This article contains Hollywood spoilers. You can find our easter egg guide for the previous episode here.
If you wanted a star-gazing episode from Ryan Murphy (or perhaps a different four-letter word to do with stars), then this is it. In one episode we get Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Alfred Hitchcock, Noel Coward, and some juicy gossip about Errol Flynn. So get ready to go to a George Cukor party!
Hollywood Episode 3
-The third episode begins to the sound of Ella Fitzgerald’s “I’m Beginning to See the Light.”
-Ernie reveals to the boys that they’re going to a George Cukor party. While I was aware that Cole Porter and, at this point, retired director James Whale enjoyed scandalous pool parties, I’d been under the impression that Cukor was more deeply in the closet, preferring urbane Saturday night parties with celebrities. Which is still true, but according to Scotty Bowers,...
If you wanted a star-gazing episode from Ryan Murphy (or perhaps a different four-letter word to do with stars), then this is it. In one episode we get Vivien Leigh, Tallulah Bankhead, Alfred Hitchcock, Noel Coward, and some juicy gossip about Errol Flynn. So get ready to go to a George Cukor party!
Hollywood Episode 3
-The third episode begins to the sound of Ella Fitzgerald’s “I’m Beginning to See the Light.”
-Ernie reveals to the boys that they’re going to a George Cukor party. While I was aware that Cole Porter and, at this point, retired director James Whale enjoyed scandalous pool parties, I’d been under the impression that Cukor was more deeply in the closet, preferring urbane Saturday night parties with celebrities. Which is still true, but according to Scotty Bowers,...
- 5/2/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland in New York last summer Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Director Richard Glatzer, partner of Wash Westmoreland, died at age 63 on Tuesday, March 10 at their home in Los Angeles, California. Richard was afflicted by A.L.S. (motor neurone disease) when we spoke in New York last summer at the Trump Soho Hotel on Kevin Kline's portrayal of Errol Flynn in their film The Last Of Robin Hood. He communicated with me by tapping out his voiced response on an iPad. His wit came through in every answer he gave. He called Susan Sarandon "a young soul" and Dakota Fanning an "old" soul in their roles as Florence and Beverly Aadland.
Richard Glatzer with Susan Sarandon as Florence Aadland on the set of The Last Of Robin Hood
Richard and Wash also directed and wrote together Quinceañera and the multiple award-winning Still Alice, in which Julianne Moore...
Director Richard Glatzer, partner of Wash Westmoreland, died at age 63 on Tuesday, March 10 at their home in Los Angeles, California. Richard was afflicted by A.L.S. (motor neurone disease) when we spoke in New York last summer at the Trump Soho Hotel on Kevin Kline's portrayal of Errol Flynn in their film The Last Of Robin Hood. He communicated with me by tapping out his voiced response on an iPad. His wit came through in every answer he gave. He called Susan Sarandon "a young soul" and Dakota Fanning an "old" soul in their roles as Florence and Beverly Aadland.
Richard Glatzer with Susan Sarandon as Florence Aadland on the set of The Last Of Robin Hood
Richard and Wash also directed and wrote together Quinceañera and the multiple award-winning Still Alice, in which Julianne Moore...
- 3/13/2015
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
A gorgeous period piece about great movie stars in decline. Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn. Susan Sarandon in a stunning performance. References to one of my favorite novels, Lolita.
So why did The Last of Robin Hood leave me completely cold and even slightly disgusted?
This story about Flynn's last days and his relationship with Beverly Aadland, whom he met when she was 15, feels pointless and even occasionally dull. Perhaps it's meant to be another installment in a series of Realistic Portrayals of Stories from Hollywood Babylon, along with The Cat's Meow ... but that movie had style, humor and character depth that this movie lacks. Filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland portrayed teenage characters much more successfully in their previous feature, Quinceanera.
Dakota Fanning plays young Beverly, whom Flynn nicknames Woodsie, his "little wood nymph." He falls for her, she succumbs after an unbelievably rough start ... and more unbelievably, the...
So why did The Last of Robin Hood leave me completely cold and even slightly disgusted?
This story about Flynn's last days and his relationship with Beverly Aadland, whom he met when she was 15, feels pointless and even occasionally dull. Perhaps it's meant to be another installment in a series of Realistic Portrayals of Stories from Hollywood Babylon, along with The Cat's Meow ... but that movie had style, humor and character depth that this movie lacks. Filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland portrayed teenage characters much more successfully in their previous feature, Quinceanera.
Dakota Fanning plays young Beverly, whom Flynn nicknames Woodsie, his "little wood nymph." He falls for her, she succumbs after an unbelievably rough start ... and more unbelievably, the...
- 9/6/2014
- by Jette Kernion
- Slackerwood
Chicago – The term “in like Flynn” still gets used, when delusional dudes think they have the score. The saying is a product of former matinee idol Errol Flynn, whose tastes in young girls inspired the saying. Kevin Kline portrays him, and his tastes, in “The Last of Robin Hood.”
Rating: 3.5/5.0
This is a decent character study – written and directed by the tandem of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland – but has no real dramatic arcs or mysteries solved. However, there is plenty of bizarre 1950s-style tabloid coverage to drink in, and Susan Sarandon is gunning for Meryl Streep’s stranglehold on playing woman character roles of a certain age. Her mother role is delicious, and gives her a chance to be drunk and disorderly. Kline is perfectly suited for the aging Errol Flynn, much as he portrayed the aging Cole Porter and Douglas Fairbanks in previous films. He has the old-timey star look and attitude,...
Rating: 3.5/5.0
This is a decent character study – written and directed by the tandem of Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland – but has no real dramatic arcs or mysteries solved. However, there is plenty of bizarre 1950s-style tabloid coverage to drink in, and Susan Sarandon is gunning for Meryl Streep’s stranglehold on playing woman character roles of a certain age. Her mother role is delicious, and gives her a chance to be drunk and disorderly. Kline is perfectly suited for the aging Errol Flynn, much as he portrayed the aging Cole Porter and Douglas Fairbanks in previous films. He has the old-timey star look and attitude,...
- 9/5/2014
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
As we bid goodbye to the Summer action blockbusters, we say hello once more to the serious slate of films looking to pick up award gold in the last few months of the year. And what better subject matter than the true story or the biographical or “bio-pic”? Maybe a good mix of the two, and since Hollywood enjoys celebrating itself why not tackle one of its greatest stars? Though not as highly merchandised today at contemporaries Bogart, Monroe, or Hepburn (either one), few stars shone as brightly in that golden age than Errol Flynn, king of the silver screen swashbucklers. Now Flynn was played by the similarly dashing Jude Law ten years ago in the Howard Hughes story, The Aviator. And previously he was parodied wonderfully by Peter O’Toole as Alan Swann in the raucous comic gem My Favorite Year in 1982 and by former Bond Timothy Dalton as...
- 9/4/2014
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Kevin Kline is almost too good a fit for the aging Errol Flynn in the story of Flynn’s final affair — with a 15-year-old girl — in The Last of Robin Hood. Kline became a star onstage as the swashbuckling pirate king in The Pirates of Penzance and played Douglas Fairbanks in Chaplin, and here he seems ready to hang once more from the mizzenmast and declare his dominion over the high seas. Kline has the right faux Brit accent (Flynn was born in Australia) and debonair quiver of the head, and his lies fall so charmingly from his mouth that they scarcely seem like lies: The seduction is all. But if Flynn had much of an inner life, the movie doesn’t show it: This is a man for whom the mask has supplanted the face. It’s certainly understandable that he could lust after the dewy blonde Beverly Aadland...
- 8/29/2014
- by David Edelstein
- Vulture
The Last of Robin Hood
Written and Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
USA, 2013
If all the world’s stage, then surely some players crave the spotlight more than others. And if ever there was a player, it was Errol Flynn. The Last of Robin Hood tells the twisted story of three people who will do almost anything for fame. That each must settle for infamy is one of the juicy, yet unexplored ironies in a movie that doesn’t know which story it wants to tell. By taking an evenhanded and humanistic approach to such salacious subject matter, the filmmakers have effectively squashed any possibility for tawdry fun. Instead, we get a bone-dry historical drama that skimps on the history and bypasses the drama entirely.
For most casual moviegoers, the name ‘Errol Flynn’ means one of three things: absolutely nothing, Robin Hood, or the expression, “In like Flynn.
Written and Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
USA, 2013
If all the world’s stage, then surely some players crave the spotlight more than others. And if ever there was a player, it was Errol Flynn. The Last of Robin Hood tells the twisted story of three people who will do almost anything for fame. That each must settle for infamy is one of the juicy, yet unexplored ironies in a movie that doesn’t know which story it wants to tell. By taking an evenhanded and humanistic approach to such salacious subject matter, the filmmakers have effectively squashed any possibility for tawdry fun. Instead, we get a bone-dry historical drama that skimps on the history and bypasses the drama entirely.
For most casual moviegoers, the name ‘Errol Flynn’ means one of three things: absolutely nothing, Robin Hood, or the expression, “In like Flynn.
- 8/29/2014
- by J.R. Kinnard
- SoundOnSight
Beverly Center: Flynn’s Final Scandal Makes for Interesting Cinematic Footnote
It’s been eight years since Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s 2006 sophomore film, Quinceanera swept up the Audience and Grand Jury Prize awards at the Sundance Film Festival. The directing duo is back with a re-ignition of an old Hollywood scandal in The Last of Robin Hood, a glance at the final years of Errol Flynn and his romantic entanglement with a female minor. While the material is unerringly fascinating and features a trio of notable names, it’s a rendition that feels a bit too polished and hardly as seedy as it should be. It seems attempts have been made to assuage unnecessary heartache to the relatives of the ingénue at the center of this strange ménage-a-trois, and the resulting film seems a heavily polished reenactment too apprehensive to really get its hands dirty. Yet, the...
It’s been eight years since Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s 2006 sophomore film, Quinceanera swept up the Audience and Grand Jury Prize awards at the Sundance Film Festival. The directing duo is back with a re-ignition of an old Hollywood scandal in The Last of Robin Hood, a glance at the final years of Errol Flynn and his romantic entanglement with a female minor. While the material is unerringly fascinating and features a trio of notable names, it’s a rendition that feels a bit too polished and hardly as seedy as it should be. It seems attempts have been made to assuage unnecessary heartache to the relatives of the ingénue at the center of this strange ménage-a-trois, and the resulting film seems a heavily polished reenactment too apprehensive to really get its hands dirty. Yet, the...
