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Senin, 24 Januari 2011

Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo and Noah Segan Cast in Rian Johnson’s ‘Looper’

Around these parts, Rian Johnson‘s third feature film Looper is one of the most anticipated films of 2011/2012. The sci-fi / time-travel thriller is ready to roll cameras, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Xu Qing leading the cast in a story about “a group of killers who send bodies of their victims back in time, with China as the centerpiece of the storyline.”

Now Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo and Noah Segan have signed on as well.

Fans of Rian Johnson’s previous two films, Brick and The Brothers Bloom, will be familiar with Noah Segan, as he played Dode in the former and had a small part as The Duke in the latter. I’d expect that Jeff Daniels and Piper Perabo need no introduction.

We’ve had a couple other Looper updates this week: we saw a photo of Primer writer/director/producer/star Shane Carruth as he prepared to work on the film. (He’ll be doing some effects work.) And we saw a bunch of props from the movie as well. There was also the detail that the script was tweaked a bit late in the game to include China as a location and a plot point — that what happens when a Chinese backer comes on board. France was previously the country that played a big role in the script, and which was swapped for China.

The film will first shoot in Louisiana (that starts next week) and then move on to China. I don’t care where it shoots, really (though the use of China is potentially great from a visual perspective, and from a business one) because we get a new time-travel film from a very promising young director. Maybe that Chinese company can also finance Shane Carruth’s A Topiary? Dare to dream. [Variety]

Follow the Looper tumblr for more behind the scenes info and photos as the film goes into production.

And here’s more plot info, some of which could be considered spoilerish if you haven’t been following previous updates on the development of the film:

Looper is about “a killer who works for the mob of the future. He, along with other so-called Loopers, dispose of people sent from the future. When he recognizes one victim as his future self, he hesitates, letting the man escape.” Joesph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis are the younger and older version of the main character; Paul Dano is another Looper and Xu Qing is the wife of the Bruce Willis incarnation of the main character.

Jeremy Piven, Thomas Jane, Christian McKay and Sasha Grey in Teaser Clips From ‘I Melt With You’

On Monday we showed you a brief character clip of Rob Lowe from I Melt With You, the new film from Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, Henry Poole is Here). Four more were released this week, and now that the final clip is out (a NSFW one featuring Sasha Grey) we’ve collected the latter four for your perusal. See ‘em all after the break.

Here, once again, is the recap of the film from the Sundance website:

Richard, Ron, Tim, and Jonathan are friends from college who gather for a weekend each year to celebrate their friendship and catch up with each other. On the surface, they look like other men going through life: they have careers and families and responsibilities. But as with many people, there is more to them than meets the eye. As the weekend progresses, they go down the rabbit hole of excess. Fueled by sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, their bacchanalian reunion drives them to an unexpected place where they are forced to confront themselves and the choices they’ve made.

In order, the clips below feature Jeremy Piven, Thomas Jane, Christian McKay and Sasha Grey. Those familiar with Ms. Grey won’t be surprised to find that her clip is not safe for work. (Or it wasn’t. Shocker: that one was pulled. I’ve replaced it with the new Sasha Grey clip, which skips the nudity.)

‘Silent House’ – ’24′ In A Haunted House, In One Shot [Sundance Review]

For their sophomore film, the team that brought us the original Open Water, Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, chose a senior thesis to unveil at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Silent House, a remake of a Uruguayan film by the same name, sounds simple enough: a girl, her father and uncle are terrorized in their old, creepy house. What makes the film unique though is that it’s told in, mostly, one continuous shot. All the scares happen in real time and with an urgency that would be difficult to duplicate through traditional editing. Starring Elizabeth Olsen, who looks like a mix between the Olsen Twins (probably because she’s their sister) and Maggie Gyllenhaal, the film provides a bunch of legitimate scares and extreme tension despite story cliches and weak acting that’s almost definitely the result of not being able to say “Cut.” Read more about the film after the jump.

Sarah (Olsen) along with her father John (Adam Trese) and uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) are visiting their old family summer house, attempting to fix it up and sell it. It’s light outside but, because the house has sat more or less abandoned for several years, all the windows are boarded up, making the interior feel like it’s night time. Eventually, Sarah begins to hear some noises and she and her father investigate. From there, the fun begins.

