News

Dick Pope, a British cinematographer best known for his collaborations with Mike Leigh, has passed away at the age of 77. The British Society of Cinematographers announced the news, but no cause of death was given.

In addition to his work with Leigh, which included “Naked,” “Secrets & Lies,” “Topsy-Turvy” and this year’s “Hard Truths,” Pope had collaborated with Christopher McQuarrie (on “The Way of the Gun”), Barry Levinson (“Man of the Year”), John Sayles (“Honeydripper”) and Richard Linklater.

“Dick had a reputation for being a wonderful collaborator and someone who was passionate about the artform of cinematography,” the Bsc wrote in remembrance. ”He was keen to embrace new technologies and ideas while also ensuring the skills and crafts of those that came before him weren’t lost. To this end Dick would guest tutor at schools such as the National Film and Television School.”

Pope was nominated for two Oscars in his career,...

Dick Pope, the esteemed British cinematographer who received Academy Award nominations for his exquisite work on “The Illusionist” and Mike Leigh‘s “Mr. Turner,” has died at the age of 77. His death was confirmed by a publicist on his final film, Leigh’s “Hard Truths.”

“Hard Truths” producer Georgina Lowe shared the following statement: “On behalf of Mike, the team at Thin Man Films, and the cast and crew who worked regularly with Dick on our films for over 30 years, I wanted to say what a privilege it has been to have collaborated with him. His work, both with us, and on the eclectic collection of films he shot over his impressive career, was extraordinary. We have lost a friend and will miss him so much.”

Born in Bromley, Kent, in 1947, Pope became obsessed with still photography as a child and published some of his pictures in local papers as a teenager.

Mable John, who recorded for Motown and Stax and later worked with Ray Charles, died Aug. 25 at her home in Los Angeles. Her nephew, Kevin John, confirmed the death, but did not give a cause. She was 91.

“We loved her and she was a kind person,” Kevin John said of his aunt, the older sister of R&b star Little Willie John.

John had a rich career in music. She was the first solo female artist signed to Motown (then Tamla Records) by Berry Gordy Jr. and recorded the songs “Who Wouldn’t Love A Man Like That,” “Actions Speak Louder Than Words,” “No Love,” “Looking for a Man,” and “Take Me,” the latter with background harmonies by The Temptations.

John left Motown in the mid-1960s to join Memphis label Stax Records. There she teamed with the songwriting team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter for her 1966 hit “Your...

Mable John, the first female solo artist signed to Motown (then Tamla) Records, a Stax singer and longtime Ray Charles collaborator, has died at the age of 91.

John died Thursday at her home in Los Angeles; no cause of death was revealed. “We loved her and she was a kind person,” her nephew Kevin John told the Detroit News.

Related Lamont Dozier, Motown Songwriter Behind Countless Classics, Dead at 81 Former Jeffrey Epstein Associate Steven Hoffenberg Found Dead at 77 Jerry Allison, Drummer and Songwriter for Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Dead...

Frankie Faison (The Wire), Jayme Lawson (The Batman), Tosin Cole (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Kevin Carroll (The Leftovers), Sean Patrick Thomas (Barbershop), John Douglas Thompson (Mare of Easttown) and Roger Guenveur Smith (Self Made: Inspired by the Life Of Madam C.J Walker) will join Danielle Deadwyler, Whoopi Goldberg and Jalyn Hall in Chinonye Chukwu’s feature Orion Pictures release, Till about Emmett Louis Till. The movie is currently filming in Atlanta.

Till tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Deadwyler), whose pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Louis Till (Hall) became a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement. As Time Magazine reported, “…thanks to a mother’s determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn’t see.” Mamie’s decision to have an open casket at Emmett’s funeral,...

MGM’s Orion Pictures’ film “Till,” starring Danielle Deadwyler, Whoopi Goldberg and Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till, has rounded out its cast.

Frankie Faison, Jayme Lawson, Tosin Cole, Kevin Carroll, Sean Patrick Thomas, John Douglas Thompson and Roger Guenveur Smith have boarded the project, directed by Chinonye Chukwu. “Till” is currently filming in Atlanta, with the full cast pictured above.

