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Producer Paula Wagner on 'Inception,' 'Avatar' and How Films Get Made

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Dec 15th 2010 12:00PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Features, Cinematical


An award winning producer, and one of Hollywood's most powerful players, Paula Wagner is perhaps best known for her long association with Tom Cruise, having formed Cruise/Wagner Productions with the star in 1993. The company produced many of Cruise's films of the '90s and 2000s, including the 'Mission: Impossible' series, 'Minority Report' and 'War of the Worlds'.

Ms. Wagner began her career as an agent at Creative Artists Agency in LA, where, in addition to Cruise, she represented actors and directors such as Oliver Stone, Demi Moore and Val Kilmer. In 2006 she partnered with Cruise to revive the fortunes of United Artists, leaving two years later to form her own production company, Chestnut Ridge Productions.

In October, Wagner ventured to the Doha Tribeca Film Festival to participate in a panel discussion about the changing face of film distribution. Keen to delve further into the subject, Cinematical caught up with Wagner over the phone earlier this month to learn more.
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Kevin Smith Auctions 'Red State' Poster Premiere for Charity

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Dec 7th 2010 6:30PM
Filed under: Movie News, Cinematical
Another day, another character poster released for Kevin Smith's upcoming indie horror flick 'Red State', which was recently confirmed to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival next month. And, like the 'Virgin' character poster released a couple of days ago, Smith has used his popular Twitter feed to solicit donations for a good cause, this time offering movie sites and blogs a Twitter auction (twuction?) for the rights to an exclusive reveal in exchange for a commitment to pledge money to the Have Faith Haiti Mission. Run by author Mitch Alborn's A Hole in the Roof Foundation, the mission cares for impoverished children and orphans in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

The winning bid, of $2000, was posted by Twitter user @GFBRobot, and will be matched by Smith to make a total donation of $4000. This marks a significant dent in the mission's goal to raise $80,000 before the year's end to take care of their 2011 operating budget. The poster exclusive went to GiantFireBreathingRobot.com. See a bigger version here.
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Sitges Reviews: 'Vanishing on 7th Street', 'Agnosia' & 'Insidious'

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Oct 19th 2010 8:10PM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical, Festivals


' Vanishing on 7th Street'

It's a wonder this film, from director Brad Anderson, isn't based on one of Stephen King's legion of stories. In the best way possible, 'Vanishing on 7th Street' feels like it comes from the curiously twisted mind of that prolific author, creating, as King does, a wonderfully apocalyptic vision of the future set against a backdrop of dark fantasy and the questions of faith.

Which is a fairly weighty way of saying it serves up a post-apocalyptic horror on a grand and highly entertaining scale. Hayden Christensen -- whose performance, per usual, is the only let down of this otherwise well-constructed piece -- plays a TV news reporter who wakes up after a long night to find he's alone in a barren city. It's not long before he works out that darkness itself is claiming victims, and that the light, both natural and otherwise, is quickly being stolen.
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McG to Tell '300'-Style Version of Christopher Columbus Story

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Oct 18th 2010 9:25AM
Filed under: Movie News, Cinematical
It's probably the least likely story you've ever heard, but McG (he of noisy actioners and awful storytelling) has joined with Richard Branson (he of delayed trains and lousy inflight meals) to make a film about the life of Christopher Columbus (he of a penchant for slavery and 'discovering' America).

Entrepreneur Branson, whose Virgin brand is on everything from cola cans to spacecrafts, launched Virgin Produced earlier this year, and picked up this script by T.S. Nowlin - simply titled 'Columbus' - as one of its first acquisitions. Deadline reports that it's a '300'-style retelling of the story of Columbus's discovery of America, which should allow McG to fall back on his familiar staples: silly camera angles and a fondness for post-production color grading.
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Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland': Best Picture Nominee?

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Oct 17th 2010 11:02AM
Filed under: Movie News, Oscar News, Cinematical
With Venice and Toronto distant memories, tongues have been wagging non-stop on the subject of Oscar season hopefuls. There are the obvious choices - 'The King's Speech', 'The Social Network', '127 Hours' - and then there's... 'Alice in Wonderland'.

Deadline reports that Walt Disney are seriously campaigning for their billion-dollar grosser, and are tempting Oscar voters with special screenings of the film, in 3D, in select theatres. The film will run at the Arclight Hollywood and AMC Santa Monica from October 18th to the 21st and will be accompanied by an exhibition of Coleen Atwood's costumes for the flick ... because they don't want to make it too obvious as to which awards they're campaigning for.

Of course, that's where the nominations are likely to go for the film, if they're to go anywhere. Regardless of how 'Alice in Wonderland' turned out as a whole, there's no doubting its technical achievement is pretty impressive. As well as Atwood's costumes, it's in with a shot in both make-up and visual effects categories.
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Sitges Reviews: 'Black Lightning', 'The Reef', 'John Carpenter's The Ward'

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Oct 15th 2010 8:02AM
Filed under: Reviews, Cinematical, Festivals


'Black Lightning'

Timur Bekmambetov is lining up to direct a U.S. remake of this Russian-language blockbuster he produced last year. It's easy to see why: Aside from the subtitles and the Cyrillic script over everything, this is as Hollywood as 'Spider-Man'

But that's the biggest risk for the upcoming remake, because it shares more than just a sense of scale with that origin story. Our Peter Parker, Dima (Grigoriy Dobrygin), is a typical Muscovite teen, enrolled at the university and daydreaming about the new girl in his class. For his birthday, his dad buys him a car, but it's not the souped-up Mercedes he'd been hoping for. Instead, it's a beat-up old Volga that he's embarrassed to take anywhere.
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Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Paul Giamatti: San Sebastian Festival Report

By Joe Utichi (Subscribe to Joe Utichi's posts), Posted Sep 30th 2010 1:03PM
Filed under: Cinematical, Festivals


Few film festivals can boast as many distractions as San Sebastian, in Spain's Basque Country. From the world-class cuisine (several of the world's best restaurants are here - the local McDonald's probably has a Michelin star), to the beautiful beaches and, ahem, sumptuous spas, it seems almost impossible to prioritise the viewing of films.

So it's just as well the San Sebastian Film Festival programmes up a storm of top titles to ensure the distractions can be kept in check. Festivities wrapped last week with the presentation of the Golden Shell award, the festival's top honour, to Peter Mullan's Neds, the tale of teenage gangs in working-class Glasgow. It's a rare British winner of the prize, which has gone to directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Mallick and Elia Kazan in previous years.
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