In this morning’s roundup of movie news ‘n’ notes from around the web, “The Tempest” books another fest, and 3D takes to the dance floor.
Julie Taymor’s Shakespeare adaptation “The Tempest” has added another fall festival to its slate: on October 2, a few weeks after serving as the closing night attraction at the Venice Film Festival, the film will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival. It’ll serve as the Centerpiece selection at NYFF, which will kick off with David Fincher’s “The Social Network” on September 24. Eugene Hernandez has the info on the booking, which will be followed on December 10 by Touchstone’s release of the Taymor film, which stars Helen Mirren with Russell Brand, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou, Alfred Molina and David Strathairn. (indieWIRE)
The 3D dance movie is coming, and that extra dimension has given choreographers a lot to think about. David Ng talks to the folks behind “Step Up 3D” and “StreetDance 3D,” who say that the format forces them to change the angles of choreography and figure out how to creatively frame the action. There are risks, though: the cameras can be cumbersome and break, down easily, and it’s easy to blur the action if you’re not careful. Says “Step Up” director Jon Chu, “When you’re making your audience throw up, it’s not a choice anymore. It’s a mistake.” (Los Angeles Times)
Ah, the perils of indie financing: “Get Low” director Aaron Schneider tells Michael Phillips how difficult it was to raise the $7.5 million budget for his well-received new film with Robert Duvall and Bill Murray. The key, Schneider says, was $1.5 million from a German management company he found through his high school prom date, who now works in finance in New York. (Chicago Tribune)
Hans Zimmer, the composer of the remarkable music to “Inception,” has been talking about his crucial contribution to the film quite a bit lately – and every time he does, I get the feeling that even though he wrote the music before seeing any of the film, he knows a lot of secrets and left clues throughout the score. This time, Dave Itzkoff gets Zimmer to detail the way he borrowed two notes from Edith Piaf’s recording of “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” slowed them down and manipulated them into a telling element of his music. (The connection was made in a YouTube video; “I was surprised how long it took them to figure it out,” says Zimmer.) But it’s not those notes that are the real key: it’s the tempos, which sound as intricately worked-out as the dream levels in Christopher Nolan’s film. (New York Times)
David Ehrlich starts from the premise that August is a terrible month because studios never release any good films then (last year’s “Inglourious Basterds” being an obvious exception), and then provides five reasons to go to the movies this month. There’s an IFC Festival Direct release, Johnnie To’s Hong Kong gangster film “Vengeance”; a long-shelved Japanaese animated film, “Tales from Earthsea”; “Step Up 3D,” which he says he’s legitimately excited about because the trailer makes such “tremendously visceral” use of 3D; Adam McKay’s “The Other Guys,” which he wants to see because their last collaboration, “Stepbrothers,” is “some kind of modern Bunuel-ian masterpiece” (what does that make “Anchorman?”); and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” which he’s already seen and which he says is “almost as wonderful as you’ve heard.” (Cinematical)
