Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Farewell My Concubine (1993) is playing on Mubi May 22 - June 21, 2016 in the United States.Farewell My Concubine, the Cannes-winning, Oscar-nominated, internationally-heralded 1993 film from director Chen Kaige, is quite the busy movie. Extensive in its meticulous depiction of Chinese history, the film charts the tumultuous course of the country from 1924 to 1977, including the ups and downs of political strife, the correspondingly fluctuating social conditions, and the general upheaval brought forth by 20th century modernity. With this as its framework, and with such large-scale concerns seeping into the primary narrative one minute and delicately fading away the next, the film is all the while essentially focused on two people, actors Douzi and Shitou. From their first encounter as young boys training for the Peking Opera, to their maturation on and off the stage as full-fledged stars and complex human beings, to a seemingly sedate middle-age conclusion,...
- 5/18/2016
- MUBI
Plus! This Friday, HollywoodChicago.com will award advance-screening movie tix to “The Bourne Legacy” In Person at the Hard Rock Cafe’s Lollapalooza after party featuring Lolla headliner Moon Taxi plus The Lauren Wolf Band and The Bears of Blue River! Details Are Here!
Chicago – In our latest edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have two prize packs up for grabs to the new Sundance Selects film “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” on Ai Weiwei: one of China’s most famous artists and activists! The film opens in Chicago on Aug. 3, 2012.
One winner scores a T-shirt plus a tote bag and the other wins a T-shirt! “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” stars Ai Weiwei, Danqing Chen, Ying Gao, Changwei Gu, Tehching Hsieh, Huang Hung, Yanping Liu, Evan Osnos, Inserk Yang and Zuzhou Zuoxiao from writer and director Alison Klayman.
To win your free “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” prize pack courtesy of HollywoodChicago.
Chicago – In our latest edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have two prize packs up for grabs to the new Sundance Selects film “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” on Ai Weiwei: one of China’s most famous artists and activists! The film opens in Chicago on Aug. 3, 2012.
One winner scores a T-shirt plus a tote bag and the other wins a T-shirt! “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” stars Ai Weiwei, Danqing Chen, Ying Gao, Changwei Gu, Tehching Hsieh, Huang Hung, Yanping Liu, Evan Osnos, Inserk Yang and Zuzhou Zuoxiao from writer and director Alison Klayman.
To win your free “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” prize pack courtesy of HollywoodChicago.
- 8/3/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
HONG KONG -- Gu Chang-Wei's Berlin Silver Bear winner The Peacock has been chosen as the opening film for this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival, which will run March 22-April 6 as part of the eight-event Hong Kong Entertainment Expo, organizers said Thursday. Yamada Yoji's samurai saga The Hidden Blade will be the other film to screen opening night, which will also feature a special gala premiere of JCE Movies' homage to kung fu, House of Fury, by Stephen Fung. A cut in government funding and a last-minute pullout by main sponsor Cathay Pacific has meant a slight downsizing of the program, with the number of films dropping from last year's 260 to 240, with 338 screenings. "But we're very happy with the selection we have now," festival director Peter Tsi said Thursday. "I think it's the best program we've had for some time."...
- 2/25/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Autumn in New York" is a blatantly manipulative tear-jerker that's "sincere" in an antiseptic, pristine way. The theory here -- and not being employed the first time in Hollywood history -- is that when you cast glamorous stars, the pain their characters suffer will hit an audience harder, that viewers will take their calamities more to heart. Suckers for sentimental movies may well embrace "Autumn", but the grindingly mechanical nature of the drama will wear down even those most eager for a good weep.
MGM opened "Autumn" on Friday without benefit of an advance press screening, even though such films are usually critic-proof. Outlook is iffy after the first week, not because of critics but word-of-mouth.
Directing her second film, the accomplished actress Joan Chen does a competent job, and her stars, Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, do not let her down. (The script does.) But if there are tears in any critic's eye, it stems from sadness that Chen, after her breathtakingly unsentimental directorial debut in "Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl", would make a such a misguided film that is not only "Xiu Xiu"'s polar opposite but dishearteningly inert.
Gere plays an aging-well playboy and New York restaurateur who has never met a woman he didn't love -- and leave. Ryder is his "perfect" match: a 22-year-old -- with Ryder playing seven years younger than she is -- guaranteed to be a quickie: She is fatally ill.
There are more than a few jokes about the May-December romance. Ryder's "I collect antiques" is one of the better ones. And much talk -- in fact, downright incessant talk -- about her imminent demise.
Writer Allison Burnett has clearly never heard of subtext. Every scene is right on the money with characters verbalizing their every thought. And the film's father-confessor-cum-bartender, Anthony LaPaglia, neatly sums up the central relationship: "Maybe it makes a sick girl happy and a desperate man think."
