![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTdjOWYwZjctMzQ0Ni00MzA0LWI3MDItODJiMDZmMjljZmZiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg)
Shelley Surpin, the entertainment lawyer who produced a half-dozen movies and championed such independent filmmakers as Allison Anders, Nicole Holofcener and Gregg Araki, has died. She was 72.
Surpin died Friday in Santa Monica of complications from a stroke, her law firm, the Century City-based Surpin, Mayersohn & Coghill, announced.
Surpin was a producer on The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997), both written and directed by Araki; Louis & Frank (1998), written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell; Prague Duet (1998), written and directed by Roger L. Simon; Sound of My Voice (2012), directed and co-written by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling; and Jake Squared (2013), written and ...
Surpin died Friday in Santa Monica of complications from a stroke, her law firm, the Century City-based Surpin, Mayersohn & Coghill, announced.
Surpin was a producer on The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997), both written and directed by Araki; Louis & Frank (1998), written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell; Prague Duet (1998), written and directed by Roger L. Simon; Sound of My Voice (2012), directed and co-written by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling; and Jake Squared (2013), written and ...
![Image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTdjOWYwZjctMzQ0Ni00MzA0LWI3MDItODJiMDZmMjljZmZiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE0MzQwMjgz._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,0,500,281_.jpg)
Shelley Surpin, the entertainment lawyer who produced a half-dozen movies and championed such independent filmmakers as Allison Anders, Nicole Holofcener and Gregg Araki, has died. She was 72.
Surpin died Friday of complications from a stroke, her law firm, the Century City-based Surpin, Mayersohn & Coghill, announced.
Surpin was a producer on The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997), both written and directed by Araki; Louis & Frank (1998), written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell; Prague Duet (1998), written and directed by Roger L. Simon; Sound of My Voice (2012), directed and co-written by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling; and Jake Squared (2013), written and directed by Howard ...
Surpin died Friday of complications from a stroke, her law firm, the Century City-based Surpin, Mayersohn & Coghill, announced.
Surpin was a producer on The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997), both written and directed by Araki; Louis & Frank (1998), written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell; Prague Duet (1998), written and directed by Roger L. Simon; Sound of My Voice (2012), directed and co-written by Zal Batmanglij and starring Brit Marling; and Jake Squared (2013), written and directed by Howard ...
Robert De Niro in ‘The Godfather: Part II’ (Courtesy: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
The first few days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been filled with a slew of sweeping policy changes that have garnered plenty of criticism — but the recent changes to America’s immigration policy have topped headlines. With an executive order that has been considered a Muslim ban by many, let’s take a look at some great films about immigration to the United States. There are plenty of them, but here is just a sampling of 16 that you should definitely watch.
A Better Life (2011): This film was directed by Chris Weitz and is a drama about a gardener in East L.A. who struggles to keep his son away from both gangs and immigration agents all while trying to give him opportunities he never had. A Better Life — written by...
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
The first few days of Donald Trump’s presidency have been filled with a slew of sweeping policy changes that have garnered plenty of criticism — but the recent changes to America’s immigration policy have topped headlines. With an executive order that has been considered a Muslim ban by many, let’s take a look at some great films about immigration to the United States. There are plenty of them, but here is just a sampling of 16 that you should definitely watch.
A Better Life (2011): This film was directed by Chris Weitz and is a drama about a gardener in East L.A. who struggles to keep his son away from both gangs and immigration agents all while trying to give him opportunities he never had. A Better Life — written by...
- 2/1/2017
- by Carson Blackwelder
- Scott Feinberg
Cult movie classic ‘Pretty Poison’ filmmaker Noel Black dead at 77 (photo: Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins in ‘Pretty Poison’) Noel Black, best remembered for the 1968 cult movie classic Pretty Poison, died of pneumonia at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on July 5, 2014. Black (born on June 30, 1937, in Chicago) was 77. Prior to Pretty Poison, Noel Black earned praise for the 18-minute short film Skaterdater (1965), the tale of a boy skateboarder who falls for a girl bike rider. Shot on the beaches of Los Angeles County, the dialogue-less Skaterdater went on to win the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film and tied with Orson Welles’ Falstaff - Chimes at Midnight for the Technical Grand Prize at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. Besides, Skaterdater received an Academy Award nomination in the Best Short Subject, Live Action category. (The Oscar winner that year was Claude Berri’s Le Poulet.) ‘Pretty Poison’: Fun and games and...
