When MTV wants to cover a natural disaster like a Tsunami or a man-made disaster like the Iraq war, nine times out of ten they're sending Gideon Yago to the scene. If you've ever caught one of the music station's True Life documentaries, then most of the time that voice-over you hear is provided by Yago. He's everywhere you don't want to be, except now he's in a spot most people only dream about traveling to. That's right, MTV's Golden Boy has sold his first script, Underdog, to Focus Features.
Naturally, the storyline covers familiar ground for Yago, as it revolves around two soldiers who return home from Iraq. Quite fitting seeing as next week's True Life episode, one in which Yago narrated the opening, covers the very same topic -- young soldiers returning home to a life they barely remember. While I'm sure the script is partly based off the many stories Yago encountered during his visits with soldiers, it appears as if the actual story is fictional: One soldier returns home in disgrace, while his best friend comes back a hero. However, that's just on the surface -- dig a little deeper and the real truth may be a bit harder to digest.
How do you MTV nuts feel about this? Do you think Yago has a good voice for this kind of material?
Focus Features ran into a fairly large obstacle on Tuesday when stars Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz and director Gabriele Muccino all vacated their posts from A Little Game, due to begin filming Oct. 19. Ouch. Both stars had problems with the third act of the film, based on a French play, and a promised rewrite failed to make everyone happy, which has turned A Little Game into A Big Mess.
Studio head James Schamus is tackling the rewrite himself, having written The Ice Storm and other films, in the hopes the movie can still be salvaged, at least with Jim Carrey onboard.
Carrey is finding himself in turbulent waters without anything to guide him to shore lately, having had Used Guys and Ripley's Believe It or Not! fall apart before shooting. He also fired his agents recently, which in Hollywood effectively states "do over!" We'd fire our agents too after both saddling us with the Tea Leoni curse and failing to capitalize on our excellent turn in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Carrey's problem, it seems, is that he wants to be taken as a serious actor after appearing in both Eternal and The Majestic. However, this guy is goofy to the core, and that's a good thing. But he's already crossed the line of taking himself, and his press, too seriously. Hopefully he can find a happy medium without doing films like Ace Ventura III, which is happening without him anyhow.
Calling it the "most sought-after film of the Toronto International Film Festival," the Hollywood Reporter tells us Picturehouse has snatched up all North American rights to El Cantante (aka that JLo-Marc Anthony flick). Completing the deal at 5:30am this morning (which means everyone was either drunk or just woke up way too early) and paying just under $6 million, Picturehouse beat out a slew of other distributors including Miramax, Focus Features and The Weinstein Co.
Pic, which stars the real-life husband and wife duo (who also play husband and wife in the film), tells the true story of Hector Lovoe, a man who began the salsa movement back in 1975 and subsequently brought the sexy dance to the United States. Currently, Picturehouse plans to release the film next summer on roughly 500-700 screens, before going wide with it. Word on the street says Lopez is outstanding in the pic and may even deserve an Oscar or a Golden Globe for her performance. I'm not sure I would go that far, but it does up my interest in the film.
If Vietnam was the first televised war and the Gulf War could be considered the first 24-hour coverage war (thanks to CNN), then the Iraq War might be called the most-first-hand-documented. Thanks to the more-immediate technologies of digital filmmaking, documentaries have been in abundance since the beginning of the conflict, giving us everything from ground-troop-shot films to quickly released looks at its aftermath. At this year's Tribeca Film Festival, films took us into battle alongside American soldiers (The War Tapes) and Iraqi insurgents (The Blood of My Brother) and brought us back home with the vets (When I Came Home; Home Front). Despite an overload of these documentaries, there still can't be enough of them, as they provide us with countless points of view and an immeasurable acquaintance with the reality of the ins and outs of the war.
Patricia Foulkrod's The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, which screened at this year's Sundance Film Festival, could be considered just another film about the homecoming of U.S. troops and their difficult return to civilian life, but despite its sharing two faces with When I Came Home (featured interviewees Paul Reickhoff and Herold Noel), the differences between the two films mark an apparent allowance for numerous looks into the subject matter. While covering Tribeca, I actually decided to skip the Iraqi vet pic Home Front, thinking it would be hard to handle too many similar films (it screened the same day as When I Came Home and The Blood of My Brother). Now I feel that there is no such thing as too many when it comes to understanding this or any war. It is the same reason that movies about WWII and Vietnam will continue to be made; the difference is that with documentaries, the immediacy of the truth seems to hit a little harder.
