It’s that time of the year again. You know, the annual two week jamboree where the most elite of celebs gather in their most glitzy gear to loll around on the most fabulous yachts and drink the most expensive champers and if they can drag themselves away from all that glamour: watch a few pretty good films, too.

While the majority of us mere mortals won’t get a chance to party with the stars while sporting gold-plated life jackets, let alone actually see any of the Cannes films at their Cote d’Azur premieres, that doesn’t mean we can’t be excited about some of the festival entries. And even those of us who haven’t won the genetic lottery will be able to see said films… at least, eventually.

So, all yacht-jealousy and beautiful people-hating aside, here is a guide to the most anticipated, must-see flicks from Cannes 2013. And get excited, because with the likes of Sofia Coppola, James Franco, Ryan Gosling and Tilda Swinton on board this year, it is set to be a more mouth-watering festival than ever. Cinematically speaking, that is.

The post Portable’s Guide To The Must-See Films At Cannes appeared first on Portable.tv.

Earlier, we told you about the movies that make us want to do drugs. What about the movies that make us not want to do drugs, and extending even further, what movies make other presumably fun things look super lame?

The post Movies That Make Drugs, Sex, and Such Look Super Lame appeared first on Portable.tv.

This entry was originally titled ‘Movies I Won’t See Due To The Poster’ but after careful consideration of my wavering standards in movie viewing and the guidance of a six year old budding judge of book covers (Quinn), I decided to give these comments some flexibility. Like most people, I will almost exclusively choose a book by its cover, something my school teachers, and males whose advances I’ve ignored, would scold me for. After years perusing the shelves of Blockbuster and hours spent on Netflix and iTunes, one develops a sixth sense to choose purely by a movie poster/DVD cover.

As the summer season takes off, let’s ponder these 6 promotional movie posters that make question if I ever want to see the films they’re advertising, with the help of my young buddy Quinn…

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American remakes of foreign language films often get quite a bad rap. From Asian horror remakes to the retelling of French classics, it often seems like it’s difficult for American filmmakers to successfully adapt such films for an English speaking audience while still retaining the original tone and essence of the story. The latest film to cause movie buffs to gasp and splutter in outrage is the upcoming Spike Lee remake of Park Chan-Wook’s South Korean thriller Oldboy. Truth be told, I too am neither thrilled nor hopeful at the prospect of this particular project. Nevertheless, the automatic offense people take to potential remakes isn’t always quite founded. Not all remakes are bad; sometimes they can even be better. What follows are just a few Hollywood remakes of foreign films that are worth checking out.

The post American Remakes Of Foreign Language Films That Are Actually Quite Good appeared first on Portable.tv.

Just like anywhere in the world, Australia has it’s problems. Sure, they’re pretty few and far between compared to some, but Australia isn’t necessarily the sun swept land of every foreigners dreams. They’ve got issues, too, and at the turn of the century, they really started to express them through cinema. Somewhere in the mid to late noughties, it became rather clear that Australian films of the time had a knack for being really, really downbeat. And this trend continues. Chances are, you are going to be feeling a little depressed after watching most Australian films from the early 21st century onwards.

In saying that, the last decade or so hasn’t been ALL cinematic doom and gloom down under. Last year brought us the uplifting coming-of-age tale of Aboriginal sisters in critically-acclaimed Australian film The Sapphires. Ever seen Ernie Dingo in Bran Nue Day? It’s proof that the Aussies do know how to have a giggle every now and then.

But, I digress. I’m not here to prove to you that Australian film isn’t always depressing, I’m here to prove to you that even the saddest of Antipodean flicks aren’t just a reflection on a morbid country obsessed with incest, alcohol-addiction and gangland wars. These films are made because they’re darn interesting stories. Or, to sum it up with an Aussie cliché: here are five depressing Australian films from the past decade or so that are fair dinkum.

The post It’s Not All Bad News Down Under: 5 Depressing Australian Films That Are Actually Quite Good appeared first on Portable.tv.

Sometimes, the world’s worst actors prove that they have talent deep, deep, deep inside. Some actors mature into a better body of work. Some actors blow us away with an award-winning performance and never get better. And some just land roles in popular movies that don’t exactly require much “acting.” The following lists bad actors who don’t have the best reputations but landed a role — or started with one — that made us think better of them.

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Every so often, one of the greats has a slip up. It usually involves an accent, a bad script, or a terrible director. Sometimes, it’s all of those things. The following lists some capable, award- winning actors who delivered some of the terrible performances not of their lives, but all life.

The post When Great Actors Give Terrible Performances appeared first on Portable.tv.

