffering – specialty film divisions like Warner Independent Pictures and New Line Cinema have either folded or significantly downsized, and some analysts are expecting a collapse of the business as we know it. Long time indie film executive Mark Gill added much fuel to the fire recently when he presented a doomsday speech entitled “Yes, the Sky Really is Falling”.

Today on Word of Mouth, we talk about the dire situation for indie film with New England Cable News film critic Garen Daly.

(Photo by entro_py)