Spout’s Kevin Kelly gets a few words with Brad Pitt who is going through a renaissance as an actor this year, and last.  He’s wising up about life, growing old and interesting performance choices are coming out as a result:

I’m not sure I can completely articulate, I’m kind of groping my way through it.  I guess I’ve been investing in American characters lately.  I find America really, really interesting in this last decade.  That’s been my focus.  As for comedies, I felt like I’ve been doing comedies for years.  Maybe they weren’t so funny.  The film coming up with David Fincher and Tilda is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and I’m not sure how to describe it.  It’s a bit of a love letter to New Orleans, it’s a bit of a love letter to family, and the people who you meet at the dance of life along the way is the best way to describe it really.

Thanks to KA for the news that The Wrestler took top honors, the Golden Lion, at the Venice Film Fest, Reuters reports:

The Silver Lion for best director was won by Russia’s Alexei German Jr. for “Paper Soldier”. The best actor award went to Italy’s Silvio Orlando for his role in “Il Papa di Giovanna” (”Giovanna’s Father”), and the best actress prize was awarded to Dominique Blanc in “L’Autre” (”The Other One”).

Slumdog Millionaire is apparently now on everyone’s radar presumably to fill “the Full Monty slot” which is now, I guess, the “Lost in Translation slot” or the “Juno slot,” you get the picture.  I can’t wait to see it.  Not quite sure it’s going to be an easy sell, however.

Burn After Reading, the Coens follow-up to No Country seems to elicit love it/hate it responses.  This isn’t that surprising considering the brother C tend to work in a split personality motif.  There is the Fargo/No Country Coens, the Barton Fink Coens, the Millers Crossing Coens, the Big Lebowski/O Brother Coens — you just never know what you’re going to get and you can often tell what kind of person you are by the brand of Coens you like.   Jeff Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere writes:

And it’s the genius of Burn After Reading, their latest, to offer another serving in a way that may seem slight or irksome to some, but it is in fact — I mean this — a major satirical meditation about everything that is empty, wanting, sad and hilariously absurd in these united and delusional states of America.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kris Tapley attended LACMA where Christopher Nolan screened his earlier film, Following, with Kenneth Turan acting as moderator.

Nolan spoke an all-too-brief 20 minutes to the LA Times’ Kenneth Turan (who was double-checking his notes constantly) in front of a relatively diverse crowd, bringing in examples from his steadily expanding portfolio to emboss artistic points about his view of the filmmaking process.  With Bat-hysteria flying off the rails this summer, it was a treat to listen in on a developing master’s serene take on the nuts and bolts of his art form.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  So was there any Dark Knight stuff?  Just kidding.  Head on over to In Contention to listen to the audio.

Its the first full day at The Toronto Film Festival and it was a busy one.  I had three films on my schedule today.  Last night was the opening night with the Gala for the film Passchendaele. The opening night film is traditionally a Canadian film and this year it’s no exception and I had the opportunity to see this film today.  Its a war epic written and directed by Paul Gross about the efforts in battle of Canadian soldiers during World War I.   The talented Gross even had his hand in composing the theme song.   It is quite an ambitious film with a romantic storyline interwoven into some very powerful and shocking battle scenes.  I thought overall it was a fine effort with good performances from Gross and his co-star Caroline Dhavernas who plays his love interest, although the pace of the story was uneven at times.  One of my pet peeves is a heavy handed score which tries to evoke a feeling from the audience and at times this film does succumb to this as well.  Also, I would have preferred some more time to have been spent on the psychological effects of war, but as a Canadian I praise Gross for making the effort of telling this powerful story on such a large scale.

Read the rest of this entry »

LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein goes ass over elbow for Me and Orson Welles, to which he was treated to a sneak preview.  He also provides a handy clip with Zac Efron singing. The Welles here played by Christian McKay is a lot like the young Welles we’ve seen in Citizen Kane and I always wondered if that was how Welles was in real life or just when he was “on.”