“Till” tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Deadwyler), chronicling her decision to have an open casket at Emmett’s funeral and allowing Jet magazine to publish David Jackson’s funeral photos in order to ensure people everywhere saw the true horrors of her son’s murder. The decision from the grieving mother was a galvanizing moment that led to the creation of the civil rights movement. Goldberg is set to portray Till’s grandmother, Alma Carthan.

Chuwku also wrote the screenplay for the film, about a mother’s pursuit of justice,...

Exclusive: Four-time Grammy-winning recording artist Gary Clark Jr. is set to play American blues singer-songwriter Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup and four-time Grammy nominee Yola will play musical icon, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, in the Baz Luhrmann-directed Warner Bros Elvis biopic, which is currently shooting in Australia.

Sources tell Deadline that Luhrman was adamant about mixing big music stars and up-and-coming talent to create authenticity and sincere cultural engagement. In addition to Clark Jr., and Yola, he’s added emerging artist Shonka Dukureh in the role of Big Mama Thornton, as well Shannon Sanders and his Gospel team of Lenesha Randolph and Jordan Holland. Yola, Sanders, Randolph and Holland have been involved in the project since 2019, working with Baz from Nashville to Australia.

The new additions are joining Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker, and Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley. Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Alton Mason...

Yaya DaCosta’s acting career started off working in the cinema, but in the past several years she has been doing work on Chicago Med as nurse April Sexton.

DaCosta’s early days on the program including prepping for her role, and that research gave her a deeper understanding of the medical [...]

The post Yaya DaCosta Relishes The “Discovery Process” of ‘Chicago Med’ appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

This first feature of Kirsten Tan premiered in Sundance ‘17 World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Its provenance is Singapore but it takes place in Thailand. It continued onward to the Hivos Tiger Competition at Iffr (R’dam).

The thrill of interviewing here in Sundance is that you see a film; you have an impression and while it is still fresh you meet the filmmakers without having much time for any research or reflection. And then you get to see them again as “old friends” when you meet again in Rotterdam.

As Kirsten, her producer Weijie Lai and I sat down at the Sundance Co-op on Main Street here in Park City, I really had little idea of where the interview would take us, somewhat analogously to her film in which an architect, disenchanted with life in general, being put aside as “old” in his own highly successful architectural firm and in a stale relationship with his wife,...

As filmmakers are getting hired left and right for TV gigs, streaming series, and more, I really hope someone remembers that American indie veteran John Sayles is still around and kicking and not just sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. For the past few years, Sayles has been getting his movies made, even if "Honeydripper," "Amigo," and "Go For Sisters" have only found a limited audience. But fans of his work will be happy to know he's got a new effort on the horizon. Read More: John Sayles Talks The Politics Of 'Amigo' & Working With A Filipino Cast Peninsula Daily News reports that Sayles will head to Fort Worden State Park next summer to shoot "To Save The Man," and naturally, it's another tale of history, politics, class, and more. The movie will tell the story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first federally...

When Nickelodeon first launched in 1977, it seemed like little more than a child's answer to Saturday Night Live and MTV. In fact, it wasn't until Nickelodeon debuted the Canadian sketch series You Can't Do That on Television in the U.S. that this nascent network began to gain real traction amongst fans of all ages. Before too long, the basic cable channel became quite popular, especially with the launch of it's Nick At Nite line-up featuring such "classic" shows as Alf, The Facts of Life, Growing Pains and many others throughout the years. Viewership certainly proceeded to explode, turning it into one of today's favorite hubs for nostalgia of all kinds.

Nickelodeon had officially arrived in the 1990s, taking its signature brand to the big screen with Nickelodeon Movies in 1995. It wasn't until 1997, though, that this film division made its most iconic and beloved movie of all time: Good Burger.

For decades now, John Sayles has written and directed movies rooted first and foremost in sharply conceived characters. More recently, even as his scrappy, self-financed productions have varied in quality, this central aspect has remained in place. "Go For Sisters," like the filmmaker's previous features "Amigo" and "Honeydripper," sustains a feeble premise with richly defined characters and strong performances, yielding an underwhelming but nonetheless sustainable viewing experience. Stepping away from the period drama territory of his last two movies, Sayles returns to noir turf, with serious-minded parole officer Berenice (LisaGay Hamilton) heading south of the border with estranged old friend Fontayne (Yolanda Ross) in a bid to find Berenice's missing son, the suspect in a criminal investigation. The two women reconnect in the movie's opening scene, which finds the semi-reformed drug addict Fontayne assigned to Berenice during her parole. As echoes from early days of their...