- 8/25/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Dakota Fanning is all grown up! The actress and college student is back on the big screen in her Aug. 29 film The Last of Robin Hood, based on the true - and at the time, very scandalous - story of actor Errol Flynn's affair with a teenage actress named Beverly Aadland. At a recent press day for the movie, Dakota spoke about her own adventures as a young performer in Hollywood and how she plans to keep appearing before the camera for years to come.
- 8/22/2014
- by Allie-Merriam
- Popsugar.com
Errol Flynn (Kevin Kline) Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning) toast in The Last of Robin Hood: "And behind this facade of strength is actually someone who is thinking twice."
We continue our conversation with directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, discussing Stanley Kubrick's Lolita connection to Errol Flynn, costume designer Orry-Kelly's role beyond the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Ethel Barrymore in Hollywood, and the palettes in Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse, Richard Quine's Strangers When We Meet and Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon with Matt Kane, Bryan Batt and Max Casella star in The Last Of Robin Hood.
Anne-Katrin Titze: When I spoke with Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth about 20,000 Days On Earth, which is their documentary on Nick Cave, little did I expect that your film and theirs would have something in common. And that is Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.
We continue our conversation with directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, discussing Stanley Kubrick's Lolita connection to Errol Flynn, costume designer Orry-Kelly's role beyond the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Ethel Barrymore in Hollywood, and the palettes in Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse, Richard Quine's Strangers When We Meet and Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon with Matt Kane, Bryan Batt and Max Casella star in The Last Of Robin Hood.
Anne-Katrin Titze: When I spoke with Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth about 20,000 Days On Earth, which is their documentary on Nick Cave, little did I expect that your film and theirs would have something in common. And that is Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.
- 8/16/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's The Last Of Robin Hood: "The real Errol Flynn can't quite live up to Errol Flynn, the idol."
In a Trump SoHo Hotel suite, high above the city, I met up with The Last Of Robin Hood directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland for a conversation on Kevin Kline's portrayal of Errol Flynn. Susan Sarandon and Dakota Fanning as Florence and Beverly Aadland led us to Marjorie Morningstar, starring Gene Kelly and Natalie Wood - Too Much, Too Soon and the Barrymore clan - Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life - John Huston's Roots Of Heaven and all the way down to Barry Mahon's Cuban Rebel Girls.
Earlier, I had spoken with Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth about 20,000 Days On Earth, their documentary on and with Nick Cave, at the Regency Hotel.
In a Trump SoHo Hotel suite, high above the city, I met up with The Last Of Robin Hood directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland for a conversation on Kevin Kline's portrayal of Errol Flynn. Susan Sarandon and Dakota Fanning as Florence and Beverly Aadland led us to Marjorie Morningstar, starring Gene Kelly and Natalie Wood - Too Much, Too Soon and the Barrymore clan - Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life - John Huston's Roots Of Heaven and all the way down to Barry Mahon's Cuban Rebel Girls.
Earlier, I had spoken with Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth about 20,000 Days On Earth, their documentary on and with Nick Cave, at the Regency Hotel.
- 8/10/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Susan Sarandon is a major stage mom — not to daughter Eva Amurri, but to Dakota Fanning, who portrays teenage starlet Beverly Aadland in The Last of Robin Hood, opening Friday. Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the Samuel Goldwyn Films release casts Sarandon as Florence Aadland, who watched — and encouraged — her daughter as she became the object of affection to swashbuckling movie star Errol Flynn (Kevin Kline), and then cashed in on his passing with her own book. The real-life Lolita story has Sarandon reflecting on the dark sides of Hollywood's bright lights — her character was an aspiring
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- 7/25/2014
- by Ashley Lee
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Samuel Goldwyn Films has released the new trailer and poster for their upcoming film The Last Of Robin Hood starring Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon & Dakota Fanning.
Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland.
The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl’s fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother – which only fed Florence’s need to stay in the spotlight. The Last Of Robin Hood is a story about the desire for fame and the price it exacts.
Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland,...
Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland.
The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl’s fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother – which only fed Florence’s need to stay in the spotlight. The Last Of Robin Hood is a story about the desire for fame and the price it exacts.
Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland,...
- 6/25/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Sneak Peek a new trailer from writer/directors Richard Glatzer and Wash West's Hollywood biopic feature "The Last of Robin Hood".
The new film chronicles the life of 1930's "Robin Hood" film actor, womanizer, alcoholic, 'Errol Flynn' (Kevin Kline) and his affair with teenage chorus girl lover 'Beverly Aadland' (Dakota Fanning), before he died in her arms of a heart attack at the age of 50:
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Last Of Robin Hood", Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and an "Errol Flynn" documentary...
The new film chronicles the life of 1930's "Robin Hood" film actor, womanizer, alcoholic, 'Errol Flynn' (Kevin Kline) and his affair with teenage chorus girl lover 'Beverly Aadland' (Dakota Fanning), before he died in her arms of a heart attack at the age of 50:
Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Last Of Robin Hood", Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and an "Errol Flynn" documentary...
- 6/25/2014
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
The Last of Robin Hood has released a new trailer.
Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's biopic stars Kevin Kline as an ageing Errol Flynn.
Dakota Fanning plays his ambitious teenage chorus girl lover Beverly Aadland, with Susan Sarandon as her equally ambitious mother.
The 50-year-old Flynn struggled to get Aadland's career off the ground during the affair that occurred just before he died in 1959 at the age of 50.
Matthew Kane and Max Casella also feature in the film, which premiered at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival.
The Last of Robin Hood will be released in the Us on August 29. A UK release date is yet to be announced.
Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's biopic stars Kevin Kline as an ageing Errol Flynn.
Dakota Fanning plays his ambitious teenage chorus girl lover Beverly Aadland, with Susan Sarandon as her equally ambitious mother.
The 50-year-old Flynn struggled to get Aadland's career off the ground during the affair that occurred just before he died in 1959 at the age of 50.
Matthew Kane and Max Casella also feature in the film, which premiered at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival.
The Last of Robin Hood will be released in the Us on August 29. A UK release date is yet to be announced.
- 6/25/2014
- Digital Spy
The Last of Robin Hood, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year but hits theaters August 29, chronicles Errol Flynn's relationship with his teenage chorus-girl lover, Beverly Aadland, just before his death of a heart attack at the age of 50. Kevin Kline and Dakota Fanning play Flynn and Aadland, respectively, with Susan Sarandon as Beverly's ambitious stage mom who enables the sordid affair. It looks like the three of them are doing most of the heavy lifting — although we do get a glimpse of Mad Men's Bryan Batt (hi Sal!) — in a trailer that seems to lean pretty heavily on quirky banter, bouncy music, and Old Hollywood glamor, considering that the film's premise is statutory rape. But hey, aren't those old-timey outfits great?...
- 6/25/2014
- by Anna Silman
- Vulture
With the recent premiere of Maleficient, we’ve all spent a good deal of time talking about Elle Fanning and her career turn as a real life Disney princess. But the focus is about to shift again to the older sister, with Dakota Fanning stepping into the shoes of a young and impressionable 1940s starlet in The Last of Robin Hood. After all, who would know more about struggling through Hollywood and rising to fame as a teenager than someone who has done it herself? The silver screen gal she’s portraying, Beverly Aadland, was in a bit of a different situation than Fanning, however. Aadland was a chorus girl just at the beginnings of her blossoming film career, with only a twinkle of Hollywood in her future and an overbearing stage mom (Susan Sarandon) at her side. It’s the beauty and talents of the — very, very — young beauty that catches the eye of Robin Hood...
- 6/25/2014
- by Samantha Wilson
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
She’s never afraid of a challenge, and Dakota Fanning plays Beverly Aadland to perfection in the forthcoming flick “The Last of Robin Hood.”
Also starring Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon and Errol Flynn’s grandson Sean Flynn, the much-lauded project takes a look at the last crazy days of Errol Flynn.
Per the synopsis, “Flynn, known for his wild living and womanizing ways, falls for 15-year-old acting student Beverly Aadland and casts her in his final film “Cuban Rebel Girls.”
“Even Beverly’s mother seems complicit in the scandalous relationship that serves to destroy the remains of Flynn’s reputation, and nobody seems satisfied with the results.”...
Also starring Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon and Errol Flynn’s grandson Sean Flynn, the much-lauded project takes a look at the last crazy days of Errol Flynn.
Per the synopsis, “Flynn, known for his wild living and womanizing ways, falls for 15-year-old acting student Beverly Aadland and casts her in his final film “Cuban Rebel Girls.”
“Even Beverly’s mother seems complicit in the scandalous relationship that serves to destroy the remains of Flynn’s reputation, and nobody seems satisfied with the results.”...
- 6/24/2014
- GossipCenter
Though The Aviator did feature Jude Law as a brawling, amorous version of Errol Elynn, we have yet to see a solid biopic about the Hollywood icon. The Last of Robin Hood, from directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (Quinceanera), may come closer than any before it though, but even it won’t take a traditional approach to chronicling Flynn’s life. Instead, it focuses on his final days, as Flynn (Kevin Kline) scandalously romances a young starlet (Dakota Fanning) before dying from a heart attack at the age of 50.
A new trailer for The Last of Robin Hood has landed online today, making a strong case for the period drama. In its light tone and focus on old Hollywood glamor, it seems to hew closely to My Week with Marilyn and The Artist, blending committed performances with a quippy script and golden-hued cinematography.
The Last of Robin Hood, which...
A new trailer for The Last of Robin Hood has landed online today, making a strong case for the period drama. In its light tone and focus on old Hollywood glamor, it seems to hew closely to My Week with Marilyn and The Artist, blending committed performances with a quippy script and golden-hued cinematography.
The Last of Robin Hood, which...
- 6/24/2014
- by Isaac Feldberg
- We Got This Covered
Kevin Kline stars as the legendary lothario Errol Flynn in the upcoming biopic The Last of Robin Hood.
The Hollywood star is best remembered for his on-screen swashbuckling roles in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood as he is for his notorious off-screen penchant for boozing, gambling, fighting, sex, and women, including standing trail for three statutory rape charges. His trouble with the law and underage girls lead to the coining of the phrase “In like Flynn” after he was cleared of all charges.
