Variety’s Andrew Stewart is reporting that Alan Rickman has landed what sounds to be his first truly decent role in years…maybe…as downtown Manhattan showman Hilly Kristal in CBGB, which Randall Miller (Bottle Shock) will direct from a script by Miller and Jody Slavin.
Playing a guy like Kristal will allow Rickman to go all madman and ticky and impassioned and tough at the same time…if the script is any good. My concern is that I saw Bottle Shock two or three years ago at Sundance and I didn’t exactly levitate.
I was a half-hearted CGBG attender in the mid to late ’70s. (I wasn’t hip enough to even stick my head in the place before 1975.) I never saw the Ramones or Blondie there, but I caught a Television set once (Tom Verlaine, “See No Evil”), and the great Patti Smith one time. (I also saw her in Westport and in Paris in ’76.) I’ll never forget her singing “Time Is On My Side” — that was heaven. I also remember catching Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics
I never wanted to know that CBGB & OMFUG stood for. I just loved the raunchy, rude sound of it.
A homework assignment that I’ve been dreading due to sheer laziness has to be done — an appraisal of Tere Tereba‘s “Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster,” which has been out since May 1st. It covers Cohen’s entire life (9.4.13 to 7.29.76)…well, from age six on…and offers plenty of shoe-leather detail and minutiae up the wazoo.
Gangster Mickey Cohen, taken sometime in 1953.
The tone of Tereba’s prose is somewhere between excitedly neutral and half-admiring, and that’s a little odd, I must say. But that’s what happens, I suppose, when you write about a famous sociopath. You either get into Cohen’s head and accept that scuzball attitude, or you write disapprovingly like you’re Jack Webb or J. Edgar Hoover. Or you find some kind of objective middle ground,
The research and writing ate ten years of Tereba’s life, and I certainly respect that commitment. Her writing isn’t elegant, but it’s servicable enough. And the story is entertaining (as gangster sagas always are) and timely, of course, with Ruben Fleischer‘s The Gangster Squad, a “get Mickey Cohen” melodrama in the vein of Brian De Palma‘s The Untouchables, opening on 10.19.
One of the similarities is that both films fudge historical fact, or so it would appear in the case of The Gangster Squad.
The real-life Gangster Squad, led by John O’Mara (Josh Brolin in the film) and Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) never really got Mickey Cohen any more than the real-life Untouchables got Al Capone. Capone and Coen both did prison terms for income tax evasion, and were therefore “brought down,” so to speak, by federal agents. It may be that the Gangster Squad funnelled information that aided in Cohen’s first income tax conviction (he did two separate prison stretches), but they didn’t nail him in any heavy dramatic way, or not as I understand.
So The Gangster Squad is not a “get Mickey Cohen” movie as much as a “make a lot of noise and look cool and sexy and studly while trying to get Mickey Cohen” movie. Unless Beall’s screenplay makes up a phony ending. I’m basically expecting a general hodgepodge of Untouchables, Public Enemies, L.A. Confidential and Mulholland Falls.
“A movie is always fiction,” Tereba says. “I’ve written a definitive non-fiction book.”
Will Beall‘s Gangster Squad screenplay is based on Paul Leiberman‘s 2008 seven-part L.A. Times series titled “L.A. Noir: Tales From The Gangster Squad.” A book version will appear on 10.2.12, or about two weeks before the film opens.
The climactic finale in Lieberman’s seven-part series is the shooting of Jack “The Enforcer” Whalen at a San Fernando Valley restaurant called Rondelli’s, which happened while Cohen dined nearby with his crew and his bulldog. Whalen isn’t listed as a character in the Gangster Squad‘s IMDB rundown, but this incident is presumably depicted in the film. It’s certain, however, that while Cohen was tried for complicity in Whalen’s killing and O’Mara testified at this trial about Cohen’s guns having been found in a garbage can near the scene, Cohen was never convicted. (Sam LoCigno confessed and wound up going to jail for the shooting.)
Tereba and Liberman’s work will be competing with three other books about Cohen — “Mickey Cohen, In My Own Words: As Told to John Peer Nugent” (1975), “Hollywood’s Celebrity Gangster, The Incredible Life and Times of Mickey Cohen” by Brad Lewis (2009) and “King of the Sunset Strip: Hangin’ with Mickey Cohen and the Hollywood Mob” (2006) by Steve Stevens and Craig Lockwood.
