Many small-budget features and their actors were overlooked by the Oscars. That includes ‘The Music Never Stopped,’ Maria Bello, Ashley Rickards and Anson Mount.

In a perfect world, every theatrically released movie would have the exact same chance to compete each year for the Academy Award in its worthiest categories. But just like with the lottery, you have to play to win, and when it comes to the Oscars, many smaller, independently made films just can’t afford to play.

Fortunately, as a Times film reviewer, Netflix devotee and overall movie junkie, I see a number of strong features each year that fly so far under Hollywood’s radar as to barely exist. But they do exist, often as memorably — if not more so — than the many higher profile, more pedigreed selections that fill the lists of Oscar hopefuls.

So, with this year’s Academy Award nominations just announced, it seemed like an appropriate time to recall some of 2011′s best “unconsidered” films and, in that aforementioned perfect world, where they might have landed in the race for Oscar gold.

On the lead actress front, another highly respected performer, Maria Bello, was robbed of consideration for her stunning portrayal of a mother devastated by her teenage son’s murder-suicide shooting rampage in the difficult, under-seen “Beautiful Boy.” Bello’s brave interpretation of Shawn Ku and Michael Armbruster’s sensitive script (Ku also directed) was, in many ways, superior to Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Tilda Swinton’s widely noted but arguably less accessible performance in the similarly themed “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”

Had “Beautiful Boy” been sufficiently exposed to academy members and other voting blocs by its distributor, Anchor Bay, Bello may have very well found herself among the many fine lead actress contenders. But, according to the film’s producer, Lee Clay, it was “less an Anchor Bay-specific thing and more a small, independent movie-specific thing.” He explained, “To really mount a serious Oscar campaign, you’re talking about a spend of between half a million and a million dollars, which was more than the film’s entire [prints and advertising] budget to begin with.”

- LATimes.com

He took her car. He took her son.

Bad idea.

ANCHOR BAY FILMS GETS

CARJACKED ON BLU-RAY™ AND DVD

Drive For Your Life November 22^nd

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Maria Bello (the upcoming “Prime Suspect,” Abduction) and Stephen Dorff (the upcoming November 11^th release of Immortals, Blade) headline the Anchor Bay Films thriller Carjacked, premiering November 22^nd on Blu-ray™ and DVD. Co-starring Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner, “Six Feet Under”), Catherine Dent (“The Shield,” 21 Grams) and Gary Grubbs (JFK, Ray), Carjacked is an unforgettable ride into suspense and terror! SRP is $26.98 for the DVD, and $29.99 for the Blu-ray™. Pre-book is October 26.

During a routine stop at a gas station, Lorraine (Bello), a vulnerable single mom, and her 5 year-old son (Connor Hill) are overtaken by Roy (Dorff), a vicious bank robber on the run. He forces her to drive to meet up with his accomplice who still has money from the heist. Possibly facing not only her death, but her son’s, Lorraine’s fight for survival summons up an inner strength and courage that she never thought she had.

Bonus features on both the Blu-ray™ and DVD include a behind-the-scenes featurette.

The film is produced by Daniel Grodnik (Powder, Bobby) and Eric Gozlan (Beautiful Boy) and directed by John Bonito. Written by Michael and Sherry Compton, who also are Executive Producers. Composer is Bennett Salvay, and Theo Van De Sande is Director of Photography. Executive Producers are Murray Rosenthal, Jonathan Rosenthal, Richard Iott and Michael Greenfield. About Anchor Bay Films

Anchor Bay Films is unique in that it offers the creative community a fully integrated distribution capability on all platforms and an international solution extending beyond the U.S. Anchor Bay Films is a division of Anchor Bay Entertainment and is on the ground providing quality distribution with operations in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, as well as distribution capabilities in other key territories. The company focuses on a platform release strategy for its films with an eye toward maximizing their potential across all ancillary distribution platforms. The company recently released the critically acclaimed comedy City Island starring Andy Garcia and Solitary Man starring Michael Douglas, Kill the Irishman starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, as well as Sundance Audience Award Winner happythankyoumoreplease starring Josh Radnor, Malin Akerman, Kate Mara and Tony Hale. Upcoming releases include, Meet Monica Velour with Kim Cattrall and Toronto International Film Festival award-winnerBeautiful Boy with Maria Bello and Michael Sheen. Anchor Bay Entertainment is a subsidiary of Starz Media, LLC (www.starzmedia.com) which is a controlled subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation attributed to the Liberty Starz tracking stock group.