- 8/10/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Primeridian Entertainment has tapped Star Trek vet Nicholas Meyer to script the pilot and treatment for an untitled TV series about the space race between the U.S. and Ussr, spanning the end of WWII through the 1960s. The neophyte banner has optioned the rights to Matthew Brzezinski’s Red Moon Rising: Sputnik And The Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age for the project and is also in talks to enlist Cold War experts like Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev, to consult. Series will focus on the competition between superpowers as both countries attempt to build on the Nazis’ V-2 designs to grow their own space programs. Primeridian is led by Arcadiy Golubovich and Tim O’Hair, who at Cannes launched a feature project based on the life of Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. They’ll produce and finance the untitled space project themselves. The shingle has also tapped...
- 6/25/2013
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
Oscar-nominated screenwriter Roger L. Simon will pen the script for The Future of Now, the second feature from newly launched Primeridian Entertainment. Arcadiy Golubovich, a principal of Primeridian, will make his directorial debut with the dystopian drama. His Primeridian partner, Tim O'Hair, will produce. Primeridian is fully financing the Washington, D.C.-set pic, with casting slated for June and shooting aiming for fall. Photos: 'The Bling Ring' Steals the Spotlight at Cannes Premiere The author of 10 novels, Simon was nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay for 1989’s Enemies: A Love Story. He also received
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- 5/21/2013
- by Rebecca Ford
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
By Scott Mendelson
HollywoodNews.com: This time, it’s the best of the best. Of course ‘best’ is a subjective term, so you might want to consider these my ‘favorites’. Despite what everyone likes to whine about at the end of every year, 2011 was in fact one of the better years in a good long time. Maybe it was the effects of the 2007 WGA strike wearing off, maybe it was just dumb luck, but on the whole, movies, especially mainstream movies, were pretty on-spot more often than they weren’t. But just as important, most of the year-end Oscar bait was actually quite good, so this is a year where I don’t have to half-heartedly apologize for having a list filled with movies nobody saw and mainstream pictures that no one admits to liking. Even if it took 1/3 of the year to really get cooking, 2011 was an uncommonly solid...
HollywoodNews.com: This time, it’s the best of the best. Of course ‘best’ is a subjective term, so you might want to consider these my ‘favorites’. Despite what everyone likes to whine about at the end of every year, 2011 was in fact one of the better years in a good long time. Maybe it was the effects of the 2007 WGA strike wearing off, maybe it was just dumb luck, but on the whole, movies, especially mainstream movies, were pretty on-spot more often than they weren’t. But just as important, most of the year-end Oscar bait was actually quite good, so this is a year where I don’t have to half-heartedly apologize for having a list filled with movies nobody saw and mainstream pictures that no one admits to liking. Even if it took 1/3 of the year to really get cooking, 2011 was an uncommonly solid...
- 12/30/2011
- by Scott Mendelson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Chicago – One of the most contentious issues in America now is the handling of “illegal” immigrants from Mexico. They, like anyone else, want a better circumstance for themselves and their families, as director Chris Weitz explores in the new film “A Better Life.”
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Essentially a modern re-telling of Victorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief,” A Better Life mines the emotional journey of its protagonists, a father and son trying to get somewhere, anywhere in the midst of the slave wages and substandard living conditions for the illegal immigrant in this country. Surrounding the father is a cloak of pressure-filled fear, and even when a sliver of hope appears on the horizon it comes with consequences.
Carlos (Demián Bichir) life is one of redundant hard labor, earning a living sub contracting through a friend’s landscaping business. He has been in America illegally since he and his wife escaped from Mexico years before.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Essentially a modern re-telling of Victorio De Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief,” A Better Life mines the emotional journey of its protagonists, a father and son trying to get somewhere, anywhere in the midst of the slave wages and substandard living conditions for the illegal immigrant in this country. Surrounding the father is a cloak of pressure-filled fear, and even when a sliver of hope appears on the horizon it comes with consequences.