When I spoke with Tereba the first thing I wanted to know was whether she’s read the Gangster Squad script, and if so, what parts are fictional and what parts aren’t?
Her first response to the script question was “I may have [read it],” but then she backed off and said she hadn’t read the script and that she has no idea what the film will contain or omit, and that she’s looking forward to seeing the film with a container of popcorn like everyone else. I find it inconceivable that a person who worked as hard as Tereba did on her book wouldn’t make a point of snagging the Gangster Squad script so she could speak with a degree of authority about the scripted content during interviews. I told her she’d be wise to get hold of a copy and read it so she won’t sound disingenuous the next time somebody like me asks.
“Do you think Warren Beatty and Barry Levinson‘s Bugsy was all fiction?,” I asked. Tereba replied that Benjamin Siegel was sitting on a couch with another guy in his Beverly Hills home when he was shot to death, and that the film left this guy out. She also said that Cohen (played by Harvey Keitel in the film) was “part of the conspiracy” to have Siegel rubbed out.
I can’t keep doing this. I could go on and on and on. I could talk about the women that Cohen allegedly had. Or how Harvey Keitel’s head was half-shaved to mimic Cohen’s appearance in Bugsy, and how Sean Penn, who plays him in The Gangster Squad, has kept his full head of hair…fuck it, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, like Cohen did.
Tereba isn’t exactly your standard book-author type. She’s been a fashion designer since the late ’60s. She knew and hung with Jim Morrison and his girlfriend Pamela way back when, and was in Paris when he died. (Or had just been there or something.) She had a role in Andy Warhol’s Bad (’77). And she has some kind of honky accent that leads her to pronounce “Cohen” like “Cohn,” as in Harry.
Was Mr. Mickey’s name not spelled C-O-H-E-N, and was it not a two-syllable thing? “It’s just the way I talk,” she answered.
Klaartje Quirijns‘ Anton Corbijn Inside Out, a portrait of the famed photographer and director of Control, The American and the forthcoming A Most Wanted Man, will have two market screenings in Cannes — at the Arcades 1 on Thursday, 5.17, at 3:30 pm, and at the Arcades 2 on Monday, 5.21, at 2 pm.
My 8.31.10 review of The American. The best party of it stole from Richard Eder’s review of Rancho Deluxe, to wit: “The American is handsome, meditative, elegiac and languid. It’s so coolly artful it is barely alive. First-rate ingredients and a finesse in assembling them do not quite make either a movie or a cake. At some point it is necessary to light the oven.”
My second favorite portion of the 8.31.10 review: “There’s a moment at the very end when George Clooney‘s grim, somber-to-a-fault performance — monotonous and guarded to the point of nothingness, shut and bolted down — suddenly opens up. It’s when he asks the local prostitute to leave with him. For the first time in the film, he smiles. He relaxes and basks in the glow of feeling.
“There’s a little patch of woods by a river that Clooney visits three times. Once to test his rifle, once for a picnic and a swim in the river, and then in the final scene. One too many, perhaps. But his final drive to this spot is almost — almost, I say — on the level of Jean Servais‘ final drive back into Paris in Rififi. For the second and final time in the film Clooney shows something other than steel and grimness.
“The American is worth seeing for this scene alone, and for the final shot when a butterfly flutters off and the camera pans up.”
I love Berlin. I only got around a little last night (i.e., Friday) but much of it feels quiet and uncluttered and laid-back. Very little traffic of any kind. No real crowds anywhere. Everywhere you look there are soothing, almost whispery little dark streets. And cool-looking cafes and restaurants, and none overly crowded. Areas like Potsdamer Platz, where the Berlin Film Festival happens, are glitzy and brightly lit and tourist-afflicted, but this seems more the exception than the rule. Or so it seemed last night.
Adjacent to Amtsgerichtsplatz, a small park on Holtzendorffstrasse in southwest Berlin.
This is a town for people of taste and refinement. The cultural atmosphere feels cool and right and unhurried. In Paris there’s often the roar or at least the hum of traffic, and certainly the sound of scooters everywhere, buzzing around like hornets. Not so much here. Or at the very least, much less so. Huge sycamore trees with titanic leaders line the street where I’m staying. Big trees and abundant shade in a big city always instill a sense of calm. If someone had told me last night that I couldn’t stay indoors and I had to pitch a tent in Amtsgerichtsplatz, a small park across the street from where I’m staying, I would have been okay with that.