You gotta admire John Sayles. An independent filmmaker long before today's current crop -- or even the directors who rose up out of the '90s scene -- his career has had its peaks and valleys, but over the past few years he's resolutely strived on, even if audiences and the industry haven't followed. His last couple pictures -- the bluesy "Honeydripper" and the sorely underseen historical drama "Amigo" -- came and went without much notice, but he's likely hoping the fates have better things in store for his next effort, "Go For Sisters." Set to premiere at SXSW next month, the first trailer for the movie has now arrived. Starring Edward James Olmos, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Yolonda Ross, Hector Elizondo, Harold Perrineau and Isaiah Washington, the film tells the story of two women who are so close they "go for sisters," who are reunited after twenty years thanks to some surprising circumstances.

Currently 'in negotiations' according to Deadline, The Walking Dead's director Ernest Dickerson will direct the AMC pilot Low Winter Sun, which is based on the 2006 British miniseries. The pilot, starring Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Honeydripper, Law & Order, Person of Interest) and Transporter's Athena Karkanis, will be directed and executive produced by Chris Mundy, executive producer of the TV series Cold Case and Criminal Minds. Low Winter Sun is described as a "contemporary story of murder, deception, revenge and corruption," in which Hudson will play Lt. George Torrace, a 25-year veteran fighting detroit crime and politics, whose life is forever altered...

The big finale of "American Idol"'s 11th season is finally upon us this week, and we noticed that this year's two finalists look as cut out for the camera as they do for the stage (hello Phillip Phillips!).

It certainly doesn't hurt that so many "Idol" alums before them have successfully launched from the show's giant platform into the world of film.

In fact, there have been a lot of reality stars in general who've made a name in the movie scene. Here are our top 15.

15. Carrie Underwood, 'American Idol'

Credits: "Soul Surfer"

For "Idol" Season 4 winner Carrie Underwood, five Grammys, dozens of other accolades, four successful albums, and pretty hair just wasn't enough. She first gave her thespian itch a scratch on the small screen in 2010 with guest stints on "Sesame Street" and "How I Met Your Mother" before going full-blown Hollywood for 2011's "Soul Surfer,...

Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground "admirably tries, on a minuscule budget, to evoke the spirit of American cinema from 35 years ago: the age of Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall, an era much more hospitable to serious roles for women than the current one." Melissa Anderson in the Voice: "As reported in a New York Times Magazine cover story on the actress in 2006 (three years before her Oscar-nominated performance in Up in the Air), Farmiga has expressed her disgust with the roles offered her by setting scripts on fire: 'I stack up all those crass female characters, all those utterly ordinary women, all those hundreds and hundreds of parts that have no substance or meaning and turn them into a blazing pyre.' It's a shame, then, that Higher Ground never really ignites."

Farmiga plays "Corinne, a Midwest rural woman who embraces a hippie-inflected but paternalistic evangelical community with her high...

For his 17th feature film, writer/director John Sayles performs one of his periodic 180 degree shifts. Throughout his 33-year directing career, the gifted chronicler of the histories and familial legacies of small-town Americana (in films such as Lone Star and Honeydripper) has occasionally ventured outside that comfort zone. The Irish-set Secret of Roan Inish and the Spanish language, Latin American-set Men with Guns are among Sayles’s best-reviewed works. In Amigo, his most ambitious film yet, the filmmaker heads to the Philippines, circa 1900, for an old-fashioned yet all-too-resonant portrait of U.S. imperialism run amok. There’s an aesthetic stiffness to certain elements of Sayles’s picture, which concerns the drama that plays out in a fictional village during the Philippine-American war. The camerawork is stately and largely of the front-and-center medium shot variety, while the limited, spare jungle setting exudes a sort of abstract theatricality. It’s not always the most vibrant enterprise as it charts...

