NEW YORK -- The Sundance Institute will workshop 13 projects at its January Screenwriters Lab, steered by a who's who of indie writers, including artistic director Scott Frank, Paul Attanasio, Kasi Lemmons, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal and Doug Wright.
Towelhead author Alicia Erian, whose novel was adapted for Alan Ball's upcoming Nothing Is Private, is developing a script about an American who faces repercussions after helping a Salvadoran immigrant in Hammer and Anvil.
The other projects include Liu Hao's Beijing romance Addicted to Love; John Magary's family drama "Blood Abundance, or the Half-Life of Antoinette"; Ryan Knighton's autobiographical blindness drama Cockeyed; and Hadar Friedlich's Israeli profile Hannah M.
Patrick Vala-Haynes' father-son drama The Henchman; Moon Molson's crime drama Meadowlandz; Daniel Casey's Polish-American boxing story Poletown; and Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa and Karen Sztajnberg's Brazilian coming-of-age drama Quotas also made the cut.
Rounding out the list are Liza Johnson's portrait of a military mother, Return; Hicham Ayouch's Moroccan Muslim drama Samba Do Maazouuz; Frank Budgen's adult U.K. fairy tale, Shockheaded Peter; and Darrell Dennis' study of a Native American woman in Canada, Tales of an Urban Indian.
Other Screenwriters Lab advisers include Rodrigo Garcia, Dan Kleinman, Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Malia Scotch Marmo, Christopher McQuarrie, Walter Mosley, Tom Rickman, Howard Rodman, Susan Shilliday, Zachary Sklar, Dana Stevens, Thomas Vinterberg and Tyger Williams.
Towelhead author Alicia Erian, whose novel was adapted for Alan Ball's upcoming Nothing Is Private, is developing a script about an American who faces repercussions after helping a Salvadoran immigrant in Hammer and Anvil.
The other projects include Liu Hao's Beijing romance Addicted to Love; John Magary's family drama "Blood Abundance, or the Half-Life of Antoinette"; Ryan Knighton's autobiographical blindness drama Cockeyed; and Hadar Friedlich's Israeli profile Hannah M.
Patrick Vala-Haynes' father-son drama The Henchman; Moon Molson's crime drama Meadowlandz; Daniel Casey's Polish-American boxing story Poletown; and Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa and Karen Sztajnberg's Brazilian coming-of-age drama Quotas also made the cut.
Rounding out the list are Liza Johnson's portrait of a military mother, Return; Hicham Ayouch's Moroccan Muslim drama Samba Do Maazouuz; Frank Budgen's adult U.K. fairy tale, Shockheaded Peter; and Darrell Dennis' study of a Native American woman in Canada, Tales of an Urban Indian.
Other Screenwriters Lab advisers include Rodrigo Garcia, Dan Kleinman, Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Malia Scotch Marmo, Christopher McQuarrie, Walter Mosley, Tom Rickman, Howard Rodman, Susan Shilliday, Zachary Sklar, Dana Stevens, Thomas Vinterberg and Tyger Williams.
- 12/14/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
"Bless the Child" is a thoroughly unimaginative supernatural thriller that picks over elements from "The Omen", "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby" but never improves on any of its borrowings. Lacking the special-effects firepower of such recent exercises as "End of Days" and "The Devil's Advocate", "Bless" emerges as a throwback to a time when filmmakers had to create suspense through characters rather than effects. Good idea -- only when characters are this aggressively obtuse, they aren't likely to win audience empathy.
The genre usually scares up good boxoffice numbers in the first week, and the presence of Oscar winner Kim Basinger should bring in female viewers. But "Bless" lacks staying power, and not too many women are going to appreciate the relentless stupidity of Basinger's character.
Basinger's Maggie O'Connor is portrayed as a level-headed, reasonably intelligent nurse. Then why, with the NYPD and FBI investigator John Travis (Jimmy Smits) eager to back her up, does she go alone, looking like she just stepped out of a beauty salon, to a derelict building in a crime-infested corner of the Bronx to take on the forces of ultimate evil? And why does she take along a gun but never bother to check if it's loaded?
This epidemic of dumbness moves beyond the characters to the writers themselves. For the movie's climax, dozens of state police and FBI agents take off in cars and helicopters for the devil worshippers' estate nearby. Cut moments later to a lonely road in a dark forest where Smits gets out of a car and must ask with a straight face to the only cop in sight, "Where's our backup?"
Where indeed.
The screenplay by Tom Rickman and Clifford & Ellen Green, based on Cathy Cash Spellman's novel, has Maggie, a lapsed Catholic, raising a supposedly autistic child named Cody (Holliston Coleman) after the newborn is dumped on her by a junkie Sister Angela Bettis). Mind you, we see no evidence of autism, but the dialogue constantly tells us that Cody is "special."
She was born on Christmas Eve -- nudge, wink, nod -- when portents and omens point to the coming of another Christ child. (Whatever will theologians think of that plot point?) Cody can make objects spin and heal cancer, but no one seems to notice because everyone is so busy trying to diagnose autism.
Several years later, the kid sister reappears, looking if anything worse but claiming to be fully cured by her new husband, self-realization guru Eric Stark (Rufus Sewell). But Stark clearly is the leader of a devil-worshipping cult. We can tell this from Sewell's dark clothes, bulging eye and nasty smirk.