Last night at an Italian place I accidentally knocked over a bottle of black vinegar on the table, and it hit the floor and broke open. The black vinegar began to spread across the brick floor like blood in Francis Coppola‘s Dracula. A table of four people nearby were staring at it also. I was struck by how much we all were on the same wavelength, how we were more taken by the curious visual look of this black substance spreading across the floor than by any unsettled feelings about something being broken or a sense of “oh, what an asshole that guy is, knocking over a bottle of vinegar,” etc.
I thought for sure with jet lag and my screwed-up sleep clock that I would wake up at 3 or 4 this morning, but I crashed around midnight and slept right through to 6 am.
Photos from the Les Miserables shoot indicate that director Tom Hooper isn’t looking to spiff up or Hollywoodize this musical rendering of Victor Hugo‘s 1862 novel. It’s a piece about the destitute poor of 1830s Paris and everybody looks like hell, particularly rail-thin Anne Hathaway‘s Fantine and her tennis-ball haircut. Actually, there’s one Hollywood-type “up” moment in this clip — i.e., a joyful smiling look between Hathaway and Hugh Jackman‘s Jean Valjean. But I can roll with it.
Variety‘s Jeff Sneider is reporting that Taylor Swift, of all people, is “circling the role” of Joni Mitchell in a film version of Sheila Weller‘s 2008 book “Girls Like Us,” which will be shot under the aegis of Sony Pictures and Di Bonaventura Pictures. It’s an appalling idea because Mitchell’s manner and speaking style always conveyed the churning soul of a poet and artist, and Swift, a country music aficionado, looks and talks like a none-too-introspective, looking-to-please pop personality. Mitchell is a world-class lady with oceans, rivers and tributaries within; Swift is a pond.
The director will be Katie Jacobs and the script is by John Sayles.
Like the book, the film “would examine the careers of singers Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King,” Sneider reports. “Swift does not have an official offer, but has been linked to the Mitchell role for several months as other actresses have auditioned to play Simon and King, including Alison Pill (Midnight in Paris) for the latter singer. Pic has not yet been greenlit, though it is tentatively skedded to start production later this year when the three leads’ schedules allow for filming.”
Swift has never played a lead or carried a film before. Her two movie appearances thus far have been as a fictional character in Valentine’s Day and as herself in Hannah Montana: The Movie.
Look at Swift in the above video and try to imagine her singing “Coyote” or “Amelia” with with any believability or conviction, much less playing the woman who wrote these songs. Get the fuck outta here.
Meryl Streep of 20 or 30 years ago, okay, but it’s impossible to imagine Swift portraying Mitchell as she’s described by reader Kevin Killian in this Amazon review of the book:
“Joni Mitchell isn’t sympathetic per se, but she has the integrated personality of a genius totally in love with herself and obsessed with her own reflection, so she’s great in a special way. Weller pokes amused fun at Mitchell’s vanity and enormous self-esteem, but we get the picture that, in her opinion at any rate, Mitchell actually is pretty fucking amazing.”
Woody Allen‘s To Rome With Love opened in Italy today, and NPR’s Sylvia Poggiolireports that Italian critics have shown “no love” for it. “Allen is a cult figure here, but reviews of his newest movie were lukewarm — nowhere near the charm, critics said, of last year’s Midnight in Paris. Critics called the movie superficial, banal and full of stereotypes, and said it lacks the irony and scathing satire present in most Italian postwar cinema.
“Several complained that Allen’s Rome is the one foreigners have in their mind’s eye even before setting foot here. And it’s a vision filtered through the prism of the 1 percent — the characters lodge in grandiose baroque-style rooms in five-star hotels and enjoy grand vistas from terraces the average Roman can only dream about.
“Paolo d’Agostini of La Repubblica quipped, ‘Can you imagine a Roman traffic cop living in an apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps?'”
The fact that Allen’s film has been dubbed (the lingua originale version is completely unavailable even in upscale Roman venues) probably diminishes some of the charm.
“The movie is a magnificent postcard of the eternal city,” Poggioli writes, “a carefree romp along cobblestone streets nestled between ancient ruins and Renaissance palaces. A soft yellow glow pervades every scene. It projects an image of the sweet life with all the charms under the Italian sun, set to the tune of old standbys like ‘Volare’ and ‘Arrivederci Roma.’