Just because the Venice Film Festival has awardedBen Affleck with a Best Actor prize (for Hollywoodland), don't expect the Oscars to follow suit. He likely won't even be in the running for the equivalent Academy Award since Focus Features and Affleck himself are pushing for his nomination in the Supporting Actor category instead. The festivals rarely distinguish between lead and supporting roles; they simply honor the best actor in a contending film. Sometimes they may choose to honor whole ensembles when they can't decide on one specific performer. But with the Oscars, there's a line to be drawn, even if that line isn't always easy to make out.
Oscar campaigning is all about politics. Focus will push for Affleck in the less important race because they think he may have a better shot there. Anyone who says it's because he has less screen-time than co-star Adrian Brody is lying. If candidacy for one category or the other was based on a strict length or percentage of time on screen, some nominations, and wins, just wouldn't happen. This is why non-leads like Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker are being campaigned for in the lead category, even though they aren't the most prominent characters in their respective films. The Academy might as well just call the awards "Best Star" and "Best Slummer or Rising Star" since this is what the studios apparently consider them to be.
Affleck could still be nominated for, maybe even win, the Oscar for Best Actor, because in the end, it's up to the voters which category a person is put into. There isn't much chance of the voters going against the For Your Consideration ads, but there may be a small one. Anyway, in my opinion, Affleck should never get an acting Oscar unless it's for this NSFWperformance. Since I just can't believe he could actually be so sleazy, he must have been doing some tremendous acting (of course, it is obviously too old to qualify for this year, but maybe they could play it in the clip reel when he gets his lifetime achievement statue).
As if being an indie-film lover in NYC wasn't already a dream come true, much of the city is going to be discounting the ticket price for independent films, too. Well, for a few days, anyway. In collaboration with the Independent Feature Project (IFP) -- which holds its annual market in September -- and its "Independent Film Week", 10 New York theaters will be reducing their admission on ALL shows (I am assuming this means non-indies, as well) from Monday, September 18 through Thursday, September 21. Many of the city's favorite art-house locations are included, although some are noticeably, and disappointingly, absent, such as Film Forum (I'll excuse them for being non-profit, and an otherwise wonderful establishment), the IFC Center, the Quad Cinemas and the Angelika Film Center. The fact that the Angelika isn't participating just goes to show that it no longer has any redeeming qualities left (and I'm not biased just because I used to work there). I mean, considering that it has been host to the IFP Market for most of its existence, one would think it should be included.
Anyway, if you don't mind seeing a movie for only $6 in a theater where you can't hear the subway roaring beneath your seat, you might want to hold off on seeing one of NYC's large selection of films until that special week. The places offering this deal are: Anthology Film Archives; Cinema Village; Landmark's Sunshine; Cobble Hill Cinemas; BAM Rose Cinemas; ImaginAsian; Museum of Modern Art; Walter Reade Theater; Brooklyn Heights Cinemas and Kew Gardens Cinemas.
We reported at the end of June that Joaquin Phoenix had agreed to star in the screen version of John Burnham Schwartz's novelReservation Road. The novel, which was adapted by Schwartz himself, tells the story of a college professor whose young son is killed in a hit-and-run accident. The event (quite understandably) sends the man into a tailspin, and he heads out to track down the driver of the car -- who, meanwhile, has gone into a tailspin of his own, trying to decide if he should turn himself in or maintain his self-loathing freedom. Whew.
When the casting news first came out, it wasn't known which role Phoenix would play, but Varietyreported this morning that he'll be the father, a gig that should allow him lots of room to work his patented Phoenix-agony. (I think I'm tearing up a little bit at the mere thought of watching him.) Appearing opposite Phoenix -- and, based on the plot summary, matching him angst-for-angst -- will be Mark Ruffalo as the tortured/hunted driver.*
The film, the first to come out of a new deal between Focus Features and Random House, will be directed by Terry George, who also did some late work on the screenplay. Production begins this fall. *The IMDb also lists Jennifer Connelly in the cast, but that's not been confirmed by any industry sources.
