Ballast News

A stray Chabrol, the next Juno and more Toni Servillo brilliance are among this year's hidden gems on the festival circuit.

Ballast joins a growing number of independently made pictures concerned with people relegated to the extreme margins of society .

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the brilliant Turkish cineaste , whose exquisite visual tableaus, minimalist plots and flair for long dramatic silences irresistibly recall the heyday of Michelangelo Antonioni, here offers more plot than usual, in the film that won him the "Best Director" prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

New developments arrive fast and furiously in this contemplative character study before it finally settles down into an examination of the motivations of James , a very troubled, black, poor and criminally-inclined 12 year-old coming-of-age in a rural region of the Mississippi Delta.

Although Ballast was one of the most highly praised films of 2008 , the film never made its way into many movie theatres.

Published: Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 4:01 a.m. Last Modified: Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 2:20 a.m. "Florida Cowboys: Keepers of the Last Frontier." Compiled by Photographer Canton Ward Jr.

Ballast, a 2008 film that features a Canton High student in a leading role, is set to be released to DVD and Blu-Ray Nov.

There's a myth from the history of Rome called "The Rape of the Sabine Women." Using the word "rape" to mean abduction rather than assault, it tells of Roman men who asked the leaders of the Sabine tribe if they could intermarry with them.

Kino's Ballast DVD and Blu-ray editions will feature a 37-minute exclusive video extra titled "Scene Development" offering a view into the two-month improvisational rehearsal process employed by actors Micheal J. Smith, Sr., JimMyron Ross, Tarra Riggs, and director, Hammer, that generated what Los Angeles Times critic, Kenneth Turan, described as ...

Taxi driver: Red West and Souleymane Sy Savane strike up an unusual friendship in 'Goodbye Solo' enlarge There was a time when a buddy film would have men being men and women, well, stuck at home doing the washing for all the interest that film-makers had in them.

Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he's been viewing in his spare time ... "Wages of Fear" : Four desperate derelicts, including the strapping Yves Montand, willingly risk their lives to deliver truckloads of nitroglycerin across harrowing terrain in South America.

A Morgan's Mark production. Produced by Lee V. Stiff, Morgan R. Stiff. Executive producer, Lee V. Stiff.