The American Film Institute (AFI) announced that Academy Award® and Emmy®-winning writer/director Aaron Sorkin will be honored by AFI Fest 2017 with a Tribute and Premiere Closing Night Gala screening of STXfilms and The Mark Gordon Company’s Molly’s Game on Thursday, November 16, at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. Molly’s Game thus replaces All the Money in the World which Sony Pictures earlier pulled as the AFI Fest’s closing film following the sexual misconduct allegations made against co-star Kevin Spacey. Director Ridley Scott is currently re-shooting scenes from All the Money in the World, replacing Spacey with Christopher Plummer.
AFI Fest will celebrate Sorkin’s career with a moderated discussion of his work followed by the Gala premiere screening. Written and directed by Sorkin, Molly’s Game stars Academy Award® nominee Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba. The film was produced by Mark Gordon, Matt Jackson and Amy Pascal. Entertainment One (eOne) and The Mark Gordon Company financed the feature, with eOne directly distributing the film across its territories. (Sierra/Affinity handled international sales).
“Aaron Sorkin is an American master, and we are proud to shine a proper spotlight on his directorial debut, Molly’s Game, on AFI Fest’s Closing Night,” said Jacqueline Lyanga, AFI Fest director. “As Sorkin embarks on this next chapter of his career, his talents are timely for a tribute as he brings his gift of crafting compelling narratives and complex characters to the story of female impresario Molly Bloom.”
One of our nation’s most acclaimed screenwriters, Sorkin has been honored with an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network (2010) and four Emmys® for The West Wing.
Review: Director John Crowley’s “We Live In Time”
It's not hard to spend a few hours watching Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield fall and be in love. In "We Live In Time," filmmaker John Crowley puts the audience up close and personal with this photogenic British couple through the highs and lows of a relationships in their 30s.
Everyone starts to think about the idea of time, and not having enough of it to do everything they want, at some point. But it seems to hit a lot of us very acutely in that tricky, lovely third decade. There's that cruel biological clock, of course, but also careers and homes and families getting older. Throw a cancer diagnosis in there and that timer gets ever more aggressive.
While we, and Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh), do indeed live in time, as we're constantly reminded in big and small ways — clocks and stopwatches are ever-present, literally and metaphorically — the movie hovers above it. The storytelling jumps back and forth through time like a scattershot memory as we piece together these lives that intersect in an elaborate, mystical and darkly comedic way: Almut runs into Tobias with her car. Their first chat is in a hospital hallway, with those glaring fluorescent lights and him bruised and cut all over. But he's so struck by this beautiful woman in front of him, he barely seems to care.
I suppose this could be considered a Lubitschian "meet-cute" even if it knowingly pushes the boundaries of our understanding of that romance trope. Before the hit, Tobias was in a hotel, attempting to sign divorce papers and his pens were out of ink and pencils kept breaking. In a fit of near-mania he leaves, wearing only his bathrobe, to go to a corner store and buy more. Walking back, he drops something in the street and bang: A new relationship is born. It's the... Read More