Gere and Ryder play their scenes together either with giddy passion or somber intensity that makes you want to like the film more than you do. There was probably a solid idea here about a couple freed from the confines of time to explore dimensions of the male-female dynamic seldom probed. But this couple wastes all that precious time with shallow chat.
Cinematographer Changwei Gu's cool colors and gloomy lighting fit the mood, as do Gabriel Yared's wistful melodies. All production values are first rate.
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
MGM
A Lakeshore Entertainment and
Gary Lucchesi/Amy Robinson production
Producers: Amy Robinson, Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg
Director: Joan Chen
Writer: Allison Burnett
Executive producers: Ted Tannebaum, Ron Bozman
Director of photography: Changwei Gu
Production designer: Mark Friedberg
Music: Gabriel Yared
Co-producer: Andre Lamal
Costume designer: Carol Oditz
Editor: Ruby Yang
Color/stereo
Cast:
Will: Richard Gere
Charlotte: Winona Ryder
John: Anthony LaPaglia
Dolly: Elaine Stritch
Lisa: Vera Farmiga
Sarah: Sherry Stringfield
Dr. Sibley: Mary Beth Hurt
Running time -- 105 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
MGM opened "Autumn" on Friday without benefit of an advance press screening, even though such films are usually critic-proof. Outlook is iffy after the first week, not because of critics but word-of-mouth.
Directing her second film, the accomplished actress Joan Chen does a competent job, and her stars, Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, do not let her down. (The script does.) But if there are tears in any critic's eye, it stems from sadness that Chen, after her breathtakingly unsentimental directorial debut in "Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl", would make a such a misguided film that is not only "Xiu Xiu"'s polar opposite but dishearteningly inert.
Gere plays an aging-well playboy and New York restaurateur who has never met a woman he didn't love -- and leave. Ryder is his "perfect" match: a 22-year-old -- with Ryder playing seven years younger than she is -- guaranteed to be a quickie: She is fatally ill.
There are more than a few jokes about the May-December romance. Ryder's "I collect antiques" is one of the better ones. And much talk -- in fact, downright incessant talk -- about her imminent demise.
Writer Allison Burnett has clearly never heard of subtext. Every scene is right on the money with characters verbalizing their every thought. And the film's father-confessor-cum-bartender, Anthony LaPaglia, neatly sums up the central relationship: "Maybe it makes a sick girl happy and a desperate man think."
Gere and Ryder play their scenes together either with giddy passion or somber intensity that makes you want to like the film more than you do. There was probably a solid idea here about a couple freed from the confines of time to explore dimensions of the male-female dynamic seldom probed. But this couple wastes all that precious time with shallow chat.
Cinematographer Changwei Gu's cool colors and gloomy lighting fit the mood, as do Gabriel Yared's wistful melodies. All production values are first rate.
AUTUMN IN NEW YORK
MGM
A Lakeshore Entertainment and
Gary Lucchesi/Amy Robinson production
Producers: Amy Robinson, Gary Lucchesi, Tom Rosenberg
Director: Joan Chen
Writer: Allison Burnett
Executive producers: Ted Tannebaum, Ron Bozman
Director of photography: Changwei Gu
Production designer: Mark Friedberg
Music: Gabriel Yared
Co-producer: Andre Lamal
Costume designer: Carol Oditz
Editor: Ruby Yang
Color/stereo
Cast:
Will: Richard Gere
Charlotte: Winona Ryder
John: Anthony LaPaglia
Dolly: Elaine Stritch
Lisa: Vera Farmiga
Sarah: Sherry Stringfield
Dr. Sibley: Mary Beth Hurt
Running time -- 105 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 8/14/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Fans of David Rabe's controversial play from the 1980s will find special delight in this well-framed, finely acted adaptation from Fine Line Features.
Featuring superb lead performances from Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey and tight direction from Anthony Drazan, "Hurlyburly" should win recognition on the art house circuit. Penn won a deserved best actor honor from the Venice International Film Festival this year for his edgy, contained performance.
Those who may took in the play at the Westwood Playhouse in the '80s will remember it is set in Malibu at the abode of motion picture casting agents Eddie (Penn) and Mickey (Spacey). They're a fractured duo; both are compulsive and cynical and tend to treat people cavalierly and with no small amount of malice. That mendacious tendency, spurred by boozing and drug use, makes them a particularly lethal pair.
Eddie's hostility, in particular, carries over to his personal life, where he emotionally terrorizes the women he knows. At the moment, he's paired with a saucy player named Darlene Robin Wright Penn), whose detached sensibility and survival instincts jar Eddie -- she pretty much behaves as a man, tossing aside the opposite sex as tartly as any Hollywood womanizer.
Naturally, Rabe's acerbic, colorful writing is the highlight of this production. His verbiage is consistently assaultive as the characters thrash out the emptiness in their lives through hedonistic, self-absorbed behavior. The rhythm of the dialogue, counterpointing Eddie's aggressive posturing with Mickey's sardonic aloofness, fleshes out the inner despair these hollow men experience.
