Cannes film review, Market screening
Mr. Peterson's got a better cell phone than you. His cool gizmo tells him winning slot machines, leads him to babes, alerts him to hot stocks. That's the too-good-to-be-true premise of this taut sci-fi/horror thriller, which cagily meshes new technology with proven genres.
The Gift is a male-fantasy story trip that blasts through international hot spots, techno-charged with quick cuts, sound salvos and testosterone-fueled action. It may score solid numbers overseas with the teenage action crowd, but in the U.S. it seems best fit for an outlet such as cable channel Spike TV, whose viewers will be pleased with its cut-to-the-chase, cut-the-chit-chat storytelling.
That old horror storyline staple -- that man's hubris leads him to scientific creations that will turn on him -- is "The Gift's" solid story infrastructure. In this case, the U.S. National Security folk have created a veritable monster through cyberspace -- Big Brother will be everywhere, unless our hero and a cadre of F.B.I. specialists can thwart the system.
Greg Marcks' apt fast-forward direction is invigorated by the sharp technical team's aesthetic expertise and the crisp lead performances of Shane West, Edward Burns and Ving Rhames. The Gift blazes over plot holes and holds aloft its cyber mumbo-jumbo narrative. As the National Security chief, Martin Sheen's sonorous barking lends credibility to the film's urgent premise.
Cast: Shane West, Edward Burns, Ving Rhames, Yuri Kutsenko, Sergey Gubanov, Martin Sheen, Steven Elder. Director: Greg Marcks. Screenwriters: Kevin Elders, Michael Nitsberg. Producers: Alexander Leyvinan, Steve Richards, Roee Sharon. Director of photography: Lorenzo Senatore . Production designer: Antonello Rubino. Costume designer: Alison Freer, Maria Mladenoza. Editor:Joseph Gutowski .
Dark Castle Presents a Mobicom Entertainment Production
Sales: Hyde Park International.
No MPAA rating, 119 minutes.
Mr. Peterson's got a better cell phone than you. His cool gizmo tells him winning slot machines, leads him to babes, alerts him to hot stocks. That's the too-good-to-be-true premise of this taut sci-fi/horror thriller, which cagily meshes new technology with proven genres.
The Gift is a male-fantasy story trip that blasts through international hot spots, techno-charged with quick cuts, sound salvos and testosterone-fueled action. It may score solid numbers overseas with the teenage action crowd, but in the U.S. it seems best fit for an outlet such as cable channel Spike TV, whose viewers will be pleased with its cut-to-the-chase, cut-the-chit-chat storytelling.
That old horror storyline staple -- that man's hubris leads him to scientific creations that will turn on him -- is "The Gift's" solid story infrastructure. In this case, the U.S. National Security folk have created a veritable monster through cyberspace -- Big Brother will be everywhere, unless our hero and a cadre of F.B.I. specialists can thwart the system.
Greg Marcks' apt fast-forward direction is invigorated by the sharp technical team's aesthetic expertise and the crisp lead performances of Shane West, Edward Burns and Ving Rhames. The Gift blazes over plot holes and holds aloft its cyber mumbo-jumbo narrative. As the National Security chief, Martin Sheen's sonorous barking lends credibility to the film's urgent premise.
Cast: Shane West, Edward Burns, Ving Rhames, Yuri Kutsenko, Sergey Gubanov, Martin Sheen, Steven Elder. Director: Greg Marcks. Screenwriters: Kevin Elders, Michael Nitsberg. Producers: Alexander Leyvinan, Steve Richards, Roee Sharon. Director of photography: Lorenzo Senatore . Production designer: Antonello Rubino. Costume designer: Alison Freer, Maria Mladenoza. Editor:Joseph Gutowski .
Dark Castle Presents a Mobicom Entertainment Production
Sales: Hyde Park International.
No MPAA rating, 119 minutes.
- 5/16/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Chanelle Hayes has admitted that her recent sex tape was a publicity stunt for a new TV show.
A video featuring the Big Brother 8 star cavorting around a bedroom in her underwear was leaked onto the internet last week.
The professional nature of the 40-second clip prompted commentators to suggest that it was a publicity stunt for her forthcoming debut single 'I Want It'.
Her agent told reporters . . .
A video featuring the Big Brother 8 star cavorting around a bedroom in her underwear was leaked onto the internet last week.
The professional nature of the 40-second clip prompted commentators to suggest that it was a publicity stunt for her forthcoming debut single 'I Want It'.
Her agent told reporters . . .
- 4/23/2008
- by Alex_Fletcher_imdb_@digitalspy.co.uk (Alex Fletcher)
- Digital Spy
Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace has confirmed that she is now close friends with Amy Winehouse.
The Big Brother 7 star was a surprise visitor to Winehouse's North London flat at the beginning of the month.
"I met Amy through mutual friends. We both hang around Camden and call ourselves Camdenites," Aisleyne told the Daily Star Sunday. "She's a really cool girl and I love her. We're close.
"She's been through a lot but that's all I'm prepared to say about her. Amy's business is her . . .
The Big Brother 7 star was a surprise visitor to Winehouse's North London flat at the beginning of the month.
"I met Amy through mutual friends. We both hang around Camden and call ourselves Camdenites," Aisleyne told the Daily Star Sunday. "She's a really cool girl and I love her. We're close.
"She's been through a lot but that's all I'm prepared to say about her. Amy's business is her . . .
- 4/13/2008
- by Daniel_Kilkelly_imdb_@digitalspy.co.uk (Daniel Kilkelly)
- Digital Spy
Hong Kong Filmart
HONG KONG -- Mars and Venus fight for ascendancy as a warrior-princess must choose between personal romantic fulfillment and patriotic duty in An Empress and the Warriors. Thematically, the film sustains this dichotomy with atmospheric alternations between a saccharine fairy tale love plot and strapping martial arts duels and battle scenes.
As the first feature since 2000 to be helmed by renowned martial arts director Tony Ching Siu Tung (who choreographed The Curse of the Golden Flower and House of Flying Daggers), this could be the most anticipated Chinese period action blockbuster since The Warlords aside from Red Cliff. Although it doesn't thrill like Ching's seminal A Chinese Ghost Story or Swordsman II of the golden 1990s, it doesn't disappoint as a swashbuckling romance that puts its big-name cast to good hard work. The film already has sold to many Asian territories.
Set when China was still 10 warring states, the story has greatness thrust upon Princess Fei'er (Kelly Chen) when her father dies. She forces herself to develop martial prowess and lead her kingdom, Yan, first to repel invaders, then to squelch the mutiny of cousin Wu Ba (Guo Xiao-dong), who covets the throne. She is trained by Gen. Muyong Xuehu (Donnie Yen), who is both a Big Brother figure and secret admirer.
While fleeing an ambush set by Wu, Fei'er is rescued and nursed to health by forest dweller Duan Lanquan (Leon Lai). She falls for her hippie healer and becomes skeptical of her kingdom's warlike culture and her own royal destiny. Notwithstanding a flirtation with bandages and a hot air balloon ride over spectacular landscapes, the romance is like the multigrain porridge and organic yams that Lanquan prepares -- wholesome but bland.
Chen, better known as a singer and pretty face in escapist romances, takes up the gauntlet to play an Amazonian heroine. She achieves a breakthrough in image, but screen partners Yen and Lai remain typecast.
The exquisitely wrought armor forms an integral part of overall art direction in creating a sense of Arthurian majesty. The outfits' ungainly weight also means high-wire pyrotechnics are ruled out in favor of earth-bound, puissant clashing of swords. Nothing happens at breakneck speed, but there are no lulls in the succession of fight scenes.
As the spotlight is on the three leads, the best martial arts choreography is reserved for one-on-one battles set against ravishing natural backdrops, such as a floating log on the river or Lanquan's fight with some ninja-like assassins in his tree house in the film's most elaborately designed set piece.
Although the film sports fashionable anti-war jargon, it does not skimp on the body count. Battle scenes and two chases through the woods are graphic but skillfully lensed by Zhang Yimou regular Zhao Xiaoding.
AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS
Polybona Film Distribution and Big Pictures present an United Filmmakers Organization production sales agent: Golden Network Asia, Mei Ah Entertainment (Asia)
Credits:
Director: Tony Ching Siu Tung
Screenwriter: James Yuen
Producers: Yu Dong, Claudie Chung
Executive producers: Yu Dong, Eric Tsang, Li Kuo-hsing
Director of photography: Zhao Xiaoding
Production designer: Yee Chung Man
Music: Mark Lui
Costume designer: Dora Ng
Editor: Tracy Adams
Cast:
Yan Fei'er: Kelly Chen
Muyong Xuehu: Donnie Yen
Duan Lanquan: Leon Lai
Wu Ba: Guo Xiaodong
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
HONG KONG -- Mars and Venus fight for ascendancy as a warrior-princess must choose between personal romantic fulfillment and patriotic duty in An Empress and the Warriors. Thematically, the film sustains this dichotomy with atmospheric alternations between a saccharine fairy tale love plot and strapping martial arts duels and battle scenes.
As the first feature since 2000 to be helmed by renowned martial arts director Tony Ching Siu Tung (who choreographed The Curse of the Golden Flower and House of Flying Daggers), this could be the most anticipated Chinese period action blockbuster since The Warlords aside from Red Cliff. Although it doesn't thrill like Ching's seminal A Chinese Ghost Story or Swordsman II of the golden 1990s, it doesn't disappoint as a swashbuckling romance that puts its big-name cast to good hard work. The film already has sold to many Asian territories.
Set when China was still 10 warring states, the story has greatness thrust upon Princess Fei'er (Kelly Chen) when her father dies. She forces herself to develop martial prowess and lead her kingdom, Yan, first to repel invaders, then to squelch the mutiny of cousin Wu Ba (Guo Xiao-dong), who covets the throne. She is trained by Gen. Muyong Xuehu (Donnie Yen), who is both a Big Brother figure and secret admirer.
While fleeing an ambush set by Wu, Fei'er is rescued and nursed to health by forest dweller Duan Lanquan (Leon Lai). She falls for her hippie healer and becomes skeptical of her kingdom's warlike culture and her own royal destiny. Notwithstanding a flirtation with bandages and a hot air balloon ride over spectacular landscapes, the romance is like the multigrain porridge and organic yams that Lanquan prepares -- wholesome but bland.
Chen, better known as a singer and pretty face in escapist romances, takes up the gauntlet to play an Amazonian heroine. She achieves a breakthrough in image, but screen partners Yen and Lai remain typecast.
The exquisitely wrought armor forms an integral part of overall art direction in creating a sense of Arthurian majesty. The outfits' ungainly weight also means high-wire pyrotechnics are ruled out in favor of earth-bound, puissant clashing of swords. Nothing happens at breakneck speed, but there are no lulls in the succession of fight scenes.
As the spotlight is on the three leads, the best martial arts choreography is reserved for one-on-one battles set against ravishing natural backdrops, such as a floating log on the river or Lanquan's fight with some ninja-like assassins in his tree house in the film's most elaborately designed set piece.
Although the film sports fashionable anti-war jargon, it does not skimp on the body count. Battle scenes and two chases through the woods are graphic but skillfully lensed by Zhang Yimou regular Zhao Xiaoding.
AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS
Polybona Film Distribution and Big Pictures present an United Filmmakers Organization production sales agent: Golden Network Asia, Mei Ah Entertainment (Asia)
Credits:
Director: Tony Ching Siu Tung
Screenwriter: James Yuen
Producers: Yu Dong, Claudie Chung
Executive producers: Yu Dong, Eric Tsang, Li Kuo-hsing
Director of photography: Zhao Xiaoding
Production designer: Yee Chung Man
Music: Mark Lui
Costume designer: Dora Ng
Editor: Tracy Adams
Cast:
Yan Fei'er: Kelly Chen
Muyong Xuehu: Donnie Yen
Duan Lanquan: Leon Lai
Wu Ba: Guo Xiaodong
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 3/21/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
CBS Wednesday announced the premiere dates and episode orders of its returning series:
How I Met Your Mother, March 17, 9 episodes
The Big Bang Theory, March 17, 9 episodes
Two And A Half Men, March 17, 9 episodes
CSI: Miami, March 24, 8 episodes
Cold Case, March 30, 5 episodes
Criminal Minds, April 2, 7 episodes
CSI: NY, April 2, 7 episodes
CSI, April 3, 6 episodes
Without a Trace, April 3, 6 episodes
Ghost Whisperer, April 4, 6 episodes
Numb3rs," April 4, 6 episodes
NCIS," April 8, 7 episodes
Moonlight, April 11, 4 episodes
Rules Of Engagement, April 14, 6 episodes
Shark, TBA, 4 episodes
*"The Unit," "Cane" and "Shark" are on previously announced hiatus to
accommodate the mid-season launches of Big Brother, Jericho and Dexter.
**The drama series "Swingtown," which hasn't been scheduled yet, will also resume production.
How I Met Your Mother, March 17, 9 episodes
The Big Bang Theory, March 17, 9 episodes
Two And A Half Men, March 17, 9 episodes
CSI: Miami, March 24, 8 episodes
Cold Case, March 30, 5 episodes
Criminal Minds, April 2, 7 episodes
CSI: NY, April 2, 7 episodes
CSI, April 3, 6 episodes
Without a Trace, April 3, 6 episodes
Ghost Whisperer, April 4, 6 episodes
Numb3rs," April 4, 6 episodes
NCIS," April 8, 7 episodes
Moonlight, April 11, 4 episodes
Rules Of Engagement, April 14, 6 episodes
Shark, TBA, 4 episodes
*"The Unit," "Cane" and "Shark" are on previously announced hiatus to
accommodate the mid-season launches of Big Brother, Jericho and Dexter.
**The drama series "Swingtown," which hasn't been scheduled yet, will also resume production.
- 2/14/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- Sundance was strewn with the remains of dysfunctional families this year, and perhaps none was more dysfunctional than the characters in Craig Lucas' "Birds of America". But quirkiness, as it is here, is often just an excuse for eccentric behavior with no real explanation. It's an opportunity for goofy people to parade an assortment of ticks and mannerisms that an audience will presumably find amusing. "Birds of America", unfortunately, is not very convincing or funny, and will have a hard time landing in theaters.
Set in Cheever country of upper-middle class suburban Connecticut, the story involves older brother Morrie (Matthew Perry) and the two siblings, Jay (Ben Foster) and Ida (Ginnifer Goodwin), he raised after his father jumped out of the window of the family house and killed himself. Now a grown up physics professor living with his wife (Lauren Graham), Morrie has never gotten over the trauma and a life of being responsible for others.
So naturally when Jay, a borderline personality who prefers living by himself in the woods, is almost run over by a car after lying down in the street, it's Big Brother to the rescue. And when Ida, a struggling photographer getting over a bad breakup, comes apart, she goes home too.
Morrie craves nothing more than an orderly life, and his highest goal is to be accepted by his neighbor (Gary Wilmes), who happens to be his boss, and his prissy wife (Hilary Swank), and secure the ultimate symbol of stability: tenure. But having his unstable family under the same roof again upsets everything, and slowly the fabric of Morrie's life starts to unravel.
In predictable film fashion, a sign that things are coming apart is the mandatory pot smoking scene in which Morrie temporarily lets go. And as his life becomes more unsettled, he does things like rollerblading to work, right into his classroom. And the climax of his rebellion is a grand gesture on his neighbor's lawn. No matter that it's not anything anyone would ever do in real life.
The problem here is that the characters' actions don't have the ring of authenticity and seem more designed to get a laugh or tug at the heartstrings, without earning the emotion. You don't really feel anything about these people.
It's not the performances that fail; Perry is actually quite appealing in a low-key way. It's more the premise by writer Elyse Freidman that seems lacking. The film is loaded with bird imagery, and Morrie's father did own a copy of the original Audubon engravings, but the bird connection doesn't resonate. The human species observed here just doesn't get off the ground.
BIRDS OF AMERICA
Plum Pictures and Ideal Partners
Credits:
Director: Craig Lucas
Writer: Elyse Friedman
Producers: Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Jana Edelbaum, Galt Niederhoffer, Celine Rattray
Executive producers: John Allen, Scott Hanson, Pamela Hirsch, Ed Hart, Bruce Lunsford, Eric Goldman
Director of cinematography: Yaron Orbach
Production designer: John Nyomarkay
Music: Ahrin Mishan
Costumes: Heidi Bivens
Editor: Eric Kissack
Cast:
Morrie: Matthew Perry
Betty: Lauren Graham
Jay: Ben Foster
Ida: Ginnifer Goodwin
Laura: Hilary Swank
Paul: Gary Wilmes
Gillian: Zoe Kravitz
Running time -- 89 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- Sundance was strewn with the remains of dysfunctional families this year, and perhaps none was more dysfunctional than the characters in Craig Lucas' "Birds of America". But quirkiness, as it is here, is often just an excuse for eccentric behavior with no real explanation. It's an opportunity for goofy people to parade an assortment of ticks and mannerisms that an audience will presumably find amusing. "Birds of America", unfortunately, is not very convincing or funny, and will have a hard time landing in theaters.
Set in Cheever country of upper-middle class suburban Connecticut, the story involves older brother Morrie (Matthew Perry) and the two siblings, Jay (Ben Foster) and Ida (Ginnifer Goodwin), he raised after his father jumped out of the window of the family house and killed himself. Now a grown up physics professor living with his wife (Lauren Graham), Morrie has never gotten over the trauma and a life of being responsible for others.
So naturally when Jay, a borderline personality who prefers living by himself in the woods, is almost run over by a car after lying down in the street, it's Big Brother to the rescue. And when Ida, a struggling photographer getting over a bad breakup, comes apart, she goes home too.
Morrie craves nothing more than an orderly life, and his highest goal is to be accepted by his neighbor (Gary Wilmes), who happens to be his boss, and his prissy wife (Hilary Swank), and secure the ultimate symbol of stability: tenure. But having his unstable family under the same roof again upsets everything, and slowly the fabric of Morrie's life starts to unravel.