Fernando Meirelles'City of God was so phenomenal that when the director's follow-up, The Constant Gardener, was released, I hated it simply because it just didn't compare. Well, I've since gotten over my initial disappointment with Gardener and have even developed a love for it -- still not as big as my love for City of God, however -- and so I continue to look forward to whatever Meirelles gives us in the future. Turns out, he may be giving us more than we could have imagined, thanks to a new three-year, five-picture deal with Universal/Focus. The deal isn't for films that Meirelles will direct himself, but is instead for the development of films by young Brazilian filmmakers.
This is incredible news considering most of the time Hollywood wants to remake foreign films, not produce them. Sure indie divisions like Universal's Focus Features pick them up for distribution, and Brazil is often represented in America thanks to the great actress Fernanda Monenegro, but in my opinion, we can never have too many foreign films released in this country. The one Brazilian film that Meirelles produced before this deal, Contra Todos, wasn't given a proper release in the States, which is too bad, because I'd bet it's far better than that awful film that won the best foreign language Oscar this year.
Woody Allen returns this weekend as Sidney Waterman, an aging Borscht Belt magician with a silly stage handle -- Splendini -- and props that seem more like fire hazards than things one might use to make a living. Don't wait around for the prestige in Splendini's act -- you'll be waiting a long time. There's only a bare minimum of effort as he shuffles around in comfortable old duds, converses with the audience while he's supposed to be entertaining them, uses words like 'prestidigitation' and beckons the prettiest girl in the crowd up on stage so he can leer at her while promising to "agitate her molecules." Splendini's magic show is such a narrow affair it could only be attended by a crowd that has sought it out and arrived at the theater with total precognition of what's in store for them. The same holds true for Scoop, the second entry in Woody's Late European Period.
The lovely assistant summoned to the stage is journalism student Sondra Pransky, played by sore-throat ingenue Scarlett Johansson. Sondra is pushed into Splendini's disappearance box about the same time that he's seeing another volunteer -- a pasty Brit -- off stage, telling her "thanks, you're a credit to your race." Inside the box, Sondra is only mildly shocked to discover it's the domain of a ghost, played by Deadwood star Ian McShane. The ghost was a journalist who was killed after possibly learning the identity of the elusive Tarot Card Killer. Based on that unsourceable info, Sondra sets off on a wild scoop-chase with Sidney at her side. An atom of decency -- ours, not Woody's -- demands that their relationship quickly fold into a father-daughter rhythm, with Sondra pulling doting dad-figure Sidney around town by the ear and bouncing her theories about the identity of the killer off his Hubble-thick glasses. Their frantic quest is contrasted by the fate of the poor ghost, who is adrift on a fog-swept barge to nowhere that's crewed by the actual Grim Reaper. Backed into a corner by his own acknowledgment of an afterlife, Allen comes through with one that's as pointless as possible.
I'm not exactly sure why a couple would pretend to break up, but the premise is intriguing enough for me to want to know more. Italian director Gabriele Muccino, who will be making his English-language directorial debut with The Pursuit of Happyness (starring Will Smith) this fall has now signed on to helmA Little Game Without Consequence for Focus Features. Based on the French play, Consequence was already adapted as a French film in 2004. Recently, Muccino replaced Jonathan Mostow as director of another Will Smith pic called Tonight, He Comes. However, he soon left the project claiming the story just didn't jive with his style and sensibilities.
IGN is confirming Nicole Kidman and Paul Bettany have joined the growing cast of The Golden Compass, directed by Chris Weitz and based off Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Kidman will be thrown into the role of villain, playing the insidious Mrs. Coulter, while Bettany will be taking on Lord Asriel. As previously discussed, Compass will kick-start New Line's most ambitious and expensive adventure since Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not long ago, an unknown 12-year-old girl named Dakota Blue Richards landed the lead role in Compass, proving there is enough room in Hollywood for two little girls named Dakota.
Talk about actors that fly way under the radar, Mos Def has signed on to star opposite Jack Black in Be Kind, Rewind. Written and directed by the always eccentric Michel Gondry, Rewind sounds right up my alley. What? Didn't anyone tell you eccentric was the new sexy? Pic stars Black as a guy who unintentionally destroys a bunch of tapes in his friend's video store after his brain becomes magnetized in a freak accident. In order to satisfy the store's one loyal customer, the two join together and attempt to remake some of the lost films includingBack to the Future, The Lion King and Robocop. Also in negotiations to star are Kirsten Dunst and Danny Glover. Be Kind, Rewind begins shooting in early September.