As his star began to dim in his later years, one particularly young – and I do I mean young – lady caught his eye. 15-year-old wannabe actress Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning) embarked on a clandestine relationship with the much older Flynn, endorsed by Aadland’s fame-obsessed mother Florence (Susan Sarandon) fuelling her own desire for the spotlight. When Hollywood gossip over their underage relationship spread like wildfire,...
The Hollywood star is best remembered for his on-screen swashbuckling roles in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood as he is for his notorious off-screen penchant for boozing, gambling, fighting, sex, and women, including standing trail for three statutory rape charges. His trouble with the law and underage girls lead to the coining of the phrase “In like Flynn” after he was cleared of all charges.
As his star began to dim in his later years, one particularly young – and I do I mean young – lady caught his eye. 15-year-old wannabe actress Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning) embarked on a clandestine relationship with the much older Flynn, endorsed by Aadland’s fame-obsessed mother Florence (Susan Sarandon) fuelling her own desire for the spotlight. When Hollywood gossip over their underage relationship spread like wildfire,...
- 6/24/2014
- by Rachel West
- Cineplex
Following the debut of the first poster earlier this spring, the first trailer for the 50s Hollywood romance The Last of Robin Hood has arrived. Kevin Kline takes the role of iconic swashbuckler Erron Flynn as he falls for an underage actress named Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning). It looks like there's some great performances on display here, but the tone seems all over the place, going from the lighter bustling environment of old Hollywood to the darker side of this obsessive romance between Flynn and Aadland. The film debuted at Toronto last year, and the buzz wasn't overwhelming, but we're at least interested. Watch! Here's the first trailer for Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland's The Last of Robin Hood (via Apple): Errol Flynn (Kevin Kline), the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies’ man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming...
- 6/24/2014
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
Kevin Kline plays an aging Errol Flynn in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s The Last Of Robin Hood, chronicling the swashbuckling screen icon’s affair with an underage aspiring actress during the sunset years of his life. Dakota Fanning stars as Flynn’s paramour Beverly Aadland with Susan Sarandon as her fame-obsessed mother. Pic premiered at Toronto and hits theaters August 29 via Samuel Goldwyn Films:...
- 6/24/2014
- Deadline
Dakota Fanning and Kevin Kline recreate one of the most controversial romances of Old Hollywood in the first trailer for Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland‘s “The Last of Robin Hood.” Starring Kline in the leading role of Errol Flynn, the biopic centers on the final years of the late movie star’s life during the late ’50s. It was during this time that the actor pursued and quickly formed a relationship with a then 15-year-old aspiring actress named Beverly Aadland (Fanning). Despite the significant age gap (Flynn died of a heart attack in 1959 at the age of 50) between the [...]
The post Watch: Dakota Fanning Falls for Errol Flynn in the ‘The Last of Robin Hood’ Trailer appeared first on Up and Comers.
The post Watch: Dakota Fanning Falls for Errol Flynn in the ‘The Last of Robin Hood’ Trailer appeared first on Up and Comers.
- 6/24/2014
- by Alfonso Espina
- UpandComers
Handsome, dashing, popular ... movie legend Errol Flynn had the world in the palm of his hand during his heydey, but when the '40s rolled around, her personal life overcame his onscreen persona. A trial for statutory rape—from which he was acquitted after a very public trial—forever damaged his reputation. And the upcoming "The Last Of Robin Hood" documents the fall of one of Hollywood's greatest icons. Kevin Kline plays the handsome actor, who starts a relationship with the very young Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning) under the premise of helping her acting career, and the two are soon embroiled in an affair. Some of this is enabled by Beverly's stage mom Florence (Susan Sarandon), but when the relationship spills out into the media, there's not much anyone can do stop what's coming. The film premiered at Tiff last fall, and we missed it at the time, and the...
- 6/24/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, The Last of Robin Hood also stars Susan Sarandon and Dakota Fanning, and is scheduled for theatrical release on August 29th, 2014. Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies' man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland. The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl’s fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother – which only fed Florence’s need to...
- 6/24/2014
- by Pietro Filipponi
- The Daily BLAM!
In Maleficent, Angelina Jolie recreates her iconic curse with such perfect charisma that it’s a big letdown when she changes tune about 2.5 seconds later as Disney strives to make her relatable. Our beloved villainess became the reactionary scorned woman, and all of that potential for more evil cackles flies out the window. Thinking about this terribly missed opportunity for excellent evilness, I couldn’t help but think about the many real-life, often larger than life names who have been immortalized in cinematic biographies in ways more bittersweet than satisfying. It’s great to see them and get the rush of their performance, but sad to watch it wasted on an inferior film, or a bit part in someone else’s larger whole. Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn Kevin Kline was born to play Errol Flynn, but for years no one jumped at the opportunity – until Kline was in his sixties, and...
- 6/5/2014
- by Monika Bartyzel
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Filmmaker tandem Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland know a thing or two about being on opposite ends of luck. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, but after breaking out with Quinceañera at Sundance back in 2006 (it got picked up by Spc and generated good box-office numbers), the pair had difficulties setting up their sophomore feature. They got their groove back when they dug into Hollywood folklore and sifted thru silver screen legend Errol Flynn‘s timeline – the lucky actor who hit jackpot and had a life that mimicked the notion of rags to riches to rags. An example of a film that might have got lost in the abyss of films presented at Tiff last September, but that might nudge out an afterlife theatrically, The Wrap reports that Samuel Goldwyn Films have picked up The Last of Robin Hood. A fall release is expected.
Gist: This revolves around...
Gist: This revolves around...
- 4/10/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up Us rights to Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s The Last Of Robin Hood. Separately, Vertical Entertainment has picked up Behaving Badly.
Goldwyn plans an autumn release for Lifetime Films’ The Last Of Robin Hood, which stars Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in a twilight years romance with starlet Beverly Aadland played by Dakota Fanning. Susan Sarandon also stars.
Samuel Goldwyn Films brokered the deal with Lifetime Films / A+E Studios and Cinetic Media.
Declan Baldwin, Maggie Malina, Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon produced the Lifetime Films presentation in association with Killer Films and Big Indie Pictures.
Todd Haynes, Rob Sharenow, Tanya Lopez, Molly Thompson, Colleen McCormick and Lisa Hamilton Daly served as executive producers.
Vertical Entertainment has acquired all Us rights from Voltage Pictures and Preferred Content to Behaving Badly from Tim Garrick. Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Mary-Louise Parker, Elisabeth Shue, Dylan McDermott, Jason Lee, [link...
Goldwyn plans an autumn release for Lifetime Films’ The Last Of Robin Hood, which stars Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in a twilight years romance with starlet Beverly Aadland played by Dakota Fanning. Susan Sarandon also stars.
Samuel Goldwyn Films brokered the deal with Lifetime Films / A+E Studios and Cinetic Media.
Declan Baldwin, Maggie Malina, Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon produced the Lifetime Films presentation in association with Killer Films and Big Indie Pictures.
Todd Haynes, Rob Sharenow, Tanya Lopez, Molly Thompson, Colleen McCormick and Lisa Hamilton Daly served as executive producers.
Vertical Entertainment has acquired all Us rights from Voltage Pictures and Preferred Content to Behaving Badly from Tim Garrick. Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Mary-Louise Parker, Elisabeth Shue, Dylan McDermott, Jason Lee, [link...
- 4/9/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up Us rights to Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s The Last Of Robin Hood. Separately, Vertical Entertainment has picked up Behaving Badly.
Goldwyn plans an autumn release for Lifetime Films’ The Last Of Robin Hood, which stars Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in a twilight years romance with starlet Beverly Aadland played by Dakota Fanning. Susan Sarandon also stars.
Samuel Goldwyn Films brokered the deal with Lifetime Films / A+E Studios and Cinetic Media.
Declan Baldwin, Maggie Malina, Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon produced the Lifetime Films presentation in association with Killer Films and Big Indie Pictures.
Todd Haynes, Rob Sharenow, Tanya Lopez, Molly Thompson, Colleen McCormick and Lisa Hamilton Daly served as executive producers.
Vertical Entertainment has acquired all Us rights from Voltage Pictures and Preferred Content to Behaving Badly from Tim Garrick. Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Mary-Louise Parker, Elisabeth Shue, Dylan McDermott, Jason Lee, [link...
Goldwyn plans an autumn release for Lifetime Films’ The Last Of Robin Hood, which stars Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn in a twilight years romance with starlet Beverly Aadland played by Dakota Fanning. Susan Sarandon also stars.
Samuel Goldwyn Films brokered the deal with Lifetime Films / A+E Studios and Cinetic Media.
Declan Baldwin, Maggie Malina, Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon produced the Lifetime Films presentation in association with Killer Films and Big Indie Pictures.
Todd Haynes, Rob Sharenow, Tanya Lopez, Molly Thompson, Colleen McCormick and Lisa Hamilton Daly served as executive producers.
Vertical Entertainment has acquired all Us rights from Voltage Pictures and Preferred Content to Behaving Badly from Tim Garrick. Nat Wolff, Selena Gomez, Mary-Louise Parker, Elisabeth Shue, Dylan McDermott, Jason Lee, [link...
- 4/9/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Last year, the biopic The Last of Robin Hood, which features Kevin Kline playing swashbuckling adventure actor Errol Flynn hit the Toronto International Film Festival, and now it finally has distribution in the United States. The Wrap reports Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up the Us rights to the film from directing duo Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland which will follow Flynn's final years and his brief romance with young starlet Beverly Aadland (played by Dakota Fanning), as well as her mother's (Susan Sarandon) role in encouraging the relationship. In addition, we have the film's first poster. Look! Here's the first poster for Glatzer & Westmoreland's The Last of Robin Hood (found via The Film Stage): Peter Goldwyn, Senior VP of Samuel Goldwyn Films, comments on the film as well as the distribution news: “‘The Last of Robin Hood' captures a very unique aspect of Hollywood and celebrity. The film...
- 4/9/2014
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's “The Last of Robin Hood,” which stars Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn, the company announced Wednesday. The stylish biopic follows Flynn's final years and his May-December romance with young starlet Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning), as well as her mother's (Susan Sarandon) role in encouraging the relationship. “Robin Hood,” which hails from Lifetime Films, also features Bryan Batt, Max Casella, Jason Davis, Matt Kane, Patrick St. Esprit, Ric Reitz and Justina Machado. Also read: Sam Rockwell's ‘Better Living Through Chemistry’ Acquired by Samuel Goldwyn Films...
