News

Jonathan Barker, a producer and executive who co-founded the giant-screen producer-distributor Sk Films and was its CEO, died Thursday morning of cancer in Toronto. He was 67.

Also a board member of the Giant Screen Cinema Association, Barker launched Sk Films two decades ago with Bob Kerr, who had co-founded Imax Corp in 1968. Sk went on to produce more than a dozen projects that combine human drama and natural history discoveries. Among them was the eco-adventure series The Water Brothers, which Barker executive produced and starred his environmentalist sons Alex and Tyler.

Other titles produced and/or distirubted by Sk Films include the Oscar-shortlisted 2003 docu short Bugs! and 2012’s Flight of the Butterflies, the only film to sweep the Gsca Awards. Barker was executive producer of those films, along with other Sk titles such as 1997’s Mission to Mir, 2009’s Journey to Mecca and its 2010 follow-up Roads to Mecca, and this year’s Backyard Wilderness.

Inception, Micmacs, Country Strong, and the other winners of the 2011 Golden Reel Awards have been announced. The 58th Annual Golden Reel Awards is presented by the Motion Picture Sound Editors (Mpse), ”an honorary society of motion picture sound editors. The society’s goals are to educate others about and increase the recognition of the sound editors, show the artistic merit of the soundtracks, and improve the professional relationship of its members.” The full listing of the 2011 Golden Reel Awards winners is below.

Feature Films Categories

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Animation

How To Train Your Dragon

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Documentary

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Foreign Language

Micmacs

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Music

Inception

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Music in a Musical

Country Strong

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Dialogue and Adr

The Social Network

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Sound...

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" won big at the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards. The mind-bending movie took home two awards including best sound editing in the categories of sound effects & foley and music in a feature film.

David Fincher's "The Social Network" won Best Sound Editing:

Dialogue and Adr in a Feature Film.

Here's the complete list of winners (highlighted) and nominees of the 2011 Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards.. Check out Awards Avenue for your complete list of the winners of various award-giving bodies prior to the granddaddy of them all, the Oscars!

Feature Films Category

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Animation

Despicable Me

*** How To Train Your Dragon

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga.Hoole

Tangled

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Documentary

Babies

Catfish

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Inside Job

Restrepo

*** Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

Waiting for Superman...

The sounds of dancing ballerinas and thieves of dreams received love from the Motion Picture Sound Editors. "Black Swan" and "Inception" each received 3 nominations apiece for the Editors' Golden Reel Awards.

The winners will be announced on Feb. 20th.

Here's the complete list of nominees (Check our Awards Avenue for complete winners/nominees for all award-giving bodies):

Feature Films Categories

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Animation

Despicable Me

How To Train Your Dragon

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Tangled

The Illusionist

Toy Story 3

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Documentary

Baby(ies)

Catfish

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Inside Job

Restrepo

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

Waiting for Superman

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Foreign Language

Biutiful

Lebanon

Micmacs

Mother

North Face

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Best Sound Editing: Feature Film Music

Alice in Wonderland

Black Swan

Get Low...

Takings haven't been this bad since December 2004, and the critically-mauled Killers isn't much consolation. Is the World Cup solely to blame? And might Secret Cinema offer an alternative?

UK BThe abyss

Last week this column reported that the opening of the 2010 World Cup had coincided with the worst weekend for cinema box office in over a year. This week, the news is even more depressing for the multiplex chains: it's actually gotten worse, with takings falling 22% from the previous disastrous frame. Box office for the weekend is less than a third of the amounts grossed from the equivalent period a year ago, when Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen ruled the roost. Even compared to the last World Cup, it's bad: takings are down by 25% on the second weekend of the 2006 competition. It's also the worst weekend for box office since December 2004. Improving weather, an England game on Friday and unappealing...

Ajami (15)

(Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani, 2009, Isr/Ger) Shahir Kabaha, Ibrahim Frege, Eran Naim. 125 mins.

If any situation justifies the multi-angled Crash/Amores Perros-style treatment, it's modern-day Israel. Co-written and directed by an Israeli and a Palestinian, mostly using non-professional actors, this is more hip, streetwise and even-handed than we're used to. Set in a mixed neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, the plot skilfully juggles intertwined stories of feuds, families, drugs and violence involving characters from all faiths.

Trash Humpers (18)

(Harmony Korine, 2009, Us/UK) Brian Kotzue, Travis Nicholson, Rachel Korine. 78 mins.

Korine preserves his enfant terrible reputation with a scrappy, seedy home video following a group of masked delinquents around. It's a vaudeville of depravity (they literally hump dustbins) that manages to be grimy without being explicit.

Wild Grass (12A)

(Alain Resnais, 2009, Fra/Ita) André Dussolier, Sabine Azéma. 104 mins.

Veteran Resnais crafts a silky, genre-hopping middle-aged romance that's full of wonders and mysteries.

Greenberg (15)

(Noah Baumbach, 2010, Us) Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh. 107 mins

Usually Ben Stiller is the guy you like in the movie, and the guy you laugh at. Here he's bravely subdued and unsympathetic – a self-absorbed slacker with extreme empathy issues – but you can still laugh at him. After a while, you might even like him. Drifting back to La, he picks at old relationship wounds and opens up fresh ones (with the winningly pathetic Gerwig) in a charming character study with indie values (and soundtrack) that under-achievers of a certain age will relate to.

Brooklyn's Finest (18)

(Antoine Fuqua, 2009, Us) Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke. 132 mins

Breaking news: law enforcement in the sketchier areas of New York is sometimes quite difficult. This three-pronged assault hammers the cliches home relentlessly, self-importantly detailing the trials of its compromised lawmen as if it's saying something new. Or something at all.