Were you in The Shawshank Redemption? Did you work on set? Were you otherwise involved in the production? If so, you're invited to a 15-year reunion this August in Ohio. Someone having something to do with the 1994 Oscar-nominated film has put together a weekend-long event and a really snazzy website providing details. Oh, and if you're merely a fan of the movie but had nothing at all to do with its making, you can attend as well. A few of the things on the itinerary do cost an admission fee, but only because there are prison and museum tours involved, plus a concert featuring a southern rock band.
Many people consider The Shawshank Redemption one of the best films of the '90s, maybe even of all time, so there are likely plenty of people who'd be interested in a little trip to see the film's shooting locations and meet with extras and crew members who helped create the film. Apparently there aren't many people on board just yet, but if the word gets out to enough people, there's a chance of making this a huge deal. Maybe principal talent like Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Stephen King and/or Frank Darabont could even make room in their schedules to make an appearance. And then, perhaps this can be a yearly thing, like Star Wars conventions and Lebowski Fest.
The first trailer for City of Ember has just arrived online (watch it above or over on the film's official site). Cinematical premiered the teaser poster for City of Ember not long ago, and it looks like the folks from 20th Century Fox and Walden Media are itching to get the buzz going on this one by debuting a trailer long before the film's October 10th release date. This will also be the same trailer that plays in front of Prince Caspian this weekend. Based on the best-selling novel, City of Ember was produced by Tom Hanks and stars Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Harry Treadaway. Directed by Gil Kenan (Monster House), the synopsis for Ember looks like this:
"For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - underground. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever."
What say you? I think it definitely has potential, especially with that cast. (Seems like a cool book, too.)
Cinematical has just received this exclusive teaser poster for City of Ember(click to enlarge), due out this October 10th courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Walden Media. Based on the best-selling novel from Jeanne Duprau, City of Ember was written by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) and directed by the very talented Gil Kenan (Monster House). Oh, but the talent doesn't stop there -- check out this cast: Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Harry Treadaway. And did I mention it was produced by Tom Hanks?
And here's a synopsis for ya: "For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - underground. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever."
Early buzz tells us the film looks gorgeous, so that's definitely a good sign. We've also been told that the first trailer for City of Ember will debut in front of Prince Caspian this weekend. (Chalk up another reason to hang with those peeps over in Narnia.) Once again, City of Ember arrives in theaters on October 10th.
You may never have heard of Henry Bean, but he made a movie called The Believerback in 2001 that single-handedly catapulted Ryan Gosling to prominence (if not stardom) before The Notebook was a twinkle in anyone's eye. (He also wrote Internal Affairs and some other, schlockier early-90's thrillers, but you probably don't remember those either.) Gosling played a Jewish young man who became an increasingly fierce Neo-Nazi, at one point donning a tallis while executing Nazi salutes. It wasn't just difficult material, it was impossible material, and the fact that Bean managed to make something coherent out of it is, I think, one of the more impressive accomplishments in indie cinema this decade.
Bean waited seven years before delivering his directorial follow-up, a dark comedy called Noise, and there's a new trailer for it up top for you to watch. (We also ran a piece on the movie last October.) It looks like a new take on Falling Down, except funnier, and with a faux-superhero twist: Tim Robbins plays an urban professional who is so incensed by the incessant noise of car alarms that he names himself the Rectifier and starts smashing up offending cars to shut them up. This causes a political brouhaha, getting the attention of the mayor (William Hurt). Oh, and it's autobiographical: apparently Bean got himself arrested breaking into cars to turn off the alarms. They are annoying, aren't they?
The movie logically gets a New York-only release on May 9th. Early reviews have been mixed, but the trailer is nifty, and the pedigree piques my interest. I hope it manages to expand.
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger when your car alarm goes off in the middle of the night! Okay, so this isn't exactly what was said in Pulp Fiction, but I thought that particular Sam Jackson rant was appropriate for this story. Way back in March of 2006, Cinematical posted that director Henry Bean was setting out to make a dark comedy called Noise, with Tim Robbins in the lead. Now the film is finished, and it is starting to get acclaim on the fest circuit, so now comes all the interviews and news that fills in the blanks.
Reuters recently talked with Bean about the film, and while it is fictional, the director says it's based on his own life. Bean used to get so ticked off about car alarms screeching in the middle of the night that he would break into the cars and disable the alarms -- which landed him in jail. Instead of staying in his cycle of stress-influenced crime, he decided to make Noise.
Robbins plays David, "an upper-class family man driven insane by New York's loud sounds -- grinding garbage trucks, horns honking, back-up beepers and worst of all, car alarms squealing at all hours." He is so infuriated by the racket that he becomes a vigilante called "The Rectifier" and declares war on the alarms. Not surprisingly, he ends up in jail, almost loses his marriage, and then continues the fight legally, although he's stopped by "the city's slimy mayor, played by William Hurt, forcing David to resort to an extreme strategy to make his point."