The players form a terrific ensemble. Bolstering Penn's central performance in particular is Spacey, who oozes comic cynicism and despair. With his hair dyed a bottled blond and wearing tight-ass suits, we are clued to the conflicts that surge beneath this man's guarded veneer. Chazz Palminteri is similarly strong as the addled screw-up of the bunch, a man so out of touch that he's always on the edge in this steep Mulholland Drive setting. Garry Shandling is convincing as a hanger-on, whose insecurities make him all too willing to please.
Meg Ryan does a smart and somewhat startling turn as a no-holds-barred woman of the evening, and Anna Paquin is moving as a runaway who holes up in this alpha-male lair.
Special praise to Drazan, not only for his work with the superb players but for his succinct visualization of the stage play. In particular, production designer Michael Haller's sharp-edged, metallic look clues us to the harsh coldness of this dissipated world, and cinematographer Changwei Gu's herky-jerky thrusts are perfectly aligned with this "Hurlyburly" world.
HURLYBURLY
Fine Line Features
Producers: Anthony Drazan,
Richard N. Gladstein, David S. Hamburger
Director: Anthony Drazan
Screenwriter: David Rabe
Executive producers: H. Michael Heuser,
Frederick Zollo Nicholas Paleologos,
Carl Colpaert
Director of photography: Changwei Gu
Editor: Dylan Tichenor
Music: David Baerwald, Steve Lindsey
Production designer: Michael Haller
Costume designer: Mary Claire Hannan
Color/stereo
Cast:
Eddie: Sean Penn
Mickey: Kevin Spacey
Darlene: Robin Wright Penn
Phil: Chazz Palminteri
Artie: Garry Shandling
Donna: Anna Paquin
Bonnie: Meg Ryan
Running time - 92 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Featuring superb lead performances from Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey and tight direction from Anthony Drazan, "Hurlyburly" should win recognition on the art house circuit. Penn won a deserved best actor honor from the Venice International Film Festival this year for his edgy, contained performance.
Those who may took in the play at the Westwood Playhouse in the '80s will remember it is set in Malibu at the abode of motion picture casting agents Eddie (Penn) and Mickey (Spacey). They're a fractured duo; both are compulsive and cynical and tend to treat people cavalierly and with no small amount of malice. That mendacious tendency, spurred by boozing and drug use, makes them a particularly lethal pair.
Eddie's hostility, in particular, carries over to his personal life, where he emotionally terrorizes the women he knows. At the moment, he's paired with a saucy player named Darlene Robin Wright Penn), whose detached sensibility and survival instincts jar Eddie -- she pretty much behaves as a man, tossing aside the opposite sex as tartly as any Hollywood womanizer.
Naturally, Rabe's acerbic, colorful writing is the highlight of this production. His verbiage is consistently assaultive as the characters thrash out the emptiness in their lives through hedonistic, self-absorbed behavior. The rhythm of the dialogue, counterpointing Eddie's aggressive posturing with Mickey's sardonic aloofness, fleshes out the inner despair these hollow men experience.
The players form a terrific ensemble. Bolstering Penn's central performance in particular is Spacey, who oozes comic cynicism and despair. With his hair dyed a bottled blond and wearing tight-ass suits, we are clued to the conflicts that surge beneath this man's guarded veneer. Chazz Palminteri is similarly strong as the addled screw-up of the bunch, a man so out of touch that he's always on the edge in this steep Mulholland Drive setting. Garry Shandling is convincing as a hanger-on, whose insecurities make him all too willing to please.
Meg Ryan does a smart and somewhat startling turn as a no-holds-barred woman of the evening, and Anna Paquin is moving as a runaway who holes up in this alpha-male lair.
Special praise to Drazan, not only for his work with the superb players but for his succinct visualization of the stage play. In particular, production designer Michael Haller's sharp-edged, metallic look clues us to the harsh coldness of this dissipated world, and cinematographer Changwei Gu's herky-jerky thrusts are perfectly aligned with this "Hurlyburly" world.
HURLYBURLY
Fine Line Features
Producers: Anthony Drazan,
Richard N. Gladstein, David S. Hamburger
Director: Anthony Drazan
Screenwriter: David Rabe
Executive producers: H. Michael Heuser,
Frederick Zollo Nicholas Paleologos,
Carl Colpaert
Director of photography: Changwei Gu
Editor: Dylan Tichenor
Music: David Baerwald, Steve Lindsey
Production designer: Michael Haller
Costume designer: Mary Claire Hannan
Color/stereo
Cast:
Eddie: Sean Penn
Mickey: Kevin Spacey
Darlene: Robin Wright Penn
Phil: Chazz Palminteri
Artie: Garry Shandling
Donna: Anna Paquin
Bonnie: Meg Ryan
Running time - 92 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 12/24/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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