Mario Sepúlveda (aka “Super Mario”) is considered the public face of the 33 men. That is, according to 33miners.com, a blog chronicling the activities of the men after being rescued.

The film is called “The 33,” and is expected to be released in 2014. It’s being directed by Patricia Riggen, whose previous work includes: Girl in Progress, Lemonade Mouth, Revolución (segment “Lindo y querido”), Under the Same Moon, Family Portrait (documentary short) and The Cornfield (short).

The film’s description (IMDB) is simply: “Thirty-three miners are trapped in a collapsed mine shaft for more than two months.”

The 33 is written by Mikko Alanne and Jose Rivera. Alanne’s writing credits include 5 Days of War, History Undercover: Terror Strikes Moscow, Voice of Dissent (documentary short), Breaking Dawn (short) and Sleep, the Monster Whispered (documentary short). Rivera’s include On the Road, Letters to Juliet, The Winged Man (short), The Tape Recorder (short), Trade, The Motorcycle Diaries, and The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story, to name a few. He also did an episode of Family Matters.

Leopoldo Enriquez and Carlos Eugenio Lavin are serving as executive producers and Edward McGum and Mike Medavoy are producers. Carla Hool is responsible for casting.

The addition of Banderas as Super Mario was announced at the Cannes Film Festival.

Machado was an eight-time Emmy award winner, and in 1970, became the first Chinese-American on-air TV news reporter and anchor in LA, an possibly in the U.S.

He was so good at his job that the movie industry couldn’t get enough of using him as a reporter. He appeared in all three Robocop films as anchor Casey Wong. Here’s a compilation of Robocop news reports:

Machado was seventy-eight years old. According to a statement from his daughter, he died from complications of pneumonia, and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

He was born in Shanghai in 1935, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1956. He became a U.S. citizen in 1965.

He got is start in the reporting business at local Los Angeles news stations like KCBS and KNXT. He also hosted medical investigation show Medix.

In addition to his Emmy awards, he won the Howard Blakeslee Award, San Francisco’s Interceptor Award, and was even named honorary mayor of Granada Hills for eight years. He was also named LA Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. In 1983, Mayor Benjamin Norton proclaimed December 4, Mario Machado Day.

“Glenn Frankel, beginning in Hollywood and then returning to the origins of the story, creates a rich and nuanced anatomy of a timeless film and a quintessentially American myth,” Google explains. “The dominant story that has emerged departs dramatically from documented history: it is of the inevitable triumph of white civilization, underpinned by anxiety about the sullying of white women by “savages.” What makes John Ford’s film so powerful, and so important, Frankel argues, is that it both upholds that myth and undermines it, baring the ambiguities surrounding race, sexuality, and violence in the settling of the West and the making of America.”

More recent At Google talks here.

The hype around the documentary Room 237 has no doubt played a role in much of the recent interest in the film, but The Shining will continue to inspire countless pieces of Internet fun for years to come, without a doubt.

With the new Film Ink ad, we can’t help but be reminded of this Channel 4 ad for The Stanley Kubrick Season from a few years back:

[via The Overlook Hotel]

Well, apparently Ebert and his wife Chaz worked to make sure that “was” remains “is.” They tapped a digital strategist to help ensure that the site, visited by millions, would remain a top destination for those hungry for film critique and discussion. And that new site is now live.

“Roger wanted to bridge film criticism and the community of fans like never before,” Chaz Ebert said. “The new site enlists many more critics, reviewing many more movies, displayed side-by-side with the most comprehensive collection of Roger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning content online.”

You may have noticed that the site has gone through a transformation since Ebert’s death earlier this month. And quite frankly, it’s a huge improvement. The old rogerebert.com was one of the best online resources for film lovers, but it wasn’t very easy on the eyes. The new site is cleaner and more visually impressive.

The new content will be powered by a network of contributors – nearly 20 listed on the site. They’ll provide the week’s reviews.

“The site focuses on three things: criticism, commentary and community,” said site designer Josh Golden. “Everything is aggregated in one place. It’s both library and playground for serious film buffs, but it’s easy to navigate for people who are just looking for a good movie.”

And of course, all of Ebert’s reviews and Great Movies essays are accessible on the site.

The plan is to keep people coming to the site for their reviews, even though Ebert has passed on. By the looks of things, they’ve got things going in the right direction.

Google+3 hours ago

Have you ever dreamed of meeting famous movie stars? Today you can Hangout with the award-winning actress Halle Berry live from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

The actress will talk to Brazilian fans about her new movie The Call. 