“Allen has said he grew up watching Italian cinema and was influenced by its grand masters. While there’s nothing neorealist in his latest movie, it has an echo of Fellini‘s The White Sheik, and Penelope Cruz‘s performance in one segment calls to mind Sofia Loren’s high-end call girl in Vittorio de Sica‘s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.
“The movie is made up of four separate vignettes about love swaps, mistaken identities and the cult of celebrity. One features Allen himself playing a retired, neurotic opera director who tries to make a star out of a man who can sing Pavarotti-quality opera, but only in his shower.
“In another episode, Alec Baldwin plays a famous architect vacationing in Rome, reminiscing about his youth in the city. Along the way, he meets a young American student, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is love-struck by Ellen Page, playing a narcissistic young actress.”
The English-language version of To Rome With Love opens in the U.S. on June 22nd.
Last night I saw a TCM Classic Film Festival screening of Marathon Man at the Chinese. The first two-thirds are excellent and close to great…okay, I’ll go further and call it one of the best thrillers of the ’70s except for the last 10% to 15%. A lot of films are like this — superb in the opening phases, delightful applications of intrigue and curiosity…and then the payoff disappoints.
I only know that the more William Goldman‘s plot unfolds and the more we learn about the smallmindedness and the old-man desperation of Laurence Olivier‘s Dr. Christian Szell, the less intriguing it all becomes. Suggestions are more powerful than specifics.
I love the old Jew vs. old German road rage scene in midtown Manhattan. And the spooky Parisian sequences with Roy Scheider, culminating in that superb hotel room fight with the Asian guy with the creepy eyeball. Dustin Hoffman‘s grubby apartment and the Latinos across the street who taunt him and the anguish that he feels over his dead father are fine flavorings. And Olivier’s line about Americans: “They were always so confident that God was on their side. Now I think they are not so sure.”
Because I failed to check Twitter as last night’s 7:30 pm premiere screening of Cabin In The Woods began, I didn’t read breaking reports about Gary Ross decision to not direct Catching Fire, the Hunger Games sequel. I didn’t read the news, in fact, until 9:45 pm when I sat down at Sam Woo’s. My first reaction was “great!…so there’s a decent chance that Tom Stern‘s jiggly-ass, bob-and-weave close-ups won’t be used on Catching Fire? Whoo-hoo! I’ll have the vegetable dumplings!”
Diplomatic side-stepping always prevails when a significant person leaves a company or a project. Statements never allude to anyone being unhappy or frustrated or quitting or being canned. It’s always a calm mutual decision, never about emotion, always about practicalities. So you can bet the deed to the ranch that Ross’s departing statement — “I simply don’t have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make because of the fixed and tight production schedule” — is only one piece of the pie. Although it probably was a factor.
It is axiomatic that when a movie is a huge hit, the suits always want the sequel to be made and released quickly before the public mood changes and the zeitgeist turns another page. So whatever polite and supportive noises the Lionsgate guys were making during meetings, the subtitles read “Let’s not spend too much time twiddling our thumbs on Catching Fire…we need to make this sucker sooner rather than later so we can juice the guys we gotta juice, so we can make more money so we can juice the guys we gotta juice. We need to get the third and fourth film made right after the sequel so we can maximize the merchandising and ancillary revenues and generally go to town and fly to Paris and light cigars and dazzle our wives and girlfriends. We’re not artists — we’re Lionsgate executives. We see life in relatively simple terms.”
When Twillight director Catherine Hardwicke walked away from directing New Moon it was allegedly because she didn’t want to make the sequel under deadline and budget constraints that would have cramped her creative style, according to an Entertainment Weekly interview. Those constraints were at least partly imposed by Summit honcho Rob Friedman, who is now Lionsgate’s co-chairman. Do the math.
The Lionsgate guy who told Deadline‘s Nikki Finke and Michael Fleming last weekend that things were hopeful as far as Ross directing Catching Firenow says, “I am in shock.” The source and his colleagues “expected the deal to go down right after Easter weekend,” Finke reports. “And they even went so far as to privately deny an internet report that Ross had told the studio at the start of last week that he would not helm the sequel because he didn’t want to repeat himself.”
The line about needing to “juice the guys we gotta juice, so we can make more money so we can juice the guys we gotta juice” is from a mid ’70s film noir set in Los Angeles. Name the film, the director, the character who said the line and the actor who played him.