- 4/9/2014
- by Jeff Sneider
- The Wrap
Kristen Stewart and Julianne Moore in ‘Still Alice’: Family drama also to star Kate Bosworth, Alec Baldwin (photo: Kristen Stewart at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival) Kate Bosworth, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart have joined Julianne Moore in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s family/crippling disease drama Still Alice, based on Lisa Genova’s novel. Julianne Moore will play a psychologist, Alice Howland, who discovers she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Kristen Stewart will be her youngest daughter, Lydia, who becomes closer to Alice as a result of her illness. If all goes as planned, production on Still Alice will kick off in early March in New York City. TheWrap broke the Kate Bosworth-Alec Baldwin-Kristen Stewart Still Alice casting story, adding that Memento Films International is selling the film at Berlin’s European Film Market. Reportedly thanks to Julianne Moore’s attachment,...
- 1/29/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Late as usual. People are attending Mipcom in Cannes and in November Afm in Santa Monica, and I’m only now getting around to writing about my own private Toronto. I chose films I would not be able to see soon in a theater near me and I chose films because my schedule permitted me to see them. Occasionally I chose films my friends were going to and that happened when my time was not demanding other things be done.
I wish I could have seen 100 other films too but for some reason or another I could not fit them in.
I moderated a wonderful panel (and we did blog on that!) on international film financing with Sffs’ Ted Hope, UTA’s Rena Ronson, Revolution’s Andrew Eaton, and Hollywood-based Cross Creek’s Brian Oliver, and Paul Miller, Head of Film Financing, from the Doha Film Institute, Qatar's first international organization dedicated to film financing, production, education and two film festivals.
I also spoke with Toronto Talent Lab filmmakers and then I filled my days with films – I did get an interview with Gloria’s director Sebastian Lelio and Berlin Best Actress winner Paulina Garcia and with Marcela Said, director of The Summer of Flying Fish but mostly I watched film after film after film – up to five a day, just like in the old days when I had to do it for my acquisitions jobs. This was pure pleasure. Friends would meet before the film, we would watch and disperse. And we would meet again at the cocktail hour or the dinner hour and then disperse again.
My partner Peter had lots of meetings with the Talent of Toronto from the Not Short on Shorts and the Talent Lab Mentoring Programs.
Parties like the Rotterdam-Screen International party gave us the chance to catch up with our Dutch friends whom we have not seen for the last two years. Ontario Media Development Corporation’s presenting the International Financing Forum luncheon gave us the chance to talk to lots of upcoming filmmakers and old friends again who were mentoring them. The panel Forty Years On: Women’s Film Festivals Today, moderated by Kay Armatage, former Tiff programmer, Professor Emeritus University of Toronto, and featuring Debra Zimmerman, Executive Director of Women Make Movies, NYC, Melissa Silverstein, Do-Fojnder an dArtistic Director of the Athena Film Festival in NYC and blogger of Women in Hollywood, So-In Hong, Director of Programming of the International Women’s Film Festival in Seoul had a rapport and didn’t hesitate to challenge each other. It felt like a party even though the subject was quite serious. The SXSW party was crowded as always, filled with everyone we could possibly know. It is always a great party we all want to attend.
One of the great dinners was that of The Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards Dinner honoring Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave), Hill Harper (1982, CSI: NY), Sharon Leal (1982), Matt Letscher (Scandal, The Carrie Diaries), Brenton Thwaites (Oculus, Maleficient), Tommy Oliver (1982, Kinyarwanda – I am a great fan of Tommy’s!), Tom Ortenberg (CEO, Open Road Films which has a coventure with Regal Theaters and AMC Theaters recently acquired by the richest man in China), and David Arquette (The Scream series). Our hostess, Robin Bronk is so welcoming and so dedicated to furthering the cause of universal education as a human right, education in the arts as a must. I admire her presence and her good work.
Here is a list of the great (and not so great, but never bad) films I got to see. I also list those I continue to hear about even now. I do not list all the films which were picked up during the festival and later. For that, you can go to SydneysBuzz.com and buy the Fall Rights Roundup 2013 and see all films whose rights were acquired (and announced) and by whom with links to all companies and Cinando for further research. For buyers it will, by deduction, show what is still available for Afm and for programmers, it will show who is in charge of the film for specific territories. The second edition will be issued two weeks after Afm.
One of the first films I saw and still retaining its place as one of my favorites was the documentary Finding Vivian Maier which begins with the discovery of photographs by an unknown woman named Vivian Maier by filmmaker John Maloof. As the mystery of this woman is uncovered, the audience is treated to her stunning work and the story of who she was.
One of my favorite films was by one of my favorite directors, Lucas Moodyson. We Are The Best (Isa: Trust Nordisk) was a great surprise, the story of three teeny-bopper punk-influenced girls who loved getting into unusual situations. It was loving and fun, darling and funny. I would take my children to see it and would delight in seeing it again. It was the biggest surprise for me. I can see why Magnolia snapped it up for the U.S. I thank programmer Steve Gravenstock for giving me the ticket for this film which I would have missed otherwise.
I had missed Jodorowsky’s Dune in Cannes. I am a great fan of El Topo and was eager to see this film. I was surprised at the elegance and skill of Jodorowsky in explaining his vision. Afterward, Gary Springer, our favorite publicist, arranged a wonderful reception at a classic comic book store where we loaded up on some fascinating graphic novels and Gary showed us his depiction on an old issue of Mad Magazine discussing the making of Jaws which he was in. picture here.
A totally unique and unexpected film about the African Diaspora, Belle, written and directed by Amma Asante was not talked about much to my surprise, perhaps because Fox Searchlight acquired all rights worldwide from Bankside before the festival. It is a stunningly beautiful British period piece of the 18th century about a mixed race aristocratic beauty.
My favorite film, on a par with The Patience Stone last year was Bobo (Isa: Wide) by Ines Oliveira starring Paula Garcia Aissato Indjai, produced by my friend Fernando Vendrell who gave me a ticket when I could not get one myself. This story of a woman who does nothing except go to work is forced to accept a claning woman and her young sister from Guinea-Bissau. Together they face down their demons. I love the cross-cultural understanding which results in their shared situations. I recently saw Mother of George and found the same warm connection across great cultural divides, though this one was of generations.
I wish I could have seen Pays Barbare/ Barbaric Land, the Italian/ French doc in Wavelengths about Mussolini’s attempted subjugation of Ethiopia (the only country in Africa never colonized). It sounds like great political poetry.
1982 which had previously won the prize of the jury I served on for Us Works in Progress held in July at the Champs Elysees Film Festival in Paris. It was deeply moving and disturbing film which depicts the shattering and the healing of a family. It also helps feed the pipeline begun with Lee Daniels producing Monster’s Ball who went on to direct to such films as Precious and The Butler. If the African American experience can continue to be expressed so eloquently by such filmmakers as Tommy Oliver, Rashaad Ernesto Green (Sundance 2012’s Gun Hill Road), Ava DuVernay (Middle of Nowhere), then a film literate audience will foster greater growth of even more talent in the coming generation. While I didn’t see All Is By My Side by U.K.’s John Ridley which is about Jimi Hendrix nor (yet!) the most highly acclaimed film of the festival, 12 Years a Slave by U.K.’s Steve McQueen, but I would include them in this discussion of the African American Experience.
On the subject of Africa, where last Sundance God Loves Uganda shocked and upset me, this year Mission Congo (Cinephil) revealed much of the same cultural divide only these two films show the negative impact of the Christian right upon already besieged Africans. What is done in the name of a righteous G-d is cause for dialogue and oversight.
Israel and the Middle East
No major turmoil or denunciations this year (Thank G-d, Allah, or whoever She may be). Katriel Schory, head of the Israeli Film Fund told me that if I could only see one film, then it should be Bethlehem which is the country’s submission for Academy Award Consideration for the Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It was a sad and clear eyed microcosmic view of the issues of trust and betrayals played out among every level of the society. People compared it to Omar by Hany Abu-Assad,the filmmaker of a favorite of mine, Paradise Now, but I did not see Omar.
Rags and Tatters at first seemed like a documentary, and does have doc footage, but it is a circular story that ends where it began but with much more understanding of the chaotic events in Cairo. Really worth watching.
Latino
Of the Latino films two Chilean films, Gloria (Chile) and The Summer of Flying Fish (Review), were accompanied by interviews which you can read on my previous blogs here and here. El Mudo from Peru by the Vega brothers was in the odd vien of their previous film, October. Not sure at the end just what the film was saying…
Toronto Film Fest Programmer Diana Sanchez’s official count of Latino films in the festival is 16. Of these, 5 are by women; 30% is a strong number. Venezuela and Chile are strong with year with two films each. Two other films might have been chosen except they went to San Sebastian for their world premieres. Especially hot this year was Mexico. 4 films are here but she might have chosen 10 if she could have. Costa Rica is making a showing with All About the Feathers and Central America is making more movies. There is lots of industry buzz coming from the good pictures from Brazil like A Wolf at the Door from Sao Paolo production
She is not counting Gravity by Alfonso Cuaron as as Latino film but as a U.S. film.
And Our White Society
The Dinner (Isa: Media Luna) by Menno Meyjes ♀ (Isa: Media Luna), a Dutch film deals with the personal and political as two families disintegrate when the affluent sons kill a homeless woman. Deeply disturbing social issues on the other side of the spectrum from those of 1982 and yet very much the same. How a society can foster such dissonance in class structure today which results in the disintegration of family and even a nation’s political life is, as I said, deeply disturbing. Based on the N.Y. Times best selling book which sold over 650,000 in The Netherlands, and is published in 22 countries, it stars four of Holland’s most renowned actors, Jacob Derwig, Thekla Reuten, Daan Schuurmans, and Kim van Kooten. This is a story that could be remade in America and still maintain its strength. The writer-director Menno Meyjes wrote the Academy Award nominee The Color Purple and collaborated with director Steven Speilberg on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In 2008 he directed Manolete with Penelope Cruz and Adrien Brody.
The Last of Robin Hood was a romp which thrilled us because Peter Belsito, my own dear husband, had a moment on screen (as the director of Errol Flynn’s last film Cuban Rebel Girls). He got the part because he had had an equally small role in the original Cuban Rebel Girls when it filmed in Cuba in 1959, four months after the Revolution. He happened to be there on vacation with his family including his 18 year old sister and his crazy aunt because Puerto Rico was full that year and Cuba had plenty of room. Directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland invited him to play in their film. The film actually had more meaning than merely a romp as it revealed what lays below the June-September love affair between Errol Flynn and 15 year old Beverly Aadland, the nature of fame (“a religion in this godless country” to quote Flynn himself) and ambition. Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandan and Dakota Fanning were all great in the repertoire piece.