Though Casino Royale isn't due out for another few months, its producers are so sure it's going to be a hit, they've already jump-started the follow-up, currently titled Bond 22. Apparently, Notting Hill director Roger Michell is in negotiations to helm it, what some are saying, is an original idea from producer Michael Wilson. Hey, I have a feeling this old school Bond will be fun to watch. If they remain on that path, I'm all for a few more films -- so long as Hugh Grant doesn't play villain.
Looks like Ang Lee has found the stars for his follow-up to Brokeback Mountain, a WWII-era spy thriller, Lust, Caution. Tony Leung and newcomer Tang Wei have landed the lead roles in this Chinese-language feature for Focus Features, which is based off the short story written by the late Eileen Chang. If the plot stays true to the short story, it will revolve around a man who attempts to seduce and assassinate a spy working for the Japanese government.
While some feel his films are annoying and self-serving, I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson's work. I mean, how can you comfortably live your life and not think Rushmore is one of the greatest films, like, ever? Currently, the director is working on the animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which his is co-writing (based off the novel by Roald Dahl) and directing. However, Owen Wilson recently told CNN he's going to be working with Anderson on another film set in India. Though he didn't give many details, he did say the story followed three brothers who go on a journey throughout India and it's not a buddy comedy movie. India? Owen Wilson? Wes Anderson? I'm there.
Though the President has left the building, he's currently making plans to stick around town a little while longer. Martin Sheen, who played TV President on The West Wing, will take on a role in the film Talk to Me for Focus Features. Pic, which will be set in 1960s Washington D.C., tells the real-life story of a radio station owner (Sheen) who hires controversial black on-air personality Ralph Waldo "Petey" Green (Don Cheadle). Green would ultimately go on to be somewhat of an icon in radio at a time when racial tension was at its peak across the country.
Universal Pictures have teamed up with Boom Entertainment to bring the horror comic book Tag to the big screen. Talk about an intense and deadly way to play the game tag, story revolves around some average Joe who, while out with his girlfriend one night, falls victim to an ancient curse when a random stranger "tags" him. The curse makes it so this poor dude slowly begins to die, his body literally decomposing, forcing him to either give up and move on to a higher place or find someone else to pass on the curse to. Yikes, imagine explaining that one to your girlfriend: "Um, honey, I'm dying to see you tonight but, well, I'm actually dying ... so, yeah -- rain check?"
Luc Besson is one of those directors who likes to float somewhere between worlds of crime and fantasy, giving us films like The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita, Angel-A and the upcoming Arthur and the Minimoys. While Fifth Element was probably his most commercial hit here in the States, Besson's Léon (or The Professional) has garnered a large following and some think it's his best film. Besson recently squashed rumors of a sequel to Léon saying he has no plans to make one and is pissed people keep sending him scripts for an idea that's not theirs. He does admit, however, if there is going to be a sequel, he will write it. Damn, I guess my script for The Not So Professional will have to remain in my draw, where it belongs.
I bet if Stephen King wrote a five-word poem about his thumb, some studio would find a way to turn said poem into a film. That's how good this guy is. According to Variety, Kate Walsh (Grey's Anatomy) has signed on to star alongside John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in the latest King adaptation, 1408. Based on the horror writer's short story, pic will follow a debunker of paranormal occurrences (Cusack) who finds himself wrapped up in some real heavy sh*t upon checking into mysterious room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel. Walsh will play Cusack's ex-wife in the film, which will be directed by Mikael Hafstrom.
Focus Features is attempting to spend an evening with three very lovely ladies. Vanessa Redgrave, Claire Danes and Toni Collette are currently in negotiations to star in Evening, based on the bestselling novel by Susan Minot. Story surrounds a cancer patient and a weekend she spends with her two daughters reminiscing about her past, while the girls struggle to accept their mother's impending death. In an interesting move, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Cunningham (The Hours) will adapt Minot's novel for the screen.
Instead of guessing what the audience wants from its moviegoing experience, the MPAA wants to reach out and ask via an online survey. With topics ranging from theater attendance, piracy, advertisements, piracy, home video rental and piracy, MPAA Chief Dan Glickman says their goal here is to provide the studios with "consistent, focused consumer intelligence." Oh, and they also want to know where you bought that bootleg copy of Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. So, yeah -- fess up!