In predictable film fashion, a sign that things are coming apart is the mandatory pot smoking scene in which Morrie temporarily lets go. And as his life becomes more unsettled, he does things like rollerblading to work, right into his classroom. And the climax of his rebellion is a grand gesture on his neighbor's lawn. No matter that it's not anything anyone would ever do in real life.
The problem here is that the characters' actions don't have the ring of authenticity and seem more designed to get a laugh or tug at the heartstrings, without earning the emotion. You don't really feel anything about these people.
It's not the performances that fail; Perry is actually quite appealing in a low-key way. It's more the premise by writer Elyse Freidman that seems lacking. The film is loaded with bird imagery, and Morrie's father did own a copy of the original Audubon engravings, but the bird connection doesn't resonate. The human species observed here just doesn't get off the ground.
BIRDS OF AMERICA
Plum Pictures and Ideal Partners
Credits:
Director: Craig Lucas
Writer: Elyse Friedman
Producers: Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Jana Edelbaum, Galt Niederhoffer, Celine Rattray
Executive producers: John Allen, Scott Hanson, Pamela Hirsch, Ed Hart, Bruce Lunsford, Eric Goldman
Director of cinematography: Yaron Orbach
Production designer: John Nyomarkay
Music: Ahrin Mishan
Costumes: Heidi Bivens
Editor: Eric Kissack
Cast:
Morrie: Matthew Perry
Betty: Lauren Graham
Jay: Ben Foster
Ida: Ginnifer Goodwin
Laura: Hilary Swank
Paul: Gary Wilmes
Gillian: Zoe Kravitz
Running time -- 89 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Screen icon nm0000047 autoSophia Loren[/link] has slammed reality TV series nm1691971 autoBig Brother[/link] - and insists its viewers are wasting their time.
The movie veteran, 73, finds it hard to understand why the globally syndicated show continues to win an audience, as the contestants contained in the nm1691971 autoBig Brother[/link] house - which is under surveillance 24 hours a day - are just going about their day-to-day lives.
She says, "I can't get my head around people wanting to watch wannabes simply sleeping or having insane conversations or, worse still, sitting up all night on the off-chance two idiots may have sex."...
The movie veteran, 73, finds it hard to understand why the globally syndicated show continues to win an audience, as the contestants contained in the nm1691971 autoBig Brother[/link] house - which is under surveillance 24 hours a day - are just going about their day-to-day lives.
She says, "I can't get my head around people wanting to watch wannabes simply sleeping or having insane conversations or, worse still, sitting up all night on the off-chance two idiots may have sex."...
- 1/9/2008
- WENN
There's a turf war brewing over China rights to "D-War" -- Korea's summer smash hit about a dragon that eats Los Angeles -- in a clear example of the difficulties of navigating state-controlled distribution.
Johnny Liu, general manager of independent marketing upstart Avrio in Beijing, signed a deal memo with world sales handler Showbox for the film at Cannes in May. Now Liu says he's worried that the Seoul-based producer of the film, Younggu Arts, could spoil the deal.
Liu submitted the film to the censors' board in Beijing and hopes to release it across China in January in the run-up to the peak moviegoing season around the Lunar New Year.
However, about a week before AFM, a Younggu Arts' manager got a call from an executive at the China Film Group, suggesting the producer deal directly with CFG, said Judy Ahn, head of international sales at Showbox.
CFG is the state-run film giant which, with its de facto control over all film imports into China, is seen as the competitive Big Brother to nominal competitor Huaxia Film Distribution Co., the company Liu had hoped to work with, Ahn said.
Johnny Liu, general manager of independent marketing upstart Avrio in Beijing, signed a deal memo with world sales handler Showbox for the film at Cannes in May. Now Liu says he's worried that the Seoul-based producer of the film, Younggu Arts, could spoil the deal.
Liu submitted the film to the censors' board in Beijing and hopes to release it across China in January in the run-up to the peak moviegoing season around the Lunar New Year.
However, about a week before AFM, a Younggu Arts' manager got a call from an executive at the China Film Group, suggesting the producer deal directly with CFG, said Judy Ahn, head of international sales at Showbox.
CFG is the state-run film giant which, with its de facto control over all film imports into China, is seen as the competitive Big Brother to nominal competitor Huaxia Film Distribution Co., the company Liu had hoped to work with, Ahn said.
- 11/20/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
There's a turf war brewing over China rights to "D-War" -- Korea's summer smash hit about a dragon that eats Los Angeles -- in a clear example of the difficulties of navigating state-controlled distribution.
Johnny Liu, general manager of independent marketing upstart Avrio in Beijing, signed a deal memo with world sales handler Showbox for the film at Cannes in May. Now Liu says he's worried that the Seoul-based producer of the film, Younggu Arts, could spoil the deal.
Liu submitted the film to the censors' board in Beijing and hopes to release it across China in January in the run-up to the peak moviegoing season around the Lunar New Year.
However, about a week before AFM, a Younggu Arts' manager got a call from an executive at the China Film Group, suggesting the producer deal directly with CFG, said Judy Ahn, head of international sales at Showbox.
CFG is the state-run film giant which, with its de facto control over all film imports into China, is seen as the competitive Big Brother to nominal competitor Huaxia Film Distribution Co., the company Liu had hoped to work with, Ahn said.
Johnny Liu, general manager of independent marketing upstart Avrio in Beijing, signed a deal memo with world sales handler Showbox for the film at Cannes in May. Now Liu says he's worried that the Seoul-based producer of the film, Younggu Arts, could spoil the deal.
Liu submitted the film to the censors' board in Beijing and hopes to release it across China in January in the run-up to the peak moviegoing season around the Lunar New Year.
However, about a week before AFM, a Younggu Arts' manager got a call from an executive at the China Film Group, suggesting the producer deal directly with CFG, said Judy Ahn, head of international sales at Showbox.
CFG is the state-run film giant which, with its de facto control over all film imports into China, is seen as the competitive Big Brother to nominal competitor Huaxia Film Distribution Co., the company Liu had hoped to work with, Ahn said.
- 11/6/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Disney is high on Kelly Blatz.
The actor has landed a starring role in his second live-action pilot for Jetix, the action-adventure programming block that airs on Toon Disney. Just last month, he was tapped to star on Aaron Stone.
Blatz now has been cast in Sky Runners, from executive producer/writer Rick Okie. The half-hour comedy, described as a modern-day Odd Couple with a UFO twist, revolves around two brothers, Tyler and Big Brother Nick (Blatz), who encounter a UFO one night after football practice. While they are divided on what to do with the UFO at first, they end up keeping it after learning that their new "toy" can fly them anywhere they want.
Peter Bray is producing, while Ralph Hemecker is set to direct the pilot, which begins shooting this week.
In Stone, Blatz stars as an ordinary 16-year-old whose life is altered when a rich recluse wants him to take his video game alter ego on for real because he believes that Charlie has what it takes to save the world.
The actor has landed a starring role in his second live-action pilot for Jetix, the action-adventure programming block that airs on Toon Disney. Just last month, he was tapped to star on Aaron Stone.
Blatz now has been cast in Sky Runners, from executive producer/writer Rick Okie. The half-hour comedy, described as a modern-day Odd Couple with a UFO twist, revolves around two brothers, Tyler and Big Brother Nick (Blatz), who encounter a UFO one night after football practice. While they are divided on what to do with the UFO at first, they end up keeping it after learning that their new "toy" can fly them anywhere they want.
Peter Bray is producing, while Ralph Hemecker is set to direct the pilot, which begins shooting this week.
In Stone, Blatz stars as an ordinary 16-year-old whose life is altered when a rich recluse wants him to take his video game alter ego on for real because he believes that Charlie has what it takes to save the world.
- 10/16/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- It's a tale of two stocks.
With Univision Communications now a privately-held company after a private-equity buyout, radio and TV station groups Entravision Communications Corp. and Spanish Broadcasting System Inc. have been the focus this year for U.S. investors looking for a Spanish-language media play.
But while Hispanics remain the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the two stocks have gone divergent ways, with Entravision up more than 22% year-to-date and Spanish Broadcasting down more than 38% and near its 52-week low.
Looking ahead, Wall Street observers have predicted more upside for Entravision despite slowing financial momentum. And though some suggest Spanish Broadcasting must have declined far enough, analysts continue to recommend that investors sell or hold its shares.
SMH Capital analyst David Miller upgraded shares of Entravision from "neutral" to "buy" this summer with a $13 price target.
"With the disappearance of Big Brother company Univision from the public markets earlier this year, we note that Entravision is one of only two public ways to play the explosion of the Hispanic-American population from a media and entertainment bias, and easily the cleaner of the two," he wrote in his upgrade report.
Miller cited three forces "that could move the shares significantly higher over the next 12 to 18 months": secular growth trends in Hispanic media, increased political ad spending in 2008 in Spanish-language media and a possible sale of the firm's outdoor unit.
With Univision Communications now a privately-held company after a private-equity buyout, radio and TV station groups Entravision Communications Corp. and Spanish Broadcasting System Inc. have been the focus this year for U.S. investors looking for a Spanish-language media play.
But while Hispanics remain the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the two stocks have gone divergent ways, with Entravision up more than 22% year-to-date and Spanish Broadcasting down more than 38% and near its 52-week low.
Looking ahead, Wall Street observers have predicted more upside for Entravision despite slowing financial momentum. And though some suggest Spanish Broadcasting must have declined far enough, analysts continue to recommend that investors sell or hold its shares.
SMH Capital analyst David Miller upgraded shares of Entravision from "neutral" to "buy" this summer with a $13 price target.
"With the disappearance of Big Brother company Univision from the public markets earlier this year, we note that Entravision is one of only two public ways to play the explosion of the Hispanic-American population from a media and entertainment bias, and easily the cleaner of the two," he wrote in his upgrade report.
Miller cited three forces "that could move the shares significantly higher over the next 12 to 18 months": secular growth trends in Hispanic media, increased political ad spending in 2008 in Spanish-language media and a possible sale of the firm's outdoor unit.
- 10/3/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IFC First Take/Weinstein Co.
Clocking in at a brisk 87 minutes, Black Sheep is a giddily subversive addition to the age-old cinema tradition of the horror comedy. A New Zealand production from top to bottom, this bloody, deadpan satire is the latest release from the Weinstein Co. and IFC First Take. Grossly well-made in all departments, this could just catch on if collegians can pull themselves away from Knocked Up. Ewe will love this movie.
Writer-director Jonathan King sets his angry-sheep opus on a picturesque New Zealand ranch, where, in a prologue, we learn that our preteen hero, Henry, has a rabid fear of both sheep and his annoying older brother, Angus. This wouldn't be a problem except that their father is the owner-manager of the sprawling sheep station.
The action picks up 15 years hence, as the adult Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister), who apparently spent the intervening years far from country pastures and in therapy, returns to the old homestead. Since the death of their father, the haughty and greedy Angus Oldfield (Peter Feeney) has been running the family business. Henry is coming back only to sign over his half of their inheritance to his Big Brother and be done with sheep forever.
From this jumping-off point, everything that could possibly go wrong, of course, does. A dippy eco-terrorist, Grant (Oliver Driver), and his slightly more level-headed girlfriend, Experience (Danielle Mason, in the film's best performance), unwittingly uncover (literally) genetic sheep experiments Angus has been perfecting in a diabolical secret lab on the property. The result is mutant killer sheep run amok and Henry freaking out as his worst nightmare becomes reality. The bulk of the story finds Henry, Experience and strapping, sympathetic farmhand Tucker (Tammy Davis) running for their lives, from lea to seaside cliff to shearing shed to toxic sheep-refuse pit to the slaughterhouse, etc.
The screenplay successfully ties together our three heroes' quest to save both themselves and the ranch, while evil Angus and his stock genetic scientists/henchpersons-for-hire are about to welcome an international array of agri-business tycoons at a demo of his better brand of "animal." This outdoor presentation unfolds at the climax of the film, by which point what seems like millions of pissed-off sheep attack -- and more than one cast member is mysteriously behaving baaa-dly.
New Zealand's well-known effects house, Weta Workshop, led by multiple Oscar winner Richard Taylor (the Lord of the Rings trilogy), provided the special effects. Dave Elsey served as creature supervisor.
Clocking in at a brisk 87 minutes, Black Sheep is a giddily subversive addition to the age-old cinema tradition of the horror comedy. A New Zealand production from top to bottom, this bloody, deadpan satire is the latest release from the Weinstein Co. and IFC First Take. Grossly well-made in all departments, this could just catch on if collegians can pull themselves away from Knocked Up. Ewe will love this movie.
Writer-director Jonathan King sets his angry-sheep opus on a picturesque New Zealand ranch, where, in a prologue, we learn that our preteen hero, Henry, has a rabid fear of both sheep and his annoying older brother, Angus. This wouldn't be a problem except that their father is the owner-manager of the sprawling sheep station.
The action picks up 15 years hence, as the adult Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister), who apparently spent the intervening years far from country pastures and in therapy, returns to the old homestead. Since the death of their father, the haughty and greedy Angus Oldfield (Peter Feeney) has been running the family business. Henry is coming back only to sign over his half of their inheritance to his Big Brother and be done with sheep forever.
From this jumping-off point, everything that could possibly go wrong, of course, does. A dippy eco-terrorist, Grant (Oliver Driver), and his slightly more level-headed girlfriend, Experience (Danielle Mason, in the film's best performance), unwittingly uncover (literally) genetic sheep experiments Angus has been perfecting in a diabolical secret lab on the property. The result is mutant killer sheep run amok and Henry freaking out as his worst nightmare becomes reality. The bulk of the story finds Henry, Experience and strapping, sympathetic farmhand Tucker (Tammy Davis) running for their lives, from lea to seaside cliff to shearing shed to toxic sheep-refuse pit to the slaughterhouse, etc.
The screenplay successfully ties together our three heroes' quest to save both themselves and the ranch, while evil Angus and his stock genetic scientists/henchpersons-for-hire are about to welcome an international array of agri-business tycoons at a demo of his better brand of "animal." This outdoor presentation unfolds at the climax of the film, by which point what seems like millions of pissed-off sheep attack -- and more than one cast member is mysteriously behaving baaa-dly.
New Zealand's well-known effects house, Weta Workshop, led by multiple Oscar winner Richard Taylor (the Lord of the Rings trilogy), provided the special effects. Dave Elsey served as creature supervisor.
- 6/21/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
MTV Films has pre-emptively bought lawyer-turned-screenwriter Melissa Stack's spec "I Want to ____ Your Sister" for $300,000 against $600,000. Escape Artists is producing the high-concept comedy.
The story chronicles the lengths a Big Brother will go to protect his sister from guys just like him.
Escape Artists' Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch are producing. Aaron Kaplan and Sean Perrone are executive producing.
"When Jason and I read this, we have not laughed this much ever," Black said. "That's the truth. And we're so excited to be working with MTV. They know how to handle our key demo."
Scott Aversano and Carrie Beck will shepherd the project for MTV Films.
Stack, a lawyer who quit her job after the sale, is repped by Paradigm and managed by Kaplan and Perrone.
The story chronicles the lengths a Big Brother will go to protect his sister from guys just like him.
Escape Artists' Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch are producing. Aaron Kaplan and Sean Perrone are executive producing.
"When Jason and I read this, we have not laughed this much ever," Black said. "That's the truth. And we're so excited to be working with MTV. They know how to handle our key demo."
Scott Aversano and Carrie Beck will shepherd the project for MTV Films.
Stack, a lawyer who quit her job after the sale, is repped by Paradigm and managed by Kaplan and Perrone.
- 3/29/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This review was written for the theatrical release of "Zodiac".
The notorious San Francisco Bay Area serial killer might have eluded law enforcement agencies for decades, but the compelling cat-and-mouse story that is "Zodiac" never escapes the virtuoso grip of director David Fincher.
Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and "All the President's Men"-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity.
Factor in a highly capable cast led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and a never better Robert Downey Jr., and you've got yourself a picture -- one that should handily nab audiences hungering for something a little more substantial than broad comedies or campy escapism.
Time and place are effectively established the first time we see the man known as Zodiac strike, during 1969 Fourth of July celebrations on a secluded lover's lane in Vallejo, Calif., where he walks up to a car and matter-of-factly fires at its occupants, fatally killing the driver and seriously injuring her male passenger.
Cut to the newsroom of the San Francisco Chronicle, where, a month later, a crudely written letter to the editor arrives in the mail from the man claiming responsibility for that shooting and an additional two murders.
His knowledge of certain details that only the police would know captures the attention of the paper's star crime reporter Paul Avery (Downey Jr.), while an enclosed portion of a cipher that purportedly offered clues to the killer's identity triggers what would become a lifelong obsession for Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal), a shy but intrepid editorial cartoonist who isn't content to live life on the sidelines.
Graysmith uses his not-so-spare time to work on cracking the code, when not hovering over the colorful Avery's desk trying to pick up additional shreds of information about the case.
Meanwhile, despite the dogged efforts of the San Francisco Police Department's high-profile homicide inspector, Dave Toschi (Ruffalo) and his partner, Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), the murders mount and the letters keep coming as the years continue to pass without an arrest.
Fincher, who, as a child growing up in the Bay Area in the early '70s was well aware of the bogey man known as the Zodiac killer, has transformed those primal childhood fears into his most accomplished film to date, and his most fully contained effort since 1995's "Seven".
While those murders are staged for maximum chill, the story's newsroom and police department settings are equally effective. Working from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt (who is working on a screen adaptation of "Against All Enemies", the memoir by former terrorism czar Richard Clarke), based on Graysmith's book, Fincher keeps all the components neatly integrated.
He also uses clever visual touches to mark the passing years, particularly a time-lapse sequence replicating the erection of San Francisco's iconic Transamerica Pyramid.
His cast is uniformly splendid, but if the Zodiac killer got away with murder, then Downey ought to be charged with grand theft larceny given how often steals his scenes away from his competent co-stars. It's a performance, along with Chris Cooper's in "Breach", that should be remembered when awards season comes around again.
While there are a few instances where the energy dips a bit in the 2 1/2-hour film (especially when Downey isn't around), things always manage to kick back into gear.
Behind the scenes, Harris Savides' digital photography really brings back the visual textures and color palettes of that late '60s-to-early '70s period, as does Donald Graham Burt's evocative production design and Casey Storm's costuming.