Says Goldstein:

Played by the young British actor Christian McKay, Welles is both arrogant and completely magnetic, knowing when to flatter, when to cajole and when to humiliate. The story takes the form of a cautionary tale, involving an aspiring young actor (played by Zac [Efron] of “High School Musical”) who lands a bit part in the Mercury production, giving him an up-close view of all the madcap energy and tribulations of a Welles production. He also gets the opportunity to fall for Welles’ production assistant, played by Claire Danes, who turns out be nearly as ambitious as Welles in her own way. Danes informs the young actor that he may have a part, but money will not be changing hands. “You’re not getting paid,” she says. “You’re getting the opportunity of being sprayed by Orson Welles’ spit.

“The picture is looking for distribution up in Toronto. Even in today’s conservative buying environment, I can’t imagine someone wouldn’t want a film that has such winning performances and offers you a front-row seat at one of the great moments in American theater.

TGIF buzz kill, sorry.
The poster after the cut has a bold Bauhaus agitprop vibe.

Read the rest of this entry »

This was either going to exceedingly well or very badly.  Early word had it that Mickey Rourke was giving a performance that lived up to early promise of his career, so it isn’t that surprising that Todd McCarthy would rave:

Not only does he pull it off, but Rourke creates a galvanizing, humorous, deeply moving portrait that instantly takes its place among the great, iconic screen performances. An elemental story simply and brilliantly told, Darren Aronofsky’s fourth feature is a winner from every possible angle, although it will require deft handling by a smart distributor to overcome public preconceptions about Rourke, the subject matter and the nature of the film.

Indeed.  Rourke is no Ellen Burstyn, who almost won an Oscar for her work in Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.  But Oscar loves a comeback.  It isn’t like Rourke hasn’t been doing good work here and there leading up to this but this could be the strong early frontrunner for lead actor everyone is looking for and will rally behind.  Rourke, at this stage in his career, is primed for a nomination.  Getting the win is a bit trickier and will require a lot of red carpet crap and smarmy suck-up interviews.

There are so many mixed messages coming from critics in the various festivals that it’s always more prudent to wait and see for yourself.  So far, though, this is the one to watch, not just because of Rourke but because it’s also apparently a far more conventional film that Aronofsky has ever made.

Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly are star as Mr. and Mrs. Charles Darwin in Creation, based on a book written by Darwin’s great-great-grandson.

The film portrays Darwin as a man torn between his love for his deeply religious wife and his growing belief in a world where God has no place. The scientist finds himself caught in a struggle between faith and reason, love and truth.

Collee’s script is based on “Annie’s Box,” Randal Keynes’ book about Darwin, his great great grandfather, and how the death of his daughter affected his views on religion.

Also joining the cast are Jeremy Northam, Toby Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch. The key role of daughter Annie will be announced soon. (Reuters)

Sounds like an interesting angle. Written by former doctor John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World), this screenplay was originally called Origin, so the switch to Creation is a good indication it intends to address the scientific and ideological conflict head-on. Filming begins later this month. What other actor partners have played married historical couples in the movies?

More details about the book after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Or here at worst previews. And this from Seattle Weekly:

The real explosion at Telluride was an even more startling departure, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, a picaresque, incredibly kinetic romantic adventure fable about an orphan in India who makes a mint on TV’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

The hero’s rise from the muck to wealth and fame is utterly heroic, packing in everything great about Boyle’s previous films and a whole new look and feel you’ve never seen in any film, Brit or Indian. “It’s the fulfillment of everything you’ve done,” 48 Hrs. screenwriter Larry Gross correctly told Boyle at the party.

Only 20 percent of it is shot on conventional celluloid; the rest is done with two kinds of spy cameras, one concealed in the cinematographer’s backpack, so that the teeming tumult of India could be captured spontaneously, unawares. When the two young slumdog brothers invade the Taj Mahal to profit by their own sly schemes, so does Boyle’s innovative guerrilla crew, which was forbidden to film there.