Can a Song Save Your Life? garnered great praise as the film that followed the simple pure Once. I found it a bit flat though it kept my interest enough that I was not contemplating leaving. But it lacked the simplicity of Once.
Fading Gigolo proves that a Woody Allen Film is a Genre. John Turturro makes a Woody Allen middle-aged man fantasy of a wished for love affair with a Hasidic woman. Turturro is always lovable on screen, but his directing has something inauthentic about it…the only authentic thing was the twice-stated thought that somewhere in his heritage he was really Jewish. When I saw his previous film Passione, about Italians and passion, the opening song, being one of the first Cuban songs I ever heard, turned me off because again, it was inauthentic. It was Cuban, not Italian. I think he is not comfortable in his Italian guise.
Other films at Tiff I have seen previously:
Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch (Isa: HanWay, U.S. Spc). If you can see it as a dream of night, then the vampires dreaminess might appeal to you. I personally was ready to fall into my own stupor after watching this 123 minute movie of Vampires who have seen it all. Zzzzzz.
Don Jon is sexy and sweet. Scarlett Johansson is a superb comedienne, equal to Claudette Colbert in this film about two totally media mesmerized young lovers. ___ and his father are also great straight men. I loved this film, so funny and sweet and all about sex. Loved it!
Borgman Darkest humor, or is it humor? Creepy and definitely engrossing. Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam at his best. This is the Netherlands' Official Academy Awards Submission.
What I hear was good:
Aside from the ones that got snapped up for lots of money and are covered in all the trades already, there are films which I keep hearing about even now and will see:
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
12 Years a Slave (Isa: Summit, U.S. Fox Searchlight)
The Lunchbox (Isa: The Match Factory)
Prisoners (Isa: Summit/ Lionsgate, U.S.: Warner Bros)
Dallas Buyers Clubs (Isa: Voltage, U.S. Focus Features)
Life of Crime (Isa: Hyde Park, U.S.: )
A Touch of Sin (Isa: MK2, U.S. Kino Lorber)
Gravity (Isa: Warner Bros. U.S. Warner Bros.)
Enough Said (Isa: Fox Searchlight, U.S. Fox Searchlight)
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) (Isa: Pathe, U.S. Criterion) Italy’s submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Violette (Isa: Doc & Film, U.S.: ?)
Omar (Isa: The Match Factory, U.S.: ?)
Le Passe (The Past) (Isa: Memento, U.S. Spc) Iran’s submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
To the Wolf (Isa: Pascale Ramonda)
The Selfish Giant (Isa: Protagonist, U.S. IFC)
At Berkeley by Frederick Wiseman (Isa: Doc & Film, U.S. Zipporah)
The Unknown Known (Isa: Entertainment One, U.S. Radius-twc)
Ain’t Misbehavin (Un Voyager) by Marcel Ophuls (Isa: Wide House)
Faith Connections by Pan Nalin (Isa: Cite Films). This Indian French film, produced by Raphael Berduo among others is written about here.
Civil Rights (?)
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
12 Years a Slave (Isa: Summit, U.S. Fox Searchlight)
Belle (Isa: Bankside, all rights sold to Fox Searchlight)
Lgbt
Kill Your Darlings: The youthful finding of himself by Alan Ginsburg as he enters Colombia University and meets Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac and Alan Bourroughs revolves around a murder which actually happened. The period veracity and Daniel Radcliffe’s acting carry the film into a fascinating character study. (U.S. Spc)
Dallas Buyers Club (Isa: Voltage, U.S. Focus Features)
Tom a la ferme / Tom at the Farm by Xavier Dolan Isa: MK2, U.S.:)
L’Armee du salut/ Salvation Army by Abdellah Taia (Isa: - U.S.:-)
Eastern Boys (Isa: Films Distribution)
Pelo Malo/ Bad Hair (FiGa Films)
The Dog (Producer Rep: Submarine)
Ignasi M. (Isa: Latido)
Gerontophilia (Isa: MK2, U.S. Producer Rep: Filmoption)...
I wish I could have seen 100 other films too but for some reason or another I could not fit them in.
I moderated a wonderful panel (and we did blog on that!) on international film financing with Sffs’ Ted Hope, UTA’s Rena Ronson, Revolution’s Andrew Eaton, and Hollywood-based Cross Creek’s Brian Oliver, and Paul Miller, Head of Film Financing, from the Doha Film Institute, Qatar's first international organization dedicated to film financing, production, education and two film festivals.
I also spoke with Toronto Talent Lab filmmakers and then I filled my days with films – I did get an interview with Gloria’s director Sebastian Lelio and Berlin Best Actress winner Paulina Garcia and with Marcela Said, director of The Summer of Flying Fish but mostly I watched film after film after film – up to five a day, just like in the old days when I had to do it for my acquisitions jobs. This was pure pleasure. Friends would meet before the film, we would watch and disperse. And we would meet again at the cocktail hour or the dinner hour and then disperse again.
My partner Peter had lots of meetings with the Talent of Toronto from the Not Short on Shorts and the Talent Lab Mentoring Programs.
Parties like the Rotterdam-Screen International party gave us the chance to catch up with our Dutch friends whom we have not seen for the last two years. Ontario Media Development Corporation’s presenting the International Financing Forum luncheon gave us the chance to talk to lots of upcoming filmmakers and old friends again who were mentoring them. The panel Forty Years On: Women’s Film Festivals Today, moderated by Kay Armatage, former Tiff programmer, Professor Emeritus University of Toronto, and featuring Debra Zimmerman, Executive Director of Women Make Movies, NYC, Melissa Silverstein, Do-Fojnder an dArtistic Director of the Athena Film Festival in NYC and blogger of Women in Hollywood, So-In Hong, Director of Programming of the International Women’s Film Festival in Seoul had a rapport and didn’t hesitate to challenge each other. It felt like a party even though the subject was quite serious. The SXSW party was crowded as always, filled with everyone we could possibly know. It is always a great party we all want to attend.
One of the great dinners was that of The Creative Coalition Spotlight Awards Dinner honoring Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave), Hill Harper (1982, CSI: NY), Sharon Leal (1982), Matt Letscher (Scandal, The Carrie Diaries), Brenton Thwaites (Oculus, Maleficient), Tommy Oliver (1982, Kinyarwanda – I am a great fan of Tommy’s!), Tom Ortenberg (CEO, Open Road Films which has a coventure with Regal Theaters and AMC Theaters recently acquired by the richest man in China), and David Arquette (The Scream series). Our hostess, Robin Bronk is so welcoming and so dedicated to furthering the cause of universal education as a human right, education in the arts as a must. I admire her presence and her good work.
Here is a list of the great (and not so great, but never bad) films I got to see. I also list those I continue to hear about even now. I do not list all the films which were picked up during the festival and later. For that, you can go to SydneysBuzz.com and buy the Fall Rights Roundup 2013 and see all films whose rights were acquired (and announced) and by whom with links to all companies and Cinando for further research. For buyers it will, by deduction, show what is still available for Afm and for programmers, it will show who is in charge of the film for specific territories. The second edition will be issued two weeks after Afm.
One of the first films I saw and still retaining its place as one of my favorites was the documentary Finding Vivian Maier which begins with the discovery of photographs by an unknown woman named Vivian Maier by filmmaker John Maloof. As the mystery of this woman is uncovered, the audience is treated to her stunning work and the story of who she was.
One of my favorite films was by one of my favorite directors, Lucas Moodyson. We Are The Best (Isa: Trust Nordisk) was a great surprise, the story of three teeny-bopper punk-influenced girls who loved getting into unusual situations. It was loving and fun, darling and funny. I would take my children to see it and would delight in seeing it again. It was the biggest surprise for me. I can see why Magnolia snapped it up for the U.S. I thank programmer Steve Gravenstock for giving me the ticket for this film which I would have missed otherwise.
I had missed Jodorowsky’s Dune in Cannes. I am a great fan of El Topo and was eager to see this film. I was surprised at the elegance and skill of Jodorowsky in explaining his vision. Afterward, Gary Springer, our favorite publicist, arranged a wonderful reception at a classic comic book store where we loaded up on some fascinating graphic novels and Gary showed us his depiction on an old issue of Mad Magazine discussing the making of Jaws which he was in. picture here.
A totally unique and unexpected film about the African Diaspora, Belle, written and directed by Amma Asante was not talked about much to my surprise, perhaps because Fox Searchlight acquired all rights worldwide from Bankside before the festival. It is a stunningly beautiful British period piece of the 18th century about a mixed race aristocratic beauty.
My favorite film, on a par with The Patience Stone last year was Bobo (Isa: Wide) by Ines Oliveira starring Paula Garcia Aissato Indjai, produced by my friend Fernando Vendrell who gave me a ticket when I could not get one myself. This story of a woman who does nothing except go to work is forced to accept a claning woman and her young sister from Guinea-Bissau. Together they face down their demons. I love the cross-cultural understanding which results in their shared situations. I recently saw Mother of George and found the same warm connection across great cultural divides, though this one was of generations.
I wish I could have seen Pays Barbare/ Barbaric Land, the Italian/ French doc in Wavelengths about Mussolini’s attempted subjugation of Ethiopia (the only country in Africa never colonized). It sounds like great political poetry.
1982 which had previously won the prize of the jury I served on for Us Works in Progress held in July at the Champs Elysees Film Festival in Paris. It was deeply moving and disturbing film which depicts the shattering and the healing of a family. It also helps feed the pipeline begun with Lee Daniels producing Monster’s Ball who went on to direct to such films as Precious and The Butler. If the African American experience can continue to be expressed so eloquently by such filmmakers as Tommy Oliver, Rashaad Ernesto Green (Sundance 2012’s Gun Hill Road), Ava DuVernay (Middle of Nowhere), then a film literate audience will foster greater growth of even more talent in the coming generation. While I didn’t see All Is By My Side by U.K.’s John Ridley which is about Jimi Hendrix nor (yet!) the most highly acclaimed film of the festival, 12 Years a Slave by U.K.’s Steve McQueen, but I would include them in this discussion of the African American Experience.
