The re-make of Maniac (1980) doesn’t hit theaters until 2013, but this weekend New Yorkers can see a sneak peek courtesy of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies series! The masterminds behind this attempt to outdo William Lustig ‘s brilliantly twisted 1980 slasher classic (good luck with that, by the way) are Alexandre Aja and Gr
The re-make of Maniac (1980) doesn’t hit theaters until 2013, but this weekend New Yorkers can see a sneak peek courtesy of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies series! The masterminds behind this attempt to outdo William Lustig ‘s brilliantly twisted 1980 slasher classic (good luck with that, by the way) are Alexandre Aja and Gr
Sopranos writer/director/producer David Chase resisted saying his latest venture, Not Fade Away is autobiographical, but it certainly resembles large swaths of his upbringing. Born in Upstate New York and raised in suburban New Jersey, he used to dream of becoming a successful drummer in a rock band. He is also unabashedly a fan of ’60s-era music and all those elements fit front and center in his first big return to the spotlight since The Sopranos had its final shot in 2007. Fittingly, James Gandolfini stars as the father in Not Fade Away , the title of course being an ode to the 1964 Rolling Stones cover of a song credited to Buddy Holly and Norman Petty. The film will have its Gala World Premiere as the Centerpiece of the New York Film Festival Saturday night. In the film, however, Gandolfini is anything but the underworld kingpin he is in the famous HBO series that made him a household name. The movie celebrates youth and more specifically, youthful angst. The so-called generation gap – a term that was popularized in the era – hits the audience over the head throughout the film. The conflict between accepting life’s conventions and the innate yearning for something different is liberally dished out. “The theme for the movie for me is the conflict between security and freedom,” Chase said at a Lincoln Center pre-gala screening Friday. “Humans are always in that conflict. There’s the desire to be babied and taken care of. And there’s the need to say, ‘go fuck yourself, I want to do what I want, I want to be free to do what I want.’ That’s what initially made me interested in doing this.” In Not Fade Away John Magaro stars as Doug, the nucleus of a pack of suburban Jersey kids who throw off the conservative shackles of their parents and grow their hair out, put on some funky threads, party at each other’s house’s like rock stars and dream of being – well, rock stars. He trades steely glances from his disapproving middle class father (Gandolfini) as he and his pack of spirited friends slowly but assuredly take on the physical and philosophical offshoots of the counter-culture. While it is a rock ‘n’ roll coming-of-age movie, there is no obvious end point. In the kids’ minds, they’re on the threshold of making it, though internal jealousies and conflicting ambitions hold them back. Still, the band gets progressively better and Doug, originally playing drums, eventually takes over lead vocals when it becomes apparent he has the better voice, which of course enrages the guitarist/singer and now competitor he in effect replaces, Eugene (played by Boardwalk Empire ‘s Jack Huston). Musician, songwriter, producer and all around rock legend Steven van Zandt served as executive producer/Music Supervisor on the film and told Chase that it was important to find actors who could ‘play the music.’ Still, Magaro said they were initially very green to music when they came on board. “We were terrible. We’d eek out a song and we were just terrible,” he said. “[At first] we’d look at David and he’d say something like, ‘that’s very encouraging…'” “Part of the authenticity is that most bands are cover bands, or they should be,” said Van Zandt – better known as Little Steven. “But these days, not so much. Most good bands – Rolling Stones, Beatles, E Street Band – they spent a few years covering songs, analyzing them [deconstructing] them and that’s how they learn.” Van Zandt helped create some original music for the movie, but if there’s a soundtrack that comes out – by all means get it. Mostly the band, however, does cover songs and the film is peppered with hits from the era. Just try and not wiggle a bit in your chair while watching this movie. Chase said the film has been an idea of his even before The Sopranos came along and it may be easily interpreted as a nostalgic trip down memory lane. The music and heartfelt performances do carry the film, though it did seem to fall a bit flat ultimately. “I don’t want to get into this thing about bragging about the ’60s. But I think I was lucky to live through that time,” said Chase. “I was living in one of the best musical eras in history. Music at that time was a way into everything. It’s how I learned about art, poetry, fashion, humor , film, politics. Music was everything. And I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”
With a little over a week before Martin McDonough’s slam-bang Seven Psychopaths opens in theaters, the fun is just starting. I caught the film at the Toronto International Film Festival and it’s as much fun as this Red Band behind-the-scenes trailer suggests. Check out the verbal hijinks between Sam Rockwell and Colin Farrell that concludes with the former telling the latter: “I want to jump inside your pants.” Also, check out Movieline’s gallery of exclusive shots of Rockwell from the movie. Trivia: McDonough told me that Farrell found that wacky knit cap that Rockwell wears at a convenience store where he also picked up some chocolate milk and a bag of cheese puffs — all props that Rockwell uses for laughs in the film. EXCLUSIVE GALLERY: SAM ROCKWELL IN SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS Written and Directed by McDonough, Seven Psychopaths is the story of a struggling and blocked screenwriter (Farrell) who unwittingly becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends, played by Walken and Rockwell, kidnap a gangster’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved Shih Tzu. Yep, it’s all that and a truly memorable exploding head scene. Here’s the clip. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Tuesday night, the New York Film Festival hosted something that is likely a rarified event in the usually hallowed theater venues at Lincoln Center – a boisterous and rowdy crowd. But the event probably landed itself to the culture shift. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of The Princess Bride and a good chunk of the living cast showed up, including Robin Wright , Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn and Billy Crystal in addition to director Rob Reiner as well as author William Goldman. Random shouts of “meathead” could be heard from the audience – all loving of course – when Reiner was introduced on stage as first coming to prominence as Michael Stivic in 1970s television show All in the Family . The Princess Bride was also likened to The Wizard of Oz (1939) – something Reiner fully embraced. Reiner recalled that when Princess Bride first went into release, a trailer had not been made a week before its roll out, nor had a one-sheet been created to describe the film. “Like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the time, the studios weren’t sure how to market this kind of a film,” said Reiner. “And similar to [that movie] it didn’t do [very well] when it first came out.” Released in September, 1987, the film had a strong showing in nine theaters in its initial run, but its overall theatrical run (nearly $31 million) apparently disappointed, but it has lived on as a cult favorite and the audience at Lincoln Center talked back to the screen in something akin to watching The Little Shop of Horrors (which incidentally also played at NYFF last weekend). Reiner’s father met William Goldman in 1968 while working on a book about Broadway that year. Reiner’s father had coincidentally just created a play running in New York. While still in his 20s, his dad gave him the novel The Princess Bride to read and, as might be expected, fell in love with it. “I was monster fan of everything [Goldman] had written,” he said. “My dad gave me the book and I couldn’t believe how incredible this book was. What a high degree of difficulty to do an adventure, romance, satire and make it all work. I thought it was the most incredible thing I’d read in my whole life.” Years later, after getting his lauded This is Spinal Tap and Stand by Me under his belt, Reiner thought about The Princess Bride . “So, many years go by and I had made some movies and I thought naively, ‘well they make movies out of books and my favorite book is The Princess Bride .’ So as a totally naive person, I thought I’ll see if someone has tried to do this. I found out the Truffaut had tried.” Eventually, he decided to go for it and ask the two-time Oscar winning writer if he could take on The Princess Bride . “I went to meet with him at his place in [New York] and he opened the door and said, ‘ The Princess Bride is my favorite thing I’ve ever written in my life – I want it on my tombstone. What are you going to do with it?'” Goldman did give his blessing that night. Newcomer at the time Robin Wright was cast the title character (aka Buttercup) opposite Cary Elwes, the man of her dreams (who she does some of that kissing with). The fairy tale aspect of the story came as a bit of a surprise for Wright who had not read the book by the time she departed for the set in England, but was taken aback by the fantasy element that rides through the story. When I read the script, I noticed all the stage direction which had things like lightning, sand, thunder, giant rodents and fire. I thought, ‘Oh we’re just going to do the dialog, I didn’t believe all that other stuff,” Wright said at Lincoln Center. “I went to England and had never read the book, thinking all that stage direction B.S. was just that. And then I had to put on my accent and there were attacking eels and all this stuff. It was just insane.”
The World Premiere of Ang Lee ‘s Life Of Pi will open the New York Film Festival September 28th. The screening launching the 50th anniversary of the annually anticipated film event will be a return for the Oscar-winning director, who screened Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as the festival’s closing night event 12 years ago. Robert Altman, Pedro Almodóvar and Francois Truffaut are the only other directors to have had more than one film chosen to bow the festival. Lee’s The Ice Storm opened the 1997 edition of NYFF. The film stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tobey Maguire and Gérard Depardieu. Life Of Pi will the be the first 3-D NYFF opener. Based on the book that has sold more than seven million copies and a number o f years on bestseller lists, the feature takes place over three continents, two oceans, many years and a wide world of imagination. Lee’s vision, coupled with game-changing technological breakthroughs, haas turned a story long throughout un-filmable into a totally original cinematic event and the first truly international all-audience motion picture. Life Of Pi follows a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship’s only other survivor…a fearsome Bengal tiger. The Twentieth Century Fox release is due in theaters November 21st. Life Of Pi is a perfect combination of technological innovation and a strong artistic vision,” Richard Peña, Selection Committee Chair & Program Director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center said via a statement. “And Lee has managed to make a deeply moving, engrossing work that will delight audiences as much as it will astonish them. We’re enormously proud to have this film for our Opening Night for the 50th NYFF.” “I am both delighted and honored to be back a the New York Film Festival with Life Of Pi ,” Lee said in a statement. “I have the deepest respect for Richard Peña and his team and to be selected by them as the Opening Night Film for the 50th anniversary is extremely gratifying. I am also excited because this is my hometown, and to be unveiling this film that I am so proud of here is a real pleasure.” Last week NYFF said it will close out its festival with the world premiere of Robert Zemeckis’s Flight , starring Denzel Washington. Previous Opening Night Gala titles include Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (1963), Gill Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1967), Akir Kurosawa’s Ran (1985), Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies (1996), Stephen Frear’s The Queen (2006) and David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010). Produced by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the 50th New York Film Festival will take place September 28 – October 14th Watch the trailer on YouTube .
