Source: Janet Mayer/ SplashNews / Splash News The Cast Of “In Living Color” Celebrates Their 25th Anniversary At Tribeca Film Festival If you love the 90’s as much as we do, you understand that “In Living Color” was something truly special that created a LASTING legacy. The show – created by Keenan Ivory Wayans brought together some of the most talented comedians our culture has ever known and launched careers that continue to last to this very day. 25 years later cast members came together for an anniversary reunion at Tribeca TV as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Source: Janet Mayer/ SplashNews / Splash News We didn’t see any signs of Jim Carrey , but we saw our good buddy David Alan Grier , as well as Keenan Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans aka DJ SW-1, Kim Wayans and Tommy Davidson. Check out more photos from the reunion below, then hit the flip for more from the show’s stars.
Ready for some dope news on #BiggieDay? In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Bad Boy Entertainment, Diddy will premiere Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: The Bad Boy Story at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. The long-awaited documentary gives a behind-the-scenes look at Bad Boy’s legacy as Diddy rallies the label’s key players for last year’s reunion shows at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. “I […]
2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the landmark Nas debut “Illmatic.” In celebration of the anniversary, a documentary chronicling the time, the making of the…
The website for the Tribeca Film Festival has finally put up video from the Q&A session that followed its closing-night presentation of The King of Comedy , but, alas, it’s just an excerpt. I was hoping that the discussion — which included the film’s director Martin Scorsese and its stars, Robert De Niro , venerable comedian and filmmaker Jerry Lewis and (briefly, via pre-taped video) Sandra Bernhard — would run in its entirety, because, even after 30 years, the creative tensions that contributed to the film’s greatness were still evident. At the center of that tension was the 87-year-old Lewis, who gives a brilliant, disciplined performance in the movie as the Johnny Carson -like talk-show host Jerry Langford. Given some of the recollections that were exhumed and catty comments that were made during the Q&A, Lewis was a handful on the set. When Bernhard appeared by video, she asked Lewis, “Hey, remember when you called me fish lips ?” and then recalled that he stole back the handwritten apology he’d given her as a result. (This prompted Scorsese to start laughing into his chest.) Sandra Bernhard vs. Jerry Lewis: The Feud Three decades later, Lewis — who, in 2000, told a comedy festival audience, “I don’t like any female comedians — did not sound like time had softened his feelings for his female co-star. In response to Bernhard’s taped comments, he took his own shots, saying, “ She’s the reason for birth control ” and “ She’s a wonderful guy, really . When you get to know him.” That tension between Lewis and Bernhard, who’s also brilliant in the picture, is palpable onscreen, especially during a so-pure-it’s-hard-to-watch scene in which Bernhard’s character Masha strips down to her lingerie to express her obsession with the captive Langford (Lewis), who’s bound to a chair with so much masking tape that he looks mummified. When Langford finally gets free of his bonds, he expresses his anger in brute fashion, and Lewis’ recollection of that scene suggested that he was really feeling the moment. The comic said that he told Scorsese, “I think when [Langford] gets out of the tape, he should punch [Bernhard] right in the mouth.’ [Scorsese] said, ‘You want to do that?’ I said, ‘More than you’ll ever know.” (Bernhard told the New York Times that, initially, Lewis wanted to punch her and have her careen into a glass table adorned with lit candles, but she refused to do it. ) The Last Word Through her spokesman, Bernhard declined to respond to Lewis’ comments. And why should she? All these years later, she still gets a rise out of Lewis, which has to be at least as satisfying as having the last word. Although Scorsese, De Niro and Lewis shared a lot of laughs on stage during the Q&A, I detected an undercurrent of discomfort when the veteran comic began to resort to some hoary Vaudeville-era gags that he’s been trotting out for ages. At one point, he reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a red clown nose that he wore on his schnozz for a wince-inducing length of time. He also wrapped his lips around a large water glass and clowned around like that for what felt like an eternity. Around that time, I noticed that even though Scorsese was laughing at these antics, he had shifted his body away from Lewis and could be seen shooting De Niro a few looks that said, Can you believe this guy? I can. Lewis’ unquenchable need for attention and to control the situation is show-business