On the subject of Africa, where last Sundance God Loves Uganda shocked and upset me, this year Mission Congo (Cinephil) revealed much of the same cultural divide only these two films show the negative impact of the Christian right upon already besieged Africans. What is done in the name of a righteous G-d is cause for dialogue and oversight.
Israel and the Middle East
No major turmoil or denunciations this year (Thank G-d, Allah, or whoever She may be). Katriel Schory, head of the Israeli Film Fund told me that if I could only see one film, then it should be Bethlehem which is the country’s submission for Academy Award Consideration for the Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It was a sad and clear eyed microcosmic view of the issues of trust and betrayals played out among every level of the society. People compared it to Omar by Hany Abu-Assad,the filmmaker of a favorite of mine, Paradise Now, but I did not see Omar.
Rags and Tatters at first seemed like a documentary, and does have doc footage, but it is a circular story that ends where it began but with much more understanding of the chaotic events in Cairo. Really worth watching.
Latino
Of the Latino films two Chilean films, Gloria (Chile) and The Summer of Flying Fish (Review), were accompanied by interviews which you can read on my previous blogs here and here. El Mudo from Peru by the Vega brothers was in the odd vien of their previous film, October. Not sure at the end just what the film was saying…
Toronto Film Fest Programmer Diana Sanchez’s official count of Latino films in the festival is 16. Of these, 5 are by women; 30% is a strong number. Venezuela and Chile are strong with year with two films each. Two other films might have been chosen except they went to San Sebastian for their world premieres. Especially hot this year was Mexico. 4 films are here but she might have chosen 10 if she could have. Costa Rica is making a showing with All About the Feathers and Central America is making more movies. There is lots of industry buzz coming from the good pictures from Brazil like A Wolf at the Door from Sao Paolo production
She is not counting Gravity by Alfonso Cuaron as as Latino film but as a U.S. film.
And Our White Society
The Dinner (Isa: Media Luna) by Menno Meyjes ♀ (Isa: Media Luna), a Dutch film deals with the personal and political as two families disintegrate when the affluent sons kill a homeless woman. Deeply disturbing social issues on the other side of the spectrum from those of 1982 and yet very much the same. How a society can foster such dissonance in class structure today which results in the disintegration of family and even a nation’s political life is, as I said, deeply disturbing. Based on the N.Y. Times best selling book which sold over 650,000 in The Netherlands, and is published in 22 countries, it stars four of Holland’s most renowned actors, Jacob Derwig, Thekla Reuten, Daan Schuurmans, and Kim van Kooten. This is a story that could be remade in America and still maintain its strength. The writer-director Menno Meyjes wrote the Academy Award nominee The Color Purple and collaborated with director Steven Speilberg on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In 2008 he directed Manolete with Penelope Cruz and Adrien Brody.
The Last of Robin Hood was a romp which thrilled us because Peter Belsito, my own dear husband, had a moment on screen (as the director of Errol Flynn’s last film Cuban Rebel Girls). He got the part because he had had an equally small role in the original Cuban Rebel Girls when it filmed in Cuba in 1959, four months after the Revolution. He happened to be there on vacation with his family including his 18 year old sister and his crazy aunt because Puerto Rico was full that year and Cuba had plenty of room. Directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland invited him to play in their film. The film actually had more meaning than merely a romp as it revealed what lays below the June-September love affair between Errol Flynn and 15 year old Beverly Aadland, the nature of fame (“a religion in this godless country” to quote Flynn himself) and ambition. Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandan and Dakota Fanning were all great in the repertoire piece.
Can a Song Save Your Life? garnered great praise as the film that followed the simple pure Once. I found it a bit flat though it kept my interest enough that I was not contemplating leaving. But it lacked the simplicity of Once.
Fading Gigolo proves that a Woody Allen Film is a Genre. John Turturro makes a Woody Allen middle-aged man fantasy of a wished for love affair with a Hasidic woman. Turturro is always lovable on screen, but his directing has something inauthentic about it…the only authentic thing was the twice-stated thought that somewhere in his heritage he was really Jewish. When I saw his previous film Passione, about Italians and passion, the opening song, being one of the first Cuban songs I ever heard, turned me off because again, it was inauthentic. It was Cuban, not Italian. I think he is not comfortable in his Italian guise.
Other films at Tiff I have seen previously:
Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch (Isa: HanWay, U.S. Spc). If you can see it as a dream of night, then the vampires dreaminess might appeal to you. I personally was ready to fall into my own stupor after watching this 123 minute movie of Vampires who have seen it all. Zzzzzz.
Don Jon is sexy and sweet. Scarlett Johansson is a superb comedienne, equal to Claudette Colbert in this film about two totally media mesmerized young lovers. ___ and his father are also great straight men. I loved this film, so funny and sweet and all about sex. Loved it!
Borgman Darkest humor, or is it humor? Creepy and definitely engrossing. Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam at his best. This is the Netherlands' Official Academy Awards Submission.
What I hear was good:
Aside from the ones that got snapped up for lots of money and are covered in all the trades already, there are films which I keep hearing about even now and will see:
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
12 Years a Slave (Isa: Summit, U.S. Fox Searchlight)
The Lunchbox (Isa: The Match Factory)
Prisoners (Isa: Summit/ Lionsgate, U.S.: Warner Bros)
Dallas Buyers Clubs (Isa: Voltage, U.S. Focus Features)
Life of Crime (Isa: Hyde Park, U.S.: )
A Touch of Sin (Isa: MK2, U.S. Kino Lorber)
Gravity (Isa: Warner Bros. U.S. Warner Bros.)
Enough Said (Isa: Fox Searchlight, U.S. Fox Searchlight)
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) (Isa: Pathe, U.S. Criterion) Italy’s submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Violette (Isa: Doc & Film, U.S.: ?)
Omar (Isa: The Match Factory, U.S.: ?)
Le Passe (The Past) (Isa: Memento, U.S. Spc) Iran’s submission for Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
To the Wolf (Isa: Pascale Ramonda)
The Selfish Giant (Isa: Protagonist, U.S. IFC)
At Berkeley by Frederick Wiseman (Isa: Doc & Film, U.S. Zipporah)
The Unknown Known (Isa: Entertainment One, U.S. Radius-twc)
Ain’t Misbehavin (Un Voyager) by Marcel Ophuls (Isa: Wide House)
Faith Connections by Pan Nalin (Isa: Cite Films). This Indian French film, produced by Raphael Berduo among others is written about here.
Civil Rights (?)
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
12 Years a Slave (Isa: Summit, U.S. Fox Searchlight)
Belle (Isa: Bankside, all rights sold to Fox Searchlight)
Lgbt
Kill Your Darlings: The youthful finding of himself by Alan Ginsburg as he enters Colombia University and meets Lucien Carr, Jack Kerouac and Alan Bourroughs revolves around a murder which actually happened. The period veracity and Daniel Radcliffe’s acting carry the film into a fascinating character study. (U.S. Spc)
Dallas Buyers Club (Isa: Voltage, U.S. Focus Features)
Tom a la ferme / Tom at the Farm by Xavier Dolan Isa: MK2, U.S.:)
L’Armee du salut/ Salvation Army by Abdellah Taia (Isa: - U.S.:-)
Eastern Boys (Isa: Films Distribution)
Pelo Malo/ Bad Hair (FiGa Films)
The Dog (Producer Rep: Submarine)
Ignasi M. (Isa: Latido)
Gerontophilia (Isa: MK2, U.S. Producer Rep: Filmoption)...
- 10/8/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Growing up is hard to do in Hollywood, and watching Dakota Fanning’s awkward attempts to transition to adult roles has been tough to watch as well. Watching Susan Sarandon and Kevin Kline effortlessly act rings around her in The Last of Robin Hood highlights the vast difference between affecting child performer and talented adult actor.
In 1957, 48 year old Errol Flynn (Kline) met 15 year old Beverly Aadland (Fanning) on a Hollywood studio backlot where the girl, who lied about her age in order to work, was a member of a chorus line. The notorious womaniser flattered and then seduced her by holding out the promise of a part in a theatre production he was involved with at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse. Although Beverly’s stage mother Florence (Sarandon) was initially horrified when told Beverly was meeting with Flynn to ‘audition’, she realised that Flynn’s patronage could open doors for her daughter,...
In 1957, 48 year old Errol Flynn (Kline) met 15 year old Beverly Aadland (Fanning) on a Hollywood studio backlot where the girl, who lied about her age in order to work, was a member of a chorus line. The notorious womaniser flattered and then seduced her by holding out the promise of a part in a theatre production he was involved with at the renowned Pasadena Playhouse. Although Beverly’s stage mother Florence (Sarandon) was initially horrified when told Beverly was meeting with Flynn to ‘audition’, she realised that Flynn’s patronage could open doors for her daughter,...
- 10/2/2013
- by Ian Gilchrist
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The Last of Robin Hood
Written by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
USA, 2013
The Last of Robin Hood depicts the last romance of Errol Flynn’s life from the not-so-tender age of 48 until his death. Who was the lucky girl? Beverly Aadland. One person’s definition of luck is most people’s definition of statutory rape—something that Flynn had some trouble with before—as Miss Aadland was under 18 at the time. This is the crux of the conundrum behind the story and what would regularly confound a filmmaker in bringing it to the screen—even Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita screenplay was rejected and reworked by Stanley Kubrick. Fortunately for the audience, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland are no regular filmmakers (see Grief, The Fluffer, and Quinceanera). They have written and directed a film about three protagonists (Beverly Aadland, her mother Florence, and...
Written by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
Directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
USA, 2013
The Last of Robin Hood depicts the last romance of Errol Flynn’s life from the not-so-tender age of 48 until his death. Who was the lucky girl? Beverly Aadland. One person’s definition of luck is most people’s definition of statutory rape—something that Flynn had some trouble with before—as Miss Aadland was under 18 at the time. This is the crux of the conundrum behind the story and what would regularly confound a filmmaker in bringing it to the screen—even Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita screenplay was rejected and reworked by Stanley Kubrick. Fortunately for the audience, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland are no regular filmmakers (see Grief, The Fluffer, and Quinceanera). They have written and directed a film about three protagonists (Beverly Aadland, her mother Florence, and...
