Month: May 2014

One thing I don’t have on the schedule upon my arrival tomorrow in NYC is catching a showing of Gambit, the Joel and Ethan Coen-authored caper comedy that’s finally opened stateside after a dud-level opening in England 18 months ago. It’s now playing at City Cinema’s Village East. N.Y. Times reviewer Nicholas Rapold is claiming that Gambit is not so much “a shameful mess or even an auteurist curiosity” as much as “almost serenely boring.” I’m not getting the slightest whiff of serenity from this trailer. Here’s a related piece I ran last March (“Coen Brothers-Authored Dud…Gone, Drowned…The Movie That Wasn’t There“).

If Glenn Kenny is reading this I’ve got $50 I owe you. I’m staying in the Park Slope area. Tell me where and when.

There was a Manhattan buyer’s screening yesterday for David O. Russell‘s abandoned Nailed, the financially-plagued political comedy, based on a screenplay co-written by novelist Kristin Gore (i.e., the second daughter of Al Gore) and Russell, that was haphazardly shot and never quite completed in ’08. Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tracy Morgan, Catherine Keener, Paul Reubens, Josh Brolin and Kirstie Alley costarred. Production was delayed or shut down four times due to the crew not getting paid. Blame was attributed to financial insuffficiency on the part of producers Ronald Tutor and David Bergstein of Capitol Films.

Jessica Beil, Jake Gyllenhaal in David O. Russell’s Nailed.

Yesterday’s screening (which was attended by reps for Magnolia among others) was presumably arranged by producer Kia Jam, who, according to a 2.5.14 story by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit, “cobbled together a cut that was test-screened in 2011 and submitted to the MPAA in November 2013.” Jam didn’t return Kit’s call asking for comment, and he didn’t return mine this morning either. I wrote Russell about the screening…zip. Magnolia wouldn’t say anything either.

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