The world premiere of Robert Zemeckis ‘s Flight will close the 50th anniversary edition of the New York Film Festival , organizers said Thursday. The action-packed thriller stars Oscar-winner Denzel Washington as Whip Whitaker, a veteran airline pilot who crash lands his plane following a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly everyone on board. Though he’s hailed as a hero immediately after the incident, the legal, oral and ethical areas of his behavior before and immediately after become more ambiguous that initially portrayed to the public. John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo, Bruce Greenwood and Kelly Reilly also star in Flight , which Paramount Pictures will release in theaters November 2nd. “Robert Zemeckis has shown his diversity as a storyteller in comedies, dramas and has skillfully translated narratives into specific effect environments,” Rose Kuo, executive director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center said in a statement. “It is a pleasure to see him bring to life his complicated, tragic-comic portrait of a man in crisis, with an exceptional and poignant performance by Denzel Washington.” NYFF’s selection committee includes Richard Peña, the event’s long-serving chair who will retire later this year. Also on the committee are Melissa Anderson, contributor to the Village Voice , Scott Foundas, Associate Program Director, Todd McCarthy, chief film critic at The Hollywood Reporter and Amy Taubin, contributor at Film Comment and Sight and Sound The 17-day New York Film Festival annually spotlights the latest in world cinema from both celebrated auteurs and new talent. The Film Society of Lincoln Center hosts the annually anticipated New York film event, taking place this year September 28 – October 14.
James Cameron recently said he is Avatar -bound and Sigourney Weaver said she will appear in what will be Avatar 2, 3, 4, confirming that the Titanic director is still on track with the franchise, which made over $2 billion worldwide in its first mammoth installment, which debuted back in December, 2009. Production will apparently begin on the back to back installments this fall, Weaver told Showbiz 411 . The actress has stints in USA Networks’ Political Animals followed by a short-run play at New York’s Lincoln Center and then dives in on Avatar 2 – 4 with Cameron. Weaver noted that she does not know the time frame for the sequels to the 3-D behemoth, “I just show up.” James Cameron made headlines in March for reaching the furthest depth of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, which is nearly seven miles below the surface of the Pacific near Guam. “I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions,” he told The New York Times in May. He also noted that he had closed his production company and is devoting the movie-side of his career to Avatar exclusively. “I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the “Avatar” business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3 , maybe Avatar 4 , and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts.” He did note, however, he will also do documentaries about his deep-sea exploration, the first of which should be out next year.
Movieline caught up with the charismatic William Friedkin last weekend at the Seattle Film Festival, where the Exorcist / French Connection director received a Lifetime Achievement award and screened his brutal Southern-fried potboiler Killer Joe . Before he held court keeping a packed audience rapt with tales from his nearly five-decade career in film (highlights below), Friedkin stopped to discuss two of the topics he’s wrestling with these days: His legal battle to win back the rights to his 1977 pic Sorcerer , and the absurdity of the MPAA, which anointed Killer Joe with an NC-17 rating. Friedkin is active on Twitter , which has allowed film fans unprecedented access to the Oscar-winner and given him the chance to discuss his battle for the rights to Sorcerer , his Roy Scheider-starring remake of The Wages of Fear . “I’m suing Universal and Paramount to get control of Sorcerer ,” he explained to Movieline. “It evidently means a lot to people, and I want people to be able to see it.” As with many older films, rights to Sorcerer lie out of the filmmaker’s hands – and studios, according to Friedkin, are allowing precious 35mm prints to deteriorate right under their own noses. “What’s happened to the legacy of almost all the studios is that the people who run them now don’t care,” he said. “They don’t give a damn. I know the guy from Lincoln Center, he tried to get a print of Blade Runner and Warner Bros. told him they didn’t know who owned it.” Even in the care of studios, library titles threaten to become damaged beyond repair. Friedkin doesn’t want what happened to another ‘70s classic to happen to his film. “Paramount put out a beautiful Blu-ray of The Godfather almost two years ago,” he said. “They went to get it out of their vaults and it had deteriorated, and they had to spend over a million dollars to restore it. It’s probably the gem of their library, and they just let it go. So they don’t care about the legacy of the work that they do. I hope I win my lawsuit, and I’m going to expose what they’re doing nevertheless.” As for his current film, Killer Joe – an assuredly brutal film whose tagline boasts “a totally twisted deep-fried Texas redneck trailer park murder story” – Friedkin has battled an old adversary: The ratings board. “The ratings board, to me, is a joke,” he said. “I never thought we’d get an NC-17, but I don’t mind the fact that we did. I had a film called Cruising that I took back there 50 times, 5-0, before they gave it an R.” Still, Friedkin will gladly accept his NC-17. “If we had done that with Killer Joe , it wouldn’t be here tonight; it would be playing in a shorts festival on YouTube.” NEXT: enjoy a Movieline 9 of highlights, anecdotes, and assorted moments from Friedkin’s appareance at SIFF ’12.
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