- 9/15/2013
- by Diana Drumm
- SoundOnSight
I forgot to mention one of yesterday's highlights: while Maureen O'Donnell and I were waiting in line for the excellent documentary "Finding Vivian Maier," we were stunned to see a long phalanx of orange-t-shirted volunteers with linked arms making a human shield on either side of Susan Sarandon, protecting her from the hoi polloi as she left the first public screening of "The Last of Robin Hood." Today I start with the press screening of "The Last of Robin Hood," co-directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, about the love affair between Errol Flynn and Beverly Aadland, who was 15 when they met, based on the book "The Big Love" by Beverly's complicit mom, Florence Aadland. The book has a justly famed first line: "There's one thing I want to make clear right off -- my baby was a virgin the day she met Errol Flynn." The film makes it clear...
- 9/11/2013
- by Meredith Brody
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Toronto International Film Festival® has announced the addition of 3 Galas and 19 Special Presentations to the 2013 Festival programme, including a further 12 World Premieres. Representing countries from around the world, the Gala and Special Presentations programmes offer a lineup of diverse titles and genres.
Toronto audiences will be among the first to screen films by directors Fred Schepisi, Alberto Arvelo, Reha Erdem, Dexter Fletcher, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Megan Griffiths, Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu, Kevin Macdonald, Arie Posin, Charlie Stratton, Nils Tavernier and John Turturro.
The 38th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 5 to 15, 2013.
Galas Blood Ties
Guillaume Canet, France/USA North American Premiere
New York, 1974. 50-year-old Chris has just been released on good behavior after spending several years in prison. Waiting for him reluctantly outside the prison gates is his younger brother, Frank, a cop with a bright future. Chris and Frank have always been different, yet blood...
Toronto audiences will be among the first to screen films by directors Fred Schepisi, Alberto Arvelo, Reha Erdem, Dexter Fletcher, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, Megan Griffiths, Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu, Kevin Macdonald, Arie Posin, Charlie Stratton, Nils Tavernier and John Turturro.
The 38th Toronto International Film Festival runs September 5 to 15, 2013.
Galas Blood Ties
Guillaume Canet, France/USA North American Premiere
New York, 1974. 50-year-old Chris has just been released on good behavior after spending several years in prison. Waiting for him reluctantly outside the prison gates is his younger brother, Frank, a cop with a bright future. Chris and Frank have always been different, yet blood...
- 8/17/2013
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Canadian film festival expands its programme with 12 more world premieres
Woody Allen pimping John Turturro, Kevin Kline impersonating Errol Flynn, Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche as scrapping teachers... these are just a few of the attractions just added to the Toronto film festival, which has announced a string of new films on top of its already impressive line-up.
Fading Gigolo, the film featuring the paid-for-sex team of Allen and Turturro, is Turturro's fifth film as director. Allen plays a bookstore owner who sends his reluctant friend Turturro ("an experienced lover") over to Sharon Stone in return for a "small fee". It will have its world premiere in Toronto, as will Words and Pictures, in which Owen and Binoche play a literature and art teacher respectively, setting up a competition as to whether "words" or "pictures" are more important. Fred Schepisi directs. Owen will have another film in the festival, Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties,...
Woody Allen pimping John Turturro, Kevin Kline impersonating Errol Flynn, Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche as scrapping teachers... these are just a few of the attractions just added to the Toronto film festival, which has announced a string of new films on top of its already impressive line-up.
Fading Gigolo, the film featuring the paid-for-sex team of Allen and Turturro, is Turturro's fifth film as director. Allen plays a bookstore owner who sends his reluctant friend Turturro ("an experienced lover") over to Sharon Stone in return for a "small fee". It will have its world premiere in Toronto, as will Words and Pictures, in which Owen and Binoche play a literature and art teacher respectively, setting up a competition as to whether "words" or "pictures" are more important. Fred Schepisi directs. Owen will have another film in the festival, Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties,...
- 8/14/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
This one sounds to me like more of a TV drama than something that needs to be seen on the big screen as we now have a first look at The Last of Robin Hood starring Kevin Kline as Errol Flynn, examining his relationship with underage starlet Beverly Aadland played by Dakota Fanning. Directed by Quinceanera duo Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the film co-stars Susan Sarandon and follows Flynn in his latter years as he and Aadland enjoy an affair that spans the globe and was enabled by the girl's fame-obsessed mother, Florence (Sarandon). It all came crashing to an end in October 1959 when events forced the relationship into the open, creating an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother. The Last of Robin Hood is a story about the desire for fame and the price it exacts. Clocking in at a mere 88 minutes this may be one...
- 8/13/2013
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Recently Sydney was at a gathering here in L.A. and she ran into our dear friends from 'the biz' Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. They were excited about to begin directing a new film they had written about the last days of cinema great Errol Flynn in Cuba detailing, among other things, the making of his final film Cuban Rebel Girls.
Sydney looks at them and says, "Peter's in that film!"
Yes I was in Errol Flynn's final film Cuban Rebel Girls and as a result of that fortuitous conversation, I also —ahem -- "appear" in the new film with Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon. The producer is the amazing person and great filmmaker Christine Vachon of New York's Killer Films.
The story then is like this ....
When I was a boy -- a young teen from Whitestone Bayside Flushing Queens New York City -- and my schoolteacher Mom would be off from school, my dad, an attorney, would take us on travel holidays for Easter vacation.
One year he goes to the Flushing travel agent and says, "What do you have for Puerto Rico?" The travel agent looks down and says, "Puerto Rico's full up ... but Cuba's wide open!" So my Dad books it.
April 1959: My Mom, Dad, Sister Brenda (19 years old and looking good), Uncle Frank and Auntie Lala (Mom's kid sister) and I land in Havana.
Four months after the Revolution. Much Much to say about what was going on and what happened and what we saw and experienced for that's another story.
We stayed at the El Comodoro Hotel on the beach west of Havana central (still there and not changed so much now).
What's relevant here is that soon after we arrive a film crew pulls into the hotel. It's the actor Errol Flynn coming to make, as he told us, "...my version of how I saved the Revolution for Che and Fidel in the Sierra Maestre." At this time the U.S. had not yet turned against the Castro brothers (that would come in mid 1960 after the Russian connection and Fidel's love of Marxism became evident) and during their revolutionary struggle in the mountains U.S. celebrities visited them (i.e., much as such types do now in places like Haiti).
My sister and I were recruited to do a walk-on as Cuban kid autograph seekers when Flynn drives up to the Hotel. (Fyi - I got the DVD of that film, Cuban Rebel Girls from Amazon and checked and Yes! our scene is still in it the first 10 minutes.)
So cut to Atlanta last week where I stopped for a day returning home from the Berlinale Festival and Efm Market.
Now I can announce that I am (briefly) in this new film about the last days of Flynn entitled The Last of Robin Hood, written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. When they heard I was in the original film with Flynn they thought it would be cool to put me in the new one as I would be the only (alive) person in both films!!
In "my scene" in the new film I play the director of Flynn's last movie (with Kevin Kline as Flynn hovering over my shoulder) and I am watching / directing a scene between Dakota and a "Cuban" girl. Dakota plays the tabloid notorious (and then famous) 17 year old blond hottie, and Flynn's supposed girlfriend, Beverly Aadland. She was at our hotel with her mother as I recall, and the photo here, which I took then, shows her and Flynn poolside.
I can say that Kevin and Dakota were very good in "my scene" and I have one line, or one word actually, 'Cut!' As it is a key scene (Dakota / Beverly flirts with a teen boy and Kevin / Flynn gets upset) and the two stars are in it (and both very good!) I have a feeling the scene will end up in the film.
As I was working, taking photos was hard and Kevin didn't want any, but the one included here of the Cuban Rebel Girls running at the camera says it all.
I think the film will be good; from what I saw it also looked really interesting. Can't wait until it shows.
Postscript note - About a year and a half later the Flynn film Cuban Rebel Girls came out (he had died in December of 1959 a few months after our encounter) I took a group of my high school buddies to see it in, of all places, Times Square (which was very different then, quite seedy and low class). I was shocked and we all agreed it was one of the worst films we'd ever seen. But Flynn himself is a great story, and my gut says from all I saw that the new film will be Terrific!! I hope so.
Sydney looks at them and says, "Peter's in that film!"
Yes I was in Errol Flynn's final film Cuban Rebel Girls and as a result of that fortuitous conversation, I also —ahem -- "appear" in the new film with Kevin Kline, Dakota Fanning and Susan Sarandon. The producer is the amazing person and great filmmaker Christine Vachon of New York's Killer Films.
The story then is like this ....
When I was a boy -- a young teen from Whitestone Bayside Flushing Queens New York City -- and my schoolteacher Mom would be off from school, my dad, an attorney, would take us on travel holidays for Easter vacation.
One year he goes to the Flushing travel agent and says, "What do you have for Puerto Rico?" The travel agent looks down and says, "Puerto Rico's full up ... but Cuba's wide open!" So my Dad books it.
April 1959: My Mom, Dad, Sister Brenda (19 years old and looking good), Uncle Frank and Auntie Lala (Mom's kid sister) and I land in Havana.
Four months after the Revolution. Much Much to say about what was going on and what happened and what we saw and experienced for that's another story.
We stayed at the El Comodoro Hotel on the beach west of Havana central (still there and not changed so much now).
What's relevant here is that soon after we arrive a film crew pulls into the hotel. It's the actor Errol Flynn coming to make, as he told us, "...my version of how I saved the Revolution for Che and Fidel in the Sierra Maestre." At this time the U.S. had not yet turned against the Castro brothers (that would come in mid 1960 after the Russian connection and Fidel's love of Marxism became evident) and during their revolutionary struggle in the mountains U.S. celebrities visited them (i.e., much as such types do now in places like Haiti).
My sister and I were recruited to do a walk-on as Cuban kid autograph seekers when Flynn drives up to the Hotel. (Fyi - I got the DVD of that film, Cuban Rebel Girls from Amazon and checked and Yes! our scene is still in it the first 10 minutes.)
So cut to Atlanta last week where I stopped for a day returning home from the Berlinale Festival and Efm Market.
Now I can announce that I am (briefly) in this new film about the last days of Flynn entitled The Last of Robin Hood, written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. When they heard I was in the original film with Flynn they thought it would be cool to put me in the new one as I would be the only (alive) person in both films!!