Hopefully the flick will get picked up and the rest of us can see it soon. But in the meantime, which loud noises would you like to become a vigilante over? Personally, there was this garbage truck where I used to live that would come in the middle of the night to pick up garbage and recycling from the neighboring bar -- oh, how I would've loved to silence that back-up noise. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep....
The complete lineup for the latest edition of AFI Fest was announced last week -- indieWIRE was among the first to report on it -- and I've been mulling it over ever since. I've worked at the festival in the past and so it's difficult for me to be completely objective, but even though I won't be attending this year, I can't help but feel intense interest. When it comes to film festivals in general, I prefer to be unreasonably optimistic rather than smugly pessimistic.
Under new Artistic Director Rose Kuo, the programming team has made some adjustments. The Asian New Classics section is gone -- the Asian films have been integrated into other sections -- but other regional sidebars remain (American Showcase, Latin Cinema Series, African Showcase) and a new documentary showcase has been introduced, as well as Milestones, devoted to retrospective films. Beyond the already-announced titles, including Robert Redford's political drama Lions for Lambs as the opener and Jason Reitman's much-loved comedy Juno as the centerpiece gala, Mike Newell's romantic drama Love in the Time of Cholera, starring Javier Bardem (pictured), has been named as the closing night presentation. Tributes have also been announced for Laura Linney and Catherine Deneuve.
North American Premieres include Noise, directed by Henry Bean (The Believer), in which Tim Robbins stars as a New York attorney who takes the law into his own hands when life in the city gets too noisy for him, and The Searchers 2.0, the latest by Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy), featuring two aging actors in search of revenge on an even more aging screenwriter. Doghead stars Juan Jose Ballesta (the excellent Seven Virgins) as a young man suffering from an odd disease who starts a romance that encompasses "the endearing and the bleak," according to the program notes. Please Vote for Meis a documentary from China about eight year olds (!) running for class monitor. AFI Fest runs from November 1-11.
Last month, Bill Murray signed on for his first live-action feature in a few years, Fox Walden's adaptation of Jeanne Duprau's City of Ember. The film is being directed by Gil Kenan, the man who brought us the Oscar-nominated Monster House, from an adaptation by Caroline Thompson, who has penned many-a Tim Burton film from Edward Scissorhands to Corpse Bride. With production currently underway in Belfast, we've finally got word on the rest of the cast, which is pretty impressive -- Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Harry Treadaway.
To recap -- the story is about a city called Ember, which is always in the dark of night, and gets all of its light from electric lamps. Two children, Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, see that the lights are beginning to flicker and are determined to find out why -- thereby unraveling the strange story of the city, and becoming their home's hope for survival before the lights go out for good. Lina is being played by Atonement star Saoirse Ronan, and Doon is Harry Treadaway, whose most recent film is the Ian Curtis biopic -- Control. Bill Murray is, as expected, The Mayor of Ember, who the children go up against, and as for the rest of the new cast -- Robbins is Doon's father and an inventor who holds a secret about the city, Landau is Doon's boss in the Pipeworks and Jean-Baptise is a greenhouse worker. Between the talent behind the production and the story itself, I'm itching to see what they make of the dark, electric-lit world.
I guess it really is true that eventually every movie will be remade if you just wait long enough. Variety reports that New Line has struck a deal with producer Alison Rosenzweig to remake the 1990 Adrian Lyne thriller Jacob's Ladder. Inspired by the short story by Ambrose Bierce called An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (a title that will probably ring a bell if you watch a lot of LOST), the film originally starred Tim Robbins as a New York postal worker, haunted by his tour of duty in Vietnam and starting to lose his grip on reality. I won't go into any more detail than that since the film is a bit of a brain-buster to begin with and I wouldn't want to give anything away for anyone who hasn't seen it. Reviews at the time varied from describing Lyne as a "magician pulling a sleazy trick" to calling the film "an unforgettable cinematic experience" and over the years the movie has come to be considered a cult classic.
So far, it doesn't look like the project is a big priority, since news of the remake was buried in an article about the crime thriller Transit, and there has been no mention of a studio making an offer. To be honest, the original film didn't really 'wow' me, but I think I might be in the minority with that opinion. With news of the remake starting to hit the net, the debate over the necessity of a remake is already happening on message boards. I wouldn't worry though -- it looks like it could be a long time before Rosenzweig and company get a chance at performing a "sleazy trick" of their own.