Watching a film without cuts can be both simultaneously impressive and exhausting. It’s impressive for obvious reasons – the movement of the camera, the lighting, the commitment to perfection of everyone on set – but without giving us any establishing or master shots to relax, the audience is always present. This tactic certainly works for a horror movie, but a good chunk of the film is used to establish the style. (Side note: There are cuts in this movie, they’re just hidden and very sparse.)

Because the directors hypothetically were so focused on that blocking, focus and lighting, at points the performances – specifically by Trese and Sheffer Stevens – suffer. You never quite believe these three people form a family. And while that awkward dynamic does have motivation, it doesn’t help the movie in its early stages. On the other hand, Olsen gives as dynamic a performance as possible under the film’s conditions. It’s hard to take your eyes off her, and not just because the camera is always following her. She has a pretty, girl-next-door quality that assuredly would only get more rich if she was given additional takes to hone her character.

You don’t go into a movie like Silent House for performances though. You go in for the scares. And while several will feel highly telegraphed to any self-respecting horror fan, the intense style of the film still provides plenty of tension. Then, as the film progresses, the scares get bigger and bigger.

Even with these scares though, the film is not without a slew of horror movie cliches. Many are played back at us with a winking eye – don’t go upstairs, don’t go in the basement, just leave, etc. – but by the climax, Kentis and Lau have built up such an abundance of them, the ending feels telegraphed. Plus, without spoiling anything, I wish the film had the guts to stand up on its own.

Silent House is almost assuredly going to get a US release. It’s too technically impressive and scary to be ignored. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t quite live up to its full potential.

This Week In Trailers: Falco – Verdammt, wir leben noch! (Falco: Damn It, We’re Still Alive!), Miss Representation, Carancho, Poetry, Ride, Rise, Roar

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?

Carancho Trailer

Ricardo Darin gets a pass from me simply because of The Secret in Their Eyes. A taut thriller that didn’t relent, that film was deserving of the accolades it received and I only wish it was seen by more people. Carancho looks like it’s going to deliver simply based on the trailer but, again, it’s Darin who seems to carry the heft of the weight in this thing and here’s to hoping second time’s a charm for people to see how this guy can work.

What’s here in this trailer, mind you, is a collection of moments that don’t really seem to make much sense but the opening is about as much information as you’ll need, or get, to carry you through the end. Besides the obligatory Cannes declaration, the way it touts its inclusion into that festival, the initial interstitial simply tells us that this is probably going to be about crooked lawyers. A trope we’ve seen before many times over thanks to the milquetoast musings of John Grisham, this story seems to be infused with a little something special, something unique. It does not disappoint.

The trailer juxtaposes Darin, who gets his face used as a human meat tenderizer at every turn, against a quite weary doctor just trying to eek out an existence of helping those who come into her ER. Of course, the doctor is all kinds of hot and Darin is a man who lets his mouth do the talking and is not above paying a visit to the bald man in the canoe, a couple of times actually, with this lady but what’s interesting here besides how fast we move from niceties to cunnilingus is that we aren’t given any structure whatsoever. He’s crooked, she’s smokin’, he’s packing heat, she looks caught in his world and gets getting roughed up because of it, and he gets all kinds of angry.

At about the minute, forty second mark he barges in an office and smacks some guy with a metal drawer. It’s pretty exciting, actually, and the music is perfectly situated behind the breakdown of events that happen all around them. The actual structure of this trailer is one of a gently sloping hill that careens downward with no stop until the very end.

Director Pablo Trapero, who is probably best known in these parts for his excellent film Lion’s Den, looks like he’s bringing the same kind of marriage between violence and humanity together in one package and this trailer mixes together these ideas in a way that is both maddening, loving, and awesomely sexual.

Ride, Rise, Roar Trailer

If you ask me, if you’re going to choreograph “Burning Down the House” on stage at least some part has to incorporate the fireball. You can’t have House without the fireball and that’s all there is to it.

When you think of musicians who no longer really consider themselves as such, people who have instead taken on world hunger or dedicated themselves to championing bean curd as the food staple which will bring peace to the Mideast, those paragons of peace who while the day away based on any whim they have I usually think of Peter Gabriel and David Byrne. Both these gentleman are probably really fun to have at parties but I miss when they were making music that mattered. This trailer, though, gives me hope there’s some life to Byrne and his brilliance.

