“LIKE” this article on our website: Most people who suffer through a tumultuous period of personal turmoil decide to kick back, take it easy and just pull back from the rat race. Not writer-director Hooman Khalili, who dreamed up the idea for his feature film “Olive” only two years ago this month. The independently produced and financed project was shot for less than $500,000 on a Nokia N8 smartphone… MORE on BraveNewHollywood.com

OK, here’s the full disclosure on this one: I’ve been whining (translation: all but kissing the boss’s toes) to do a piece on Eddie Redmayne since darn-near the first day I started at BNH. I was semi-smitten back in the days of“The Other Boleyn Girl”, when suddenly, the quietly-handsome guy playing William Stafford seemed an extremely good excuse for Mary Boleynto buck her famous family and elope. In the same year, there he was again, fast-forwarded into yummy Victorian garb for the BBC adaptation of “Tess of the D’Ubervilles”, playing the tragic and romantic Angel Clare opposite Gemma Arterton. - READ MORE on: BraveNewHollywood.com

Can’t Madonna catch a break? All right, it might be asking a bit too much to appeal for sympathy for the iconic, mega-rich singer. But the media does gleefully go after Madonna with knives sharpened whenever she works in Hollywood in any capacity. Her latest project, the historical romance “W.E.,” is no exception. Did it ever stand a chance? Read More on: BraveNewHollywood.com

The AFI Fest 2011 presented by Audi ran November 3 through 10 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary under the auspices of the American Film Institute and runs in conjunction with the American Film Market, in tandem the only concurrent film festival and market in North America. A $5000 prize accompanies the winner of the Breakthrough Section, which went to “With Every Heartbeat” by Alexandra-Therese Keining. There was a tie in the World Cinema section between filmmaker David Gelb‘s “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” and “Kinyarwanda” from director Aldrick Brown. MORE on: BraveNewHollywood.com

This week, Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard attended the opening day of the American Film Market to meet with buyers for his new film RUSH which began shooting in September in Europe. MORE on: BraveNewHollywood.com

Release River’s final film? The blogosphere was set abuzz recently with the news that Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer plans to release “Dark Blood,” the indie drama left unfinished following the shocking death of costar River Phoenix on October 31, 1993 (Photo: River Phoenix in “The Thing Called Love”). Early reports indicated Sluizer had the support of Phoenix’s family; they have since denied any involvement. MORE on: BraveNewHollywood.com

The Toronto International Film Festival, whose most recent edition concluded this past weekend, encompasses scores of films of every stripe. But it’s also an opportunity for film fans to experience cinema in new ways. Towards that end, since 2007, TIFF organizers have set aside space—in both the physical and artistic sense_—in their Future Projections program for art pieces and other more challenging works. Among this year’s entrants was “Memories of  Idaho“ conceived and directed by multitasking dynamo James Franco - for MORE, CLICK HERE.

New Movie: THE BLACK POWER MIX TAPE  1967-1975 (by Göran Olsson): at the end of the 1960s, numerous Swedish journalists came to the US, drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Filming for close to a decade, they gained the trust of many of the leaders of the black power movement—Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them—capturing them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. For more info CLICK HERE. 

A compelling new documentary examines the radicalization of Daniel McGowan, whose 2005 arrest as a member of the Earth Liberation Front, or ELF, followed a series of arson attacks against companies and individuals he and other ELF members felt were threatening the environment. Dubbed the country’s “number-one domestic terrorism threat” by the FBI, McGowan and ELF upended environmental activism as well as the very meaning of “terrorist” in a post-9/11 age. 

“How do we define terrorism? We had that idea right from the beginning,” says Marshall Curry, director of “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.”

He might have been “Breaking The Waves” with his thinking-man films, but Filmmaker Lars von Triermade some sort of waves at Cannes, and not the good kind. The Danish director has apologized for comments he made earlier today about understanding Adolf Hitler. It all went down after the screening of his film “Melancholia” in Cannes. MORE INFO: http://bravenewhollywood.com/lars-von-trier-comments-in-cannes/