Gere and Irving
I saw Lasse Hallstrom's The Hoax (Miramax, 4.6.07) last night in Westwood at a "special screening" (i.e., red-carpet photography but no after-party). It's not without problems (or should I use the word "issues"?), but it's not half-bad. The seams show from time to time (the budget was lean), but it's better than decently made. A low-key caper movie-slash-ethical drama, The Hoax never once pissed me off, and that's saying something by today's standards.
Richard Gere schmoozing after Sunday night's "special screening" of The Hoax
Set in the early '70s, it's about how author Clifford Irving (Richard Gere, giving one of his vigorous, all-out performances in the vein of Mr. Jones or Breathless) flim-flammed most of the world (including book publisher McGraw-Hill) into believing he'd persuaded reclusive wackjob billionaire Howard Hughes to tell all for a definitive autobiography.
The script is by William Wheeler (Empire, The Prime Gig). Marcia Gay Harden, the always superb Alfred Molina (as Irving's partner-in-crime Richard Suskind), Julie Delpy (as Nina van Pallandt), Eli Wallach, Hope Davis and Stanley Tucci costar.
An actor named Michael J. Burg is billed as having played Truman Capote in the film -- to the best of my recollection this performance isn't in the film. Milton Buras is also credited on the IMDB for portraying Howard Hughes -- his performance must have been cut out.
Irving has been quoted as saying, "I had nothing to do with this movie, and it had very little to do with me."
When I think of Irving (whom I interviewed in the '90s -- I forget about what), I think of him lying on a sunny beach in Ibiza with Nina van Pallandt. But there's no Ibiza stuff in the film -- almost all of it was shot in and around New York City with some extra lensing in Puerto Rico
I'll have a technical comment to share about the film tomorrow.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 19, 2007 at 6:57 PM
comment #1
le corbeau
says ...
Another Truman Capote movie!
There's hope for my script about the making of Murder By Death, I guess.
Posted by le corbeau
at March 19, 2007 9:08 PM
comment #2
le corbeau
says ...
Really strange (and no joke this time): Michael J. Burg is in Capote. (Playing somebody called "Williams," probably a cop or something.)
Posted by le corbeau
at March 19, 2007 9:35 PM
comment #3
Terry McCarty
says ...
I went to the AFI-sponsored screening at the Arclight Cinema Friday night (Hallstrom couldn't attend because of not being able to fly from NY due to the snow).
Bill Wheeler (who was in attendance for post-screening Q and A) mentioned that, for dramatic reasons, Clifford Irving was relocated to NY from Ibiza. And the film's opening scene/framing device is fictional, but I thought Wheeler got away with it since it was a good visual representation of how eager the TIME-LIFE/McGraw Hill majordomos were for the arrival of the Hughes book.
At this time, Irving's living in New Mexico. And, as the end titles say, he's still trying to get the Hughes book published.
Posted by Terry McCarty
at March 20, 2007 12:36 AM
comment #4
Josh Massey
says ...
Thanks, Ter. Can you go ahead and tell me the end titles to some other movies that haven't come out yet? It will save me some time.
Posted by Josh Massey
at March 20, 2007 5:52 AM
comment #5
malibugigolo
says ...
Nina van Pallandt classed up Malibu in THE LONG GOODBYE!
Posted by malibugigolo
at March 20, 2007 8:11 AM
comment #6
erniesouchak
says ...
The most ambitious thing about The Hoax is that it asks us to stick with a completely loathsome character for 90+ minutes. He's not given any of those redeeming Hollywood moments. I guess that should be applauded, but I came out of the film w/absolutely no interest in seeing it again & with mixed feelings about even recommending it. Molina is its biggest asset.
Posted by erniesouchak
at March 20, 2007 8:28 AM
comment #7
Walter Sobchak
says ...
Free screenings must be nice.
Hmmm. "...not at all half-bad..." "...it didn't piss me off..."
Sounds like a winner! Here's MY eleven bucks!