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Danny Glover

Over the last decade Glover hasn’t seen the prolonged exposure that he once enjoyed, yet mostly still deserves. But he’s been doing good work in a vast array of projects, both mainstream and arthouse none the less. In a quintet of artful independents The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Manderlay (2005), Bamako (2006), Honeydripper (2007) and Blindness (2008) he gave strong, varied turns. Barnyard, The Shaggy Dog (both 2006) and Alpha and Omega added family fare to his résumé. A couple of pay-the-rent Saws (first and fifth) and a thankless turn in Death at a Funeral (2010) didn’t harm his career. A couple of presidential engagements, Battle for Terra (2006) and 2012 (2009), kept him afloat. And finally some bona fide solid gold support in Dreamgirls (2006) and Shooter (2007) reminded multiplex audiences just how good he is.

Take One: Be Kind Rewind (2008)

But the most recent role in which he’s perhaps...

Having a veteran screenwriter writing for someone who’s never directed a feature may seem like a strange pairing, but sometimes it happens. This time around it’s none other than Oscar nominee John Sayles adapting Sheila Weller’s 2008 book Girls Like Us for Katie Jacobs to direct, whose previous work is producing and directing episodes of the TV series House. Sayles himself is no stranger to the music world, as shown by his film Honeydripper and his directing work on the music video for Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”

The book follows the young lives and careers of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King, and it seems like as a film, it could be a unique work in the music biopic world, due to the fact that it follows multiple artists at once. The descriptions of the book’s content also make me think it could...

Two-time Oscar-nominee John Sayles (Lone Star) and House executive producer/director Katie Jacobs are teaming up to bring Sheila Weller's 2008 novel Girls Like Us to the big screen. The pair, with Sayles slated to pen and Jacobs set to helm/produce, will adapt the female singer-songwriter novel for Sony. According to Risky Business, the film (like Weller's book) will follow the personal journeys of female artists Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell from "their childhood to their burgeoning professional careers." While the music world may be uncharted territory for Jacobs, Sayles has experience both writing (see his 2007 film Honeydripper) and directing (the music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.") within the bars and beats. To learn more about Girls Like Us, hit the jump for a synopsis of Weller's book. Here's a synopsis for Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us [from Amazon]: The epic story of three generational icons,...

Jason Lee's Memphis Beat renewed for a second season on TNT TNT is ordering a second helping of its hit series Memphis Beat, starring Jason Lee (My Name Is Earl) and Alfre Woodard (Three Rivers). TNT has ordered 10 episodes for the second season of the series, which also stars DJ Qualls (Hustle & Flow). The show is slated to return in 2011.

Memphis Beat premiered June 22 and quickly established itself as one of the summer's hottest shows. In its first season, Memphis Beat averaged 4.7 million viewers and ranked as one of ad-supported cable's Top 5 new series of the summer and the #1 Tuesday series among adults 25-54. Memphis Beat was created by Liz Garcia (Cold Case) and Joshua Harto (The Dark Knight). The series comes to TNT from George Clooney and Grant Heslov's Smokehouse Pictures and Warner Horizon Television.

"Memphis Beat is a real treasure: a slightly off-center crime drama with great actors,...

Richard Linklater filmed in the U.K. Jim Jarmusch made his last in Spain. And John Sayles, we'll he went completely off-course, heading of all places to Manilla. As I was putting this piece together collection of stills, I came across this post, which uncovered the production's blog, trailer and what not. I'll admit to having skipped on Honeydripper - which was also a Tiff presentation, I had no idea that since then, he was working on Amigo, which was first announced as a San Sebastian Film Festival selection, prior to being called out last Tuesday for Tiff. I've yet to see anything comes close in terms of quality to his 1996 film Lone Star, I felt Silver City was rather forgettable and counted too much on satire - but if I remember correctly, Chris Cooper who reunites with Sayles on Amigo, wasn't too shabby. Scanning the pics below, I find no sign of him.

I’d avoided this flick during its initial release in 2007; its good intentions aside, it just didn’t interest me much. It felt all-too familiar; I think it came out at a time when I started to feel like I’d tired of dramatic period pieces featuring black people in starring roles (this time in the cotton-picking Jim Crow south), and was yearning for more worthwhile entertaining black films set in contemporary times; So I skipped it…

I avoided it… until now anyway.

I’m watching it at this very moment, and it’s pretty much what I expected it’d be. Brother From Another Planet aside, and despite his good intentions, I wouldn’t call myself much of a John Sayles fan. I don’t feel strongly about his work in either direction; my response is usually just a shrug. To be sure, they’re usually well-written, well-produced films; but,...