In "my scene" in the new film I play the director of Flynn's last movie (with Kevin Kline as Flynn hovering over my shoulder) and I am watching / directing a scene between Dakota and a "Cuban" girl. Dakota plays the tabloid notorious (and then famous) 17 year old blond hottie, and Flynn's supposed girlfriend, Beverly Aadland. She was at our hotel with her mother as I recall, and the photo here, which I took then, shows her and Flynn poolside.
I can say that Kevin and Dakota were very good in "my scene" and I have one line, or one word actually, 'Cut!' As it is a key scene (Dakota / Beverly flirts with a teen boy and Kevin / Flynn gets upset) and the two stars are in it (and both very good!) I have a feeling the scene will end up in the film.
As I was working, taking photos was hard and Kevin didn't want any, but the one included here of the Cuban Rebel Girls running at the camera says it all.
I think the film will be good; from what I saw it also looked really interesting. Can't wait until it shows.
Postscript note - About a year and a half later the Flynn film Cuban Rebel Girls came out (he had died in December of 1959 a few months after our encounter) I took a group of my high school buddies to see it in, of all places, Times Square (which was very different then, quite seedy and low class). I was shocked and we all agreed it was one of the worst films we'd ever seen. But Flynn himself is a great story, and my gut says from all I saw that the new film will be Terrific!! I hope so.
- 3/1/2013
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
It has been confirmed that the eighteen year old actress, Dakota Fanning, will star in the upcoming film The Last of Robin Hood, which is based on the true story of Errol Flynn, the flirtatious Hollywood, swashbuckler star who was known for his role in the 1938 movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood. Fanning will portray the fifteen year old mistress of Kelvin Kline’s forty-eight year old character, Errol Flynn. The movie also features Susan Sarandon, who will play the mother to Fanning’s character.
The Last of Robin Hood captures the story of Flynn’s hedonistic life, which included a lot of scandal and statutory rape charges. At the age of forty-eight, Flynn became enamored with the teenage actress Beverly Aadland. The two then began an affair, even though he was married to Patrice Wymore. Flynn expressed a desire to perform with Aadland in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film, Lolita.
The Last of Robin Hood captures the story of Flynn’s hedonistic life, which included a lot of scandal and statutory rape charges. At the age of forty-eight, Flynn became enamored with the teenage actress Beverly Aadland. The two then began an affair, even though he was married to Patrice Wymore. Flynn expressed a desire to perform with Aadland in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film, Lolita.
- 1/25/2013
- by Efe Dada
- We Got This Covered
It might sound creepy to hear that a fresh-faced, young actress like Dakota Fanning has been cast as the romantic interest of a crag-faced, old dude like Kevin Kline in a movie, but you have to understand that The Last of Robin Hood needs two actors with a huge age gap between them because it’s telling the real-life story of honest-to-God creep Errol Flynn. The film will be about the final years of Flynn’s life, when he was between the ages of 48 and 50 and carrying on with young actress Beverly Aadland, who was between the ages of 15 and 17. Susan Sarandon will be playing Florence Aadland, Beverly’s mother, who wrote a book that called Flynn out as being a statutory rapist. Sounds like a charming film? [via Deadline] Chloe Moretz is another fresh-faced young actress, but she’s thankfully looking at a new role that will pair her up with a male co-star who’s much more...
- 1/25/2013
- by Nathan Adams
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
One of Hollywood’s greatest actors from their Golden Age will be the topic of a new biographical picture that is currently in the works. “The Last of Robin Hood” will be about the final years of actor Errol Flynn’s playboy lifestyle. With the role of Flynn being filled out by Kevin Kline, there is still one more casting confirmation which will surely make waves.
Dakota Fanning has been officially cast as Flynn’s love interest Beverly Aadland. The conflict erupts when Aadland, who was still a minor, becomes involved in an affair with Errol Flynn which started when she was fifteen. Aadland was even at Flynn’s side at the time of his death in 1959, at the age of 50. This secret relationship is exposed by the actress’ mother who will be played by Susan Surandon. Florence Aadland wrote “The Big Love,” accusing the deceased actor of fostering such a relationship,...
Dakota Fanning has been officially cast as Flynn’s love interest Beverly Aadland. The conflict erupts when Aadland, who was still a minor, becomes involved in an affair with Errol Flynn which started when she was fifteen. Aadland was even at Flynn’s side at the time of his death in 1959, at the age of 50. This secret relationship is exposed by the actress’ mother who will be played by Susan Surandon. Florence Aadland wrote “The Big Love,” accusing the deceased actor of fostering such a relationship,...
- 1/24/2013
- by Ruben Gonzalez
- LRMonline.com
Yes. You read that correctly. 18-year-old ingénue Dakota Fanning will be playing the girlfriend to 65-year-old Kevin Kline in the upcoming drama The Last Of Robin Hood. Even as someone who crushed on Kline in middle school over French Kiss, this headline gave me pause. But would it make you feel better to know this isn't some sort of hint toward the age gap between romantic leads growing exponentially? Instead, this shocking May-December match-up has been made because the movie is based on a true story. As we reported last fall, The Last Of Robin Hood is a biopic about famous film swashbuckler Errol Flynn, best know for the 1938 action epic The Adventures of Robin Hood. Kline will star as Flynn, who at 48 began pursuing a 15-year-old actress Beverly Aadland with the complete blessing of her stage mom Florence Aadland. Susan Sarandon will play Florence, and Deadline reports Fanning ...
- 1/24/2013
- cinemablend.com
When it was announced in October that Kevin Kline would play screen icon Errol Flynn in “The Last of Robin Hood” a film about his inappropriate romance with teenage actress Beverly Aadland toward the end of his life, the question on everyone’s mind was -- which lucky young actress would play this role? Now, Deadline reports that it will be a familiar face -- Dakota Fanning has signed on for the salacious role. Beverly Aadland was purportedly 15 years old when her romance with Flynn began, and was at his bedside when he died two years later. Meanwhile, the girl's mother, a failed actress herself (to be played by Susan Sarandon), was living vicariously through her daughter, and even wrote a book about her dalliance with Flynn. Though Fanning tends to deliver solid performances, even in the ‘Twilight’ films as a member of the Volturi, there’s some danger that...
- 1/24/2013
- by Tess Hofmann
- The Playlist
1.) Details have emerged for the WWE Studios Leprechaun reboot Leprechaun: Origins. The script is still in the works, but we do know WWE superstar Dylan "Hornswaggle" Postl is taking over the lead role from Warwick Davis, who starred in franchise's previous six (Six?!) entries. Studio President Michael Luisi did say there's a chance Davis could make a cameo in the film, which he says will have a darker tone than fans of the series might be used to. "We're trying to find a way to please fans of that genre but at the same time this is really being played for scares," he concluded. Crave 2.) Rosario Dawson has joined the cast of Queen of the Night for director Atom Egoyan (Chloe, The Sweet Hereafter). Ryan Reynolds, Scott Speedman and Mireille Enos were previously cast in the thriller. Reynolds will play the father of an abducted child who begins uncovering clues...
- 1/24/2013
- by Kevin Blumeyer
- Rope of Silicon
New biopic of silver screen star will feature Dakota Fanning as 15-year-old girl with whom he had two-year affair
It is one of Hollywood's most infamous sex scandals: the story of how the swashbuckling Errol Flynn conducted a two-year affair with a 15-year-old ingenue that lasted until his premature death in 1959. Now Dakota Fanning is set to play the young actor seduced by the 50-year-old Flynn in a new movie titled The Last of Robin Hood. Kevin Kline will play the faded star in his final years.
At the time of the affair Flynn, who had a reputation as an incorrigible womaniser, had already been accused – and found not guilty – of the statutory rape of two underage girls in 1942. According to the target of his attentions, Beverly Aadland, he was planning to marry her after securing a divorce from his third wife, Patrice Wymore. However, the Australian-born star of 1938's...
It is one of Hollywood's most infamous sex scandals: the story of how the swashbuckling Errol Flynn conducted a two-year affair with a 15-year-old ingenue that lasted until his premature death in 1959. Now Dakota Fanning is set to play the young actor seduced by the 50-year-old Flynn in a new movie titled The Last of Robin Hood. Kevin Kline will play the faded star in his final years.
At the time of the affair Flynn, who had a reputation as an incorrigible womaniser, had already been accused – and found not guilty – of the statutory rape of two underage girls in 1942. According to the target of his attentions, Beverly Aadland, he was planning to marry her after securing a divorce from his third wife, Patrice Wymore. However, the Australian-born star of 1938's...
- 1/24/2013
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Here’s something interesting – Dakota Fanning has joined the cast of The Last of Robin Hood, an upcoming biopic of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn. In case you’re not so familiar with this fresh project, let us first inform you that Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland are in charge for the whole thing, and that the rest of the cast looks great as well. For more details – check out the rest of this report…
So, The Last of Robin Hood is both written and directed by Quinceanera helmers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, and at this moment we know that the movie will chronicle the final years of Errol Flynn‘s life.
Kevin Kline will take the lead role while Dakota Fanning is set to play his teenage lover Beverly Aadland, a 17-years-old girl who was by Flynn’s side when he died at age 50 in 1959.
Susan Sarandon is also...
So, The Last of Robin Hood is both written and directed by Quinceanera helmers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, and at this moment we know that the movie will chronicle the final years of Errol Flynn‘s life.
Kevin Kline will take the lead role while Dakota Fanning is set to play his teenage lover Beverly Aadland, a 17-years-old girl who was by Flynn’s side when he died at age 50 in 1959.
Susan Sarandon is also...
- 1/24/2013
- by Jeanne Standal
- Filmofilia
Dakota Fanning has joined the cast of The Last of Robin Hood , the biopic of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn, Deadline reports. She'll star as Beverly Aadland, Flynn's teenage girlfriend in the final years of his life. Fanning joins previously-announced leading man Kevin Kline in the role of Flynn. Susan Sarandon is also attached and will play Florence Aadland, the mother of Beverly in the Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland film. Fanning recently appeared in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 and her latest, Very Good Girls , premiered this week at Sundance. (Photo Credit: Brian To / WENN.com)...
- 1/24/2013
- Comingsoon.net
Dakota Fanning has been cast in Errol Flynn biopic The Last of Robin Hood. She will play the ageing actor's teenage lover Beverly Aadland, reports Deadline. Kevin Kline will take the lead role in the production written and directed by Quinceanera duo Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Susan Sarandon will play Florence Aadland, the mother of the 17-year-old who published the book The (more)...
- 1/24/2013
- by By Hugh Armitage
- Digital Spy
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