Recall, if you can, the moment in Robert Altman’s The Player when a bunch of crass movie studio executives sit around decrying the need for screenwriters when stories can simply be plucked out of the newspaper free of charge. First-time screenwriter Michael Diliberti has beat such corporate shortcutting to the punch with 30 Minutes or Less, a raunchy, rapid-fire action-comedy based ever-so-loosely on the unbelievable true story of a Pennsylvania pizza delivery guy who was killed after being forced to rob a bank with a bomb strapped around his neck. A gung-ho director and an able cast work some explosive laughs out of this touchy germ of an idea.
More than a decade after the beloved PBS show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” went off the air, the series is getting a sequel. Fred Rogers passed away in 2003, leaving behind a legacy of nearly 900 (!) TV show episodes spanning five decades. Despite his passing, The Fred Rogers Company has announced the creation of a “multi-platform animated series aimed at preschoolers.” The new show will be called “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and will concentrate on the 4-year-old son of Daniel Striped Tiger, a resident puppet of Mister Rogers’ well-known Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
The Native Cinema Showcase is a welcome addition to the popular Santa Fe Indian Market, taking place in the capital city this coming week. The 11th annual Showcase will run Monday, Aug. 15, through Sunday, Aug. 21. A yearly collaborative partnership between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the Native Cinema Showcase spotlights the vitality and diversity of Native filmmaking around the globe.