On the aural end, veteran composer David Shire takes on his first film assignment in several years with an appropriately moody score, while music supervisor Randall Poster deserves a special shout-out for a song selection that digs deeper than the usual top 10 offerings, incorporating psychedelic pop from the Animals, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Santana and Donovan to transporting effect.
ZODIAC
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present a Phoenix Pictures production of a David Fincher film
Credits:
Director: David Fincher
Screenwriter: James Vanderbilt
Based on the book by: Robert Graysmith
Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, Cean Chaffin
Executive producer: Louis Phillips
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt
Editor: Angus Wall
Costume designer: Casey Storm
Music: David Shire
Music supervisor: Randall Poster
Cast:
Robert Graysmith: Jake Gyllenhaal
Inspector David Toschi: Mark Ruffalo
Paul Avery: Robert Downey Jr.
Inspector William Armstrong: Anthony Edwards
Melvin Belli: Brian Cox
Sgt. Jack Mulanax: Elias Koteas
Melanie: Chloe Sevigny
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
The notorious San Francisco Bay Area serial killer might have eluded law enforcement agencies for decades, but the compelling cat-and-mouse story that is "Zodiac" never escapes the virtuoso grip of director David Fincher.
Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and "All the President's Men"-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity.
Factor in a highly capable cast led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and a never better Robert Downey Jr., and you've got yourself a picture -- one that should handily nab audiences hungering for something a little more substantial than broad comedies or campy escapism.
Time and place are effectively established the first time we see the man known as Zodiac strike, during 1969 Fourth of July celebrations on a secluded lover's lane in Vallejo, Calif., where he walks up to a car and matter-of-factly fires at its occupants, fatally killing the driver and seriously injuring her male passenger.
Cut to the newsroom of the San Francisco Chronicle, where, a month later, a crudely written letter to the editor arrives in the mail from the man claiming responsibility for that shooting and an additional two murders.
His knowledge of certain details that only the police would know captures the attention of the paper's star crime reporter Paul Avery (Downey Jr.), while an enclosed portion of a cipher that purportedly offered clues to the killer's identity triggers what would become a lifelong obsession for Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal), a shy but intrepid editorial cartoonist who isn't content to live life on the sidelines.
Graysmith uses his not-so-spare time to work on cracking the code, when not hovering over the colorful Avery's desk trying to pick up additional shreds of information about the case.
Meanwhile, despite the dogged efforts of the San Francisco Police Department's high-profile homicide inspector, Dave Toschi (Ruffalo) and his partner, Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), the murders mount and the letters keep coming as the years continue to pass without an arrest.
Fincher, who, as a child growing up in the Bay Area in the early '70s was well aware of the bogey man known as the Zodiac killer, has transformed those primal childhood fears into his most accomplished film to date, and his most fully contained effort since 1995's "Seven".
While those murders are staged for maximum chill, the story's newsroom and police department settings are equally effective. Working from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt (who is working on a screen adaptation of "Against All Enemies", the memoir by former terrorism czar Richard Clarke), based on Graysmith's book, Fincher keeps all the components neatly integrated.
He also uses clever visual touches to mark the passing years, particularly a time-lapse sequence replicating the erection of San Francisco's iconic Transamerica Pyramid.
His cast is uniformly splendid, but if the Zodiac killer got away with murder, then Downey ought to be charged with grand theft larceny given how often steals his scenes away from his competent co-stars. It's a performance, along with Chris Cooper's in "Breach", that should be remembered when awards season comes around again.
While there are a few instances where the energy dips a bit in the 2 1/2-hour film (especially when Downey isn't around), things always manage to kick back into gear.
Behind the scenes, Harris Savides' digital photography really brings back the visual textures and color palettes of that late '60s-to-early '70s period, as does Donald Graham Burt's evocative production design and Casey Storm's costuming.
On the aural end, veteran composer David Shire takes on his first film assignment in several years with an appropriately moody score, while music supervisor Randall Poster deserves a special shout-out for a song selection that digs deeper than the usual top 10 offerings, incorporating psychedelic pop from the Animals, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Santana and Donovan to transporting effect.
ZODIAC
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present a Phoenix Pictures production of a David Fincher film
Credits:
Director: David Fincher
Screenwriter: James Vanderbilt
Based on the book by: Robert Graysmith
Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, Cean Chaffin
Executive producer: Louis Phillips
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt
Editor: Angus Wall
Costume designer: Casey Storm
Music: David Shire
Music supervisor: Randall Poster
Cast:
Robert Graysmith: Jake Gyllenhaal
Inspector David Toschi: Mark Ruffalo
Paul Avery: Robert Downey Jr.
Inspector William Armstrong: Anthony Edwards
Melvin Belli: Brian Cox
Sgt. Jack Mulanax: Elias Koteas
Melanie: Chloe Sevigny
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 2/23/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The notorious San Francisco Bay Area serial killer might have eluded law enforcement agencies for decades, but the compelling cat-and-mouse story that is "Zodiac" never escapes the virtuoso grip of director David Fincher.
Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and "All the President's Men"-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity.
Factor in a highly capable cast led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and a never better Robert Downey Jr., and you've got yourself a picture -- one that should handily nab audiences hungering for something a little more substantial than broad comedies or campy escapism.
Time and place are effectively established the first time we see the man known as Zodiac strike, during 1969 Fourth of July celebrations on a secluded lover's lane in Vallejo, Calif., where he walks up to a car and matter-of-factly fires at its occupants, fatally killing the driver and seriously injuring her male passenger.
Cut to the newsroom of the San Francisco Chronicle, where, a month later, a crudely written letter to the editor arrives in the mail from the man claiming responsibility for that shooting and an additional two murders.
His knowledge of certain details that only the police would know captures the attention of the paper's star crime reporter Paul Avery (Downey Jr.), while an enclosed portion of a cipher that purportedly offered clues to the killer's identity triggers what would become a lifelong obsession for Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal), a shy but intrepid editorial cartoonist who isn't content to live life on the sidelines.
Graysmith uses his not-so-spare time to work on cracking the code, when not hovering over the colorful Avery's desk trying to pick up additional shreds of information about the case.
Meanwhile, despite the dogged efforts of the San Francisco Police Department's high-profile homicide inspector, Dave Toschi (Ruffalo) and his partner, Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), the murders mount and the letters keep coming as the years continue to pass without an arrest.
Fincher, who, as a child growing up in the Bay Area in the early '70s was well aware of the bogey man known as the Zodiac killer, has transformed those primal childhood fears into his most accomplished film to date, and his most fully contained effort since 1995's "Seven".
While those murders are staged for maximum chill, the story's newsroom and police department settings are equally effective. Working from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt (who is working on a screen adaptation of "Against All Enemies", the memoir by former terrorism czar Richard Clarke), based on Graysmith's book, Fincher keeps all the components neatly integrated.
He also uses clever visual touches to mark the passing years, particularly a time-lapse sequence replicating the erection of San Francisco's iconic Transamerica Pyramid.
His cast is uniformly splendid, but if the Zodiac killer got away with murder, then Downey ought to be charged with grand theft larceny given how often steals his scenes away from his competent co-stars. It's a performance, along with Chris Cooper's in "Breach", that should be remembered when awards season comes around again.
While there are a few instances where the energy dips a bit in the 2 1/2-hour film (especially when Downey isn't around), things always manage to kick back into gear.
Behind the scenes, Harris Savides' digital photography really brings back the visual textures and color palettes of that late '60s-to-early '70s period, as does Donald Graham Burt's evocative production design and Casey Storm's costuming.
On the aural end, veteran composer David Shire takes on his first film assignment in several years with an appropriately moody score, while music supervisor Randall Poster deserves a special shout-out for a song selection that digs deeper than the usual top 10 offerings, incorporating psychedelic pop from the Animals, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Santana and Donovan to transporting effect.
ZODIAC
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present a Phoenix Pictures production of a David Fincher film
Credits:
Director: David Fincher
Screenwriter: James Vanderbilt
Based on the book by: Robert Graysmith
Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, Cean Chaffin
Executive producer: Louis Phillips
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt
Editor: Angus Wall
Costume designer: Casey Storm
Music: David Shire
Music supervisor: Randall Poster
Cast:
Robert Graysmith: Jake Gyllenhaal
Inspector David Toschi: Mark Ruffalo
Paul Avery: Robert Downey Jr.
Inspector William Armstrong: Anthony Edwards
Melvin Belli: Brian Cox
Sgt. Jack Mulanax: Elias Koteas
Melanie: Chloe Sevigny
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Firing on all cylinders as a creepy thriller, police procedural and "All the President's Men"-style investigative newsroom drama, the smart, extremely vivid production oozes period authenticity.
Factor in a highly capable cast led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and a never better Robert Downey Jr., and you've got yourself a picture -- one that should handily nab audiences hungering for something a little more substantial than broad comedies or campy escapism.
Time and place are effectively established the first time we see the man known as Zodiac strike, during 1969 Fourth of July celebrations on a secluded lover's lane in Vallejo, Calif., where he walks up to a car and matter-of-factly fires at its occupants, fatally killing the driver and seriously injuring her male passenger.
Cut to the newsroom of the San Francisco Chronicle, where, a month later, a crudely written letter to the editor arrives in the mail from the man claiming responsibility for that shooting and an additional two murders.
His knowledge of certain details that only the police would know captures the attention of the paper's star crime reporter Paul Avery (Downey Jr.), while an enclosed portion of a cipher that purportedly offered clues to the killer's identity triggers what would become a lifelong obsession for Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal), a shy but intrepid editorial cartoonist who isn't content to live life on the sidelines.
Graysmith uses his not-so-spare time to work on cracking the code, when not hovering over the colorful Avery's desk trying to pick up additional shreds of information about the case.
Meanwhile, despite the dogged efforts of the San Francisco Police Department's high-profile homicide inspector, Dave Toschi (Ruffalo) and his partner, Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), the murders mount and the letters keep coming as the years continue to pass without an arrest.
Fincher, who, as a child growing up in the Bay Area in the early '70s was well aware of the bogey man known as the Zodiac killer, has transformed those primal childhood fears into his most accomplished film to date, and his most fully contained effort since 1995's "Seven".
While those murders are staged for maximum chill, the story's newsroom and police department settings are equally effective. Working from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt (who is working on a screen adaptation of "Against All Enemies", the memoir by former terrorism czar Richard Clarke), based on Graysmith's book, Fincher keeps all the components neatly integrated.
He also uses clever visual touches to mark the passing years, particularly a time-lapse sequence replicating the erection of San Francisco's iconic Transamerica Pyramid.
His cast is uniformly splendid, but if the Zodiac killer got away with murder, then Downey ought to be charged with grand theft larceny given how often steals his scenes away from his competent co-stars. It's a performance, along with Chris Cooper's in "Breach", that should be remembered when awards season comes around again.
While there are a few instances where the energy dips a bit in the 2 1/2-hour film (especially when Downey isn't around), things always manage to kick back into gear.
Behind the scenes, Harris Savides' digital photography really brings back the visual textures and color palettes of that late '60s-to-early '70s period, as does Donald Graham Burt's evocative production design and Casey Storm's costuming.
On the aural end, veteran composer David Shire takes on his first film assignment in several years with an appropriately moody score, while music supervisor Randall Poster deserves a special shout-out for a song selection that digs deeper than the usual top 10 offerings, incorporating psychedelic pop from the Animals, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Santana and Donovan to transporting effect.
ZODIAC
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present a Phoenix Pictures production of a David Fincher film
Credits:
Director: David Fincher
Screenwriter: James Vanderbilt
Based on the book by: Robert Graysmith
Producers: Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, Cean Chaffin
Executive producer: Louis Phillips
Director of photography: Harris Savides
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt
Editor: Angus Wall
Costume designer: Casey Storm
Music: David Shire
Music supervisor: Randall Poster
Cast:
Robert Graysmith: Jake Gyllenhaal
Inspector David Toschi: Mark Ruffalo
Paul Avery: Robert Downey Jr.
Inspector William Armstrong: Anthony Edwards
Melvin Belli: Brian Cox
Sgt. Jack Mulanax: Elias Koteas
Melanie: Chloe Sevigny
Running time -- 157 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 2/23/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott have signed on to star in Big Brothers, a comedy being directed by Luke Greenfield for Universal Pictures. Mary Parent and Scott Stuber are producing along with Greenfield, who is producing via his Wide Awake banner.
Brothers is about two deviously wild beer reps who, in order to keep their jobs, are forced to do community service and become mentors in the Big Brother program after their freewheeling behavior gets them into trouble. Timothy Dowling wrote the screenplay for the project, which is being eyed as an R-rated comedy.
A late April start date is being eyed in Los Angeles and San Diego.
"These guys are the absolute worst big brothers because they are giving horribly immoral advice to their teenage 'little brothers, ' " said Greenfield, adding that there will be a nationwide search to find the kid actors.
Brothers initially was conceived as a drama but was made into a comedy by the filmmakers, then pushed into potential R territory by Parent.
Brothers is about two deviously wild beer reps who, in order to keep their jobs, are forced to do community service and become mentors in the Big Brother program after their freewheeling behavior gets them into trouble. Timothy Dowling wrote the screenplay for the project, which is being eyed as an R-rated comedy.
A late April start date is being eyed in Los Angeles and San Diego.
"These guys are the absolute worst big brothers because they are giving horribly immoral advice to their teenage 'little brothers, ' " said Greenfield, adding that there will be a nationwide search to find the kid actors.
Brothers initially was conceived as a drama but was made into a comedy by the filmmakers, then pushed into potential R territory by Parent.
- 1/30/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Napoleon Dynamite goes mano a mano with Bad Santa (the characters, not the movies) in "School for Scoundrels", an inert and muddled mash-up of romantic comedy and theater of stupid cruelty.
With its satirical underpinnings bludgeoned by shtick and formula, the story of a program that aims to turn milquetoasts into men founders for most of its running time. The film lacks both the outrageous humor and the heart that made a comedy like "There's Something About Mary" work. The casting -- one of its key problems -- might entice collegiate and twentysomething audiences before enrollment drops off precipitously.
Jon Heder plays Roger, a hapless employee of the New York City Parking Bureau who signs up for a mysterious Learning Annex offering after losing his meter-maid job and suffering his third rejection, at the hands of a kid, as a Big Brother. Needless to say, Roger has no luck with women, either; he's the kind of guy who faints while asking out his fetching and endlessly sweet Aussie neighbor, Amanda (Jacinda Barrett).
Roger joins a roomful of fellow doormats and gormless wonders who each cough up $5,000 in cash for the honor of being verbally abused by Dr. P Billy Bob Thornton). Along with his henchman, Lesher Michael Clarke Duncan), the bad doctor puts the desperate men through a series of confrontations that are meant to build spines but mostly are exercises in stupidity. At a paintball "retreat" in the woods -- the genesis of an unfortunate running "joke" involving rape -- Roger takes a stand against the mountainous Lesher and earns Dr. P's respect.
By distinguishing himself he also becomes a target of the teacher's special reserve of animosity. The game is on, as they say in the scoundrel biz, after Dr. P makes moves on Amanda. Posing as a bookish and sensitive widowed surgeon, he appeals to her compassion while the enraged and flailing Roger looks increasingly demented.
Director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scot Armstrong, who also collaborated on "Road Trip", "Old School" and "Starsky & Hutch," have fashioned a listless affair. Working from the 1960 film "School for Scoundrels or How to Win Without Actually Cheating!" -- itself based on Stephen Potter's "One-Upmanship" and "Lifemanship" books -- the new script transposes midcentury British subtlety to new-millennium frat-boy yuks. A few slapstick bits work, but in these circumstances even Ben Stiller's inspired, late-in-the-proceedings appearance as a deeply damaged former student of Dr. P's is a nonstarter.
The casting is so obvious -- Heder as a nerd, Thornton as a wiseass, Sarah Silverman as Amanda's snide-bitch roommate -- that it drains the film of comic tension from the get-go. And for all its mean-spiritedness, "School for Scoundrels" has no edge, rushing to embrace tired romantic comedy conventions. Whatever it attempts, it does so with bluntness and little conviction. The New York/Los Angeles-shot production doesn't even try to create a convincing New York setting.
With its satirical underpinnings bludgeoned by shtick and formula, the story of a program that aims to turn milquetoasts into men founders for most of its running time. The film lacks both the outrageous humor and the heart that made a comedy like "There's Something About Mary" work. The casting -- one of its key problems -- might entice collegiate and twentysomething audiences before enrollment drops off precipitously.
Jon Heder plays Roger, a hapless employee of the New York City Parking Bureau who signs up for a mysterious Learning Annex offering after losing his meter-maid job and suffering his third rejection, at the hands of a kid, as a Big Brother. Needless to say, Roger has no luck with women, either; he's the kind of guy who faints while asking out his fetching and endlessly sweet Aussie neighbor, Amanda (Jacinda Barrett).
Roger joins a roomful of fellow doormats and gormless wonders who each cough up $5,000 in cash for the honor of being verbally abused by Dr. P Billy Bob Thornton). Along with his henchman, Lesher Michael Clarke Duncan), the bad doctor puts the desperate men through a series of confrontations that are meant to build spines but mostly are exercises in stupidity. At a paintball "retreat" in the woods -- the genesis of an unfortunate running "joke" involving rape -- Roger takes a stand against the mountainous Lesher and earns Dr. P's respect.
By distinguishing himself he also becomes a target of the teacher's special reserve of animosity. The game is on, as they say in the scoundrel biz, after Dr. P makes moves on Amanda. Posing as a bookish and sensitive widowed surgeon, he appeals to her compassion while the enraged and flailing Roger looks increasingly demented.
Director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scot Armstrong, who also collaborated on "Road Trip", "Old School" and "Starsky & Hutch," have fashioned a listless affair. Working from the 1960 film "School for Scoundrels or How to Win Without Actually Cheating!" -- itself based on Stephen Potter's "One-Upmanship" and "Lifemanship" books -- the new script transposes midcentury British subtlety to new-millennium frat-boy yuks. A few slapstick bits work, but in these circumstances even Ben Stiller's inspired, late-in-the-proceedings appearance as a deeply damaged former student of Dr. P's is a nonstarter.