Canadian filmmaker and actress Sarah Polley has made one of the most enjoyable and fascinating films of the year. Stories We Tell is, in fact, a documentary about her and her family’s own life — wait, she made a film about herself?

The fact that the film is about Polley’s own life is not even the main fascination — it’s the story she tells of her parents and the tremendous effort she takes to craft the perspective of multiple people in hers and their lives.

A little bit on Polley, though, to jog your memory: she has most recently become an established filmmaker most notably with last year’s Michelle Williams starring Take This Waltz and her Oscar nominated screenplay for 2006 film Away From Her. Personally, I have admired Polley from her lead role in the kick-ass remake of zombie classic Dawn of the Dead and most importantly, lead in one of my all-time favorites: 1999′s drug-deal-gone-wrong classic Go.

The story of Sarah Polley’s relation to her parents is public knowledge but I believe not knowing anything at all about Michael and Diane (Sarah’s parents) will serve as a substantial delight when taking in this documentation. What I can tell you, however, is how Michael and Diane met, which sets up the main narrative of the film: Diane (an actress) attends a play that Michael (an actor) was performing in at the time in Toronto. They hit it off right away after the show — Diane in beliving that she has met one of the most talented and brilliant men ever in Michael. They fall in love and start a family aka “The Canadian Dream.”

A pretty basic premise, I know, but the way that Polley unravels information about her parents’ marriage, her siblings’ lives and other relatives/family friends was astounding and sometimes quite shocking. With last year’s Take This Waltz, Polley seemed to admire and admonish the efficacies and tribulations of marriage and love. It is interesting to see and witness, here, that the story of her parents’ own marriage exhibits those kinds of sentiments — and of course, like Take This Waltz, this is all presented in the quirky indie Canadian manner that we all now love about the Polley aesthetic.

In addition, pair that kind of storytelling with Super 8 footage of her family’s past along with brand new Super 8 footage used to dramatized certain events and you have the kind of seamless narrative that you probably have never seen in any documentary. Polley herself has stated that her crew went through one Super 8 per day of shooting. Furthermore, for the dramatizations, the actors cast (including legendary Canadian actress Rebecca Jenkins), to play her parents for example, were dead on — it literally took me two thirds into the film to realize that some of these scenes were totally fabricated. This simple use of a classic piece of equipment has a marvelous impact on indulging into the Polley’s lives.

Sarah Polley has created one of the most poignant, memorable, funny and affecting films I have seen in awhile. If you have any kind of family or have fallen in love I cannot see how you would not instantly relate to the stories and relationships featured here. Finally, through the careful positioning of real life stories and beautiful footage from her own life, Sarah Polley has possibly redefined an entire genre and has made a case for being one the best filmmakers, right now, on the planet.

The post Stories We Tell: This Self-Documentary By Sarah Polley Is One of the Best Films of 2013 appeared first on Portable.tv.

When it comes to movies that should not have been made but we don’t know what we’d do without them, every moment is worth seeing, hearing and believing. Some plot elements and character fates are stated in the following descriptions, but it doesn’t matter because these movies are so terrible that anything and everything will make you want to die, even if you know what’s coming. Here are the most terrible movies that I absolutely love to watch.

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This year’s Tribeca Film Festival saw a variety of fresh, new films, and particularly a surge in documentaries. One such entry was Vivienne Roumani’s Out Of Print, a film exploring the declining state of the print publishing industry, staggering levels of literacy throughout the country, and asking how we the public might try to move forward in the digital age without allowing intellectual knowledge to fall victim to easy answers and search engines.

Portable spoke to Vivienne Roumani about her inspiration for making a film about books, her personal stance on digitization and what she hopes for the future of the written word.

Portable: Can you tell me a little about yourself and what inspired you to make this film?

Vivienne Roumani: Well you know, I was reading a lot of articles and books about how Google is dumbing us down and how everything is making us stupider. One of my favorite articles was “Web to Book: Drop Dead”. Article after article and everywhere you turn, and I thought, I was a librarian, I had both a degree libraries and in management.

So I was in library management and I was one of the first to digitize books and maps. I was in digitization committees; we’re talking a couple of decades before anybody even talked about it. The first course in library science that I had to take was basic computer language, it was basic at the time and then C++ came out.

You know, computers were just part of our life as a tool and we knew that you really had to use both worlds to get the maximum benefit.

So those were some of the issues I really wanted to investigate, what was going on. And the other thing is, I was particularly concerned because I did notice that a lot of our kids are really interested in books and reading then after the age eleven—this is supported by research—they stop the interest. Now of course you might say, “Well a lot of kids lose interest in a lot of things when they’re eleven,” but that’s not the case. They continue not having the motivation, the know-how, and the patience to read.