Who doesn't love a good Renaissance Fair? There's jousting, jesters, minstrels and sword fighting, not to mention those boggling tasty turkey legs. Sometimes you can also check out comedic mud wrestling and members of the royal court. Granted, these things wipe away the reality of the times. It's shockingly clean, no one is really sent to the gallows and certain famous Queens get to keep their heads. If you're itching, however, to "know" what goes on behind the scenes at these recreations, and you haven't been watching some of the Gilmore Girls RennFair episodes, Jack Black will be on his way to save the day.
One of the films currently being shopped around at Cannes is Ye Olde Times. The movie will center on "two rival fairs vying for ownership of all things Middle Ages" and Black is starring as Professor Shockworthy -- the movie's narrator who tutors some "romantically entwined characters in the mysterious ways of love." Considering some of Black's lesser-loved work lately, I wouldn't be half as excited if it weren't for the great mix of comedic testosterone that's joining him -- Tim Robbins, Will Arnett, Cary Elwes and a cameo by John C. Reilly. I wonder if Arnett will be some sort of Medieval magician, and whether Elwes will channel some Wesley and do as we wish? Finally, I find it pretty telling that the plot specifically describes a "romantically entwined" set of characters, but there are no maids or maidens on the cast list. Will Black, perhaps, be tutoring Robbins and another lucky man on the ways of love? Oh, the possibilities! Codpieces and turkey legs, oh my!
You hear that a new movie is coming down the pike that will tell the story of three soldiers from Iraq called The Return (not SMG's latest). Chances are, you think of a number of people including Mark Whalberg, Christian Bale or any of the other actors who can pull off the buzz-cut tough guy thing. Hell, you might even think of Michael Peña, who was recently in World Trade Center and Babel. Peña is one, and he will be joined by none other than Rachel McAdams and Tim Robbins. The film is about three soldiers returning from the Iraq war, each trying to find their own way back into civilian life and deal with the trauma of their experiences.
The story, which was penned by Neil Burger and Dirk Wittenborn will follow the three as they return to the states and take an unexpected road trip together across the country. Burger, who just wrote and directed The Illusionist, will also direct the feature this May, with a possible release in December. I can only hope that he's got some more subtlety for this film, as his previous effort had the least climactic, and most obvious revelation that I've ever seen. But the bigger challenge might be getting the audience to buy McAdams as a soldier. She's done some decent work and has successfully come up against a killer, but that's not the same as going through boot camp and Iraq. Thoughts?
I think it's safe to say that awards season is in full swing; Golden Globe nominations will be announced this Thursday morning, and already a number of organizations are listing their favorite films of the year. It's definitely that time of the year -- time to recognize the best, complain about the worst and decide just how much money you're willing to dish out for those office pools. This morning, Variety mentioned a list of underdogs (or dark horses) in the supporting male category -- folks who might slip in there, but could lose out to more popular roles. There's Michael Caine for Children of Men, Matt Damon for The Departed, Dustin Hoffman for Stranger Than Fiction, Ian McKellen for The Da Vinci Code, Tim Robbins for Catch a Fire and, my personal favorite, Stanley Tucci for The Devil Wears Prada.
And what about Best Picture? I've heard Half Nelson and Little Miss Sunshine mentioned more often than Clint Eastwood -- but do those films have what it takes to land a spot on the big stage? There's also a lot of people who feel Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was this year's most entertaining film -- but then why does it feel like such an underdog? Or how about Spike Lee's fantastic heist film, Inside Man? Obviously audiences loved it -- the pic was Lee's greatest financial success -- but will it be recognized at all? When you talk family films, all anyone can think of are the slew of animated flicks that bombarded us this year. Yet, how come no one mentioned what, in my opinion, was this year's best family pic -- Akeelah and the Bee? Don't you think it's time the Academy recognizes those feel-good family films by tossing them a category?
So, I ask you: In your opinion, which of your favorite films and performances this year do you feel will get lost in the shuffle? Forget about the critics, what does the audience think? Heck, you're the ones paying hard-earned money for these movies -- give us your opinion.
And we played the first thing that came to our heads, Just so happened to be, The Best Song in the World, it was The Best Song in the World. - Tenacious D, Tribute
It was back in 1994 when Jack Black and Kyle Gass first met as members of the Actor's Gang, an ensemble theater troupe founded by Tim Robbins. Up until that point, Black had appeared in small-ish parts in Airborne and Demolition Man, while Gass was barely noticeable in films like Jacob's Ladder and Brain Dead. Not long after that first meeting, the two discovered one very important thing they had in common: A love for rock and roll. Realizing they were far from a couple of gorgeous long-haired rockers, the two foregrounded their weaknesses while combining their love for comedy and music in a two-man band called Tenacious D. And, as they say -- the rest is history.