The casting is so obvious -- Heder as a nerd, Thornton as a wiseass, Sarah Silverman as Amanda's snide-bitch roommate -- that it drains the film of comic tension from the get-go. And for all its mean-spiritedness, "School for Scoundrels" has no edge, rushing to embrace tired romantic comedy conventions. Whatever it attempts, it does so with bluntness and little conviction. The New York/Los Angeles-shot production doesn't even try to create a convincing New York setting.
- 10/9/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Napoleon Dynamite goes mano a mano with Bad Santa (the characters, not the movies) in School for Scoundrels, an inert and muddled mash-up of romantic comedy and theater of stupid cruelty.
With its satirical underpinnings bludgeoned by shtick and formula, the story of a program that aims to turn milquetoasts into men founders for most of its running time. The film lacks both the outrageous humor and the heart that made a comedy like There's Something About Mary work. The casting -- one of its key problems -- might entice collegiate and twentysomething audiences before enrollment drops off precipitously.
Jon Heder plays Roger, a hapless employee of the New York City Parking Bureau who signs up for a mysterious Learning Annex offering after losing his meter-maid job and suffering his third rejection, at the hands of a kid, as a Big Brother. Needless to say, Roger has no luck with women, either; he's the kind of guy who faints while asking out his fetching and endlessly sweet Aussie neighbor, Amanda (Jacinda Barrett).
Roger joins a roomful of fellow doormats and gormless wonders who each cough up $5,000 in cash for the honor of being verbally abused by Dr. P Billy Bob Thornton). Along with his henchman, Lesher Michael Clarke Duncan), the bad doctor puts the desperate men through a series of confrontations that are meant to build spines but mostly are exercises in stupidity. At a paintball "retreat" in the woods -- the genesis of an unfortunate running "joke" involving rape -- Roger takes a stand against the mountainous Lesher and earns Dr. P's respect.
By distinguishing himself he also becomes a target of the teacher's special reserve of animosity. The game is on, as they say in the scoundrel biz, after Dr. P makes moves on Amanda. Posing as a bookish and sensitive widowed surgeon, he appeals to her compassion while the enraged and flailing Roger looks increasingly demented.
Director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scot Armstrong, who also collaborated on Road Trip, Old School and "Starsky & Hutch," have fashioned a listless affair. Working from the 1960 film "School for Scoundrels or How to Win Without Actually Cheating!" -- itself based on Stephen Potter's One-Upmanship and Lifemanship books -- the new script transposes midcentury British subtlety to new-millennium frat-boy yuks. A few slapstick bits work, but in these circumstances even Ben Stiller's inspired, late-in-the-proceedings appearance as a deeply damaged former student of Dr. P's is a nonstarter.
The casting is so obvious -- Heder as a nerd, Thornton as a wiseass, Sarah Silverman as Amanda's snide-bitch roommate -- that it drains the film of comic tension from the get-go. And for all its mean-spiritedness, School for Scoundrels has no edge, rushing to embrace tired romantic comedy conventions. Whatever it attempts, it does so with bluntness and little conviction. The New York/Los Angeles-shot production doesn't even try to create a convincing New York setting.
SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS
MGM
Dimension Films presents a Picked Last/Media Talent Group production
Credits:
Director: Todd Phillips
Screenwriters: Todd Phillips, Scot Armstrong
Based on an original screenplay by: Hal E. Chester, Patricia Moyes
Producers: Todd Phillips, Daniel Goldberg, J. Geyer Kosinski
Executive producers: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Hal Chester, Craig Mazin
Director of photography: Jonathan Brown
Production designer: Nelson Coates
Music: Christophe Beck
Co-producers: JoAnn Perritano, Scott Budnick
Costume designer: Louise Mingenbach
Editors: Leslie Jones, Dan Schalk
Cast:
Dr. P: Billy Bob Thornton
Roger: Jon Heder
Amanda: Jacinda Barrett
Lesher: Michael Clarke Duncan
Walsh: Matt Walsh
Eli: Todd Louiso
Diego: Horatio Sanz
Ian: David Cross
Becky: Sarah Silverman
with Ben Stiller
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
With its satirical underpinnings bludgeoned by shtick and formula, the story of a program that aims to turn milquetoasts into men founders for most of its running time. The film lacks both the outrageous humor and the heart that made a comedy like There's Something About Mary work. The casting -- one of its key problems -- might entice collegiate and twentysomething audiences before enrollment drops off precipitously.
Jon Heder plays Roger, a hapless employee of the New York City Parking Bureau who signs up for a mysterious Learning Annex offering after losing his meter-maid job and suffering his third rejection, at the hands of a kid, as a Big Brother. Needless to say, Roger has no luck with women, either; he's the kind of guy who faints while asking out his fetching and endlessly sweet Aussie neighbor, Amanda (Jacinda Barrett).
Roger joins a roomful of fellow doormats and gormless wonders who each cough up $5,000 in cash for the honor of being verbally abused by Dr. P Billy Bob Thornton). Along with his henchman, Lesher Michael Clarke Duncan), the bad doctor puts the desperate men through a series of confrontations that are meant to build spines but mostly are exercises in stupidity. At a paintball "retreat" in the woods -- the genesis of an unfortunate running "joke" involving rape -- Roger takes a stand against the mountainous Lesher and earns Dr. P's respect.
By distinguishing himself he also becomes a target of the teacher's special reserve of animosity. The game is on, as they say in the scoundrel biz, after Dr. P makes moves on Amanda. Posing as a bookish and sensitive widowed surgeon, he appeals to her compassion while the enraged and flailing Roger looks increasingly demented.
Director Todd Phillips and co-writer Scot Armstrong, who also collaborated on Road Trip, Old School and "Starsky & Hutch," have fashioned a listless affair. Working from the 1960 film "School for Scoundrels or How to Win Without Actually Cheating!" -- itself based on Stephen Potter's One-Upmanship and Lifemanship books -- the new script transposes midcentury British subtlety to new-millennium frat-boy yuks. A few slapstick bits work, but in these circumstances even Ben Stiller's inspired, late-in-the-proceedings appearance as a deeply damaged former student of Dr. P's is a nonstarter.
The casting is so obvious -- Heder as a nerd, Thornton as a wiseass, Sarah Silverman as Amanda's snide-bitch roommate -- that it drains the film of comic tension from the get-go. And for all its mean-spiritedness, School for Scoundrels has no edge, rushing to embrace tired romantic comedy conventions. Whatever it attempts, it does so with bluntness and little conviction. The New York/Los Angeles-shot production doesn't even try to create a convincing New York setting.
SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS
MGM
Dimension Films presents a Picked Last/Media Talent Group production
Credits:
Director: Todd Phillips
Screenwriters: Todd Phillips, Scot Armstrong
Based on an original screenplay by: Hal E. Chester, Patricia Moyes
Producers: Todd Phillips, Daniel Goldberg, J. Geyer Kosinski
Executive producers: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Hal Chester, Craig Mazin
Director of photography: Jonathan Brown
Production designer: Nelson Coates
Music: Christophe Beck
Co-producers: JoAnn Perritano, Scott Budnick
Costume designer: Louise Mingenbach
Editors: Leslie Jones, Dan Schalk
Cast:
Dr. P: Billy Bob Thornton
Roger: Jon Heder
Amanda: Jacinda Barrett
Lesher: Michael Clarke Duncan
Walsh: Matt Walsh
Eli: Todd Louiso
Diego: Horatio Sanz
Ian: David Cross
Becky: Sarah Silverman
with Ben Stiller
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 9/26/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
LONDON -- U.K. hit act Oasis confirmed its influential status in the industry by clinching two of the top prizes at this year's Q Awards Tuesday at London's Grosvenor House Hotel. Oasis picked up not only Best Album, for "Don't Believe the Truth" (Big Brother), but also clinched the People's Choice Award in recognition of polling more votes than any other nominated act. Gorillaz (Parlophone), the virtual band co-founded by Damon Albarn, lead singer of Oasis' former chart competitor Blur, also won two awards for Best Video ("Feel Good Inc".) and for Best Producer ("Demon Days").
- 10/11/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- "Tiptoes" is all left feet, the result of a clodhopper story that seemingly doesn't know where it wishes to tread.
The film steps out as a troubling romance in which a firefighting instructor (Matthew McConaughey) tries to stave off marriage to his girlfriend (Kate Beckinsale). Just when she has announced that she's pregnant, his fraternal twin motorcycles into town. And, further complicating or enriching the story, his twin (Gary Oldman) is a dwarf. In fact, he's not even in town to visit Big Brother but to attend the annual dwarf convention and kick back with some of his buddies and ex-lovers.
Unfortunately, this inventive and unique story line lurches all over the place, stumbling in different directions. At first, it seems some sort of oddball romantic comedy where Big Brother tries to scare his girlfriend out of marrying him for fear of begetting a dwarf. Next, it rambles into exposition on the inequities faced by the "little people" of the world before tumbling entirely into a sodden heap of melodramatic toe jam.
Bill Weiner is responsible for the messy screenplay
Matthew Bright gets the blame for the addled direction.
PARK CITY -- "Tiptoes" is all left feet, the result of a clodhopper story that seemingly doesn't know where it wishes to tread.
The film steps out as a troubling romance in which a firefighting instructor (Matthew McConaughey) tries to stave off marriage to his girlfriend (Kate Beckinsale). Just when she has announced that she's pregnant, his fraternal twin motorcycles into town. And, further complicating or enriching the story, his twin (Gary Oldman) is a dwarf. In fact, he's not even in town to visit Big Brother but to attend the annual dwarf convention and kick back with some of his buddies and ex-lovers.
Unfortunately, this inventive and unique story line lurches all over the place, stumbling in different directions. At first, it seems some sort of oddball romantic comedy where Big Brother tries to scare his girlfriend out of marrying him for fear of begetting a dwarf. Next, it rambles into exposition on the inequities faced by the "little people" of the world before tumbling entirely into a sodden heap of melodramatic toe jam.
Bill Weiner is responsible for the messy screenplay
Matthew Bright gets the blame for the addled direction.
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- "Tiptoes" is all left feet, the result of a clodhopper story that seemingly doesn't know where it wishes to tread.
The film steps out as a troubling romance in which a firefighting instructor (Matthew McConaughey) tries to stave off marriage to his girlfriend (Kate Beckinsale). Just when she has announced that she's pregnant, his fraternal twin motorcycles into town. And, further complicating or enriching the story, his twin (Gary Oldman) is a dwarf. In fact, he's not even in town to visit Big Brother but to attend the annual dwarf convention and kick back with some of his buddies and ex-lovers.
Unfortunately, this inventive and unique story line lurches all over the place, stumbling in different directions. At first, it seems some sort of oddball romantic comedy where Big Brother tries to scare his girlfriend out of marrying him for fear of begetting a dwarf. Next, it rambles into exposition on the inequities faced by the "little people" of the world before tumbling entirely into a sodden heap of melodramatic toe jam.
Bill Weiner is responsible for the messy screenplay
Matthew Bright gets the blame for the addled direction.
PARK CITY -- "Tiptoes" is all left feet, the result of a clodhopper story that seemingly doesn't know where it wishes to tread.
The film steps out as a troubling romance in which a firefighting instructor (Matthew McConaughey) tries to stave off marriage to his girlfriend (Kate Beckinsale). Just when she has announced that she's pregnant, his fraternal twin motorcycles into town. And, further complicating or enriching the story, his twin (Gary Oldman) is a dwarf. In fact, he's not even in town to visit Big Brother but to attend the annual dwarf convention and kick back with some of his buddies and ex-lovers.
Unfortunately, this inventive and unique story line lurches all over the place, stumbling in different directions. At first, it seems some sort of oddball romantic comedy where Big Brother tries to scare his girlfriend out of marrying him for fear of begetting a dwarf. Next, it rambles into exposition on the inequities faced by the "little people" of the world before tumbling entirely into a sodden heap of melodramatic toe jam.
Bill Weiner is responsible for the messy screenplay
Matthew Bright gets the blame for the addled direction.
- 1/27/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Flach Pyramide International
Never one to shy away from stories dealing with very intense human contact, filmmaker Patrice Chereau ("Intimacy") gets up close and personal with this portrait of tricky family dynamics.
Based on the Philippe Besson novel "Son Frere", the unflinchingly clinical "His Brother" -- which screened at the City of Lights/City of Angels Film Festival -- deals with the relationship between a pair of estranged siblings who are brought together after one of them is diagnosed with a potentially fatal blood disease.
When his illness forces him to check into the hospital, Thomas (Bruno Todeschini) calls upon his gay younger brother, Luc (Eric Caravaca), to help care for him. At first reluctant and resentful for the earlier years in which he felt abandoned by his Big Brother, Luc gradually rises to the task.
Shunning artifice, Chereau insists on keeping things graphically real -- a sequence in which Thomas is given a pre-op chest-to-groin shave by two nurses is carried out with excruciating, real-time precision.
The characters' interior lives, meanwhile, are examined with the same kind of X-ray-reading scrutiny, and while its two credible leads are certainly up to the challenge, there's a relentless claustrophobia that prevents the film from taking on a fully dimensional life of its own.
By the time Chereau has cued an appropriately dirgelike Marianne Faithfull tune, his emotional shut-ins aren't The Only Ones in serious need of a blast of fresh air.
Never one to shy away from stories dealing with very intense human contact, filmmaker Patrice Chereau ("Intimacy") gets up close and personal with this portrait of tricky family dynamics.
Based on the Philippe Besson novel "Son Frere", the unflinchingly clinical "His Brother" -- which screened at the City of Lights/City of Angels Film Festival -- deals with the relationship between a pair of estranged siblings who are brought together after one of them is diagnosed with a potentially fatal blood disease.
When his illness forces him to check into the hospital, Thomas (Bruno Todeschini) calls upon his gay younger brother, Luc (Eric Caravaca), to help care for him. At first reluctant and resentful for the earlier years in which he felt abandoned by his Big Brother, Luc gradually rises to the task.
Shunning artifice, Chereau insists on keeping things graphically real -- a sequence in which Thomas is given a pre-op chest-to-groin shave by two nurses is carried out with excruciating, real-time precision.
The characters' interior lives, meanwhile, are examined with the same kind of X-ray-reading scrutiny, and while its two credible leads are certainly up to the challenge, there's a relentless claustrophobia that prevents the film from taking on a fully dimensional life of its own.
By the time Chereau has cued an appropriately dirgelike Marianne Faithfull tune, his emotional shut-ins aren't The Only Ones in serious need of a blast of fresh air.
- 4/10/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Making note of the fact that a mere 10 geographical miles separate the boogie-down South Bronx from button-down Wall Street, the creators of "Empire" have set out to show what happens when those seemingly diverse worlds collide.
It's an intriguing premise, and perhaps one day somebody will make a movie that actually tells that story.
In the meantime, we'll have to settle for writer-director Franc. Reyes' version, which tries to pass off a scattered, cliched approximation of the real deal.
Fronted by the charismatic John Leguizamo and attracting such icons as Isabella Rossellini and Sonia Braga to supporting roles, this debut offering from Latino-driven Arenas Entertainment certainly held some highly charged promise.
But this "Empire" will likely strike out with its target audience, which can get the same dose of melodrama for free from the average telenovela.
Gifted comic actor Leguizamo locks himself into dramatic mode as respected gangster Victor Rosa, a Little Cezar in the street pharmaceutical business who commands a significant chunk of urban turf with his customized blend of heroin, sold under the name "Empire".
Rosa's definitely at the top of his game, with a loyal posse and gorgeous fiancee Carmen (Delilah Cotto) at his side and an omnipresent gold chain with an enormous letter "G" (once belonging to his murdered Big Brother) dangling around his neck, but it's all going to seriously unravel after Carmen's new friend Trish (Denise Richards) introduces him to her investment banker boyfriend, Jack (Peter Sarsgaard).
Enticing him with a swank SoHo loft and some more "legitimate" off-shore investment opportunities for his millions in drug money, the smarmy Jack is about to play Victor in one of the oldest con games around and, as orchestrated by filmmaker Reyes, Rosa's the only person in the theater that didn't see it coming.
Perhaps he was distracted by all the glare caused by that giant "G."
A former dancer-choreographer-songwriter, Reyes tries to plug the picture's many plot holes and inconsistencies with wall-to-wall Leguizamo voice-overs and music video flourishes that contribute to its all-over-the-place style.
While Leguizamo keeps it together as best he can, it's pretty much safe to say he and the rest of the cast, including Braga as Cotto's mother and Rossellini as a powerful drug "queenpin" with a Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, have done more impressive work elsewhere.
That would also extend to the Ruben Blades score, which seems to have been broken up into little sound bites in order to make room for the arsenal of Latin pop and hip-hop tunes that have been squeezed in to boost the sagging street credibility.
EMPIRE
Universal
Arenas Entertainment and Universal Pictures present a Daniel Bigel/Michael Mailer production A Franc. Reyes film
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Franc. Reyes
Producers: Daniel Bigel, Michael Mailer
Executive producer: Robert B. Campbell
Director of photography: Kramer Morgenthau
Production designer: Ted Glass
Editor: Peter C. Frank
Costume designer: Jacki Roach
Music: Ruben Blades
Music supervisor: Kathy Nelson
Cast:
Victor Rosa: John Leguizamo
Jack Wimmer: Peter Sarsgaard
Trish: Denise Richards
Jimmy: Vincent Laresca
Rafael Menedez: Nestor Serrano
Carmen: Delilah Cotto
Iris: Sonia Braga
La Colombiana: Isabella Rossellini
Chedda: Treach
Tito Severe: Fat Joe
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
It's an intriguing premise, and perhaps one day somebody will make a movie that actually tells that story.
In the meantime, we'll have to settle for writer-director Franc. Reyes' version, which tries to pass off a scattered, cliched approximation of the real deal.
Fronted by the charismatic John Leguizamo and attracting such icons as Isabella Rossellini and Sonia Braga to supporting roles, this debut offering from Latino-driven Arenas Entertainment certainly held some highly charged promise.
