We had a lot of good answers; here is the winning tweet!

Please congratulate Karin here, and stay tuned for more easy, fun giveaways at iRATEfilms!

In case you missed it, here is our post from the contest . . . FREE Blu-ray/DVD

This is Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, and she grew more passionate as the filming took place.  She was so moved that she decided to shoot everything TWICE, once in English and once in Serbian.  She was just handed the special film accolade at the Berlin hosted Cinema for Peace Gala for raising awareness of human rights issues.  That is what she did her first time in the Director’s chair.  So . . .

If you had a chance to direct your first film, no budget limit, what would your topic be?

One randomly selected respondent with a U.S. shipping address will win a free Blu-ray/DVD of Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut feature, In the Land of Blood and Honey.

Post your replies below, on our Facebook fan page, here, or tweet with hash #blurayirfblood

Don’t want something for free?  The film is now out in most major retail outlets, check out their site on Facebook or order it directly from Amazon.

http://www.facebook.com/inthelandofbloodandhoney

http://amzn.to/wuNbqp

Contest ends April 2nd – you can’t win if you don’t enter.

Join the next “Acting Intelligence Workshop” beginning March 29th in Hollywood, Florida. It’s going to be great, a real chance to strut your stuff. Together we’re going on a journey into acting insights that go to the heart of every scene, and the soul of every actor. We’re going to challenge your acting abilities and open your eyes to methods that should change everything for you. I know how difficult it is to pursue an acting career, especially when you feel completely overwhelmed by the material or the audition and don’t really know where to start. We’re going to work on changing that forever, and we’re going to hone your skill level so you can move forward dynamically in your career.

Here’s what past participants say about the Workshop:
“I want to tell you what a WONDERFUL acting coach Alyn is. I learned more in 2 hours with him than I’ve learned in many 2-day workshops.” JR, Miami

“Alyn Darnay is a master teacher of the highest caliber. He breaks down classic methods of acting to meet the individual growth of his students and allows them to learn at their own pace. This is the type of class that will bring your work as an actor to another level and allow you as an actor, to stand out above the rest!” GVD, Hallendale

“There’s so much that I’ve learned from Alyn in such a short period of time. His technique is so dynamic that I became instantly engaged in the workshop.” SU, NYC

“If more Acting Teachers were like ALYN, I do believe our films would be of much higher quality and substance…” Tarpin H., Ft. Lauderdale

“Why doesn’t everybody think, talk, and teach like you???” Dana M. Miami.

Classes start promptly at 7 PM conclude at 10 PM and run 4 consecutive Thursdays at Castannette Actors Studio on Hollywood Beach.

To Register: 954.924.2278 or Email: Act@castannetteactorsstudio.com

Almost exactly a year ago was the first time I heard about the book series “The Hunger Games” from my dear friend in Jacksonville.  She was explaining the first book to me and all I could think was “that is so barbaric!!” . . . yet I was intrigued.  I saw the first book on sale at Target shortly after and I picked it up.  It sat on my shelf for awhile but finally the odd symbol on the cover could be ignored no more.  Once I started, I was hooked!!   I bought the other two books in the series and I’ve shared the series with several people I work with.  While the books are sometimes depressing, they are also fantastic reads.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing “The Hunger Games” since I heard that the movie was being made.  I had heard that fans of the book were unhappy with the casting, but I think Jennifer Lawrence is perfect to play Katniss.  I thought she was great as Mystique in “X-Men:  First Class”.  I haven’t seen “Winter’s Bone” but she earned an Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role from her role in the film.

So when I was asked to attend a press event for “The Hunger Games” I was pretty excited.  It was a mall tour, and it was also my first mall event.  I brought Jasmine Rose along with me and we headed to the Broward Mall in Plantation for the ensuing chaos.

We got there at four. Press check-in was at four-thirty, and the event was scheduled to start at six.  We checked in and got our press badges and headed to where the event was taking place, which was near the food court.  At first the mall was nice and quiet, but as we got closer to the food court it got a lot louder.  But that was nothing compared to the volume of the crowd when the stars of the movie came on the stage.  The crowd continued to grow and grow.  There were a lot of fans of the books there!!

Before the interview, there was a DJ playing music.  It was a lot like before a concert, where they play music and people cheer when they see themselves on the TV screens.  In between shots of the crowd, playing on the screens were clips from the upcoming movie.   Shortly before the interviews, the DJ played the new Taylor Swift song, “Safe and Sound” (which I didn’t like at first but I will admit that it’s grown on me).  Then he played the song again.  And then it was time for the stars to come out!!

The cast members that were in attendance were Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss), Alexander Ludwig (Cato), and Amandla Stenberg (Rue).    The host of the event (a local radio DJ, I don’t remember his name though) asked questions that had been submitted by fans.

The cast was onstage for about 40 minutes and answered a bunch of questions.  I left them out because there were spoilers, and the audio wasn’t really great – but check this short clip out to see what you missed.

