Reviews of Jon Stewart‘s Rosewater (Open Road, 11.7), a drama about political imprisonment and torture inflicted upon Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari (Gale Garcia Bernal) in 2009 under Iran’s Ahmadinejad regime, were posted last night by trade critics. The response from Variety‘s Scott Foundas is respectful and encouraging, but the other three critics — The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy, Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn and TheWrap‘s Steve Pond — are saying “approved but rewards are modest.” Pic is expected to screen at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend as well as play the Toronto Film Festival next week.
Month: August 2014
Brangelina Hitched, “Concretized”
It was announced this morning that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were married five days ago inside “a small chapel” near their huge chateau in the French hamlet of Correns. Congratulations and best wishes, but what has my interest is Pitt’s use of the term “concretized.” He used it in an AP interview that ran … Read more
Telluride Slate Announced
With everyone on their way this morning to the 41st Telluride Film Festival (I’m heading out to Burbank Airport at 8 am), the slate has been officially announced. No surprises this year with Toronto having pretty much given the game away by classifying this and that film as a Canadian premiere, which meant a Telluride … Read more
Tony Soprano Still Dead
Sopranos creator David Chase has stated through representative Leslee Dart that in an 8.27 Vox.com interview piece, author Martha P. Nochimson misquoted or misunderstood Chase about the fate of Tony Soprano. I’ll try re-explaining things to Nochimson and everyone else who insists on denying the obvious. Tony Soprano sleeps with the fishes. He took one … Read more
Fool Drops Sexual Abuse Case Against Singer
The none-too-bright individual known as Michael Egan has dropped his sexual abuse lawsuit against Bryan Singer, according to a Variety report. The guy goes to all kinds of trouble and then he blows off a modest cash offer (which so alienated his attorney Jeff Herman that he severed relations with Egan) and now this — … Read more
That’s A Lot of Downey
I was reminded this morning that David Dobkin‘s The Judge (Warner Bros., 10.10) runs two hours and 21 minutes. My first reaction was one of surprise. This is not a solemn courtroom drama like The Verdict, which ran 129 minutes. And it’s not Scent of A Woman, which needed 156 minutes to let a blind … Read more
Manic Pixie Hotel Chambermaid?
“It’s delightful, and delightfully eccentric…it is very satisfying, after years of watching [Josh] Charles on The Good Wife, to see him take possession of a new character, especially one whose motivations are as much a mystery to the character as to you. For an hour, you discover a man finding himself, incremental layer by layer, … Read more
I Saw Red When I Read This
“Have you ever seen Jean-Luc Godard‘s Contempt? You, sir, are a fitting object. Please, please sit in front of me in coach someday. I can’t wait to ‘accidentally’ spill a cup of scalding hot coffee on your head. In the words of Gordon Gekko, ‘Hot coffee is good. Hot coffee scalding the scalp of an … Read more
We See You, Howard Hughes!
It would appear that the first snaps of the reclusive Nikki Finke have been posted by a nasty little site that has made no secret about wanting to get her. Finke has written harshly about others and now it’s payback time, or so goes the site’s rationale. I’m no fan of tabloidy “gotcha!” pieces or the snippy, bitchy vibe of sites like this, but these fellows seem to have done their homework and captured the Real McCoy. I think it’s permissible to post these as there have been no photos of Finke for many, many years and these snaps appear to be legit. It also appears that Nikkifinke.com has stalled as the last story, about the death of Robin Williams, was posted on Monday, 8.11.
“Because It’s Right”?
A movie is usually one thing, the marketing materials another. Because the latter almost always lies. But if — I say “if” — Stephen Daldry‘s Trash is anything like the “sell”, watch out. I don’t trust movies that use a poster in which the lead character is raising his arms in triumph or joy. I … Read more
Lynch Needs To Get Back on The Stick
Enough with the “I can’t find a project that really excites me” shpiel. After a certain number of years of relative inactivity it’s just not cool. Lynch sees “no future in cinema“? Fine. Create a cable longform of some kind, something for Netflix…anything. No more sitting on the bench. It’s unbecoming.