But this "Empire" will likely strike out with its target audience, which can get the same dose of melodrama for free from the average telenovela.
Gifted comic actor Leguizamo locks himself into dramatic mode as respected gangster Victor Rosa, a Little Cezar in the street pharmaceutical business who commands a significant chunk of urban turf with his customized blend of heroin, sold under the name "Empire".
Rosa's definitely at the top of his game, with a loyal posse and gorgeous fiancee Carmen (Delilah Cotto) at his side and an omnipresent gold chain with an enormous letter "G" (once belonging to his murdered Big Brother) dangling around his neck, but it's all going to seriously unravel after Carmen's new friend Trish (Denise Richards) introduces him to her investment banker boyfriend, Jack (Peter Sarsgaard).
Enticing him with a swank SoHo loft and some more "legitimate" off-shore investment opportunities for his millions in drug money, the smarmy Jack is about to play Victor in one of the oldest con games around and, as orchestrated by filmmaker Reyes, Rosa's the only person in the theater that didn't see it coming.
Perhaps he was distracted by all the glare caused by that giant "G."
A former dancer-choreographer-songwriter, Reyes tries to plug the picture's many plot holes and inconsistencies with wall-to-wall Leguizamo voice-overs and music video flourishes that contribute to its all-over-the-place style.
While Leguizamo keeps it together as best he can, it's pretty much safe to say he and the rest of the cast, including Braga as Cotto's mother and Rossellini as a powerful drug "queenpin" with a Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, have done more impressive work elsewhere.
That would also extend to the Ruben Blades score, which seems to have been broken up into little sound bites in order to make room for the arsenal of Latin pop and hip-hop tunes that have been squeezed in to boost the sagging street credibility.
EMPIRE
Universal
Arenas Entertainment and Universal Pictures present a Daniel Bigel/Michael Mailer production A Franc. Reyes film
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Franc. Reyes
Producers: Daniel Bigel, Michael Mailer
Executive producer: Robert B. Campbell
Director of photography: Kramer Morgenthau
Production designer: Ted Glass
Editor: Peter C. Frank
Costume designer: Jacki Roach
Music: Ruben Blades
Music supervisor: Kathy Nelson
Cast:
Victor Rosa: John Leguizamo
Jack Wimmer: Peter Sarsgaard
Trish: Denise Richards
Jimmy: Vincent Laresca
Rafael Menedez: Nestor Serrano
Carmen: Delilah Cotto
Iris: Sonia Braga
La Colombiana: Isabella Rossellini
Chedda: Treach
Tito Severe: Fat Joe
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 12/6/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
All good science fiction is really a speculation about social and political trends. Thus, Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report", a rousing film-noir suspenser set in a world of labor-saving devices and McLuhan-esque technology, is a thought-provoking inquiry into just how far we as a society want to go to make our environment safe. Spielberg poses the question in one of his most compelling and entertaining films ever. Following "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", he continues to push into new fictional terrain that is grittier, creepier and edgier than the warm-and-fuzzy science fiction of his early career. And he is willing to leave an audience unsettled. Even with something of a happy ending, "Minority Report" is the most troubling kind of speculative fiction. There is much to absorb here, almost too much for a single viewing, which probably means the kind of repeat business on which boxoffice bonanzas are built.
For star Tom Cruise, too, the point of reference is his last film, "Vanilla Sky", where he also played a man caught in a technological nightmare in which his very identity and destiny get thrown into confusion. While going over the top in that film, here he delivers one of his most controlled and suggestive performances. Pain and hysteria stay bottled up within his character, a man who completely buys into a crime-prevention system then finds himself outside that system, battling the very thing that gave him self-worth.
A complex, intricate screenplay by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen derives from a story by sci-fi master Philip K. Dick. The film takes place in Washington a half-century from now. Cruise's chief John Anderton heads an experimental Pre-Crime unit, which takes advantage of a freak scientific accident that produced three psychic human beings, who can see murders before they occur.
In Pre-Crime headquarters, these "Pre-Cogs", bathed in biological fluids and drugged into a semicomatose state, channel horrific visions of the future into a computer. John brings these images up on a large glass screen, where he can separate and analyze the pictures to glean clues about the "victims," the "murderers" and sites of these crimes, thereby preventing them from ever happening. In six years, the Pre-Cogs have never been wrong. Or have they?
(This elite unit operates only in the D.C. area, but the government plans to take the system nationwide. The major plot hole is that nothing explains why the psychic abilities of the Pre-Cogs extends only as far as D.C. or how the government intends to expand those abilities across the nation.)
John is a man on a mission. He lost a small son six years before and, haunted by that crime, buries himself in crime prevention. Then suddenly, the Pre-Cogs insist he will murder a stranger within 36 hours, forcing him to run from his own unit. A rival FBI agent (Colin Farrell) is also hot on his trail, a pursuit made all the easier by the fact that his Magnetic-Levitation car can be controlled by others, and scanners throughout the city track anyone's whereabouts by scanning the eyes.
As John runs, he must figure out not only why he would kill a total stranger but -- if he is indeed being set up -- what this has to do with his tragic past, his boss (Max von Sydow), estranged wife (Kathryn Morris) and a research scientist (Lois Smith) who developed the Pre-Cogs.
The film has several amazing set pieces few filmmakers could pull off. There is a terrific chase between Cruise and his own elite police force through mean inner-city streets and into a robotics car factory. In a later sequence, a disguised Cruise must break into Pre-Crime headquarters and spirit away a Pre-Cog, Agatha (Samantha Morton), who holds the key to his salvation. There is also a very creepy sequence in which a doctor (Peter Stormare), operating -- literally -- outside the law, performs a dual eye transplant on Cruise in the grimiest of tenements.
While Cruise anchors the movie, a brave performance by Morton and rock-solid supporting work give the movie extra ballast. Shorn of hair and eyebrows, Morton is a fragile figure, waiflike yet willfully determined to have a hand in her own liberation despite a time-continuum confusion. Farrell is suitably oily as an antagonist who is not quite a villain but might have resisted the cliches of gum chewing and a three-day beard. For von Sydow, this is an overly familiar performance, but Smith and Stormare offer off-center personalities that enliven their individual scenes.
The details of this future world filter out as part of the film's narrative drive rather than as show-off effects. One of John Williams' subtlest scores in years, somewhat reminiscent of the work Bernard Herrmann did for Hitchcock, brings a certain amount of tension without his usual lush orchestrations. Longtime Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's desaturated color pulls all the disparate worlds -- the scruffy streets, cold and gleaming interiors, magnetic highways and the womblike Pre-Cog Chamber -- into a dark, unified whole.
As more aspects of science and crime-fighting in this future society emerge, the film probes the moral underpinnnings. The Orwellian nature of the new technology is obvious, but Spielberg see this less as the intrusion of Big Brother than Big Business. The eye scans, useful to police, are vital to commercial interests to track customers. Technology is not necessarily the enemy -- homes spring to life in helpful, efficient ways -- but privacy vanishes.
MINORITY REPORT
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures present a Cruise-Wagner/Blue Tulip/Ronald Shusett/Gary Goldmann production
Credits:
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen
Based on a short story by: Philip K. Dick
Producers: Gerald R. Molen, Bonnie Curtis, Walter F. Parkes, Jan De Bont
Executive producers: Gary Goldman, Ronald Shusett
Director of photography: Janusz Kaminski
Production designer: Alex McDowell
Music: John Williams
Visual effects supervisor: Scott Farrar
Costume designer: Deborah L. Scott
Editor: Michael Kahn
Cast:
John Anderton: Tom Cruise
Danny Witwer: Colin Farrell
Lamar Burgess: Max von Sydow
Agatha: Samantha Morton
Dr. Iris Hineman: Lois Smith
Dr. Eddie: Peter Stormare
Gideon: Tim Blake Nelson
Lara Clarke: Kathryn Morris
MPAA rating -- PG-13
Running time: 143 minutes...
For star Tom Cruise, too, the point of reference is his last film, "Vanilla Sky", where he also played a man caught in a technological nightmare in which his very identity and destiny get thrown into confusion. While going over the top in that film, here he delivers one of his most controlled and suggestive performances. Pain and hysteria stay bottled up within his character, a man who completely buys into a crime-prevention system then finds himself outside that system, battling the very thing that gave him self-worth.
A complex, intricate screenplay by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen derives from a story by sci-fi master Philip K. Dick. The film takes place in Washington a half-century from now. Cruise's chief John Anderton heads an experimental Pre-Crime unit, which takes advantage of a freak scientific accident that produced three psychic human beings, who can see murders before they occur.
In Pre-Crime headquarters, these "Pre-Cogs", bathed in biological fluids and drugged into a semicomatose state, channel horrific visions of the future into a computer. John brings these images up on a large glass screen, where he can separate and analyze the pictures to glean clues about the "victims," the "murderers" and sites of these crimes, thereby preventing them from ever happening. In six years, the Pre-Cogs have never been wrong. Or have they?
(This elite unit operates only in the D.C. area, but the government plans to take the system nationwide. The major plot hole is that nothing explains why the psychic abilities of the Pre-Cogs extends only as far as D.C. or how the government intends to expand those abilities across the nation.)
John is a man on a mission. He lost a small son six years before and, haunted by that crime, buries himself in crime prevention. Then suddenly, the Pre-Cogs insist he will murder a stranger within 36 hours, forcing him to run from his own unit. A rival FBI agent (Colin Farrell) is also hot on his trail, a pursuit made all the easier by the fact that his Magnetic-Levitation car can be controlled by others, and scanners throughout the city track anyone's whereabouts by scanning the eyes.
As John runs, he must figure out not only why he would kill a total stranger but -- if he is indeed being set up -- what this has to do with his tragic past, his boss (Max von Sydow), estranged wife (Kathryn Morris) and a research scientist (Lois Smith) who developed the Pre-Cogs.
The film has several amazing set pieces few filmmakers could pull off. There is a terrific chase between Cruise and his own elite police force through mean inner-city streets and into a robotics car factory. In a later sequence, a disguised Cruise must break into Pre-Crime headquarters and spirit away a Pre-Cog, Agatha (Samantha Morton), who holds the key to his salvation. There is also a very creepy sequence in which a doctor (Peter Stormare), operating -- literally -- outside the law, performs a dual eye transplant on Cruise in the grimiest of tenements.
While Cruise anchors the movie, a brave performance by Morton and rock-solid supporting work give the movie extra ballast. Shorn of hair and eyebrows, Morton is a fragile figure, waiflike yet willfully determined to have a hand in her own liberation despite a time-continuum confusion. Farrell is suitably oily as an antagonist who is not quite a villain but might have resisted the cliches of gum chewing and a three-day beard. For von Sydow, this is an overly familiar performance, but Smith and Stormare offer off-center personalities that enliven their individual scenes.
The details of this future world filter out as part of the film's narrative drive rather than as show-off effects. One of John Williams' subtlest scores in years, somewhat reminiscent of the work Bernard Herrmann did for Hitchcock, brings a certain amount of tension without his usual lush orchestrations. Longtime Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's desaturated color pulls all the disparate worlds -- the scruffy streets, cold and gleaming interiors, magnetic highways and the womblike Pre-Cog Chamber -- into a dark, unified whole.
As more aspects of science and crime-fighting in this future society emerge, the film probes the moral underpinnnings. The Orwellian nature of the new technology is obvious, but Spielberg see this less as the intrusion of Big Brother than Big Business. The eye scans, useful to police, are vital to commercial interests to track customers. Technology is not necessarily the enemy -- homes spring to life in helpful, efficient ways -- but privacy vanishes.
MINORITY REPORT
20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures present a Cruise-Wagner/Blue Tulip/Ronald Shusett/Gary Goldmann production
Credits:
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen
Based on a short story by: Philip K. Dick
Producers: Gerald R. Molen, Bonnie Curtis, Walter F. Parkes, Jan De Bont
Executive producers: Gary Goldman, Ronald Shusett
Director of photography: Janusz Kaminski
Production designer: Alex McDowell
Music: John Williams
Visual effects supervisor: Scott Farrar
Costume designer: Deborah L. Scott
Editor: Michael Kahn
Cast:
John Anderton: Tom Cruise
Danny Witwer: Colin Farrell
Lamar Burgess: Max von Sydow
Agatha: Samantha Morton
Dr. Iris Hineman: Lois Smith
Dr. Eddie: Peter Stormare
Gideon: Tim Blake Nelson
Lara Clarke: Kathryn Morris
MPAA rating -- PG-13
Running time: 143 minutes...
- 6/17/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
There's a considerable amount of talent -- both fresh and seasoned -- involved in "Price of Glory", an underdog family drama about a father's determination to realize his failed pro boxing dreams through the lives of his three young sons.
While it sticks to a fairly safe and familiar formula, the picture, which closed the 15th Santa Barbara (Calif.) International Film Festival on Sunday, is elevated substantially by convincing casting and handsome production values, not the least of which is a solid feature directorial debut by Carlos Avila.
But despite offering considerable entertainment value for the buck with its three-"Rockys"- in-one dynamic, its fate in the boxoffice ring will ultimately be determined by New Line's ability to reach its targeted Latino demographic and generate crossover word-of-mouth.
Jimmy Smits, leaving his "NYPD Blue" days far behind him, is in fine form as hard-headed Arturo Ortega, a former boxer whose world-champion aspirations were abruptly cut short many years ago. Now married with three boys, he has become obsessed with turning his sons into contenders at any emotional cost.
Comprising the fighting Ortegas is Sonny (Jon Seda), the eldest; classic middle child Jimmy (Clifton Collins Jr.), the frustrated black sheep of the family; and baby Johnny (Ernesto Hernandez), the devoted apple of his father's eye.
Arturo's brand of tough love doesn't work well for approval-starved Jimmy, a scrapper of a fighter who feels he's always in the shadow of his golden-boy Big Brother. But Sonny will soon have his own issues with his dad, when he announces his plans to get married, insisting that boxing can't be the only part of his life.
Quietly standing by his father's side through all of the family tensions is Johnny, the most promising of the siblings, who assures Arturo that he'll be his avenging angel in the broken dreams department.
Of course, things have a way of not always working out as planned.
In a potentially tricky role, Smits admirably steers clear of what could have been a one-note, bullying performance. In spite of his dogged and somewhat selfish determination to see his sons succeed, there's a sense that he truly believes he's trying to give them a direction and a future that will be better than the menial job he has had to settle for in order to support his family.
All three sons, including promising newcomer Hernandez, aside from being completely believable as brothers, demonstrate an affecting sensitivity in their relationship with the elder Ortega and their mother (Maria Del Mar), who does her share of standing up to her stubborn husband even though she knows it's often a lost cause.
Good, too, are Ron Perlman as a slick, powerful promoter and comedian Paul Rodriguez in a sturdy dramatic turn as his pushy operative.
While the script, by former New York Times sportswriter Phil Berger, could have easily stood some trimming, it certainly allows Avila the opportunity to make a strong first impression as a director who can get the job done effectively and efficiently.
He gets some fine assistance from a pro technical team headed by cinematographer Affonso Beato ("All About My Mother"), who gives the modestly budgeted production a rich, deep focus and keeps the fight sequences involving without having to resort to showy visual cliches.
PRICE OF GLORY
New Line
An Esparza-Katz production in association with
Arthur E. Friedman Prods.
Producers:Moctesuma Esparza, Robert Katz and Arthur E. Friedman
Director:Carlos Avila
Screenwriter:Phil Berger
Executive producer:Loretha Jones
Executive producers:Carolyn Manetti, Stephanie Striegel
Director of photography:Affonso Beato
Production designer:Robb Wilson King
Editor:Gary Karr
Costume designer:Ruth Carter
Music supervisor:Margaret Guerra Rogers
Music:Joseph Julian Gonzalez
Casting:Rick Pagano
Color/stereo
Cast:
Arturo Ortega:Jimmy Smits
Sonny Ortega:Jon Seda
Jimmy Ortega:Clifton Collins Jr.
Johnny Ortega:Ernesto Hernandez
Rita Ortega:Maria Del Mar
Nick Everson:Ron Perlman
Pepe:Paul Rodriguez
Oscar:Carlos Palomino
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
While it sticks to a fairly safe and familiar formula, the picture, which closed the 15th Santa Barbara (Calif.) International Film Festival on Sunday, is elevated substantially by convincing casting and handsome production values, not the least of which is a solid feature directorial debut by Carlos Avila.
But despite offering considerable entertainment value for the buck with its three-"Rockys"- in-one dynamic, its fate in the boxoffice ring will ultimately be determined by New Line's ability to reach its targeted Latino demographic and generate crossover word-of-mouth.
Jimmy Smits, leaving his "NYPD Blue" days far behind him, is in fine form as hard-headed Arturo Ortega, a former boxer whose world-champion aspirations were abruptly cut short many years ago. Now married with three boys, he has become obsessed with turning his sons into contenders at any emotional cost.
Comprising the fighting Ortegas is Sonny (Jon Seda), the eldest; classic middle child Jimmy (Clifton Collins Jr.), the frustrated black sheep of the family; and baby Johnny (Ernesto Hernandez), the devoted apple of his father's eye.
Arturo's brand of tough love doesn't work well for approval-starved Jimmy, a scrapper of a fighter who feels he's always in the shadow of his golden-boy Big Brother. But Sonny will soon have his own issues with his dad, when he announces his plans to get married, insisting that boxing can't be the only part of his life.
Quietly standing by his father's side through all of the family tensions is Johnny, the most promising of the siblings, who assures Arturo that he'll be his avenging angel in the broken dreams department.
Of course, things have a way of not always working out as planned.
In a potentially tricky role, Smits admirably steers clear of what could have been a one-note, bullying performance. In spite of his dogged and somewhat selfish determination to see his sons succeed, there's a sense that he truly believes he's trying to give them a direction and a future that will be better than the menial job he has had to settle for in order to support his family.
All three sons, including promising newcomer Hernandez, aside from being completely believable as brothers, demonstrate an affecting sensitivity in their relationship with the elder Ortega and their mother (Maria Del Mar), who does her share of standing up to her stubborn husband even though she knows it's often a lost cause.