But, overall, it was an exciting experience for my first mall event.  I am looking forward to the next one!!

AND THERE WAS A COW!
<——— See?

Swift shot: 

When I prepared for this invitation, I didn’t know what to expect.  This was my first time even hearing about the Broadway Kids Studio, and when I did a little research I saw that they had their own “Black Box Studio” – I had no idea how intimate that space would become.  To set this portrayal of the end of hope in such a dark, small, claustrophobic space was probably more convenience than genius, but it was an incredibly powerful venue nonetheless.  It trapped you in with the characters, you weren’t watching from the comfort of your seat a few rows back.  They were mere inches away, these actors, these children couldn’t call out for a line or feign interest if not the center of focus.  There was no escaping us anymore than they could escape the Nazis.  To call these “kids” anything less than professional would be an insult.

We all know the horrible story, the true story of the final years of a group of people forced to live in squalor while enduring the worst kind of fear imaginable.  The only thing they had was each other, and in the production’s final act, we are reminded that when Anne Frank met her sad end . . . she was alone, naked, petrified . . . alone.  As parents sat in the audience, when those words were spoken aloud, to think of your child meeting their fate with such cruel abandon – knowing you couldn’t be there to protect them, to shelter them, or even just to die with them, was something that an eighth-grader conveyed with a maturity some aged actors still can’t master.

All of these “kids” at some point in the show became their characters.  Each one of them had a moment where the scene was all about them, and they didn’t fail to impress.  When Sergio De La Espriella as Mr. Van Daan shouted down his wife for wanting to keep her fur coat, you felt his powerful desperation. When Edith Frank, Anne’s mother, played by Rachel Harrison finally connected with her rebellious daughter, she wasn’t a “kid” anymore.  She conveyed true empathy and understanding, and in that moment, she was a mother to a girl who finally cared for her mother.  The two, understood one another and accepted love.  When Griffin Marthe, who portrayed Mr. Dussel, had a few comedic moments, it was like the darkness in the box had abated some, and you could almost see the stars twinkling through a window that wasn’t there . . . only in a dream.  But before the nightmare of reality shrieked out, before that sad end, the play captured the joy of others, the hell of others, but also the overall enduring strength of togetherness.

Finally, when all was at its bleakest, in a crescendo of pain and sadness, there was one loud explosion of hope, as we learned the invasion had started.  As hope, which seemed like a four letter word earlier, became a pragmatic possibility.  But, sadly, this was a true story, no knights in shining armor would came to save the Franks or their friends.  In the end it was the Gestapo – they were betrayed by a faceless coward.  Regardless of the setting, the time, the heroes, or even the villains, this story always serves as a stark reminder that freedom is not something that should ever be taken for granted.  The next time you find yourself bored or miserable, think of the final two years of Anne Frank, a girl who would never become a woman, a writer whose only prose was in her youth, with such potential, cut down, wasted, lost forever.

In the end, we will all wind up in a box, alone, but with the grace of friends, family, and faith, we can endure as people and we can remember that humanity is only defined by us, what we choose to leave behind as a legacy of good or evil is our choice.  I think that was what the last entry of the diary really captured, Anne was surrounded by fear and misery, yet she still saw the good in the world, she still believed that people were inherently good and worth loving.  I hope we always are.

Who will speak for the trees?

Swift shot:  I am no tree-hugger, but I can proudly say that iRATEfilms.com is run solely on wind energy; you can see our badge below.  And my views on finding alternative energy sources stem more from my loathing of certain oil-rich regimes than saving mother nature.  Still, I have a heart.  And, where some may take The Lorax as a beat you over the head with guilt film, I chose to take it as a, hey, just don’t forget about the trees, film.

Or let’s take his own words to heart, before I get hate mail about the “real message” or the fact that he lampoons environmentalists as some furry little creature.  Seuss once said, “The Lorax doesn’t say lumbering is immoral. I live in a house made of wood and write books printed on paper. It’s a book about going easy on what we’ve got. It’s anti-pollution and anti-greed.”

Starring Ed Helms as the mysteriously named, Once-Ler and Danny DeVito as title character The Lorax, the film is setup as a love story where Ted (Zac Efron) is trying to woo the auburn-haired dreamer, Audrey (Taylor Swift – No Relation to Me), and in fact the book itself was inspired by a romantic trip to East Africa that Seuss took with his wife Audrey in 1970.  And, yes, fans may realize this film was produced by Audrey, the widow of one Theodore, Ted “Dr. Seuss” Geisel.  It really is a love story.

In the film, twelve-year-old Ted is so infatuated with Audrey that he is willing to go beyond the trappings of the plastic city of Thneedville, run by corrupt, bottled-air-tycoon, Aloysius O’Hare (Rob Riggle) to find the one thing that Thneedville really needs, hope, in the form of a Truffula Tree seed.  Stealing the show, of course, was Betty White as Grammy Norma,who tells Ted that he must see the Once-Ler to find out about the trees.