Carlos (Demián Bichir) life is one of redundant hard labor, earning a living sub contracting through a friend’s landscaping business. He has been in America illegally since he and his wife escaped from Mexico years before.
- 7/8/2011
- by [email protected] (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Chicago – In our latest drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 35 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of the new film “A Better Life” from Oscar-nominated director Chris Weitz (“The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” “About a Boy” and “The Golden Compass”)!
“A Better Life” stars Demián Bichir, José Julián, Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo, Joaquín Cosio, Nancy Lenehan, Gabriel Chavarria, Bobby Soto, Chelsea Rendon, Trampas Thompson, Tim Griffin, Valorie Hubbard, Dolores Heredia, Isabella Rae Thomas, Carlos Linares and Robert Peters from director Chris Weitz and writers Eric Eason and Roger L. Simon.
To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “A Better Life” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This screening is on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter this Hookup and win can be found beneath the graphic below.
The movie...
“A Better Life” stars Demián Bichir, José Julián, Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo, Joaquín Cosio, Nancy Lenehan, Gabriel Chavarria, Bobby Soto, Chelsea Rendon, Trampas Thompson, Tim Griffin, Valorie Hubbard, Dolores Heredia, Isabella Rae Thomas, Carlos Linares and Robert Peters from director Chris Weitz and writers Eric Eason and Roger L. Simon.
To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “A Better Life” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This screening is on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 at 7 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter this Hookup and win can be found beneath the graphic below.
The movie...
- 6/29/2011
- by [email protected] (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
A Better Life has more to offer than good intentions: it’s sincere and credible, which is more than I can say about an awful lot of movies. Yet something about it kept me at arm’s length: I felt the filmmakers’ presence instead of losing myself in the story. Is that because, like director Chris Weitz, I am not part of the world he’s depicting but an outsider looking in? Or is it because the trajectory of this melancholy film is so predictable? Although Eric Eason wrote the screenplay, from a story by Roger L. Simon, the inspiration seems to be…...
- 6/24/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
The idea of an “American Dream” is predicated on the idea that we all live in the same America. A Better Life, the new film from director Chris Weitz (About A Boy, New Moon), gives us a glimpse into the life of a Mexican father who has crossed into America and tried to establish himself in our country. Far too often this sort of story is told from the top-down as a political issue, starring facts, figures and xenophobia. It’s a pleasure to see this from a more humane point of a view. Although, to be fair, maybe “humane” isn’t the right choice of words for the characters’ existence.
Carlos (Demian Bichir, in a knock-out performance) is stuck in an relentless cycle. He works seven days a week as a landscaper on some of the nicest homes in Los Angeles, only to return to his ramshackle home in...
Carlos (Demian Bichir, in a knock-out performance) is stuck in an relentless cycle. He works seven days a week as a landscaper on some of the nicest homes in Los Angeles, only to return to his ramshackle home in...
- 6/23/2011
- by Mike Anton
- The Film Stage
Clips from Chris Weitz's A Better Life starring Demián Bichir, and Jose Julian! Summit Entertainment's drama A Better Life gets several new clips in standard and high definition. Also, get feedback from the stars as well as well as 6 behind-the-scenes videos from the drama helmed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass, The Twilight Saga: New Moon). A Better Life is a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father’s love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had. Eric Eason wrote the script based on the story by Roger L. Simon. The film opens June 24th with a cast including Dolores Heredia, Joaquin Cosio and Carlos Linares.
- 6/18/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Clips from Chris Weitz's A Better Life starring Demián Bichir, and Jose Julian! Summit Entertainment's drama A Better Life gets several new clips in standard and high definition. Also, get feedback from the stars as well as well as 6 behind-the-scenes videos from the drama helmed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass, The Twilight Saga: New Moon). A Better Life is a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father’s love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had. Eric Eason wrote the script based on the story by Roger L. Simon. The film opens June 24th with a cast including Dolores Heredia, Joaquin Cosio and Carlos Linares.