First time documentary filmmaker Hillman Curtis looks like he has an eye for what would make an interesting film about a guy many have heard of and would want to experience in a whole new way. And, let’s be honest, Byrne has been in the documentary game for over a quarter of a century, Stop Making Sense being the standout, but what makes this interesting is that here again is the man who is not shy in front of the camera and looks like he could still have something interesting to say with his art.

Watching dancers move fluidly as they rehearse in black and white, blasting on stage when it all goes to color, you can sense what they’re going for here. We’re not pushed into this world like the trailer for Stop Making Sense did but, rather, it takes a step back and shows you the mechanics of how it all evolves. It’s the construction, a very tiny peek at it, that we’re given and it’s appreciated.

There’s a lackadaisical vibe Byrne gives off as he moves about on the stage and off. He’s talking directly to us while even laughingly acknowledging that this might be perceived as a bit extreme or weird. I like that. I genuinely liked this trailer at this point because if he is honest enough with himself to say that everything he does might not be perceived as Godly then it’s about time I gave something like this a chance. He’s asking for a chance to see what you think and for that I have to say I would and will.

Poetry Trailer

Lee Chang-dong has a knack for making films that try and make sense of the profundity humans are capable of. Secret Sunshine, a movie about a woman coping from deep loss, was one of those stories where it could be easy to stray into the maudlin or susceptible to acts of hysterics from its leading woman, but it doesn’t and is a beautiful film because of it.

Poetry is poised like a speed skater at the line right before a medal final, ready to do it all again with the very same pitfalls before it. Here, in this trailer, we meet a sweet older woman who looks like she lives a very simple existence. There’s nothing extraordinary about the half minute we spend getting to know her but the score is delightful, the imagery is effective, and the doling out of information is slow and meticulous. It’s tightly structured but it seems so is this woman.

Only a brain dead idiot wouldn’t get that our protagonist is suffering from Alzheimer’s before we actually hear it but that’s just incidental to what we see going on here. As we see that this film has won a few accolades, one for Best Screenplay at Cannes, it gingerly glides back and forth with the daily struggle this woman has. There is a quiet preciousness in watching this woman simply roll through life as her brain begins to fail her and the way she tries to keep it all together.

The subplot of her finding herself in a classroom setting in order to write poetry obviously adds to the sadness of trying to find beauty in a world that seems to look more foreign to her with each passing day. Sometimes it’s not the level of skill displayed in how well a trailer is constructed that gets me excited but, rather, sometimes it’s how emotionally resonant someone can get within two minutes and this one does.

Like Away From Her, this movie looks like it could be yet another story that can deal with a subject too many people want to try and avoid by humanizing the experience. Break out the tissues!

Miss Representation Trailer

As a father of three girls I hope all of them have enough self-awareness to realize that the assault of imagery by the media through television shows, pop idols, films, ad campaigns, et al., was nothing if not personal. The shocking number of body dysmorphic disorders that women have thanks to pigs like me who like to see their women all dolled up and heels pales in comparison to the work that needs to be done to improve the overall self-esteem of our sisters, our fellow humans. This trailer, from director Jennifer Siebel Newsom who up until recently was, and still is, an actress as well as a documentary filmmaker, brims with the kind of shame only the truth can bring.

As you get a taste of what this documentary has to offer in terms of talking heads, salient points, interesting takes on subjects we’re all familiar with, you quickly get that men, in fact, are genuine swine and we’re willing to disparage an entire class of people in derogatory manner just because they don’t mind if we do. From video clips from shows, music videos where women cannibalize their own dignity even though they call it “self-empowerment”, political punditry programs where the name of the game is defiling your enemy by pointing out her physical flaws, and to girls who really want to speak their mind about what they are seeing it’s a frenetic first minute. The trailer defines the cult of the body politic whereby we see nothing wrong with pointing out some woman looks wretched while no one is about to harangue Charlie Rangel about why he isn’t hitting the StairMaster a little harder or why Barney Frank needs to lay off the saturated fats. It’s very effective.

Now, I will say that I do take a little umbrage with the people being interviewed, Lisa Ling and Jane Fonda being just two, as we see them seated before us. For a pair of yapping yentas talking about the struggle of women it’s odd to me that they would embrace the practice of caking on the makeup as heavily as they do. I don’t know where feminists stand on the practice of eyeliner or heavy rouge but it’s just odd to see a trailer about female empowerment with women who would just as well conform to the patriarchal norms that were established to keep them looking pretty for completely superficial reasons. Just an observation.