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Diamond Films Brasil originally shared:
Quer entrevistar a Halle Berry Ao Vivo para todo o Brasil?

Participe da promoção e concorra a fazer parte do Hangout On Air com atriz de Hollywood Halle Berry!

Acesse o site e participe! 106    1 Powered by socialditto

Last year, Berry was injured on the set of the film (which at the time was called The Hive). Now you have something to ask her about.

And of course, there’s always Catwoman.

(Paul Jones)

(Mark Coulier)

(Fesses de Bouque)

(Nicole Leopoldine Staudigl)

(viscerart)

Recently we looked at some rare behind-the-scenes photos from Hellraiser, which Barker also shared on Facebook.

Here’s what she had to say about Thatcher (via The Washington Post):

“Margaret Thatcher was a pioneer, willingly or unwillingly, for the role of women in politics.

It is hard to imagine a part of our current history that has not been affected by measures she put forward in the UK at the end of the 20th century. Her hard-nosed fiscal measures took a toll on the poor, and her hands-off approach to financial regulation led to great wealth for others. There is an argument that her steadfast, almost emotional loyalty to the pound sterling has helped the UK weather the storms of European monetary uncertainty.

But to me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit. To have come up, legitimately, through the ranks of the British political system, class bound and gender phobic as it was, in the time that she did and the way that she did, was a formidable achievement. To have won it, not because she inherited position as the daughter of a great man, or the widow of an important man, but by dint of her own striving. To have withstood the special hatred and ridicule, unprecedented in my opinion, leveled in our time at a public figure who was not a mass murderer; and to have managed to keep her convictions attached to fervent ideals and ideas- wrongheaded or misguided as we might see them now-without corruption- I see that as evidence of some kind of greatness, worthy for the argument of history to settle. To have given women and girls around the world reason to supplant fantasies of being princesses with a different dream: the real-life option of leading their nation; this was groundbreaking and admirable.

I was honored to try to imagine her late life journey, after power; but I have only a glancing understanding of what her many struggles were, and how she managed to sail through to the other side. I wish to convey my respectful condolences to her family and many friends.”

For more thoughts on Thatcher’s passing from the Twitterverse, go here.

Ebert’s final review turns of to be To the Wonder, the latest feature from director Terrence Malick. To the Wonder stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, and Javier Bardem, and is slated for an April 12th release.

Ebert enjoyed the film, giving it a positive review and 3 and 1/2 stars.

Here’s a snippet of the review, which is classic Ebert through and through:

A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision.

“Well,” I asked myself, “why not?” Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren’t many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren’t many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn’t that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?

There will be many who find “To the Wonder” elusive and too effervescent. They’ll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.

Ebert has been kind to Malick’s films in the past. He loved his last film, The Tree of Life, awarding it four stars. He also enjoyed 2005′s The New World and 1999′s The Thin Red Line, giving those films four and three stars, respectively.

For another great Ebert review, check out his “Great Movies” essay on Malick’s 1978 classic Days of Heaven.

Over on rogerebert.com, you can also find some select remembrances of Ebert, along with a statement from his wife Chaz. Plus, an archive of all of his reviews – most of which (especially the Great Movies essays) are essential reading for anyone who’s serious about the movies.

Ascher tweeted this afternoon:

Reviews of the film have been quite positive for the most part .There has been some criticism (including from Kubrick’s assistant) about some of the themes discussed in the film, but people seem to find them quite interesting anyway. Here’s a snippet from a New York Times review:

That makes the theories fair game for a sober assessment. And who better to provide one than Leon Vitali, who is listed in the closing credits of “The Shining” as personal assistant to the director? Mr. Vitali had an acting role in Kubrick’s 1975 movie “Barry Lyndon,” went to work for him soon after and remained on his payroll for decades. Mr. Vitali’s first task as an assistant was to fly to the United States to cast the role of Danny, the child of Jack (Jack Nicholson) and Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall). He was present during the 13-month filming at sound stages near London, and throughout postproduction.

Mr. Vitali, 64, is a Briton who now lives in Los Angeles, where he works on his own and other film projects. He was recently sent an advance copy of “Room 237,” and not surprisingly it elicited a strong response.

“I was falling about laughing most of the time,” he said by telephone. “There are ideas espoused in the movie that I know to be total balderdash.”

The film currently has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Shining itself only has a 90%.