Good, too, are Ron Perlman as a slick, powerful promoter and comedian Paul Rodriguez in a sturdy dramatic turn as his pushy operative.
While the script, by former New York Times sportswriter Phil Berger, could have easily stood some trimming, it certainly allows Avila the opportunity to make a strong first impression as a director who can get the job done effectively and efficiently.
He gets some fine assistance from a pro technical team headed by cinematographer Affonso Beato ("All About My Mother"), who gives the modestly budgeted production a rich, deep focus and keeps the fight sequences involving without having to resort to showy visual cliches.
PRICE OF GLORY
New Line
An Esparza-Katz production in association with
Arthur E. Friedman Prods.
Producers:Moctesuma Esparza, Robert Katz and Arthur E. Friedman
Director:Carlos Avila
Screenwriter:Phil Berger
Executive producer:Loretha Jones
Executive producers:Carolyn Manetti, Stephanie Striegel
Director of photography:Affonso Beato
Production designer:Robb Wilson King
Editor:Gary Karr
Costume designer:Ruth Carter
Music supervisor:Margaret Guerra Rogers
Music:Joseph Julian Gonzalez
Casting:Rick Pagano
Color/stereo
Cast:
Arturo Ortega:Jimmy Smits
Sonny Ortega:Jon Seda
Jimmy Ortega:Clifton Collins Jr.
Johnny Ortega:Ernesto Hernandez
Rita Ortega:Maria Del Mar
Nick Everson:Ron Perlman
Pepe:Paul Rodriguez
Oscar:Carlos Palomino
Running time -- 118 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 3/13/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Playing a mother whose 3-year-old son vanishes and remains missing for nine years, portraying possibly the worst type of prolonged anguish inflicted on human beings, Michelle Pfeiffer dives into one of her best roles and pulls the viewer into the stormy waters of director Ulu Grosbard's involving adaptation of Jacquelyn Mitchard's darker 1996 novel.
While its boxoffice take will be ducky at best, a tsunami of tears will flow from the target audience of women and mature couples. "Deep End" should more than tread water internationally and has a successful voyage ahead in ancillary seas. Teenage girls may also show more than passing curiosity when word gets around about Emmy winner Jonathan Jackson's career-making performance as the eldest son who flounders in a dysfunctional riptide in the wake of family tragedy.
Destined to be remembered next awards season, Pfeiffer's performance is heartfelt and unmanipulative. Grosbard's unobtrusive yet carefully calibrated direction, accompanied by Elmer Bernstein's fluty orchestral score, showcases the actors and employs few of the standard tension-building techniques or storytelling shortcuts, though the black clouds hanging over the characters tend to block out most scenes of normal, relaxed interaction.
With her three children, photographer Beth (Pfeiffer) motors from Madison, Wis., to Chicago for her 15th high school reunion. In a jammed hotel lobby, middle child Ben Michael McElroy) disappears without a trace. Friends help Beth look for him, and a reassuring police detective (Whoopi Goldberg) shows up with a small army. But the hours tick off, and there's no news. Unable to maintain her composure, Beth bursts into hysterics. Husband Pat (Treat Williams), arriving in an agitated state, tries to take charge -- but still no Ben.
Oldest son Vincent (Cory Buck) and Pat are the unintended victims of Beth's severe depression that results from Ben's unknown fate. Beth almost brings the family down by neglecting her baby daughter, never getting out of bed and giving up her career.
The story takes a nine-year leap, with too-quickly matured Vincent (Jackson) evolved into a high schooler with a sullen, seen-it-all attitude, though the family appears to be back to normal.
One day a young boy named Sam (Ryan Merriman) mows the family's lawn, and Beth starts to believe in miracles. Goldberg's character swings into action again when it's proven that the boy is indeed Ben and a possible kidnap victim. At this point, the details of the disappearance and the plot in general flirt with the unbelievable, but the focus settles on Sam's dilemma -- should he go to his real family or remain with the adopted Father John Kapelos) who has loved and nurtured him most of his life.
At first, Vincent is a jerk because he's never known the love and attention lavished on Sam -- who moves back home and shows up his Big Brother in basketball for starters. But the bonding of the brothers is presented as the only hope to reconstructing a family long-ago torn asunder. The tough truth is Kapelos' character is such a decent bloke -- as shocked and devastated as the others by the turn of events -- that Sam's return is not necessarily permanent.
Keeping pace with Pfeiffer and Jackson, Merriman (HBO's "Lansky") is superb as the sad but precocious Sam. In one giddy scene, he leads a party group in the dance from "Zorba the Greek", but he also shines brightly in intensely emotional exchanges with his co-stars. Williams is solid as the father and husband caught in a nightmare that finally ends with a tidy, optimistic finale.
THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN
Columbia Pictures
Mandalay Entertainment presents
A Via Rosa production
Director: Ulu Grosbard
Screenwriter: Stephen Schiff
Based on the book by: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Producers: Kate Guinzberg, Steve Nicolaides
Executive producer: Frank Capra III
Director of photography: Stephen Goldblatt
Production designer: Dan Davis
Editor: John Bloom
Costume designer: Susie DeSanto
Music: Elmer Bernstein
Casting: Lora Kennedy
Color/stereo
Cast:
Beth: Michelle Pfeiffer
Pat: Treat Williams
Vincent: Jonathan Jackson
Sam/Ben: Ryan Merriman
Young Vincent: Cory Buck
George: John Kapelos
Candy: Whoopi Goldberg
Young Ben: Michael McElroy
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
While its boxoffice take will be ducky at best, a tsunami of tears will flow from the target audience of women and mature couples. "Deep End" should more than tread water internationally and has a successful voyage ahead in ancillary seas. Teenage girls may also show more than passing curiosity when word gets around about Emmy winner Jonathan Jackson's career-making performance as the eldest son who flounders in a dysfunctional riptide in the wake of family tragedy.
Destined to be remembered next awards season, Pfeiffer's performance is heartfelt and unmanipulative. Grosbard's unobtrusive yet carefully calibrated direction, accompanied by Elmer Bernstein's fluty orchestral score, showcases the actors and employs few of the standard tension-building techniques or storytelling shortcuts, though the black clouds hanging over the characters tend to block out most scenes of normal, relaxed interaction.
With her three children, photographer Beth (Pfeiffer) motors from Madison, Wis., to Chicago for her 15th high school reunion. In a jammed hotel lobby, middle child Ben Michael McElroy) disappears without a trace. Friends help Beth look for him, and a reassuring police detective (Whoopi Goldberg) shows up with a small army. But the hours tick off, and there's no news. Unable to maintain her composure, Beth bursts into hysterics. Husband Pat (Treat Williams), arriving in an agitated state, tries to take charge -- but still no Ben.
Oldest son Vincent (Cory Buck) and Pat are the unintended victims of Beth's severe depression that results from Ben's unknown fate. Beth almost brings the family down by neglecting her baby daughter, never getting out of bed and giving up her career.
The story takes a nine-year leap, with too-quickly matured Vincent (Jackson) evolved into a high schooler with a sullen, seen-it-all attitude, though the family appears to be back to normal.
One day a young boy named Sam (Ryan Merriman) mows the family's lawn, and Beth starts to believe in miracles. Goldberg's character swings into action again when it's proven that the boy is indeed Ben and a possible kidnap victim. At this point, the details of the disappearance and the plot in general flirt with the unbelievable, but the focus settles on Sam's dilemma -- should he go to his real family or remain with the adopted Father John Kapelos) who has loved and nurtured him most of his life.
At first, Vincent is a jerk because he's never known the love and attention lavished on Sam -- who moves back home and shows up his Big Brother in basketball for starters. But the bonding of the brothers is presented as the only hope to reconstructing a family long-ago torn asunder. The tough truth is Kapelos' character is such a decent bloke -- as shocked and devastated as the others by the turn of events -- that Sam's return is not necessarily permanent.
Keeping pace with Pfeiffer and Jackson, Merriman (HBO's "Lansky") is superb as the sad but precocious Sam. In one giddy scene, he leads a party group in the dance from "Zorba the Greek", but he also shines brightly in intensely emotional exchanges with his co-stars. Williams is solid as the father and husband caught in a nightmare that finally ends with a tidy, optimistic finale.
THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN
Columbia Pictures
Mandalay Entertainment presents
A Via Rosa production
Director: Ulu Grosbard
Screenwriter: Stephen Schiff
Based on the book by: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Producers: Kate Guinzberg, Steve Nicolaides
Executive producer: Frank Capra III
Director of photography: Stephen Goldblatt
Production designer: Dan Davis
Editor: John Bloom
Costume designer: Susie DeSanto
Music: Elmer Bernstein
Casting: Lora Kennedy
Color/stereo
Cast:
Beth: Michelle Pfeiffer
Pat: Treat Williams
Vincent: Jonathan Jackson
Sam/Ben: Ryan Merriman
Young Vincent: Cory Buck
George: John Kapelos
Candy: Whoopi Goldberg
Young Ben: Michael McElroy
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
In the invasive world presented by "Enemy of the State", Big Brother isn't just watching, he's monitoring every single twitch and blink of an eye.
A nimbly paced techno-thriller about a noble attorney who has unwittingly become the target of a corrupt intelligence agent, the picture is something of a conspiracy theory movie sampler platter -- serving up reheated morsels of "Three Days of the Condor", "The Net", "Conspiracy Theory" and, most notably, "The Conversation" -- without being particularly nourishing in its own right.
Still, while the involvement factor isn't all it could have been, the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production (Bruckheimer began developing the project with his late partner in 1991) comes across as a heck of a lot smarter than the summer's noisy "Armageddon" and "Con Air" before it. The resulting, comparatively old-fashioned approach to moviemaking will likely skew to older audiences, while the presence of Will Smith should ensure a strong showing from the younger contingent.
It won't reach the dizzying boxoffice heights of Smith's past two Fourth of July releases, but "Enemy of the State" will likely be a solid fourth-quarter performer for Buena Vista.
After keeping the world safe from nasty aliens in his past couple of heroic outings, Smith tries a more somber, everyman role as Robert Clayton Dean, an on-the-way-up lawyer whose promising career and happy home life are sabotaged when he unknowingly comes into possession of a piece of filmed evidence that would implicate National Security Agency official Thomas Brian Reynolds (Jon Voight) in the murder of a U.S. congressman.
Not knowing what he has -- or even where it is -- Dean nevertheless finds himself ruthlessly pursued in a high-tech game of cat and mouse, in which the cat has access to some pretty impressive satellite tracking devices.
Just when it appears Dean is running out of places to run, he hooks up with the mysterious Brill (Gene Hackman), a gruff, cloistered former intelligence operative who helps Dean reclaim his life.
While director Tony Scott choreographs all the pursuing with sleek, state-of-the-art efficiency, the picture's plotting is pure Pac-Man. The script, credited to original screenwriter David Marconi, takes a blandly linear approach to the genre, saving any real twists and turns until the crowd-rousing, table-turning ending.
And because the bad guys' methods of surveillance are revealed from the outset, the viewer is robbed of sharing in Smith's growing paranoia, which puts a serious dent in the identification factor.
Speaking of Smith, he makes an effective John Q. Public, but in going for something more serious, he sacrifices the kick-ass spirit that has made him such a hit with audiences. It isn't until the late arrival of Hackman, looking like he's doing a tribute to Karl Malden circa "The Streets of San Francisco", that Smith finally finds a lively sparring partner.
Elsewhere among the cast, Voight is in cool, heavy mode as the rogue NSA official; Regina King is good as Smith's strong, opinionated wife; and young actors Jake Busey (Gary's kid) and Scott Caan (James' kid) are among the thugs that make up Voight's elite killing team.
As expected, production values are top-notch and appreciably quieter than recent Bruckheimer efforts. Dan Mindel's camera work is crisp, clean and unfussy; editor Chris Lebenzon's cutting is sufficiently rapid without the feeling that a machete was involved in its execution.
Likewise the score by former Yes member Trevor Rabin, which underscores the pulse-pounding movement minus the eardrum-pounding overkill.
ENEMY OF THE STATE
Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures presents
a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production
in association with Scott Free Prods.
A film by Tony Scott
Director: Tony Scott
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Screenwriter: David Marconi
Executive producers: Chad Oman, James W. Skotchdopole, Andrew Z. Davis
Director of photography: Dan Mindel
Production designer: Benjamin Fernandez
Editor: Chris Lebenzon
Costume designer: Marlene Stewart
Music: Trevor Rabin, Harry Gregson-Williams
Casting: Victoria Thomas
Color/stereo
Cast:
Robert Clayton Dean: Will Smith
Brill: Gene Hackman
Thomas Brian Reynolds: Jon Voight
Carla Dean: Regina King
Agent Hicks: Loren Dean
Drug: Jake Busey
Agent David Pratt: Barry Pepper
Daniel Zavitz: Jason Lee
"Brill": Gabriel Byrne
Rachel Banks: Lisa Bonet
Running time --127 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
A nimbly paced techno-thriller about a noble attorney who has unwittingly become the target of a corrupt intelligence agent, the picture is something of a conspiracy theory movie sampler platter -- serving up reheated morsels of "Three Days of the Condor", "The Net", "Conspiracy Theory" and, most notably, "The Conversation" -- without being particularly nourishing in its own right.
Still, while the involvement factor isn't all it could have been, the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production (Bruckheimer began developing the project with his late partner in 1991) comes across as a heck of a lot smarter than the summer's noisy "Armageddon" and "Con Air" before it. The resulting, comparatively old-fashioned approach to moviemaking will likely skew to older audiences, while the presence of Will Smith should ensure a strong showing from the younger contingent.
It won't reach the dizzying boxoffice heights of Smith's past two Fourth of July releases, but "Enemy of the State" will likely be a solid fourth-quarter performer for Buena Vista.
After keeping the world safe from nasty aliens in his past couple of heroic outings, Smith tries a more somber, everyman role as Robert Clayton Dean, an on-the-way-up lawyer whose promising career and happy home life are sabotaged when he unknowingly comes into possession of a piece of filmed evidence that would implicate National Security Agency official Thomas Brian Reynolds (Jon Voight) in the murder of a U.S. congressman.
Not knowing what he has -- or even where it is -- Dean nevertheless finds himself ruthlessly pursued in a high-tech game of cat and mouse, in which the cat has access to some pretty impressive satellite tracking devices.
Just when it appears Dean is running out of places to run, he hooks up with the mysterious Brill (Gene Hackman), a gruff, cloistered former intelligence operative who helps Dean reclaim his life.
While director Tony Scott choreographs all the pursuing with sleek, state-of-the-art efficiency, the picture's plotting is pure Pac-Man. The script, credited to original screenwriter David Marconi, takes a blandly linear approach to the genre, saving any real twists and turns until the crowd-rousing, table-turning ending.
And because the bad guys' methods of surveillance are revealed from the outset, the viewer is robbed of sharing in Smith's growing paranoia, which puts a serious dent in the identification factor.
Speaking of Smith, he makes an effective John Q. Public, but in going for something more serious, he sacrifices the kick-ass spirit that has made him such a hit with audiences. It isn't until the late arrival of Hackman, looking like he's doing a tribute to Karl Malden circa "The Streets of San Francisco", that Smith finally finds a lively sparring partner.
Elsewhere among the cast, Voight is in cool, heavy mode as the rogue NSA official; Regina King is good as Smith's strong, opinionated wife; and young actors Jake Busey (Gary's kid) and Scott Caan (James' kid) are among the thugs that make up Voight's elite killing team.
As expected, production values are top-notch and appreciably quieter than recent Bruckheimer efforts. Dan Mindel's camera work is crisp, clean and unfussy; editor Chris Lebenzon's cutting is sufficiently rapid without the feeling that a machete was involved in its execution.
Likewise the score by former Yes member Trevor Rabin, which underscores the pulse-pounding movement minus the eardrum-pounding overkill.
ENEMY OF THE STATE
Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures presents
a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production
in association with Scott Free Prods.
A film by Tony Scott
Director: Tony Scott
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Screenwriter: David Marconi
Executive producers: Chad Oman, James W. Skotchdopole, Andrew Z. Davis
Director of photography: Dan Mindel
Production designer: Benjamin Fernandez
Editor: Chris Lebenzon
Costume designer: Marlene Stewart
Music: Trevor Rabin, Harry Gregson-Williams
Casting: Victoria Thomas
Color/stereo
Cast:
Robert Clayton Dean: Will Smith
Brill: Gene Hackman
Thomas Brian Reynolds: Jon Voight
Carla Dean: Regina King
Agent Hicks: Loren Dean
Drug: Jake Busey
Agent David Pratt: Barry Pepper
Daniel Zavitz: Jason Lee
"Brill": Gabriel Byrne
Rachel Banks: Lisa Bonet
Running time --127 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 11/16/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially if she's a Beverly Hills real estate agent. An erotic thriller in the stiletto and blonde tradition, "Goodbye Lover" is a lavishly mounted but relentlessly cynical film that will likely titillate select-site interest based on its genre. Starring Patricia Arquette, Don Johnson, Dermot Mulroney and Mary-Louise Parker, "Goodbye" seems destined for a quick au revoir at the boxoffice. Still, the Warner Bros. release will likely garner respectable returns as a video rental, a Saturday night special for those seeking adult fare.
Packed with bile and a general anti-establishment tint, the Roland Joffe-directed film is a scathing look at institutions -- religion, politics, marriage. Centering on a self-made blonde, Sandra (Arquette), who relies on self-help tapes to channel her energies, "Goodbye" is spiked with nasty entanglements and murderous deeds. In this California-set social takedown, Sandra is married to a down-spiraling boozer, Jake (Mulroney), whose salty attitude is coarsened by constant boozing, not always a positive at the high-powered public relations firm at which he toils. He's an especial burden to his Big Brother, Ben (Johnson), whose slick manner and temperate demeanor have made him a publicity kingpin. But older brother, we find, is not all virtue; he's having an affair with Sandra, not to mention his doting secretary, Peggy Parker). It's a messy melange, oiled by each character's greed and loathing.