Independent filmmaker John Sayles is somewhat of an enigma in the industry, being that he makes the movies he wants completely independently and often defying any sort of genre categorization by writing and directing films about diverse subject matters; he also has a way of staying out of the limelight in between the release of those movies. ComingSoon.net had an extensive interview with Sayles back in late 2007 for his independently-released film Honeydripper and at the time, he told us he was writing a fiction novel based on one of his unproduced screenplays, somewhat out of frustration with the difficulties of raising money to make the film. An anonymous source tipped us off to the fact they were involved with a movie in the Philippines and doing a bit of research, we...

Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis' autobiography is to be turned into a TV series.

Writer John Sayles, known for his work on movies Honeydripper and Silver City, has penned a script for a drama based on the rocker's childhood when he lived in West Hollywood with his father, who was known as Spider and worked as a drug dealer to the stars.

The project is tentatively titled Scar Tissue, the same name of Kiedis' memoirs, and will be set in 1970s Hollywood, reports Variety.com.

Last year, John Sayles wonderfully took on the world of blues, guitars, and rock 'n' roll with Honeydripper. Now it looks like that was a warm-up for something even better. In a discussion with Collider, Charles S. Dutton revealed that he's working on an HBO miniseries about Louis Armstrong with Quincy Jones, and Sayles is writing the script. Dutton might play the older Louis, and might direct the first few hours of the 6-hour-long miniseries. "Quincy and I were trying to do it 15 years ago. The mistake we were making was that we were trying to do it as a 2 hour film. And Louie's life is just so huge you just can't..." Move over John Adams. I'm betting this wonder team can kick the founding father's butt.

Meanwhile, the cast continues to grow for James Keach's Waiting for Forever. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film will star Tom Sturridge,...

Cedric the Entertainer is set to make his directorial debut with the indie comedy Chicago Pulaski Jones.

The film, written by Kel Mitchell and Janis Woody, stars Mitchell, Cedric, Tommy Davidson and Gary Sturgis.

It centers around a young championship dancer, Jones, who heads to the big city for his shot at superstardom. On the day he arrives, his uncle is murdered, leaving Jones to avenge his uncle's death vigilante style and alone.

Cedric's manager and producing partner Eric C. Rhone is producing with Mitchell, Woody and Mathew Gray through Rhone and Cedric's A Bird and A Bear Entertainment. Cedric is exec producing.

The film began production Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Cedric, whose recent acting credits include Madagascar, Talk to Me and Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins, will appear in the upcoming Street Kings and Cadillac Records. He is repped by CAA, Rhone and attorneys Nina Shaw and Gordon Bobb.

Mitchell, who will next be seen in John Sayles' Honeydripper, is repped by the Agency Group.

• Longtime indie filmmaker John Sayles (Silver City, Casa de los Babys) doesn't make the most profitable feature films and therefore he doesn't always have big P&A campaigns backing his film releases. Honeydripper is yet one more example of the established indie filmmaker almost going the Diy route. Released in NYC and L.A on the 28th of last month, this gets expanded into Atlanata, Chicago and Boston this Friday and will reach larger audiences on the 1st of February. Below we have the one sheet and official synopsis. It’s 1950 and it’s a make or break weekend for Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover), the proprietor of the Honeydripper Lounge. Deep in debt, Tyrone is desperate to bring back the crowds that used to come to his place. He decides to lay off his long-time blues singer Bertha Mae, and announces that he’s hired a famous guitar player,

...

Fifty-nine songs from eligible feature-length motion pictures are being considered in the original song category for the 80th Annual Academy Awards.

The songs, unveiled Wednesday, include four songs from August Rush as well as three each from Dan in Real Life, Enchanted, 56 Drops of Blood, Good Luck Chuck, Into the Wild and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Films with two eligible songs are Badland, Grace Is Gone, The Hottest State, Music and Lyrics and Once.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will screen clips in random order Jan. 15 featuring each song for voting members of the music branch in Beverly Hills and New York. Following the screenings, members will vote to determine which three, four or five songs become nominees in the category.

The 80th Academy Awards nominations will be announced Jan. 22.