- 6/18/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Clips from Chris Weitz's A Better Life starring Demián Bichir, and Jose Julian! Summit Entertainment's drama A Better Life gets several new clips in standard and high definition. Also, get feedback from the stars as well as well as 6 behind-the-scenes videos from the drama helmed by Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass, The Twilight Saga: New Moon). A Better Life is a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father’s love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had. Eric Eason wrote the script based on the story by Roger L. Simon. The film opens June 24th with a cast including Dolores Heredia, Joaquin Cosio and Carlos Linares.
- 6/18/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
See movie images from A Better Life, directed by Chris Weitz, starring Demian Bichir, Jose Julian and Dolores Heredia. This looks outstanding and worth a visit, I know I'll check it out myself at some point. Summit Entertainment distributes the drama which opens on June 24th and is scripted by Eric Eason based on the story by Roger L. Simon. A Better Life is a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father’s love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had.
- 6/8/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
See movie images from A Better Life, directed by Chris Weitz, starring Demian Bichir, Jose Julian and Dolores Heredia. This looks outstanding and worth a visit, I know I'll check it out myself at some point. Summit Entertainment distributes the drama which opens on June 24th and is scripted by Eric Eason based on the story by Roger L. Simon. A Better Life is a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father’s love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had.
- 6/8/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
See movie images from A Better Life, directed by Chris Weitz, starring Demian Bichir, Jose Julian and Dolores Heredia. This looks outstanding and worth a visit, I know I'll check it out myself at some point. Summit Entertainment distributes the drama which opens on June 24th and is scripted by Eric Eason based on the story by Roger L. Simon. A Better Life is a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father’s love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had.
- 6/8/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Ryan Gosling, Drive Also at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2011: the world premiere of Chris Weitz's A Better Life and the North American premiere of Nicolas Winding Refn's Palme d'Or competitor Drive, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. Best known at this stage for handling a vampire (Robert Pattinson), a werewolf (Taylor Lautner), and the woman between (Kristen Stewart) in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Chris Weitz has now tackled a low-budget, socially conscious drama featuring plain old human beings. The Laff's press release describes A Better Life as "the poignant, suspenseful tale of an illegal immigrant in La struggling to build a better life for his beloved son." Written by Eric Eason from a story by Roger L. Simon, A Better Life stars Demián Bichir, José Julián, Dolores Heredia, Joaquín Cosío and Carlos Linares. Summit Entertainment will have a limited release of the film on June...
- 5/11/2011
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
It's been a long time coming and finally news has broken about when your first opportunity to see the Guillermo del Toro produced and Troy Nixey directed remake of the Seventies TV scare-a-thon Don't Be Afraid of the Dark! California residents you Do Not want to miss this!
From the Press Release
Today the Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times and supported by L.A. Live, announced Guillermo del Toro as Guest Director, as well as film selections for closing night, a special screening, galas, conversations and more. As previously announced, the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival will screen a diverse slate of over 200 feature films, shorts, and music videos, representing more than 30 countries. The Festival – produced by Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that also produces the Spirit Awards – will announce opening night, additional galas, special guests and programming for the Festival Talks later this month.
From the Press Release
Today the Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times and supported by L.A. Live, announced Guillermo del Toro as Guest Director, as well as film selections for closing night, a special screening, galas, conversations and more. As previously announced, the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival will screen a diverse slate of over 200 feature films, shorts, and music videos, representing more than 30 countries. The Festival – produced by Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that also produces the Spirit Awards – will announce opening night, additional galas, special guests and programming for the Festival Talks later this month.
- 5/11/2011
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
--but it looks to me as if the nationwide Tea Parties are an anticlimactic fizzle. On what do I base this? The fact that even the coverage on Fox News and Fox Business News today has been surprisingly piecemeal, far from the wall-to-wall 'palooza that they had been hyping for the last few weeks in their role as the authoritative go-to place for all things teabaggy. The overhead shot of the crowd in Boston revealed no great swell of humanity and apparently only a few hundred turned out in wet, cold Philadelphia. Yes, there's a larger crowd building out in Sacramento, where Fox's Neil Cavuto is holding court, but its modest size doesn't suggest a political tipping point about to tip. And despite Cavuto's talk of protesters' "anger" over the bailouts etc., their handmade signs and facial expressions look like a yard sale in progress, not the makings of a social tsunami.
- 4/15/2009
- Vanity Fair
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