A triumvirate of screenwriters (Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, Alec Daniel) heaved together a complex if unsatisfying scenario. "Goodbye" is stocked with intelligent, anti-establishment broadsides, but the convoluted plot dilutes our interest. The film's biggest drawbacks are the gratingly nasty temperament of all its characters -- there is no one to root for -- and the fact that it has no thematic center. Further diminishing its power is the overly broad flagellation of easy-mark institutions: Mormonism, Julie Andrews, etc., are the big, easy targets of the film's scatter-gun salvos.
The cast is well-chosen. Don Johnson is terrific as a p.r. huckster, oozing false charm, while Mulroney is convincing as a self-destructive lout. Unfortunately, Arquette is more shrill than sexy as the bad blonde, but Parker is credible as a not-so-innocent secretary. Ellen DeGeneres as a salty homicide cop is strong and convincingly jaded.
It is a handsomely mounted work, with stirring production values. While Joffe has unfortunately not kindled much interest in the narrative, he and his technical team have crafted a superb-looking film. Special praise to production designer Stewart Starkin for the rich, chilly design and to cinematographer Dante Spinotti for lusciously evil lensing. Composer John Ottman's score is drenched with sinister, ripe sounds, perfect for the genre.
Goodbye Lover
Warner Bros.
Regency Enterprises Presents
an Arnon Milchan/Gotham Entertainment Group
/Lightmotive Production
A Roland Joffe Film
CREDITS:
Producers:Alexandra Milchan, Patrick McDarrah, Joel Roodman, Chris Daniel
Director:Roland Joffe
Screenwriters:Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, Alec Daniel
Story:Alec Daniel
Executive producers:Arnon Milchan, Michael Nathanson
Director of photography:Dante Spinotti
Production designer:Stewart Starkin
Editor:Gerald T. Olson
Music:John Ottman
CAST:
Sandra Dunmore:Patricia Arquette
Jake Dunmore:Dermot Mulroney
Peggy Blane:Mary-Louise Parker
Rita Pompano:Ellen DeGeneres
Rollins:Ray McKinnon
Detective Crowley:Alex Rocco
Ben Dunmore:Don Johnson
Reverend Finlayson:Andre Gregory
Bradley:John Neville
¥Running time -- 102 minutes...
Packed with bile and a general anti-establishment tint, the Roland Joffe-directed film is a scathing look at institutions -- religion, politics, marriage. Centering on a self-made blonde, Sandra (Arquette), who relies on self-help tapes to channel her energies, "Goodbye" is spiked with nasty entanglements and murderous deeds. In this California-set social takedown, Sandra is married to a down-spiraling boozer, Jake (Mulroney), whose salty attitude is coarsened by constant boozing, not always a positive at the high-powered public relations firm at which he toils. He's an especial burden to his Big Brother, Ben (Johnson), whose slick manner and temperate demeanor have made him a publicity kingpin. But older brother, we find, is not all virtue; he's having an affair with Sandra, not to mention his doting secretary, Peggy Parker). It's a messy melange, oiled by each character's greed and loathing.
A triumvirate of screenwriters (Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, Alec Daniel) heaved together a complex if unsatisfying scenario. "Goodbye" is stocked with intelligent, anti-establishment broadsides, but the convoluted plot dilutes our interest. The film's biggest drawbacks are the gratingly nasty temperament of all its characters -- there is no one to root for -- and the fact that it has no thematic center. Further diminishing its power is the overly broad flagellation of easy-mark institutions: Mormonism, Julie Andrews, etc., are the big, easy targets of the film's scatter-gun salvos.
The cast is well-chosen. Don Johnson is terrific as a p.r. huckster, oozing false charm, while Mulroney is convincing as a self-destructive lout. Unfortunately, Arquette is more shrill than sexy as the bad blonde, but Parker is credible as a not-so-innocent secretary. Ellen DeGeneres as a salty homicide cop is strong and convincingly jaded.
It is a handsomely mounted work, with stirring production values. While Joffe has unfortunately not kindled much interest in the narrative, he and his technical team have crafted a superb-looking film. Special praise to production designer Stewart Starkin for the rich, chilly design and to cinematographer Dante Spinotti for lusciously evil lensing. Composer John Ottman's score is drenched with sinister, ripe sounds, perfect for the genre.
Goodbye Lover
Warner Bros.
Regency Enterprises Presents
an Arnon Milchan/Gotham Entertainment Group
/Lightmotive Production
A Roland Joffe Film
CREDITS:
Producers:Alexandra Milchan, Patrick McDarrah, Joel Roodman, Chris Daniel
Director:Roland Joffe
Screenwriters:Ron Peer, Joel Cohen, Alec Daniel
Story:Alec Daniel
Executive producers:Arnon Milchan, Michael Nathanson
Director of photography:Dante Spinotti
Production designer:Stewart Starkin
Editor:Gerald T. Olson
Music:John Ottman
CAST:
Sandra Dunmore:Patricia Arquette
Jake Dunmore:Dermot Mulroney
Peggy Blane:Mary-Louise Parker
Rita Pompano:Ellen DeGeneres
Rollins:Ray McKinnon
Detective Crowley:Alex Rocco
Ben Dunmore:Don Johnson
Reverend Finlayson:Andre Gregory
Bradley:John Neville
¥Running time -- 102 minutes...
- 5/19/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A fairly raw, dark comedy, "Gravesend" is the kind of a cocky, seat-of-the-pants enterprise that makes up in sheer moxie what it may lack in originality.
Writer-director Salvatore Stabile, who's already being hailed as a baby Scorsese or a teen Tarantino -- he was 19 when he began this shoestring shoot -- makes little effort to disguise those influences (plus a little Cassavetes thrown in for good measure), but there's unmistakably a unique voice somewhere in the mix.
As a first-time director, meanwhile, Stabile's impressive blend of 16mm and Hi-8 on a $5,000 budget has not only attracted the attention of Oliver Stone (who's presenting the picture) and Steven Spielberg (who has rewarded him with a two-picture DreamWorks SKG deal) but should serve as renewed inspiration for would-be independent filmmakers everywhere.
Kind of a mini-"Mean Streets", "Gravesend" tells the story of four more-or-less delinquent Brooklyn buddies, namely Zane (Tony Tucci), Ray (Michael Parducci), Chicken (Tom Malloy) and Mikey (Thomas Brandise), whose go-nowhere lives abruptly begin to spin out of control when they find themselves with a fresh body on their hands.
After hothead Zane fatally shoots Ray's Big Brother, the close-knit group decides to avoid the hassle of calling the cops and dispose of the body themselves with a little help from Zane's associate JoJo the Junkie (Macky Aquilino).
JoJo would be happy to oblige by burying the body in his brother's cemetery, provided the boys come up with "$500 and one thumb." Scraping together the cash part of the deal proves to be a challenge that will take up the rest of the picture and result in adding a couple of more bodies along the way.
Narrated by an unseen fifth buddy (the filmmaker himself), the vehicle is full of the kind of in-your-face dialogue and gesturing that is the hallmark of Stabile's predecessors, but he does have something original to say about the kinds of things that keep friends together, even when they essentially dislike each other. And, at least until the overly sober ending, he also demonstrates an acute wit that goes a long way in fleshing out potentially stock characters.
He's helped considerably in that end by an extremely capable cast led off by Tucci (both physically and emotionally the DeNiro of the bunch) as the resident Loose Cannon, while Parducci, Malloy and Brandise, as the sensitive Mikey, all have their moments. Best of all is Aquilino as the shrugging JoJo. A retired city contractor, Aquilino is a natural, and Stabile would be wise to find a role for him in his future films.
GRAVESEND
Manga Entertainment
Island Digital Media
Oliver Stone presents a film by Salvatore Stabile
Director-screenwriter Salvatore Stabile
Executive producers Toni Ross,
Mark Ross & Daniel Edelman
Producer Salvatore Stabile
Director of photography Joseph Dell'Olio
Editors Miranda Devin & Salvatore Stabile
Music Bill Laswell
Color/stereo
Cast:
Zane Tony Tucci
Ray Michael Parducci
Chicken Tom Malloy
Mikey Thomas Brandise
JoJo the Junkie Macky Aquilino
Running time -- 85 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Writer-director Salvatore Stabile, who's already being hailed as a baby Scorsese or a teen Tarantino -- he was 19 when he began this shoestring shoot -- makes little effort to disguise those influences (plus a little Cassavetes thrown in for good measure), but there's unmistakably a unique voice somewhere in the mix.
As a first-time director, meanwhile, Stabile's impressive blend of 16mm and Hi-8 on a $5,000 budget has not only attracted the attention of Oliver Stone (who's presenting the picture) and Steven Spielberg (who has rewarded him with a two-picture DreamWorks SKG deal) but should serve as renewed inspiration for would-be independent filmmakers everywhere.
Kind of a mini-"Mean Streets", "Gravesend" tells the story of four more-or-less delinquent Brooklyn buddies, namely Zane (Tony Tucci), Ray (Michael Parducci), Chicken (Tom Malloy) and Mikey (Thomas Brandise), whose go-nowhere lives abruptly begin to spin out of control when they find themselves with a fresh body on their hands.
After hothead Zane fatally shoots Ray's Big Brother, the close-knit group decides to avoid the hassle of calling the cops and dispose of the body themselves with a little help from Zane's associate JoJo the Junkie (Macky Aquilino).
JoJo would be happy to oblige by burying the body in his brother's cemetery, provided the boys come up with "$500 and one thumb." Scraping together the cash part of the deal proves to be a challenge that will take up the rest of the picture and result in adding a couple of more bodies along the way.
Narrated by an unseen fifth buddy (the filmmaker himself), the vehicle is full of the kind of in-your-face dialogue and gesturing that is the hallmark of Stabile's predecessors, but he does have something original to say about the kinds of things that keep friends together, even when they essentially dislike each other. And, at least until the overly sober ending, he also demonstrates an acute wit that goes a long way in fleshing out potentially stock characters.
He's helped considerably in that end by an extremely capable cast led off by Tucci (both physically and emotionally the DeNiro of the bunch) as the resident Loose Cannon, while Parducci, Malloy and Brandise, as the sensitive Mikey, all have their moments. Best of all is Aquilino as the shrugging JoJo. A retired city contractor, Aquilino is a natural, and Stabile would be wise to find a role for him in his future films.
GRAVESEND
Manga Entertainment
Island Digital Media
Oliver Stone presents a film by Salvatore Stabile
Director-screenwriter Salvatore Stabile
Executive producers Toni Ross,
Mark Ross & Daniel Edelman
Producer Salvatore Stabile
Director of photography Joseph Dell'Olio
Editors Miranda Devin & Salvatore Stabile
Music Bill Laswell
Color/stereo
Cast:
Zane Tony Tucci
Ray Michael Parducci
Chicken Tom Malloy
Mikey Thomas Brandise
JoJo the Junkie Macky Aquilino
Running time -- 85 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/16/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Martin Short faces more problems than he can shake his wand at as Murray the Fairy Godmother in "A Simple Wish".
A serviceable family fantasy, this Bubble Factory presentation throws in enough whimsical touches to make up for uninspired plotting, but it's unlikely that its boxoffice wishes will be granted given other higher-profile options. Long-term prospects, however, look brighter once the picture visits the land of video.
When young New Yorker Anabel Greening (Mara Wilson) wishes that her widowed actor father (Robert Pastorelli) nab the lead role in a Broadway musical so the family won't have to pack up and move to Nebraska, she learns a valuable lesson in being careful about what one wishes for.
With an annual meeting of the North American Fairy Godmothers Assn. in progress, Anabel has to settle for the less-than-guaranteed services of Murray, not one of the most glowing examples of the powers of affirmative action.
Among his well-intentioned misfires, Murray turns Anabel's dad into a Central Park statue, whisks the two of them off into the middle of nowhere and turns a belligerent hillbilly into a giant rabbi instead of the much tinier rabbit he had in mind.
Meanwhile, the evil Claudia (Kathleen Turner), an excommunicated fairy godmother, crashes the meeting and makes off with a trunkful of magic wands in her pursuit of world domination. She's accompanied by her faithful minion Boots (a delightful Amanda Plummer), who's just a flea removed from her previous canine existence.
For the most part, the acting ensemble does sturdy work. Wilson once again conveys her role with a refreshingly unmannered honesty and sweetness, while Short, when not giving into a weakness for mugging, has his moments as the blundering Murray. Turner's Claudia, meanwhile, could have benefited from something a little more over the top instead of what is essentially a toss-away performance.
The rest of the cast, including Pastorelli, Francis Capra as Wilson's pesky Big Brother, Ruby Dee as the doyenne of fairy godmothers and Teri Garr as their prim receptionist, do fine work.
Director Michael Ritchie is no stranger to the family genre, having hit a home run with "The Bad News Bears". Here, he demonstrates a light, engaging touch, particularly with an Andrew Lloyd Webber parody of a musical version of "A Tale of Two Cities", but he's limited by Jeff Rothberg's fairly static script, which fails to capitalize on the possibilities posed by a building full of fairy godmothers, among other promising set-ups.
Technically, what the special effects may lack in scope they make up for in imagination and some colorful 3-D computer animation, overseen by visual effects producer Tim Healey.
A SIMPLE WISH
Universal Pictures
Director Michael Ritchie
Screenwriter Jeff Rothberg
Producers Sid, Bill and Jon Sheinberg
Director of photography Ralf Bode
Production designer Stephen Hendrickson
Editor William Scharf
Costume designer Luke Reichle
Music Bruce Broughton
Casting Rick Pagano
Color/stereo
Cast:
Murray Martin Short
Claudia Kathleen Turner
Anabel Mara Wilson
Oliver Robert Pastorelli
Boots Amanda Plummer
Charlie Francis Capra
Hortense Ruby Dee
Rena Teri Garr
Running time -- 89 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
A serviceable family fantasy, this Bubble Factory presentation throws in enough whimsical touches to make up for uninspired plotting, but it's unlikely that its boxoffice wishes will be granted given other higher-profile options. Long-term prospects, however, look brighter once the picture visits the land of video.
When young New Yorker Anabel Greening (Mara Wilson) wishes that her widowed actor father (Robert Pastorelli) nab the lead role in a Broadway musical so the family won't have to pack up and move to Nebraska, she learns a valuable lesson in being careful about what one wishes for.
With an annual meeting of the North American Fairy Godmothers Assn. in progress, Anabel has to settle for the less-than-guaranteed services of Murray, not one of the most glowing examples of the powers of affirmative action.
Among his well-intentioned misfires, Murray turns Anabel's dad into a Central Park statue, whisks the two of them off into the middle of nowhere and turns a belligerent hillbilly into a giant rabbi instead of the much tinier rabbit he had in mind.
Meanwhile, the evil Claudia (Kathleen Turner), an excommunicated fairy godmother, crashes the meeting and makes off with a trunkful of magic wands in her pursuit of world domination. She's accompanied by her faithful minion Boots (a delightful Amanda Plummer), who's just a flea removed from her previous canine existence.
For the most part, the acting ensemble does sturdy work. Wilson once again conveys her role with a refreshingly unmannered honesty and sweetness, while Short, when not giving into a weakness for mugging, has his moments as the blundering Murray. Turner's Claudia, meanwhile, could have benefited from something a little more over the top instead of what is essentially a toss-away performance.
The rest of the cast, including Pastorelli, Francis Capra as Wilson's pesky Big Brother, Ruby Dee as the doyenne of fairy godmothers and Teri Garr as their prim receptionist, do fine work.
Director Michael Ritchie is no stranger to the family genre, having hit a home run with "The Bad News Bears". Here, he demonstrates a light, engaging touch, particularly with an Andrew Lloyd Webber parody of a musical version of "A Tale of Two Cities", but he's limited by Jeff Rothberg's fairly static script, which fails to capitalize on the possibilities posed by a building full of fairy godmothers, among other promising set-ups.
Technically, what the special effects may lack in scope they make up for in imagination and some colorful 3-D computer animation, overseen by visual effects producer Tim Healey.
A SIMPLE WISH
Universal Pictures
Director Michael Ritchie
Screenwriter Jeff Rothberg
Producers Sid, Bill and Jon Sheinberg
Director of photography Ralf Bode
Production designer Stephen Hendrickson
Editor William Scharf
Costume designer Luke Reichle
Music Bruce Broughton
Casting Rick Pagano
Color/stereo
Cast:
Murray Martin Short
Claudia Kathleen Turner
Anabel Mara Wilson
Oliver Robert Pastorelli
Boots Amanda Plummer
Charlie Francis Capra
Hortense Ruby Dee
Rena Teri Garr
Running time -- 89 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
In his third big-screen assignment, former "Saturday Night Live"-wire Chris Farley plays "an embarrassment to ninjas everywhere" in the self-explanatory "Beverly Hills Ninja".
Little more than an excuse to trot out that old disco standard, "Kung Fu Fighting" (over and over again), the picture offers the usual barrage of Farley run-ins with inanimate objects.
Although Farley's films are pretty much critic-proof, even die-hard fans are going to be hard-pressed to turn this tedious, one-note outing into a theatrical hit, but it will likely kick up some business on video turf.
Sporting a new Moe Howard haircut for the occasion, Farley plays the hapless Haru, the black-sheep adopted member of his dojo who clings to the belief that he could in fact be the legendary Great White Ninja, although there's little evidence to back up the claim.
When a beautiful but mysterious American woman (Nicollette Sheridan) enlists Haru's help in keeping tabs on her shady-dealing husband, he takes up her cause, following her all the way to the "Hills of Beverly" under the protective shadow of his more adept Big Brother, Gobei (Robin Shou).
The change of backdrop offers Farley the opportunity to add swinging from palm trees to his highly physical regimen, but in the absence of usual sidekick David Spade, whose sardonic presence used to temper the buffoonery, and with only a pitch line of a script (credited to Mark Feldberg & Mitch Klebanoff), Farley simply runs wild. He and director Dennis Dugan ("Happy Gilmore") could take a lesson from Jackie Chan in the fine art of physical comedy.
Attempting to get their lines in between all the head-smacking, Sheridan and Chris Rock, who's wasted in the role of a ninja wannabe bellboy, are simply wasting their time here.
Tech support is nothing special, while music supervision shows little imagination (aside from a Patti Rothberg rendition of "Kung Fu Fighting") with overplayed tracks from the likes of War, ZZ Top and Right Said Fred.