With a little help from Grammy who tricks his mom (Jenny Slate), Ted manages to escape town and soon meets the Once-Ler who forces him to to endure a long story, a long, long story (complete with songs) about where all the trees went and how he met the odd-little magical creature, The Lorax.  Right away the Once-Ler is skeptical and catches on that Ted is just doing this to impress a girl, but he is also just happy to have someone captive, err, captivated with his story.

I was glad to see The Lorax, it was a highly imaginative and colorful film for little minds to enjoy, but it also has some wonderful surprises for adults to keep your attention throughout.  The Humming-Fish and Bar-ba-loots get almost excessively cutesy, but they grow on you as you anticipate their next silly antics and the film doesn’t put you to sleep.  Kudos to Danny DeVito for being the first actor in an animated movie to voice his role in multiple languages!

Sadly, I read a story today about a tree that stood for over 3,500 years, it was the fifth oldest tree on Earth and some meth-head burned it to the ground last month in Florida, and I couldn’t help but think about my review today.  “The Senator” will stand no more, and it wasn’t killed for greed or corporate necessity – it was destroyed by a person that probably needed a little more Dr. Seuss in her life!

Finally, I will leave you with the film’s effective and endearing message taken from the book – “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not.”  Put down your cell-phones and tablets, pull away from your TV’s and PC’s – take your kids to this heart-warming film and remind them that there needs to balance in all things in life.  I think this film would make Dr. Seuss very proud.

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In the Land of Blood and Honey has been nominated for a Golden Globe® for Best Foreign Language Film. Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s, the film tells the story of Danijel (Goran Kosti?) and Ajla (pronounced Ayla) (Zana Marjanovi?), two Bosnians from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a Bosnian Serb police officer, and Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim artist, are together before the war, but their relationship is changed as violence engulfs the country. Months later, Danijel is serving under his father, General Nebojsa Vukojevich (Rade Šerbedžija), as an officer in the Bosnian Serb Army. He and Ajla come face to face again when she is taken from the apartment she shares with her sister, Lejla (Vanesa Glodjo), and Lejla’s infant child by troops under Danijel’s command. As the conflict takes hold of their lives, their relationship changes, their motives and connection to one another become ambiguous and their allegiances grow uncertain. In the Land of Blood and Honey portrays the incredible emotional, moral and physical toll that the war takes on individuals as well as the consequences that stem from the lack of political will to intervene in a society stricken with conflict.

Every year I get asked, hey, Rick, how come you don’t have any lists?  So and so has a list, and they are just the greatest ever!  Well, la dee freakin’ da!  Here is our list!

H-Man suggests the obvious, Halloween (1978) -Eerie, suspenseful thriller about (for the two of you who don’t know the story) a nice, quiet young man named Michael Meyers who breaks out of the loony bin and returns to his hometown on his favorite holiday to slice up some babysitters.  This is the one that pretty much started the slasher genre as we know it today and manages to be scary despite showing almost no blood.  With a terrific break out performance by Jamie Lee Curtis, taut direction by Carpenter, and a now iconic music score, it has more than earned its status as a horror classic, and is an absolute must watch on… erm… Halloween.

Sergio Diaz suggests rolling back the tapes and checking out The Thing (1982) – He actually watched  it only a few months ago. So, he didn’t have the liberty of experiencing the “new graphic magic” it had back then. However, that time gap is what made the film so creepy. Being a huge horror buff, as he watched that bloody…thing crawl everywhere, he couldn’t help be beyond scared, repulsed, and almost paralyzed.

David Limacher keeps it short and twisted with Jacob’s Ladder – The only film to ever give him nightmares!

Amadarwin had a tough time understanding the assignment, no doubt because his editor spared the Cat-O-Nine-Tails, but his two toppers were A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) – Probably the first movie that REALLY scared him…a bogie man that gets you while you sleep? The only movie that actually had him afraid to go to bed.  The Omen (1976) – Evil children scared him horribly when he was younger, and this one tops them all as far as that goes according to Amadarwin.

Jason Berggren, our resident theologian, you know, he wrote a book, that’s more than I can say, anyway, he suggests Hellraiser, because “There’s nothing like meeting someone from Hell who’s come to torment you for eternity!”

Rick Swift, hey, that’s me!  I wasn’t sure if this list should be movies that scared us, or movies that were simply good to curl up with on All Hallow’s Eve.  My tradition as a kid was to Trick ‘R Treat then come home and watch Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, loved that film, loved everything about it really.  But, this assignment became mostly about what film scared you or so it would seem.  In that light, only a few films have made me lose any sleep, the foremost film to pull that off is still The Exorcist III – A chilling mix of man’s evil towards man, with a demon as the puppet-master, and how that film starts is so warped it still bothers me . . . plus, watching that little old lady crawl across the ceiling like a cockroach . . . well, that is still something I have to remove from my mind’s eye before I rack out, and I am an old fart with real problems now.  Imagined problems shouldn’t cause me any lost z’s these days.

I hope our list inspired you to enjoy a good fright-flick-fest this Samhain!