Posted by Walter Sobchak
at March 20, 2007 9:05 AM
comment #8
malibugigolo
says ...
erniesouchak :
Another Hollywood movie in which the main character has no choice between doing what is right or wrong, just should I be greedy or more greedy.....
who cares?
Posted by malibugigolo
at March 20, 2007 9:52 AM
comment #9
jeffmcm
says ...
What other movies are you referring to, Gigolo?
Posted by jeffmcm
at March 20, 2007 10:32 AM
comment #10
Monument
says ...
I want to see more Wells quotes on movie posters:
"The Hoax never once pissed me off"
Jeffrey Wells
Hollywood Elsewhere
Posted by Monument
at March 20, 2007 12:13 PM
comment #11
nemo
says ...
Saw the trailer for "The Hoax" out here in the boondocks several weeks ago, running before "Breach". The trailer was quite a hoot. It made me feel really up for seeing "The Hoax", although it may not do much for anyone not old enough to remember the 1970s.
That was one of the chief pleasures of "Zodiac" for a person of a certain age, seeing the late 60s and early 70s presented so matter-of-factly -- the cheesy clothes (not the trendy fashionable clothes of the period), the cheesy cars (not the classics), the cheesy offices with their ugly office furniture and ugly fake wood paneling, the cheesy technology (the ugly phones and TVs that didn't work very well).
It made me feel like I was 18 all over again, working my first dead-end job during the summer before college. "Zodiac" had a great anti-nostalgic effect -- it made me feel like I was 18 again, and made me glad I wasn't 18 anymore. The late 60s and early 70s were a thrilling era to live through, but in a lot of ways the only good thing about it was the music. And a lot of that was cheesy too.
Posted by nemo
at March 20, 2007 12:43 PM
comment #12
Joshua Mooney
says ...
A fascinating true story becomes a "not half-bad" movie with "seams" that's "better than decently made" and "never once" pissed you off, Jeff? Gee, I guess I'll be missing this one. Unless Lily Tomlin's in it?
Posted by Joshua Mooney
at March 20, 2007 12:46 PM
comment #13
Ju-osh
says ...
Jeff's just trying to outdo his last classic pull-quote (from The Fountain):
It's more than a movie. It's an experience. A Jimi Hendrix experience!
His most enduring recommendation is still this, though:
When Colin Farrell clears the floor of the Cuban cantina with his otherworldly tango moves, one can't help but reminded of lil' Shirley Temple teaching her blings to tapdance. There's nothing mezzo-mezzo about Miami Vice. It's got fumes.
Posted by Ju-osh
at March 20, 2007 1:08 PM
comment #14
nemo
says ...
One of the most striking shots in "Zodiac" was the CGI time-lapse construction of the Transamerica Tower, which transformed the San Francisco skyline. Transamerica went up between 1969 and 1972, roughly the same time period the Twin Towers went up in NYC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transamerica_Tower
The scene in "Zodiac" where the tower went up in a single shot is particularly effective because it drew attention to the way the city was being transformed during the long unproductive slog of the investigation.
Even though I was a teenager growing up in Chicago during the period when the Transamerica Tower and the Twin Towers were going up, I remember well the debate they both sparked. Many people hated them both, hated the way they dominated the skylines of their respective cities. There was no way you could ignore them, even if you lived far from either coast.
I have to agree with Wells on this one -- getting the skyline right, especially with the relatively cheap CGI available today, is not a minor detail in a period film. The Twin Towers helped define New York Ciy in the 1970s, just as the Transamerica Tower helped defined San Francisco in that period. It is a major point, just as major as getting the clothes and the cars right.
And it is particularly major in a film set in a time period that people in their late 40s and early 50s remember clearly. It's one thing to cut some slack on a minor anachronism in a film set a century ago. It's one thing to cut some slack when a movie marquee advertises a film released a year after the time period of the scene. But the NY Twin Towers in the 1970s? That is not a minor point.
Posted by nemo
at March 21, 2007 9:35 AM