While I think there are some brilliant points raised by a lot of women looking at the field of others around them looking for some parity I think the message becomes too broad as we head in for the hard close. The message almost seems too esoteric and loses a bit of the steam it created before trying to wrap their arms the whole issue. It’s just too much and the trailer ultimately collapses, for me, because of it. In instances where you are trying to define a population it would have better suited this preview to focus on a small detail that is representative of the whole but, unfortunately, it tried to fit itself in a pair of skinny jeans when, in fact, this is one heifer in need of some exercise.

The message is that exercise so I’m at least hopeful about the prospect of having a film I could be proud to show my three daughters.

Falco – Verdammt, wir leben noch! (Falco: Damn It, We’re Still Alive!) Trailer

I apologize if you’ll have this song ricocheting in your head for the rest of the day.

Odd thing when it comes to foreign films: Americans are like the uptight nerds in the car from that AT&T commercial. We seem to get everything late. Sure, there are some day and date releases here and there but, for the most part, anything unique or slightly different always results in a lag and, in this case, it’s a whole lotta late. Since not a lot of you hail from Austria, Germany, or the Czech Republic circa 2008 I can go forward safely in assuming many reading this haven’t heard of this film. For those fortunate enough to be blessed with distributors like Strand Releasing in the United States this oversight is about to be corrected.

While I can’t understand any words whatsoever, none of the romance languages are even represented so I can’t even come close to figuring out a single syllable, Austrian filmmaker Thomas Roth looks like he’s taking a page out of the Walk The Line handbook for interesting looking bio pics by infusing some jingle jangle into his presentation deck and I dig it. I can get, just by watching this, that Johann (Falco) Hölzel was on the Milli Vanilli skyward trajectory and I couldn’t be more stoked.

From the whorin’, the lyin’, the cheatin’, the lovin’, the success, it all appeals to my more base instincts as a filmgoer. This may not be Johnny Cash but this trailer just hums with electricity. I have no question that if I knew what these Austrians were saying I would love this even more but seeing him beat on his old lady in one of the most melodramatic moments I think I’ve ever seen in a trailer and seeing that same woman yell something like “Frankfurter!” as she tears their newborn baby away from Falco’s loving arms I am filled with sadness. Sadness for a man who left this earth way too soon as the final moments allude to this cultural icon’s ultimate demise.

How can you not rock back and forth a little as “Der Kommissar” blasts through your speakers? Answer: it’s impossible.

Note bene: If you have any suggestions of trailers to possibly be included in this column, even have a trailer of your own to pitch, please let me know by sending me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com

In case you missed them, here are the other trailers we covered at /Film this week:

The Interrupters Trailer - Looks like a compelling and evocative documentary. The trailer just gets right into it and is easily understood.

Kaboom Trailer - This is either going to be like an independent movie that was put on a paint shaker and placed on an acid trip or a big heaping pile of dung. I still don’t know which one after watching this incarnation.

Scream 4 Trailer - Lovely. This movie looks like what would happen if someone gave the gang over at the new 90210 license to make a horror flick. I’m sure there’s a gaggle of teens who’ll love this.

Game of Thrones Teaser - Wow, someone broke out the Blue Steel and didn’t tell me. More action, less brooding please.

X Trailer - Yes, more examples of the brilliance coming out of Australia. Keep ‘em coming…

Love Trailer - Big fan of this trailer. It looks like one long music video, yes, but what’s here is really interesting.

Mother’s Day Trailer - I don’t know what’s happening in this trailer but it looks good enough to add to anyone’s Netflix queue to find out more. In no way would I pay full fare for what looks like a direct-to-DVD film but it does have promise.

I Melt With You Teaser Trailer - Um, could anyone else make out what was being said without positioning your ear directly over the speaker?

Night Fishing Teaser - If you haven’t had your quotient of crazy today might I interest you in this? I think it’s pretty novel and look forward to seeing how this looks fully completed.

Rubber Trailer - I love this trailer. The right mix of narrative and musical inspiration to create something that gets you excited, making you want to see a full length feature about a rubber tire that seems to be possessed by the devil.

Water for Elephants International Trailer - I’ll be sure to tell my wife about this one. Seeing how that’s going to be the only person who I know would want to see some melodrama like this.

