The Most Underrated Motion Picture Of 2011: J.C.
Candor’s “Margin Call”: An Instant American Classic You Must See!
By
Nicholas Sheffo
Awards
season slowly starts around the holidays, then really kicks in for the new year
and we are lucky to see most of the major theatrical films releases by
now. It has been a terrible year for
cinema worldwide critically and commercially, plus the titles that have been
prominent have been too small a number and too often are set in the past. Hollywood has been out of touch with the
audience in ways to numerous to go into here, but it has been especially unable
to make films about the times we live in (documentaries do not count in this
case (which is why they have their own awards category), no matter how good
they have been lately because we are talking narrative storytelling) in a trend
that began in the 1980s and have been worse ever since.
Occasionally
though, a gem shows up that does just that (think Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1992) with Michael
Douglas for instance) and along with big studios pushing their prime releases
for the season, Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions have produced, backed and
cleverly distributed a bold film about the financial crisis that not enough
people seem to want to talk about despite it affecting us all deeply as much
now as when it started. The
feature-length debut for newcomer writer/director J.C. Candor called Margin Call.
At a
major financial institution involved in stocks and investment trading, a bunch
of mass firings quietly starts up including a veteran analyst (Stanley Tucci)
who has been working on a projection at the company that is unfinished but will
reveal a disaster to come that will send devastating ripples through the world
economy. From an amazing screenplay, no moment
is wasted in this incredible work that gives us an inside look at the
beginnings of the crisis that some smart, ambitious films did not quiet pull
off prior to this release.
As
impressive as its writing, directing, production and the honesty of the
situation bold portrayed is one of the best ensemble casts of the year
including Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany (along with the underrated Priest is the most undervalued actor of
the year), Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore (in her best work in years), Simon Baker,
Penn Badgley, Mary McDonnell and Co-Producer Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock from the
revived Star Trek) all at the height
of their acting powers makes this the kind of film we used to get all the time
and that we (to say the least) do not get enough.
It is a
fantastic work that the more people see it, the more they will be talking about
it, remembering it and will stay as relevant as when it was first released,
only becoming more so as the topics dealt with continue to loom large in our
lives and in this critical election year.
I wanted to alter everyone to this great work in advance of our official
home video coverage, so don’t miss it!
The
review will soon follow.
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Core
Media House re-releases Somerhill songs
‘Free
Your Mind (Tara Na)’ and ‘Today or Tomorrow’
feature new artwork and are available at Amazon, CD Baby, iTunes, and other
Internet retailers.
Core
Media House L.L.C. has re-released Free Your Mind (Tara Na) and Today
or Tomorrow, both performed by Somerhill.
The re-released songs feature new artwork consisting of
photography by Charles Constantino. Free Your Mind (Tara Na) features a photograph of a
sketch by Melinda Patterson. Free Your Mind (Tara Na) and Today or Tomorrow are
available at Amazon,
CD Baby, iTunes,
and other Internet retailers.
Click
here to listen to a clip of Free Your Mind (Tara Na).
Click here to listen to a clip of Today
or Tomorrow.
Somerhill is Chad Gontkovic, Greg Kehl, and Bill Rose. Winner of the 2006 Rockin’ in
the Valley original-music contest held by Our Town, Somerhill was the
closing act for American Idol finalist Chris Daughtry
in March 2007 in Pittsburgh.
The
Recording Academy selected Free
Your Mind (Tara Na)
and Today or Tomorrow for inclusion on the 52nd Grammy Entry List in the categories of Best Rock Performance by a
Duo or Group with Vocals and Best Rock Song.
Charles
Constantino and Chad Gontkovic wrote the lyrics for Free Your
Mind (Tara Na).
Constantino enlisted singer Isabel Granada to
translate “Let’s go” to “Tara na” in the Tagalog language of the Philippines for the song. Granada received the 1998 FAMAS Award for Best
Supporting Actress and joined the cast of Survivor
Philippines: Celebrity Doubles Showdown, which premiered in November
2011. William Rose and Charles Constantino wrote the music for Free Your Mind (Tara Na) and the lyrics and music for Today or Tomorrow.
Core
Media House cofounder Charles Constantino mixed and produced Free Your Mind (Tara Na) and Today or Tomorrow, both of
which were digitally tracked, mixed and mastered at 24 bits/96 kilohertz.
Charles Constantino Publishing—a member of ASCAP,
the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers—is the exclusive
publisher of Free Your Mind (Tara Na) and Today or Tomorrow.
Charles
Constantino Publishing is also the exclusive publisher of the catalog of original songs released on Core808, the California-based record label and multimedia-production
company.
Click here to
request additional information.
###
Click
here for a PDF version of the preceding press release,
“Core
Media House re-releases Somerhill songs.”
----------------------------------------
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High Def Disc News is a Blu-ray-only website with reviews
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Our writer Dante Ciampaglia’s Crazy From The Heat blog is always worth checking out for comments
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www.cinegeek.com is run by Stephen Lackey
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-- The Management