Happy Birthday actor Melissa Rauch
Born: June 23, 1980 in USA
| ARE YOU HERE 2014 dir. Matthew Weiner Stars: Owen Wilson Zach Galifianakis |
I Love You Man2009 dir. John Hamburg Starring Rudd Jason Segal |
Happy Birthday actor Melissa Rauch
Born: June 23, 1980 in USA
| ARE YOU HERE 2014 dir. Matthew Weiner Stars: Owen Wilson Zach Galifianakis |
I Love You Man2009 dir. John Hamburg Starring Rudd Jason Segal |
Happy Birthday actor Joel Edgerton
Born: June 23, 1974 in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia
| THE THING dir. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead Joel Edgerton |
WARRIOR dir. Gavin O’Connor Stars: Tom Hardy Nick Nolte |
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Happy Birthday actor Frances McDormand
Born: June 23, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
Married to: Joel Coen (1 April 1984 – present) (1 child)
| Raising Arizona 1987 dir. Joel and Ethan Coen starring Nicolas Cage Holly Hunter | Miller’s Crossing1990 dir. Joel and Ethan Coen starring Gabriel Byrne Marcia Gay Harden |
Darkman1990 dir. Sam Raimi Starring Liam Neeson Frances McDormand | Fargo1996 dir. Joel and Ethan Coen starring William H Macy McDormand |
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Happy Birthday writer/director Joss Whedon
Born: June 23, 1964 in New York City, New York, USA
Married to: Kai Cole
Serenity2005 dir. Josh Whedon starring Nathon Fillion Gina Torres |
THE AVENGERS2012 dir. Joss Whedon See over 100 pages of photos and videos! |
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Happy Birthday actor Selma Blair
Born: June 23, 1972 in Southfield, Michigan, USA
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Happy Birthday actor Emmanuelle Vaugier
Born: June 23, 1976 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
| WHERE THE ROAD MEETS THE SUN 2011 dir. Mun Chee Yong Starring: Eric Mabius Will Yun Lee |
Saw II2005 dir. Darren Lynn Bousman Starring Tobin Bell Shawnee Smith |
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Happy Birthday actor Melissa Rauch
Born: June 23, 1980 in USA
| ARE YOU HERE 2014 dir. Matthew Weiner Stars: Owen Wilson Zach Galifianakis |
I Love You Man2009 dir. John Hamburg Starring Rudd Jason Segal |
Happy Birthday actor Joel Edgerton
Born: June 23, 1974 in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia
| THE THING dir. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead Joel Edgerton |
WARRIOR dir. Gavin O’Connor Stars: Tom Hardy Nick Nolte |
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Submit your Screenplay to the Festival TODAY
THE LOCKPICKER is the low budget multi-award winning feature debut of director Randall Okita, arriving at big screens in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary for special screenings this week.
THE LOCKPICKER was shot in actual Toronto classrooms over a span of two school years with a cast of non-professional teenagers in key roles. This intimate coming-of-age drama follows high school student Hashi (unknown and newcomer Keigian Umi Tang) as he struggles to maintain a state of calm in the wake of the sudden suicide of his friend. When people close to him are victimized by violence, he is forced to choose between fighting back and becoming what he fears, or leaving behind everyone and everything he knows.
Tang inhabits his role as the restless student with relative ease. This is not an actor’s but director’s film. There are no extensive monologues or other acting demands required of Tang. Much of the character’s personality is established by the director. For example when Hashi steals money from the jackets hug outside the classrooms, he only takes the small notes and not the larger twenties. The director intends to show Hashi as a thief but with some conscience. He takes only what he needs for the moment. Hashi is displayed as the normal teenager at school, easily distracted with hardly a thought of his future. Hashi smokes weed, crashes parties and badgers adults to buy him liquor. He is distracted enough not to complete the assignments necessary for him to quality for a sailing outing, He goes around constantly distracted with a head set on. Hashi is a fairly good-looking and fit kid who works occasionally at a shoe store. Director Okita does not have Hashi commit acts that determine his character to be a likeable or unlikeable one.
As a first feature, THE LOCKPICKER looks sufficiently fresh. It appears that Okita experiments quite a it with lighting, cinematography and camera placement. The film is also variedly shot with steady cam and hand-held camera. His eye for natural landscape and surrounding architecture is alas apparent when Hashi travels around the icy winter by transit or waiting at a bus stop with the transit map in the background. The Toronto winter is revealed to be a cold one with dirty snow and litter blowing across the snow and ice. The film contains a comfortable mix of staged and free flowing improvised parts.
In Toronto, THE LOCKPICKER will be screened with a special Question and Answer a with Okita discussing the film’s powerful themes and its deeply personal connection on June 22 at 6:45 PM at TIFF Bell Lightbox.The film won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Picture in the Discovery Section.
It should be noted that Okita was the recipient of the Toronto Film Critics Association’s (of which the writer is a member and involved) Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award with a cash prize of $50,000, which made the production of The Lockpicker possible.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/181642231
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Kevin Hood (screenplay by), Thomas Bezucha (screenplay) |3 more credits »
The film’s trailer and film’s beginning establish the origin of the name of a book club in the Island of Guernsey. It all began in 1941 during the World War II when a group of four English people, two men and two women, are walking at night-time in German occupied Guernsey. They are stopped by Germans for breaching curfew. When asked for their reason, one of the women notices a book in the pocket of one of the Germans and says that they were at a book group. Collectively they improvise the book group’s name: the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and avoid arrest when one of the men throws up on the soldiers’ boots.
This film is the second film (the other being BEAST set on Jersey Island) to open this month that has a setting on a United Kingdom associated island in the sea between Britain and France. It is beneficial to know a bit that Guernsey like Jersey Island in order to better appreciate the film. Guernsey is is not part of the United Kingdom though the populace share a lot in common with the British including the currency of pound sterling The island is self governing though protected by Britain’s Military. The island’s landscape is stunning, especially the beaches and rocky cliffs, much like Wales, west of Britain. The film is shot in England and at Ealing Studios and not on Guernsey though the film would definitely aid the Guernsey Tourism Board in efforts to promote visits to the island.
The film has a strong female slant, understandably being based on the 2008 novel of the same name by two female writers Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, with a female protagonist at the heart of the story. All the males have secondary importance in the story, serving the purpose of the females. One could suitably classify this WWII historical drama as a chick flick.
The story, set in 1946 on Guernsey Island, concerns an author Juliet Ashton (Lily James) invited to the island to address the local book club. She learns of the story of Elizabeth McKenna (Jessica Brown Finlay) who has a daughter with a German soldier during the German Occupation of the island. The message of the film is show how books can affect human lives.
Lily James (Kate Winslet was originally slotted) delivers a sufficiently fine performance while her co-star Dutch Game of Thrones actor, Michiel Huisman was chosen for her main love interest likely for his resemblance to Alan Bates who has a similar scruffy look in FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. Matthew Goode has another gay role as Juliet’s publisher while British TV actress Penelope Wilton steals the show as Amelia Maugery.
One would naturally expect a whimsical female fantasy from the FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL director director Mike Newell. The film succeeds with regards to this respect. Commercial filmgoers would be more likely entertained by this film than the serious film critic who would be quick to shrug at the beleaguered dialogue and identify the plentiful clichés.