P: In recent years documentaries have steadily gained popularity among viewers, how did you initially get involved in documentary filmmaking?

Vivienne Roumani: You know there are so many people I need to thank, but I’ll just tell you that the one who introduced me to filmmaking was my older son.  He was the one who said to me, after I finished my librarianship, I ran a non-profit national organization and that was sort of like filmmaking because you have to be managing every single aspect of all of it, from raising funds to the slightest detail of every program. So he said, “You know, now that you’re not doing this, I was thinking I never really knew your family story and you talk so much about Libya and I don’t know much about Libya,” And I was thinking, all the books and articles my brother’s and I wrote and he immediately as if he read my mind said, “and I think it should be a film, people really respond to film.”

In my head I went, “Film? I’ve done oral histories so maybe that’s the same thing.” So I said ok! And after saying that I called a friend of mine, “So I understand you, uh, took a course at NYU about photography, what camera do they suggest?” They said come, I’ll go with you. We went and bought a camera and I ran around taking it, I had no idea. That was, I think, the only time in my life where I thought ignorance is bliss. You know, I knew nothing, I ran around and did it. I’m proud of that film for many reasons, but I wish I could redo it. If I had the funding, I would redo it today. I’ve learned so much, and its been wonderful, and that’s how I got my start.

P: It is interesting that it takes the making of a visual to raise public awareness about the decline in reading and writing. What inspired you to create a film about the topic of publishing, and ultimately make the film?

Vivienne Roumani: My ten year old George at the time said to me, “Isn’t it ironic that you’re making a film about books and about reading? Isn’t that a contradiction?” It’s an interesting question. You know, I’d like everybody, as many people as possible, to have access to join the conversation. We really must join the discussion, and I appealed to Jeff Bezos, to Bill Gates, to Apple and to Google. Besides being altruistic and really encouraging reading, I also wanted to think in a business sense. If you’re not going to have children who are trained and motivated to take the time to get deep into things, you’re going to lose a major part of your business. Ok, you think you can make it up in another way, but I think this is a good commodity, that’s why Amazon started by selling books that’s why I went to them, and its an important aspect of our lives. I tried in making this film, you know when you start your research, you want to disrobe of any prejudices you might have. You know, “Is this generational?” I ask myself constantly. I tested every idea with myself and with others. Am I being stuck in my ways? And I realized you know I love technology, I use it all the time. I read in all formats. I love my Kindle app on the iPhone, it’s so portable. If I find myself waiting or bored I click on one of my books and I read it fully. The engagement is there.

P: Do you think this shift from structured writing to blog language is discouraging to young writers today?

Vivienne Roumani: You saw Darcie Chan’s story, that was a small success story and she’s a self-publisher, but she is publishing now with the traditional method and she explained in the film why. You know I belong to many groups, the Digital Book World and other groups like that, and you know there is some encouragement for writers to self-publish, but most of the authors I’ve talked to both accomplished and starters very good quality authors, they tell me they have insomnia because they really don’t know how they would be making a living writing.

Scott Turow, I know he’s controversial, but I think he’s really watching out for authors. He really said a line there that is my voice which is we need writers to increase diversity in the world. Google is, searching any engine is great, but let’s not mistake information and data for knowledge.

When you know your question, you’re getting an answer to what you already want, and that’s not transformation. It may be in some very few instances, but what’s transformational is going for the full thing. And now what are we doing? We have really two choices. Keep shortening the material, and I think the singles are great and going back to novellas are great, but how much more do we need to shorten? We have two choices: shorten it, or really train our kids from a young age to have the motivation. Sure play with the games and do the technology, its here you have to do it, but at the same time train them to have the time both at school and at home for that motivation to sit and read a full story to understand the complexities so they are touched and transformed.

P: With the birth of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), do you believe that there is hope for the quality of information to sustain technological advances?

Vivienne Roumani: I got the information that it opened up and is available now, and its wonderful I tested it and it’s really great. They didn’t just go transferring print into digital; it’s really a whole new way of searching so really its wonderful. However, we still have the problem of copyright and we still have the problem of how do you pay the author. Now some people think that authors will find their way, but let’s encourage them a little because they need to make a livelihood.

P: What would you like viewers to take away from the content of your film? How would you like to see things change?

Vivienne Roumani: I would really like a discussion, a discussion with many of us. I’ve seen and I’ve been part of many focus groups and some of them are very helpful. I would like a discussion among big tech companies, high school students, and even college students. I did a survey with faculty about their students’ reading habits and the problem is rampant. So I’d like this discussion to implement some changes in the educational system, in schools of education and with the tech companies and lawmakers because you know there’s a whole office of education technology in the Department of Education. I’d like to work with all of them in some aspect.

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