Montreal Producer Eric Gozlan gets ready for his Montreal premiere July 14th

Producer Eric Gozlan could have his breakout with Beautiful Boy

 

By BRENDAN KELLY, The Gazette July 11, 2011 10:48 AM

MONTREAL – Chances are you’ve never heard of Eric Gozlan or his production and film-financing company Goldrush Entertainment. Gozlan is not a guy with a public profile, especially here in his hometown. In a chat this week at a Monkland Village café, he said he has more contacts in Hollywood than he does with folks in the Quebec film industry.

But this Montrealer may not be in the shadows much longer. He is one of the producers of Beautiful Boy, a critically acclaimed indie American flick starring Michael Sheen and Maria Bello that won a prestigious prize at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall following its world premiere there. It nabbed the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize for the Discovery program at the festival and, also at the fest, the American company Anchor Bay Films bought global English-language rights to the film in what was reported to be a seven-figure deal.

Beautiful Boy, a powerful drama exploring the aftermath of a school shooting, opens in Montreal on Friday.

Astonishingly, the film was made for just under $1.5 million, which is peanuts even compared to most homegrown Québécois films and is downright mind-boggling for a film that has a cast headed by actors of the calibre of Sheen and Bello.

Sheen is the fine, fine Welsh actor who has starred in The Queen, Frost/ Nixon and the Twilight franchise, and can currently be seen as the unbearably pedantic professor in Woody Allen’s hit Midnight in Paris. You know and love Bello for her standout role in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, and she is set for a major profile boost this fall when she hits the small screen in NBC’s remake of the classic British cop drama Prime Suspect.

I suggested to Gozlan that it must have been tough to snare actors like Sheen and Bello for an independent movie with a tiny budget and a firsttime feature director, Shawn Ku.

“It was not that hard,” Gozlan replied. “They loved the material.”

Co-writers Ku and Michael Armbruster have penned a sharp, insightful exploration not of the nightmare of a murderous rampage in a college, but rather of what happens afterwards to the parents of the school shooter.

Kate and Bill, played by Bello and Sheen, have no idea how troubled their teen son Sammy (Kyle Gallner) is until the police arrive at the door of their suburban home one day to break the news that their kid has killed a bunch of his fellow students and then turned the gun on himself.

It sounds like a tough slog, but Beautiful Boy is a remarkable film – mostly because Bello and Sheen are so good as this buttoned-down couple who are forced to shed all the defence mechanisms they’ve developed over the years and stare straight into the horror of what’s happened to their family.

The film is of particular relevance here in Montreal, a city scarred by shooting incidents at the Université de Montréal’s École Polytechnique, Concordia University and Dawson College.

“It resonated a lot with me because of the Polytechnique shooting,” Gozlan said. “My brother was studying at the Université de Montréal (at the time) and we couldn’t reach him (that night).”

Gozlan has been producing movies for several years, but until now they’ve mostly been genre, madefor-cable flicks, including several for the Syfy channel in the U.S., notably Never Cry Werewolf and Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon. He and his partners formed Goldrush Entertainment in 2008 with the notion of getting into higherprofile pictures, like Beautiful Boy. But the budget still has to be modest.

“We want to do more story-driven, talent-driven films,” Gozlan said, “but everything we do has to make business sense. For us, it’s about making the right picture at the right price.”