Perfect Sense Trailer - I’d be the first person to point a finger and laugh at something like this but I really really dug it. I didn’t know the first thing about this movie before watching the trailer but now I want to consume it as quickly as I can.

Red Riding Hood Trailer - If a silver bullet can kill a werewolf then I will necessitate many 24-packs of the silver bullet of beers to get me to slay this beast. I imagine you’d have to be drunk, or a girl, to want to see this with any form of legal tender.

Tracker Trailer - I kind of like where they’re going with this but it just doesn’t have enough pizazz to make me want to see more of it.

Skateland Trailer - I’m all for coming-of-age films but this doesn’t just pique my childish sensibilities. Seems like a pretty unfocused trailer.

NBC Picks Up Pitch For Hour-Long Musical TV Show Produced by Steven Spielberg

Judging by the news that has come out over the last few days, three things are super-hot right now: remakes, Julian Assange and musicals.

On the musical front we’ve just seen Clint Eastwood sign to direct a new version of A Star is Born, and Bryan Singer is in the early stages of a possible Bob Fosse biopic for HBO. And now NBC has ordered a pilot for a one-hour musical drama called Smash, based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, who will exec produce. (I think the pic above is as close as he’ll get to jazz hands, though. Leave that to Bryan Singer and the Fosse film.)

EW has the news, saying that if picked up, the show would “follow a cross section of characters who come together for the “exhilarating ride of putting on a Broadway musical.”

In other words, it’s a new take on the ‘let’s put on a show!’ plot that has driven screen musicals since the very first days of the marriage of sound and the moving image.

Theresa Rebeck wrote the pilot and will exec produce alongside Mr. Spielberg, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. Notable to musical fans will be the fact that Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman will create original songs for the series. Michael Mayer may direct.

Expect to hear more moves out of NBC, which has just seen Robert Greenblatt step in as entertainment chairman now that the merger between Comcast and NBC/Universal is going through. (The new suit is the guy that greenlit Weeds and Dexter at Showtime.)

Anthony Hopkins in Talks to Play Alfred Hitchcock for Director Sacha Gervasi

Just yesterday we told you that Anvil! The Story of Anvil director Sacha Gervasi is in talks to write and direct a film based on Stephen Rebello‘s book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. In the source article for that piece there was a mention that Anthony Hopkins was one of the actors mentioned as a possible on-screen Hitch.

That stemmed in part from a different version of the same film that was in development a few years ago under Running With Scissors director and Glee creator Ryan Murphy. That version never happened, obviously, but now the actor is in talks for the version being developed for Sacha Gervasi to direct.

THR says that in addition to adapting the core of Mr. Rebello’s book about the making of Psycho, the John McLaughlin script has at its core the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, editor and assistant director Alma Reville. She was Hitchcock’s sounding board and constant collaborator for the fifty-four years of their marriage, and had a keen mind for dialogue and continuity. (In 2007, Helen Mirren was in talks to play Alma.)

I’m curious about how this version will differ from the previous one to which Sir Hopkins was attached in years past. He once told MTV that the film, then called Alfred Hitchcock presents, would essentially open along the lines of the director’s classic TV show. He described a recreation of a murder committed by Ed Gein, upon whose crimes Psycho was partially based. Whether that structure and the Ed Gein elements might be in this version of the script remains to be seen. (Let us know if you’ve got info on the new script, though I expect that until Mr. Gervasi or another writer is signed and gets to work, any currently existing draft will be subject to change.)

Here’s the video that MTV ran in 2007:

NBC Picks Up David E. Kelley’s ‘Wonder Woman’

Briefly: Last night the new leadership of NBC kicked things off by picking up, among a couple other projects, a pilot for a musical drama produced by Steven Spielberg. As expected, the network is making more moves and one of them is grabbing the new Wonder Woman show being developed by David E. Kelley. Ironically the network, under prior leadership, was one of the last to pass on Wonder Woman not long ago. But even when all networks passed we knew the show wasn’t totally dead, and that it might go out to try again.

EW says that Mr. Kelley’s take features “the superhero’s signature lasso, cuffs, and plane in the script, and insiders said it was a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character.” That’s the script circa two weeks ago; we don’t know if any changes have been made since that script went out and met with dismissal. Much of that dismissal seemed to be based in concern over the potential cost and licensing fees, rather than story issues. With the show finding a home at NBC, we should hear a lot more soon, including crucial cast decisions.