[Hang on, let me add a "?" somewhere. We don't need another incident like when Guy Richie denied the rumor he started about Russell Crowe starring as Dr. Watson.]

The facts are more solid for this story. Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon picks up a piece from the Cleavland Plain Dealer and weaves together several threads that were left hanging as loose ends, now nearly two years after the Torso adaptation was first announced:

“…we learn for the first time, to my knowledge, that Matt Damon will star as Eliot Ness in the film, which centers on Ness’s closing of the Al Capone case in Chicago and moves to Cleveland. There he makes a promise to help clean up the town until the city is scarred by a series of gruesome killings known as the “torso” murders, in which at least 13 people were killed between 1934 and 1938.”

Producer Bill Mechanic tells the Plain Dealer:

“It all comes down to what’s the best place to get our movie shot for the least money,” Mechanic said. “We want to shoot the entire movie, the interior and exterior shots, in Cleveland because that’s where the action takes place and so we wouldn’t have to relocate the crew. But without incentives, it doesn’t look like we can afford it.”

Production on the $100 million film might move to Michigan in search of those incentives. If this is Fincher’s next project, looks like Rendezvous With Rama will be bumped back yet again. And whither Heavy Metal? Have to say, for me the thought of Fincher doing his Chinatown/Black Dahlia trumps both those long-rumored projects.

So far, Emanuel Levy stands [nearly] alone in his praise of a movie we had hoped would be better received:

“An ambitious rendition of the best-selling book (of the same title) by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, Blindness is a timely, socially relevant, gloomy film that reflects our zeitgeist in the post 9/11 era… Without making value judgments, the movie asks us viewers to take a stance about behavior during extreme crises, and to contemplate on the dangerous fragility of social order.”

And Guy Lodge points us to Peter Bradshaw, Guardian UK:

“The Cannes Film Festival opened last night with an experience of the most chilling and dizzying high anxiety… Blindness is a drum-tight drama, with superb, hallucinatory, images of urban collapse. It has a real coil of horror at its centre, yet is lightened with gentleness and humour. It reminded me of George A Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, and Peter Shaffer’s absurdist stage-play Black Comedy. This is bold, masterly, film-making.”

A couple of sexy character posters after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our buddy Nathanial Rogers at The Film Experience called this one on August 3, with his feature prediction, Rachel Getting Married = Hathaway Getting Nominated (and had Anne Hathaway on his long-range radar as far back as March 3, when the movie was called Dancing with Shiva). After its Venice premiere yesterday, critics are catching up to what Nat knew months ago (and possibly all his life):

Brimming with energy, elan and the unpredictability of his “Something Wild,” Jonathan Demme’s triumphant “Rachel Getting Married” may just lay the wedding film to rest, being such a hard act to follow. Amid preparations for a biracial wedding, in comes the bride’s time-bomb of a sister (Anne Hathaway), fresh from a nine-month stay at her umpteenth rehab, ready to open every can of worms in the cupboard. (Variety)

Ultimately, the film belongs to Anne Hathaway. She combines a raw-nerved vulnerability and a showy obnoxiousness for the role of Kym, the prodigal daughter who checks out of an institutional rehab facility in order to attend her sister’s wedding, the psychological scars of her former life still very much on show. (The Times, UK)

Hand-held, free-wheeling and at times joyously spontaneous, the dogme-like Rachel Getting Married sees Jonathan Demme paying tribute to Robert Altman (in particular A Wedding) but there’s such a large dose of music in here it almost forms a genre of its own… Packed with superb performances, in particular from Anne Hathaway in the lead role and Debra Winger in a small supporting turn she makes memorable, Rachel Getting Married will undoubtedly be up for awards consideration in the major categories. (Screen Daily)

The Altman comparisons come up again and again from critics lucky enough to have seen in it Venice, and Rachel Getting Married is gathering considerable momentum as another frontrunner invigorating the festival.