Oddly for a company based here, Goldrush has never shot anything in Montreal. Gozlan says they thought about making Beautiful Boy in Montreal, but Bello wanted to shoot close to home in L.A.

Since Beautiful Boy, Gozlan has produced another movie starring Bello – Carjacked, a thriller that also features Stephen Dorff. North American, British and Australian rights to that film have been sold to Anchor Bay Films.

Goldrush has also recently set up a subsidiary, Nic Nac Films, to develop 3-D animated features, and the division is already at work on the flick Davey and the Bully.

Beautiful Boy opens in Montreal theatres July 14.

I honestly don’t know how I let Beautiful Boy fly under my radar during the festival. I was privileged with the opportunity to cover the red carpet and attend the US premier of the film and let me just start by saying WOW.

There have been several films and documentaries since Columbine about school shootings, taking a look inside the shooter’s life, the aftermath of the shootings, the list goes on.  However, no one has ever taken the opportunity of showing how the family of a shooter has to deal with this incident and the issues both emotionally and physically they must face.

Kate (Maria Bello) and Bill Carroll ( Michael Sheen), are in a rocky marriage on the verge of separation, when they are hit with the life changing news that their son, Sam (Kyle Gallner), is responsible for a mass shooting at his college before committing suicide. His Parents are forced to leave their home and seclude themselves from the rest of the world until they are strong enough to face the harsh reality. During this time, their marital troubles begin to taking a back seat due to the traumatic and life altering situation. During the next  hour and a half, we  witness through their eyes, the struggles they must endure to find refuge from scrutiny from both the media and the public, while having to deal with the loss of their only child.

By far this was the most emotional film I experienced at the festival. Bello and Sheen’s performances are something that can not be described. Their emotions are so real and convincing you almost start to believe the events are unfolding right before your eyes and you are experiencing the pain and agony along with them. Bello portrays a very believable grieving mother and the disbelief she goes through trying to convince herself that her son was a good kid and he would never do such an heinous crime.  Sheen’s father role is the complete opposite of Bello’s. He tries so hard to stay strong and be there to comfort his wife, however, his emotions eventually get the best of him and he ends up breaking and blaming himself for the crime his son committed. Also in the film is one of my favorite actor’s, Alan Tudyk, who plays Kate’s brother and Moon Bloodgoodas Tudyk’s wife. Both do a phenomenal job of showing how extended family is also affected by the events and how their young son is teased and ridiculed by other children because of his cousin’s actions.

The sequence of events is done at such an appropriate pace that you really begin to feel for these parents and what they are dealing with. The film does an outstanding job of showing the timeline of events. Cops coming to ransack Sam’s room, Media camped outside their home, talk shows and news outlets commenting and releasing footage left by Sam, all the way to people leaving horrible messages on his social network page and vandalizing Sam’s grave site.

In my honest opinion, Beautiful Boy has Oscar potential written all over it and I would be very surprised if it was not nominated. The film is an emotional roller coaster of events that every parent hopes to never have to endure.

Directed by Shawn Ku, who is also the co-writer along with Michael Armbruster, Beautiful Boy is set for a limited release May 20th with hopes of a national release soon after.

Rating: Controversial situation that ventures to a side of a tragedy that has not been done.  Emotionally riveting and worthy of a perfect rating.  (10/10)

TORONTO: The Toronto deals are exploding! Anchor Bay Films has just closed all English-speaking rights to Beautiful Boy, the Shawn Ku-directed drama. I’m told the deal was 7-figures, negotiated by Paradigm Motion Picture Finance Group’s Ben Weiss with Anchor Bay Films’ Kevin Kasha. Deal includes a P&A commitment. Lightning Entertainment is selling foreign. It stars Maria Bello and Michael Sheen as disengaged parents of a college student who discover not only that he has been killed in a campus shooting, but that he was the triggerman who massacred other students. The picture premiered Sunday and has been a topic of buzz, particularly for those strong lead performances and Ku’s and Michael Armbruster’s script. Anchor Bay continues to raise its profile after acquiring and releasing Solitary Man and City Island. First Point Entertainment’s Lee Clay and Gold Rush Entertainment’s Eric Gozlan produced the pic.

