Did the father of 9-year-old Slumdog Millionaire actress Rubina Ali try to sell her for nearly $300,000? He denies it, while the British tabloids reporting on the story aren’t ever to be trusted. Because it’s so hard to determine who’s telling the truth in this latest Slumdog kids controversy, I’m just going to go ahead and blame Harvey Weinstein, since he’s likely responsible for starting all the inquiries into the child actors’ lives in the first place while Oscar-campaigning for his own Best Picture hopeful (remember, he didn’t deny it). I’m not alleging that he’s spitefully continuing the backlash because his film lost the top award (he’s surely happy enough with the two actress wins), as I’m better off accusing him of actually starting poverty in India. But he’s an oft-dependable scapegoat, so I’ll just keep the finger pointed in his direction. I am going to extend another finger out, though, to Born Into Brothels directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman for also being instrumental in encouraging the saving of specific poor Indian children who were lucky enough to become movie stars.
Anyway, the story may be a non-story, and it may be a waste of time trying to sort it out, but it sure made for some good jokes. The best from the blogs can be found after the jump:
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Zachary Levy’s Strongman, comes to SXSW after recently having won the Grand Jury Award at the Slamdance Film Festival, but an earlier project, through which Levy partially funded the film got a bit more press. In between shooting and editing his documentary, which he calls “a real-life version of La Strada,” Levy and some friends invented Bush Cards, decks of novelty playing cards, each emblazoned with an image of a different member of the George W. Bush administration and a memorable quote and/or factoid. Donald Rumsfeld’s ace of hearts passes along a typical slice of wisdom — “I don’t know what I said but I know what I think, and well, I assume it is what I said” — without comment. The cards got tons of press and sold like hot (yellow) cakes at indie bookstores and Urban Outfitters alike.
Answering The 5 Questions We Ask Everyone, Levy both proposed restructuring film festival submissions to resemble architecture competitions (without, like, actual architecture), and gave big ups to Uncle Buck. That, and the Strongman trailer, after the jump.
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As the hipster kleptomaniac at the center of Josh Safdie’s adorable debut feature The Pleasure of Being Robbed, Eleonore Hendricks steals a lot of things, but mainly the audiences’ hearts. The twentysomething actress, despite her newfound indie cinema fame, still works at the video store Cinema Nolita and binges on way too much Lukas Moodysson. After just wrapping Eric Juhola’s short film The Nowhere Kids (a fictional speculation on Gotham Award nominee and Slamdance winner Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa), Hendricks is getting ready to begin production on Safdie’s new project, Go Get Some Rosemary. In the meantime, I caught up with her to chat about Barbara Loden’s Wanda, her extra special week of moviegoing and why she gave up listening to WFMU. …Read more