Shortly after performing their one and only song, Tribute, at Al's Bar in downtown Los Angeles, the duo garnered attention from comedian David Cross who subsequently helped Black and Gass land an appearance on Mr. Show. That led to three half-hour shorts on HBO, an album that quickly went platinum and a legion of fans who simply refer to their idols as "The D." Now, Black and Gass have somehow formed a story around the wacky, foul-mouthed lyrics to all their songs and used their pull in Hollywood to make a feature-length film called Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. But is it really destiny ... or just a waste of time?
Australian-born director Phillip Noyce has followed a fascinating career arc. In his home country, in addition to a handful of early films unseen by me, he turned out the amazing, crackerjack thriller, Dead Calm (1989), the story of three people and two boats in the open water. (Orson Welles started filming the same story as The Deep but shut down production when one of his lead actors died.) The film earned Noyce an invitation to Hollywood, where he received the usual treatment that most foreigners get: He was assigned the unwanted garbage that the locals wouldn't touch. He spent a decade churning out stuff like the Rutger Hauer flick Blind Fury (1989), Patriot Games (1992), Sliver (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), (God help us) The Saint (1997) and The Bone Collector (1999).
Phillip Noyce's political-apartheid thriller, Catch a Fire, tells the tale of real-life hero Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), a foreman at an oil refinery, falsely accused of sabotage amid the political heat of the rise of the African National Congress (ANC). After he and his wife are interrogated and tortured at the hands of Nick Vos (Tim Robbins), a colonel in the Police Security Force, and his men, the previously apolitical Chamusso, who had always toed the line of apartheid, leaves his beloved family to fight against apartheid with the ANC. Noyce sat down with James Rocchi during the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss his film. You can download the video here ( 20MB, 9:49 minutes) or watch it over on Netscape.
Because I consistently adhere to my low expectation of upcoming releases, regardless of what season we're in or how much buzz/hype surrounds a film, I can't honestly say that I'm looking forward to any of this season's heavy hitters. Sure, there are new films from Scorsese, Eastwood, Almodovar, Aronofsky, Soderbergh and even my all-time favorite, Gilliam. However, I just can't begin to anticipate any of them, for fear they will disappoint me (which is more than likely, unfortunately). The one thing I can still depend on, though, is acting, and only when I can get a glimpse of the performances in whatever trailers are currently available. I will say that I have high hopes this fall for Matt Damon, Will Smith, Forrest Whitaker, Kate Winslet and Nicole Kidman, but I've compiled a short list of three movies and their respective actors that I look forward to watching the most:
Catch a Fire (Derek Luke) - I can always enjoy Tim Robbins, and while checking out the trailer for Philip Noyce's new film I couldn't believe the actor's seemingly perfect grasp of the South African accent -- despite being a great actor, he's not always the best with dialects. Sharing the film with Robbins, though, is the under-appreciated Derek Luke, who after gaining great acclaim for Antwone Fisher nearly disappeared into forgettable films like Biker Boyzand Friday Night Lights. In Catch a Fire, which is set in 1980s South Africa, Luke plays the real-life Patrick Chamusso, an anti-apartheid hero who went from being apolitical to leaving his family and joining up with the African National Congress. Regardless of how good the movie is, I expect to be blown away by Luke's handling of the role.
Were you in The Shawshank Redemption? Did you work on set? Were you otherwise involved in the production? If so, you're invited to a 15-year reunion this August in Ohio. Someone having something to do with the 1994 Oscar-nominated film has put together a weekend-long event and a really snazzy website providing details. Oh, and if you're merely a fan of the movie but had nothing at all to do with its making, you can attend as well. A few of the things on the itinerary do cost an admission fee, but only because there are prison and museum tours involved, plus a concert featuring a southern rock band.
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger when your car alarm goes off in the middle of the night! Okay, so this isn't exactly what was said in Pulp Fiction, but I thought that particular Sam Jackson rant was appropriate for this story. Way back in 
The complete lineup for the latest edition of 
Last month, 
I guess it really is true that eventually every movie will be remade if you just wait long enough. Variety 
Who doesn't love a good Renaissance Fair? There's jousting, jesters, minstrels and sword fighting, not to mention those boggling tasty turkey legs. Sometimes you can also check out comedic mud wrestling and members of the royal court. Granted, these things wipe away the reality of the times. It's shockingly clean, no one is really sent to the gallows and certain famous Queens get to keep their heads. If you're itching, however, to "know" what goes on behind the scenes at these recreations, and you haven't been watching some of the Gilmore Girls RennFair episodes, 
You hear that a new movie is 
I think it's safe to say that awards season is in full swing; Golden Globe nominations will be announced this Thursday morning, and already a number of organizations are listing their favorite films of the year. It's definitely that time of the year -- time to recognize the best, complain about the worst and decide just how much money you're willing to dish out for those office pools. This morning, 