Anchor Bay Films has the keys for the distribution rights to “Carjacked,” a thriller being directed by John Bonito (“The Marine”).

The film, set to star Maria Bello and Stephen Dorff, is scheduled to begin principal photography November 15 in Baton Rouge. The rights deal is for theatrical and video and includes North America, U.K. and Australia. The aim is to release the movie in second quarter 2011.

Bello will play a single mom who, along with her son, is carjacked by a bank robber (Dorff), who is on the run from the police.

The film is produced by Daniel Grodnik and Mass Hysteria Entertainment, one of the companies behind movies such as “Powder” and “Bobby.” Executive producing are Eric Gozlan, Murray Rosenthal, Richard Lott and Mike Greenfield.

Dorff stars in “Somewhere,” Sofia Coppolla’s drama which just won the Venice Golden Lion prize. Bello stars in “Beautiful Boys,” which premiered at TIFF.

Anchor Bay Films has acquired North American, UK and Australian rights to John Bonito’s thriller Carjacked set to star Maria Bello and Stephen Dorff.

Principal photography is scheduled to begin in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on November 15, on the story about a single mother who helps her son escape from a carjacking and must free herself when the villain drives her vehicle into a lake.

This is the company’s second acquisition on a film starring Maria Bello following this week’s seven-figure deal on Toronto entry Beautiful Boy. Dorff is currently riding high on the Venice Golden Lion success of Somewhere.

Daniel Grodnik and Mass Hysteria Entertainment produced. Eric Gozlan, Murray Rosenthal, Richard Iott and Mike Greenfield served as executive producers. Ed Noeltner’s Cinema Management Group is handling sales on all available territories.

Anchor Bay Entertainment president Bill Clark, Anchor Bay Films’s executive vice-president of worldwide acquisitions and co-productions Kevin Kasha and Richard Turner for Anchor Bay Films negotiated the deal with the producers.

“One of the best aspects of my job is working with producers and directors that I truly like and admire,” Kasha said. “Daniel and John are exactly that, and we are glad they are part of the Anchor Bay Films family.”

TORONTO — A spare, unflinching examination of a married couple coping with the tragic death of their 18-year-old son, “Beautiful Boy,” which won a FIPRESCI prize at Toronto, is graced by a pair of equally raw, affecting turns by Michael Sheen and Maria Bello.

Sharing the theme of loss and healing with another film having its Toronto premiere — namely “Rabbit Hole,” boasting similarly stripped-down performances by Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart — this first feature by Shawn Ku cuts even closer to the bone.

With its hard-hitting subject matter and extensive handheld camerawork, the film could be a tough sell for Anchor Bay Entertainment, which picked up the picture near the beginning of the festival.

When their son, Sam (Kyle Gallner), fails to contact them following a mass shooting on his university campus, Kate (Bello) and Bill (Sheen) fear the worst.

But the outcome proves even more horrible than they imagined: Not only is Sam dead, but he also was the shooter.

Their grief-stricken search for answers and telltale clues, further complicated by the constant media scrutiny surrounding them, takes its toll on their already-crumbling relationship.

Despite the inevitable bouts of finger-pointing and self-blame, the faint suggestion remains that the tragedy still could end up bringing them closer together.

Directing from the nonjudgmental script he wrote with Michael Armbruster, Ku’s assured, unadorned documentary style allows his leads ample breathing room to inhabit their devastated characters, and Bello and Sheen take him up on the offer by delivering a pair of exposed, painfully honest performances.

Although they’re onscreen for nearly the entire movie, Ku has assembled an interesting supporting cast, including Gallner, who’s briefly but memorably shown as their troubled son; Alan Tudyk and Moon Bloodgood as Bello’s brother and sister-in-law; and Meat Loaf Aday as a sympathetic hotel desk clerk.