BEVERLY HILLS NINJA
TriStar
A Motion Picture Corp. of America
production
in association with Brad Krevoy & Steve Stabler
Director Dennis Dugan
Producers Brad Krevoy, Steve Stabler,
Brad Jenkel
Screenwriters Mark Feldberg,
Mitch Klebanoff
Executive producers Jeffrey D. Ivers,
John Bertolli, Michael Rotenberg
Director of photography Arthur Albert
Production designer Ninkey Dalton
Editor Jeff Gourson
Costume designer Mary Claire Hannan
Music George S. Clinton
Casting Gary M. Zuckerbrod
Color/stereo
Cast:
Haru Chris Farley
Alison Nicollette Sheridan
Tanley Nathaniel Parker
Sensei Soon-Tek Oh
Joey Chris Rock
Gobei Robin Shou
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Little more than an excuse to trot out that old disco standard, "Kung Fu Fighting" (over and over again), the picture offers the usual barrage of Farley run-ins with inanimate objects.
Although Farley's films are pretty much critic-proof, even die-hard fans are going to be hard-pressed to turn this tedious, one-note outing into a theatrical hit, but it will likely kick up some business on video turf.
Sporting a new Moe Howard haircut for the occasion, Farley plays the hapless Haru, the black-sheep adopted member of his dojo who clings to the belief that he could in fact be the legendary Great White Ninja, although there's little evidence to back up the claim.
When a beautiful but mysterious American woman (Nicollette Sheridan) enlists Haru's help in keeping tabs on her shady-dealing husband, he takes up her cause, following her all the way to the "Hills of Beverly" under the protective shadow of his more adept Big Brother, Gobei (Robin Shou).
The change of backdrop offers Farley the opportunity to add swinging from palm trees to his highly physical regimen, but in the absence of usual sidekick David Spade, whose sardonic presence used to temper the buffoonery, and with only a pitch line of a script (credited to Mark Feldberg & Mitch Klebanoff), Farley simply runs wild. He and director Dennis Dugan ("Happy Gilmore") could take a lesson from Jackie Chan in the fine art of physical comedy.
Attempting to get their lines in between all the head-smacking, Sheridan and Chris Rock, who's wasted in the role of a ninja wannabe bellboy, are simply wasting their time here.
Tech support is nothing special, while music supervision shows little imagination (aside from a Patti Rothberg rendition of "Kung Fu Fighting") with overplayed tracks from the likes of War, ZZ Top and Right Said Fred.
BEVERLY HILLS NINJA
TriStar
A Motion Picture Corp. of America
production
in association with Brad Krevoy & Steve Stabler
Director Dennis Dugan
Producers Brad Krevoy, Steve Stabler,
Brad Jenkel
Screenwriters Mark Feldberg,
Mitch Klebanoff
Executive producers Jeffrey D. Ivers,
John Bertolli, Michael Rotenberg
Director of photography Arthur Albert
Production designer Ninkey Dalton
Editor Jeff Gourson
Costume designer Mary Claire Hannan
Music George S. Clinton
Casting Gary M. Zuckerbrod
Color/stereo
Cast:
Haru Chris Farley
Alison Nicollette Sheridan
Tanley Nathaniel Parker
Sensei Soon-Tek Oh
Joey Chris Rock
Gobei Robin Shou
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 1/20/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
KUFFS
Universal
Hand ''Kuffs'' some due -- it's got more than attitude. Namely, it's got the right attitude for the usually dreary January release season. It's a loosey-goosey, have-fun lark that should notch nifty bucks for Universal among the teen and twenties crowd.
Starring Christian Slater as a half-cocked screwup about to confront the adult world, ''Kuffs'' is a you-can't-be-serious slant on plunging into the big and bad adult world.
Goosed with an ''Alfie''-like stance, as Slater talks to the camera a la Michael Caine, ''Kuffs'' is likely to pull its intended audience into its mindset, namely the common problem chief character George Kuffs (Slater) confronts -- growing up, avoiding the 9-to-5 rut.
Kuffs never wants to grow up, but gets a jolting wake-up when his brother is gunned down by a ring of thugs intent on land-grabbing in his district: George inherits the district and sets out to avenge Big Brother's death by taking on the ring of thugs.
Plugged with bits of ''Bullitt, '' and just about every big-city shoot-and-chase movie that its juvie audience is likely to have never seen (excepting good old ''Turner & Hooch''), ''Kuffs'' scoots along on fully leaded, high-emission plot fuel and, to screenwriters Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon's considerable credit, never wipes out (HR 1/10). -- Duane Byrge
ENCHANTED APRIL
Miramax
Viewers needing a ''rest cure'' from the year-end onslaught of big or important films will find pleasing respite in ''Enchanted April.''
A chronicle of a sojourn by four English women to sunny Italy in 1922, this Miramax release is a spry and spirited tale of liberation. ''Enchanted April'' will blossom on the art-house circuit, perhaps reaching the level of ''A Room With a View.''
Other than the unrelenting English drizzle and the coldness of their respective lives, the four featured female characters in this adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1920s novel of the same title have little in
Other than the unrelenting English drizzle and the coldness of their respective lives, the four featured female characters in this adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1920s novel of the same title have little incommon other than the fact that each deeply needs a brief time away from it all.
Lottie (Josie Lawrence) is kitchen-tied to a social-climbing husband (Alfred Molina) who regards her as his chattel.
Rose (Miranda Richardson) feels chronically ''disappointed, '' a condition not improved by the condescension of her wayward husband (Jim Broadbent).
Lady Caroline (Polly Walker) -- well, she has man problems too, but of a different nature: They swarm to her and she needs an escape from their grasp.
And Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), who is in her dotage, feels alive only when she is namedropping about her dead friends.
Brought together by their common circumstance, misery, the four rent a ''castle'' in Italy, splitting the cost and, initially, driving each other crazy.
A wonderfully prickly story, ''Enchanted April'' is the kind of film that makes you feel the nerve ends of its characters.
Alternately focusing on each character, Peter Baines' screenplay is delicately robust, conveying through tiny particulars of character the depth of each woman's problem and, similarly, unveiling each's capacity for rejuvenation (HR 1/10). -- Duane Byrge
COLD HEAVEN
Hemdale
While the title makes it sound like something out of the Bergman wing of the Swedish Film Institute, ''Cold Heaven'' is narratively more akin to Roger Corman doing Bergman, as if funded by donations from the Catholic Church's bingo proceeds.
This latest Nicolas Roeg-Theresa Russell opus will bring forth few temporal rewards for Hemdale, neither the fruits of boxoffice nor the transitory sustenance of critical acclaim.
In ''Cold Heaven, '' a doctor's wife, symbolically named Marie (Russell), has a tawdry affair with another doctor (James Russo). This troubles her greatly -- not her behavior but the fact that she's going to have to tell hubby (Mark Harmon) all about it on an upcoming trip to Acapulco and, thus, get rid of him. But before she's able to dump her beans, he's killed before her eyes in a gruesome boating accident. Dead as they come in a Mexican morgue, this doctor, nevertheless, rises from the dead and calleth her from the banks of Carmel.
While strange things have been known to go on in the off season at resorts, suffice it to say ''Cold Heaven'' is no mere Lazarus fable. Director Roeg has whipped up under the turbulent, Pebble Beach skies a moralscape that crashes with all the force and fury of fire-and-brimstone writing when combined with the glossy embellishment of picture postcard photography (HR 1/11). -- Duane Byrge
Other reviews
Also reviewed last week were the films ''Shakes the Clown'' (HR 1/9); ''Born to Ski'' (1/8); ''The End of Old Times'' (1/10) and ''By the Sword'' (1/13).
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Universal
Hand ''Kuffs'' some due -- it's got more than attitude. Namely, it's got the right attitude for the usually dreary January release season. It's a loosey-goosey, have-fun lark that should notch nifty bucks for Universal among the teen and twenties crowd.
Starring Christian Slater as a half-cocked screwup about to confront the adult world, ''Kuffs'' is a you-can't-be-serious slant on plunging into the big and bad adult world.
Goosed with an ''Alfie''-like stance, as Slater talks to the camera a la Michael Caine, ''Kuffs'' is likely to pull its intended audience into its mindset, namely the common problem chief character George Kuffs (Slater) confronts -- growing up, avoiding the 9-to-5 rut.
Kuffs never wants to grow up, but gets a jolting wake-up when his brother is gunned down by a ring of thugs intent on land-grabbing in his district: George inherits the district and sets out to avenge Big Brother's death by taking on the ring of thugs.
Plugged with bits of ''Bullitt, '' and just about every big-city shoot-and-chase movie that its juvie audience is likely to have never seen (excepting good old ''Turner & Hooch''), ''Kuffs'' scoots along on fully leaded, high-emission plot fuel and, to screenwriters Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon's considerable credit, never wipes out (HR 1/10). -- Duane Byrge
ENCHANTED APRIL
Miramax
Viewers needing a ''rest cure'' from the year-end onslaught of big or important films will find pleasing respite in ''Enchanted April.''
A chronicle of a sojourn by four English women to sunny Italy in 1922, this Miramax release is a spry and spirited tale of liberation. ''Enchanted April'' will blossom on the art-house circuit, perhaps reaching the level of ''A Room With a View.''
Other than the unrelenting English drizzle and the coldness of their respective lives, the four featured female characters in this adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1920s novel of the same title have little in
Other than the unrelenting English drizzle and the coldness of their respective lives, the four featured female characters in this adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim's 1920s novel of the same title have little incommon other than the fact that each deeply needs a brief time away from it all.
Lottie (Josie Lawrence) is kitchen-tied to a social-climbing husband (Alfred Molina) who regards her as his chattel.
Rose (Miranda Richardson) feels chronically ''disappointed, '' a condition not improved by the condescension of her wayward husband (Jim Broadbent).
Lady Caroline (Polly Walker) -- well, she has man problems too, but of a different nature: They swarm to her and she needs an escape from their grasp.
And Mrs. Fisher (Joan Plowright), who is in her dotage, feels alive only when she is namedropping about her dead friends.
Brought together by their common circumstance, misery, the four rent a ''castle'' in Italy, splitting the cost and, initially, driving each other crazy.
A wonderfully prickly story, ''Enchanted April'' is the kind of film that makes you feel the nerve ends of its characters.
Alternately focusing on each character, Peter Baines' screenplay is delicately robust, conveying through tiny particulars of character the depth of each woman's problem and, similarly, unveiling each's capacity for rejuvenation (HR 1/10). -- Duane Byrge
COLD HEAVEN
Hemdale
While the title makes it sound like something out of the Bergman wing of the Swedish Film Institute, ''Cold Heaven'' is narratively more akin to Roger Corman doing Bergman, as if funded by donations from the Catholic Church's bingo proceeds.
This latest Nicolas Roeg-Theresa Russell opus will bring forth few temporal rewards for Hemdale, neither the fruits of boxoffice nor the transitory sustenance of critical acclaim.
In ''Cold Heaven, '' a doctor's wife, symbolically named Marie (Russell), has a tawdry affair with another doctor (James Russo). This troubles her greatly -- not her behavior but the fact that she's going to have to tell hubby (Mark Harmon) all about it on an upcoming trip to Acapulco and, thus, get rid of him. But before she's able to dump her beans, he's killed before her eyes in a gruesome boating accident. Dead as they come in a Mexican morgue, this doctor, nevertheless, rises from the dead and calleth her from the banks of Carmel.
While strange things have been known to go on in the off season at resorts, suffice it to say ''Cold Heaven'' is no mere Lazarus fable. Director Roeg has whipped up under the turbulent, Pebble Beach skies a moralscape that crashes with all the force and fury of fire-and-brimstone writing when combined with the glossy embellishment of picture postcard photography (HR 1/11). -- Duane Byrge
Other reviews
Also reviewed last week were the films ''Shakes the Clown'' (HR 1/9); ''Born to Ski'' (1/8); ''The End of Old Times'' (1/10) and ''By the Sword'' (1/13).
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 1/14/1992
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
CHICAGO -- ''29th Street'' is bordered on the north by Capra-land and on the south by ''Wiseguy'' turf. On either side, however, the moon shimmers down like a big pizza pie in this glowing, gooey opener of the 27th Chicago International Film Festival.
Layered with more ham and cheese than all the pizzas on the East Coast, 20th Century Fox may slice only a modest b.o. piece from this old-style production, but this warm offering will have special appeal to video renters on snowy holiday nights.
It proved a perfect festival opener here in Chicago for the gown-and-tux set; festival director Michael Kutza is to be commended for not sending his patrons off on a sour, brooding first-night note, a la most fest directors who seem to deem it their cultural duty.
Alternately uplifted and weighed down by seemingly all the Christmas Carols in the kingdom, writer-director George Gallo's fable-like family story about an Italian-American's winning $6.2 million in the New York lottery is, undeniably, warmed-up populism, but in this manic, microwave age, that's kind of a blast of fresh air.
In ''29th, '' Anthony LaPaglia stars as Frankie, a kid born under a dubiously unlucky star -- no matter how he screws up, everything turns out right and that tends to anger people, especially in this solid, work-ethic Italian neighborhood in Queens. His work-hard-get-nowhere pop (Danny Aiello) envies him; his good-guy Big Brother (Frank Pesce) resents him and the neighborhood ''wiseguys'' watch him.
Told in flashback style, beginning with Frankie's winning the lottery and then going berserko with depression, ''29th Street'' tenderly traces the explanation of why a guy glomming this much dough would feel downcast; as Rocky Balboa would say, it's definitely ''mentally irregular.'' Well, there is an explanation. Better yet, one that is both plausible and heartwarming, but it takes a considerable amount of time to get to it.
In the process, Gallo serves up essentially a time-capsule of Americana, Italian style, from Eisenhower to Reagan, which tends not only to gum up the plotworks but distance our feelings as well. Nevertheless, there's a terrific climax and denouement and while not all prior cinematic sins are forgotten, most are forgiven.
Spicing the production is Aiello's performance as the tormented paterfamilias, burdened by gambling debts and upstaged by his sons' accomplishments. Hats off also to LaPaglia as the sweet and screwy Frankie and to Lainie Kazan as the family's staunch and spirited matriarch.
Tech contributions are distinguished by Robert Ziembicki's flavorful production design but lessened by William Olvis' super-saccharine score.
29th STREET
20th Century Fox
A David Permut Production
A George Gallo Film
Producer David Permut
Writer-director George Gallo
Based on a story by Frank Pesce, James Franciscus
Executive producer Jerry A. Baerwitz
Co-producer Ellen Erwin
Associate producers Frank Pesce, James Franciscus, Katie Jacobs, Pierce Gardner
Director of photography Steven Fierberg
Production designer Robert Ziembicki
Editor Kaja Fehr
Music William Olvis
Costume designer Peggy Farrell
Sound mixer Steve Aaron
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Frank Pesce Sr. Danny Aiello
Frank Pesce Jr. Anthony LaPaglia
Mrs. Pesce Lainie Kazan
Vito Pesce Frank Pesce
Sgt. Tartaglia Robert Forster
Philly The Nap Ron Karabatsos
Jimmy Vitello Rick Aiello
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Layered with more ham and cheese than all the pizzas on the East Coast, 20th Century Fox may slice only a modest b.o. piece from this old-style production, but this warm offering will have special appeal to video renters on snowy holiday nights.
It proved a perfect festival opener here in Chicago for the gown-and-tux set; festival director Michael Kutza is to be commended for not sending his patrons off on a sour, brooding first-night note, a la most fest directors who seem to deem it their cultural duty.
Alternately uplifted and weighed down by seemingly all the Christmas Carols in the kingdom, writer-director George Gallo's fable-like family story about an Italian-American's winning $6.2 million in the New York lottery is, undeniably, warmed-up populism, but in this manic, microwave age, that's kind of a blast of fresh air.
In ''29th, '' Anthony LaPaglia stars as Frankie, a kid born under a dubiously unlucky star -- no matter how he screws up, everything turns out right and that tends to anger people, especially in this solid, work-ethic Italian neighborhood in Queens. His work-hard-get-nowhere pop (Danny Aiello) envies him; his good-guy Big Brother (Frank Pesce) resents him and the neighborhood ''wiseguys'' watch him.
Told in flashback style, beginning with Frankie's winning the lottery and then going berserko with depression, ''29th Street'' tenderly traces the explanation of why a guy glomming this much dough would feel downcast; as Rocky Balboa would say, it's definitely ''mentally irregular.'' Well, there is an explanation. Better yet, one that is both plausible and heartwarming, but it takes a considerable amount of time to get to it.
In the process, Gallo serves up essentially a time-capsule of Americana, Italian style, from Eisenhower to Reagan, which tends not only to gum up the plotworks but distance our feelings as well. Nevertheless, there's a terrific climax and denouement and while not all prior cinematic sins are forgotten, most are forgiven.
Spicing the production is Aiello's performance as the tormented paterfamilias, burdened by gambling debts and upstaged by his sons' accomplishments. Hats off also to LaPaglia as the sweet and screwy Frankie and to Lainie Kazan as the family's staunch and spirited matriarch.
Tech contributions are distinguished by Robert Ziembicki's flavorful production design but lessened by William Olvis' super-saccharine score.
29th STREET
20th Century Fox
A David Permut Production
A George Gallo Film
Producer David Permut
Writer-director George Gallo
Based on a story by Frank Pesce, James Franciscus
Executive producer Jerry A. Baerwitz
Co-producer Ellen Erwin
Associate producers Frank Pesce, James Franciscus, Katie Jacobs, Pierce Gardner
Director of photography Steven Fierberg
Production designer Robert Ziembicki
Editor Kaja Fehr
Music William Olvis
Costume designer Peggy Farrell
Sound mixer Steve Aaron
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Frank Pesce Sr. Danny Aiello
Frank Pesce Jr. Anthony LaPaglia
Mrs. Pesce Lainie Kazan
Vito Pesce Frank Pesce
Sgt. Tartaglia Robert Forster
Philly The Nap Ron Karabatsos
Jimmy Vitello Rick Aiello
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 10/14/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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