The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Animal Planet has greenlit a new series based on Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. by Whitney Pastorek Like the film, the series will star animal activist Ric O’Barry — seen on last night’s Oscar telecast holding up a sign asking viewers to text a number for more info during the filmmaking team’s acceptance speech — and continue the exploration of the dolphin fishing trade in Japan. Animal Planet hopes to debut the series in the fall, after premiering the documentary this summer.
Directed by Melbourne based JEFF STILSON. An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, GOOD HAIR visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of the black community. Director Jeff Stilson follows Chris Rock on this raucous adventure prompted by Rock?s 5-year old daughter approaching him, asking, ?Daddy, how come I don?t have good hair.
New acquisition: The first Feature Documentary About The Doors. Narrated by Johnny Depp. Award-winning writer-director Tom DiCillo’s riveting film uncovers historic, previously unseen footage from the illustrious rock quartet and provides new insight into the revolutionary impact of their music and legacy.
Isao Takahata’s (Grave of the Fireflies) next film for the acclaimed Studio Ghibli, a studio he co-founded, will be Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter). Due next year and Takahata’s first film in ten years , it is an an adaptation of the classic 10th century Japanese fairy tale, where a princess from the moon is found inside a bamboo plant. Reports are also that Ponyo director, Hayao Miyazaki, is in talks with the Ghibli to make two feature films in the next two years.
Karl Quinn, THE AGE August 18, 2009 IN LESS than two weeks, an annual event that environmental activist Ric O’Barry calls a genocide will begin. By the time it ends in March, as many as 23,000 dolphins will have been ”harvested” in Japan. This grim scenario is laid bare in a documentary, The Cove, which follows the efforts of Mr O’Barry and his colleagues to reveal what goes on at the Japanese fishing port of Taiji.
Following the successful launch of Screening Room +, Madman announces further series’ now available for streaming online. Screening Room + (www.madman.com.au/videos) launched in early April, 2009, debuting with premiere episodes of FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD, and has already grown to stream tens of thousands of episodes and regularly garners hundreds of daily viewers. Madman now proudly presents all 26 episodes of HIS AND HERS CIRCUMSTANCES, a fan-favourite romance from the director of NEON GENESIS EVANGELION.