The original songs, along with the motion picture in which each song is featured, are:

"Do You Feel Me" from American Gangster

"At the Edge of the World" from Arctic Tale

"Someday" from August Rush

"This Time" from August Rush

"Raise It Up" from August Rush

"Break" from August Rush

"Nothing's There" from Badland

"The Devil's Lonely Fire" from Badland

"A Hero Comes Home" from Beowulf

"The Stars of Orion" from Berkeley

"Say" from The Bucket List

"To Be Surprised" from Dan in Real Life

"My Hands Are Shaking" from Dan in Real Life

"I'll Be OK" from Dan in Real Life

"December Boys" from December Boys

"So Close" from Enchanted

"That's How You Know" from Enchanted

"Happy Working Song" from Enchanted

"Atkozott Egy Elet" from 56 Drops of Blood

"O, Atyam!" from 56 Drops of Blood

"Eleg!" from 56 Drops of Blood

"A Dream" from Freedom Writers

"Lyra" from The Golden Compass

"Good Luck Chuck" from Good Luck Chuck

"Shut Me Out" from Good Luck Chuck

"I Was Zapped by the Lucky Super Rainbow" from Good Luck Chuck

"Grace Is Gone" from Grace Is Gone

"Lullabye for Wyatt" from Grace Is Gone

"Come So Far (Got So Far to Go)" from Hairspray

"The Tale of the Horny Frog" from The Heartbreak Kid

"China Doll" from Honeydripper

"It Will Stay With Us" from The Hottest State

"Never See You" from The Hottest State

"Society" from Into the Wild

"Guaranteed" from Into the Wild

"Rise" from Into the Wild

"First Amendment Blues" from Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone

"Hello (I Love You)" from The Last Mimzy

"Despedida" from Love in the Time of Cholera

"Huck's Tune" from Lucky You

"Little Wonders" from Meet the Robinsons

"Another Believer" from Meet the Robinsons

"Way Back into Love" from Music and Lyrics

"PoP! Goes My Heart" from Music and Lyrics

"Ordinary People" from Music Within

"Pretty Much Amazing" from Nancy Drew

"Falling Slowly" from Once

"If You Want Me" from Once

"Le Festin" from Ratatouille

"Land of Quiet Poems" from Resurrecting the Champ

"Love Will Still Be There" from September Dawn

"Royal Pain" from Shrek the Third

"Rule the World" from Stardust

"Before It's Too Late (Sam and Mikaela's Theme)" from Transformers

"Baby Don't You Cry" from Waitress

"Beautiful Ride" from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

"Walk Hard" from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

"Let's Duet" from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

"Back Where You Belong" from The Water Horse...

Then She Found Me, Helen Hunt's directorial debut, will receive its U.S. premiere Jan. 3 as the opening-night feature at the 19th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Hunt stars in the film -- which she co-wrote with Victor Levin and Alice Arlen from a novel by Elinor Lipman -- as a New York teacher encountering a midlife crisis. With a cast that includes Bette Midler, Colin Firth and Matthew Broderick, the ThinkFilm release is set to bow in May.

The fest also said Tuesday that director John Sayles, whose new film Honeydripper will screen as part of its lineup, will be honored Jan. 6 with its American Maverick Award.

In addition to the opening-night gala, the festival will hold six international galas spotlighting such films as Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven from Germany, Joseph Cedar's Beaufort from Israel, Jonah Markowitz's Shelter from the U.S. and Daniele Luchetti's My Brother Is an Only Child from Italy.

New this year will be a showcase of Israeli film.

Toronto International Film Festival

TORONTO -- Novelist, short story writer and longtime indie filmmaker John Sayles is an artist who never repeats himself. As a screenwriter and then a filmmaker with 16 features under his belt, Sayles has switched geography, language, time periods, genres and cultures in his restless urge to tells stories about all sorts of people, climes and ethnicities. In Honeydripper, his keen interest has shifted to the evolution of 1950s rock music and the inestimable contribution by African-Americans. His heart -- and musical soul -- is in the right place, but the film makes you at times uncomfortable with black and Southern stereotypes that may hinder some from fully enjoying an otherwise benign and cheerful tall tale of the Saturday night when rock came to rural Alabama.

Sayles has paid far too many dues as a man who can write smoothly and in depth about many regions of America for a critical response to attack him over this. But the images and caricatures of a blind guitar picker, redneck sheriff, revival meetings, cotton-picking, fights in juke joints and the like have all been evoked in so many movies of much less integrity that this is a thing one must get past before surrendering to his amusing backwater fable.