The filmmakers never quite figure out whether they are making a cop movie or occult thriller. One minute, Cody is a helpless girl in desperate need of protection from a satanic cult. The next, she is healing gunshot wounds and scaring off bad guys with a withering glance. With her paranormal skills, Cody apparently is never in real jeopardy. No wonder the police backup disappeared.
The one smart thing the movie does is downplay its special effects -- for audiences have grown weary of filmmakers hiding behind cinematic trickery.
Chuck Russell competently directs the Toronto-based production. Designer Carol Spier finds, builds or dresses suitably spooky sets and collaborates with cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. in keeping the tones and lighting in the dark, moody range.
And while stars may require makeup artists, hairstylists and designer costumes, didn't anyone ask whether such movie-star glamour is appropriate for a
working-class nurse doing battle with the devil's minions? Maybe she wants to out-glam them.
BLESS THE CHILD
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Icon Prods. present
a Mace Neufeld production
Producer: Mace Neufeld
Director: Chuck Russell
Screenwriters: Tom Rickman, Clifford Green,
Ellen Green
Based on the novel by: Cathy Cash Spellman
Executive producers: Bruce Davey,
Robert Rehme, Lis Kern
Director of photography: Peter Menzies Jr.
Production designer: Carol Spier
Music: Christopher Young
Co-producer: Stratton Leopold
Costume designer: Denise Cronenberg
Editor: Alan Heim
Color/stereo
Cast:
Maggie O'Connor: Kim Basinger
John Travis: Jimmy Smits
Cody: Holliston Coleman
Eric Stark: Rufus Sewell
Jenna: Angela Bettis
Cheri: Christina Ricci
Rev. Grissom: Ian Holm
Sister Rosa: Lumi Cavazos
Running time - 113 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
The genre usually scares up good boxoffice numbers in the first week, and the presence of Oscar winner Kim Basinger should bring in female viewers. But "Bless" lacks staying power, and not too many women are going to appreciate the relentless stupidity of Basinger's character.
Basinger's Maggie O'Connor is portrayed as a level-headed, reasonably intelligent nurse. Then why, with the NYPD and FBI investigator John Travis (Jimmy Smits) eager to back her up, does she go alone, looking like she just stepped out of a beauty salon, to a derelict building in a crime-infested corner of the Bronx to take on the forces of ultimate evil? And why does she take along a gun but never bother to check if it's loaded?
This epidemic of dumbness moves beyond the characters to the writers themselves. For the movie's climax, dozens of state police and FBI agents take off in cars and helicopters for the devil worshippers' estate nearby. Cut moments later to a lonely road in a dark forest where Smits gets out of a car and must ask with a straight face to the only cop in sight, "Where's our backup?"
Where indeed.
The screenplay by Tom Rickman and Clifford & Ellen Green, based on Cathy Cash Spellman's novel, has Maggie, a lapsed Catholic, raising a supposedly autistic child named Cody (Holliston Coleman) after the newborn is dumped on her by a junkie Sister Angela Bettis). Mind you, we see no evidence of autism, but the dialogue constantly tells us that Cody is "special."
She was born on Christmas Eve -- nudge, wink, nod -- when portents and omens point to the coming of another Christ child. (Whatever will theologians think of that plot point?) Cody can make objects spin and heal cancer, but no one seems to notice because everyone is so busy trying to diagnose autism.
Several years later, the kid sister reappears, looking if anything worse but claiming to be fully cured by her new husband, self-realization guru Eric Stark (Rufus Sewell). But Stark clearly is the leader of a devil-worshipping cult. We can tell this from Sewell's dark clothes, bulging eye and nasty smirk.
The filmmakers never quite figure out whether they are making a cop movie or occult thriller. One minute, Cody is a helpless girl in desperate need of protection from a satanic cult. The next, she is healing gunshot wounds and scaring off bad guys with a withering glance. With her paranormal skills, Cody apparently is never in real jeopardy. No wonder the police backup disappeared.
The one smart thing the movie does is downplay its special effects -- for audiences have grown weary of filmmakers hiding behind cinematic trickery.
Chuck Russell competently directs the Toronto-based production. Designer Carol Spier finds, builds or dresses suitably spooky sets and collaborates with cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. in keeping the tones and lighting in the dark, moody range.
And while stars may require makeup artists, hairstylists and designer costumes, didn't anyone ask whether such movie-star glamour is appropriate for a
working-class nurse doing battle with the devil's minions? Maybe she wants to out-glam them.
BLESS THE CHILD
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures and Icon Prods. present
a Mace Neufeld production
Producer: Mace Neufeld
Director: Chuck Russell
Screenwriters: Tom Rickman, Clifford Green,
Ellen Green
Based on the novel by: Cathy Cash Spellman
Executive producers: Bruce Davey,
Robert Rehme, Lis Kern
Director of photography: Peter Menzies Jr.
Production designer: Carol Spier
Music: Christopher Young
Co-producer: Stratton Leopold
Costume designer: Denise Cronenberg
Editor: Alan Heim
Color/stereo
Cast:
Maggie O'Connor: Kim Basinger
John Travis: Jimmy Smits
Cody: Holliston Coleman
Eric Stark: Rufus Sewell
Jenna: Angela Bettis
Cheri: Christina Ricci
Rev. Grissom: Ian Holm
Sister Rosa: Lumi Cavazos
Running time - 113 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/11/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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