It may have been bad memories of Celebrity that kept Woody Allen away from this weekend's press junket for his latest film, a London-based feather-weight who-done-it comedy in the vein of Manhattan Murder Mystery called Scoop. Allen, along with star Hugh Jackman, was conspicuously absent from the various Scoop-related goings-on at a posh Manhattan hotel. Word has it there was a heroic attempt to connect Jackman via video link-up from Australia, but nothing materialized during the Sunday events scheduled for lowly online journalists. Maybe the TV interviewers were more lucky. Those who did manage to show up for us included grizzled Deadwood star Ian McShane, sporting some rather perfect dentures and an un-Swearengen-like clean shave. In Scoop, McShane plays a recently deceased journalist so eager to pursue the scoop he was chasing at the moment of his untimely death that he haunts young reporter Scarlett Johansson to pass on the tip.
Johansson also showed up for a roundtable discussion with online journos, although for one reason or another, she was over an hour late. (She may have been preoccupied with the elaborate breakfast buffet laid out by the hotel) Upon entering the room, and before even getting settled into her chair, Johansson was hit with a barrage of questions ranging from the off-topic -- "What are your politics?" -- to the borderline insulting -- "This character you play has a lot of energy -- was that a challenge for you?" -- to the Liptonesque -- "What career would you like to pursue instead of acting?" Her answers, in turn, were "I'm very liberal-minded," "I have a lot of energy, as long as I have some breakfast first," and "I'd like to direct."
As always, there were a few breaks in etiquette. One questioner made a rambling assertion that Scoop is reminiscent of more innocent 40s comedy fare, and that this film therefore has a sneaky interest in promoting a kind of conservative purity. He eventually came around to asking Johansson for a general comment on purity in society. Another journo asked loudly for her to pose for a picture after the roundtable's conclusion -- she refused, and good for her. Having gotten our scoop, we pocketed the remaining complimentary muffins and cleared out.
If there is one filmmaker out there who doesn't need to plagiarize, it is Jim Jarmusch. For the past twenty years he has been making some of the most original films in America. Partially his work is too simple to be a copy, but mostly it is too concerned with style over script to necessitate his ripping someone off. In the world of screenwriting, though, there is always that someone who thought up an idea first, before that other person who managed to make the idea into a film. In the latest case, Jarmusch is being accused of plagiarizing his latest film Broken Flowers. Reed Martin, a freelance journalist and professor of film marketing at NYU, says that his own script, "Heart Copy" (formerly "Two Weeks Off") is similar right down to Jessica Lange's animal communicator character and the pink envelope catalyst. Further cause for him to think that his work became Broken Flowers is Martin's claim that his agent, Glenn Rigberg, gave copies of the script to Julie Delpy and Sharon Stone (both actresses appear in the film) and Focus Features co-president David Linde. His lawsuit against Jarmusch, Vivendi Universal Entertainment, Focus Features and Rigberg, was filed in March. He is seeking $40 million, the film's theatrical gross.
The thing about Broken Flowers is that some of its themes have to do with coincidence and the abstract connections that our minds are prone to make. I haven't seen Martin's script so I won't assume that his accusation is based entirely on the brain's tendency to make associations seem more significant than they truly are, but I think the chance of this is high.
In his defense, Jarmusch wrote in an email to the Boston Globe, "I had never had any contact with him or his work. I'd never even heard of him. I still haven't seen the work he claims I copied. Anyone who is familiar with my films and my writing process will know that his claim is ridiculous."
When MTV wants to cover a natural disaster like a Tsunami or a man-made disaster like the Iraq war, nine times out of ten they're sending Gideon Yago to the scene. If you've ever caught one of the music station's True Life documentaries, then most of the time that voice-over you hear is provided by Yago. He's everywhere you don't want to be, except now he's in a spot most people only dream about traveling to. That's right, MTV's Golden Boy has sold his first script, Underdog, to Focus Features.
Calling it the "most sought-after film of the Toronto International Film Festival," the Hollywood Reporter tells us Picturehouse has snatched up all North American rights to 
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As if being an indie-film lover in NYC wasn't already a dream come true, much of the city is going to be 
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