A distributor can anticipate Sayles' admirers to turn out, but Honeydripper may crossover into both rock and blues fans and an urban crowd. It does need careful marketing though.

In 1950 Harmony, Alabama, Tyrone Pine Top Purvis (Danny Glover) can barely keep the doors to his Honeydripper tavern open as his blues singer (recording artist Dr. Mable John) can't compete with the juke box at a rival joint. Worse, Tyrone owes the liquor man and his landlord. For one make-or-break Saturday night, he hires a Louisiana hot-licker named Guitar Sam to pack 'em in and save his club.

Only when the train arrives, there's no Sam. Of course, the solution to Tyrone's dilemma got off a previous train, a guitar-totting kid named Sonny (Austin guitar and blues sensation Gary Clark, Jr.). Unfortunately, the sheriff (Stacy Keach, underplaying the obvious as much as he can) has already arrested Sonny for "vagrancy," thus making him available to pick a white judge's cotton.

So Tyrone makes a deal with the sheriff, illegally purloins his rival's whisky, fends off the landlord's henchman, recruits local musical talent and puts his pal (Charles S. Dutton) up to a scheme to cut the club's electricity and abscond with the cash box moments after Sonny hits the stage. But viewers have a pretty good idea that last premeditated crime may be unnecessary.

Tyrone's own family is divided: His doubtful wife Lisa Gay Hamilton) is thinking about trying out religion rather than rely on the tavern while his wannabe beautician stepdaughter (Yaya DaCosta) would like nothing more than to make Sonny ready for his gig.

So that's Honeydripper, a predictable tale featuring typical characters. You do wish Sayles had extended the concluding concert to make getting to that point even more worthwhile for viewers.

The film does feature a host of interesting characters and, as always with Sayles, the dialogue has more than a few zingers. The well-cast actors are all solid, more than solid even, but as the director-editor Sayles lets the pace slacken too often.

Honeydripper represents a good outing by Sayles but far from his best.

HONEYDRIPPER

Anarchists Convention

Credits:

Writer/director/editor: John Sayles

Producer: Maggie Renzi

Director of photography: Dick Pope

Production designer: Toby Corbett

Costume designer: Hope Hanafin

Music: Mason Daring.

Cast:

Tyrone: Danny Glover

Delilah: Lisa Gay Hamilton

China Doll: Yaya DaCosta

Maceo: Charles S. Dutton

Slick: Vondie Curtis Hall

Sonny Blake: Gary Clark, Jr.

Berta Mae: Dr. Mable John

Sheriff Pugh: Stacy Keach

Amanda: Mary Steenburgen

Running time -- 124 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13...

• What I like about Tiff and how they announce their full festival slate is that the "good news" is stretched out over the course of 6 or 8 weeks or so. Last week they unveiled about 2 dozen titles that preemed mostly at Cannes and yesterday they unveiled some U.S indie titles as part of the Special Presentations section. The one title that I’m looking forward to seeing in this 5 pack is Craig Gillespie’s Lars And The Real Girl - a highly anticipated film (for the folks here at Ioncinema) that was one of the better scripts floating around the industry until Sidney Kimmel Ent. grabbed it. Ryan Gosling stars in a role that audiences are sure to appreciate. It also happens to be the only film out of the 5some not seeking domestic distribution – so buyers will be lined up for these other 4. I’m curious about Helen Hunt

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John Sayles has written and will direct Honeydripper, a period musical drama starring Danny Glover, blues guitarist Keb' Mo', R&B singer Ruth Brown and Gary Clark Jr., a Texas blues guitarist. Set in 1950s Alabama, Sayles' original script centers on Tyrone (Glover), owner of the Honeydripper juke joint. When business at Tyrone's blues club begins to drop off, against his better judgment, Tyrone hires Sonny (Clark), a young electric guitarist, in a last-ditch effort to draw crowds during harvest time. "It's about that Bo Diddly moment, when music moves from the blues to rock 'n' roll," said Maggie Renzi, Sayles' longtime producing partner. "John would say he likes to make movies on subjects he doesn't already know, and he knows there's lots of room to explore here."...