legend. As Bernhard told me in an interview last week, “Jerry loves to direct,” and he has directed some fine films. In the case of The King of Comedy , however, it’s a testament to Scorsese’s talents as a filmmaker that he was able to harness these potentially crazy-making dynamics and make them sing on screen. Here’s an excerpt from the Q&A. Scorsese is talking about a memorable scene in the movie where Lewis’ Langford character is stopped on the streets of New York by a woman on a pay phone who asks him to say hello to her nephew. When Lewis declines, the woman, who has been all charm up to this point, tells Langford that she hopes his gets cancer. It’s a powerful scene about the public’s demands upon celebrity, and, as Scorsese explains, it is based on an actual incident. Here’s hoping that the entire Q&A is eventually posted. WATCH: ‘The King Of Comedy’ Reunion At Tribeca Film Festival — Get Cancer More on The King of Comedy: INTERVIEW: Sandra Bernhard Says ‘It’s Too Late’ To Remake ‘The King of Comedy’ [ New York Times ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
In helmer Steph Green’s debut feature, Run and Jump , a family must adjust to life with father — specifically, a father who has suffered brain damage from a stroke, and who returns home with a camera-toting medical researcher in tow. The wife of the stroke victim — an extraordinarily vibrant, red-haired mother of two and a warm, coaxing hostess to the uptight researcher — helps the household accommodate the strangers in its midst. Skirting traumatic turmoil, Run discovers reserves of strength and joie de vivre that could prove irresistible to European and American auds. The pic begins in medias res with Venetia ( Maxine Peake ) picking up her husband, Connor ( Edward MacLiam ), from the hospital where he spent a month in a coma and four months in recovery, and then collecting Ted Fielding ( Will Forte ), the American psychologist who will become the family’s houseguest and record Connor’s progress through the lens of his camera. Connor’s medial frontal lobe damage immediately makes itself felt in myriad unsubtle ways. The formerly skilled carpenter withdraws into a solipsistic state, totally absorbed in producing endless impractical wooden spheres instead of the well-crafted furniture he used to sell. He ignores his wife and children and fashions a wooden fork and spoon with which to touch people and things, thereby avoiding personal contact. Movingly, helmer Green and co-scripter Aibhe Keogan carefully dole out odd moments that briefly illuminate Connor’s prior existence as a vital, responsive man, seen in quick flashbacks from Venetia’s perspective or in moments of reconnection in the present day. But Connor is not alone in his slow emergence from isolation. Ted, at first keeping a fastidious distance from Venetia and the children (a young girl and a teenage boy), soon finds himself drawn in, lured out of hiding by Venetia’s vivacity as they share marijuana, a bike ride in the rain and even a kiss — as romance, hesitant and ambiguous at first, unexpectedly blossoms. Ted also takes an interest in the kids’ activities and starts to take over as male head of the house; troubling questions of loyalty and commitment multiply as Ted becomes the go-to guy for everyone, including Connor, much to the consternation of friends and in-laws. But these conflicts also serve as enrichments, expanding the inner circle to include a compensatory member. With remarkable warmth and immediacy, Green and co-scripter Keogan have managed to capture the beauty of an obviously flawed family, one neither too perfect nor too demographically balanced to ring true, and imbue it with a sense of plenitude that seems to flow as much from the sun-drenched land itself as from the quirkily particular personalities involved. Green and lenser Kevin Richey sometimes employ a handheld camera to suggest Connor’s disorientation and the buoyant Venetia’s whirlwind energy as, bathed in light, she bustles about to avoid thinking too much. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
A longstanding gig will keep Sandra Bernhard from attending the Tribeca Film Festival’s closing-night screening of The King of Comedy on April 27, but it’s not like she needs her memory jogged. The comedienne recalls that making Martin Scorsese’s prescient and oh-so-dark 1982 comedy about a deluded stand-up comic ( Robert De Niro ) who kidnaps his favorite talk-show host ( Jerry Lewis ), was a “coming-of-age experience that left me a changed person.” Talk about a breakthrough. Bernhard played Masha, an obsessed and similarly deluded fan of Lewis’ Jerry Langford character, who after helping to carry out the the kidnapping, entertained the duct-taped Langford in her bra and panties. Great comedy is often deeply unsettling, and Bernhard’s portrayal of Masha is so unabashedly off the wall that she left movie audiences squirming and Jerry Lewis genuinely aghast. It’s one of the purest comic performances captured on film. Here’s a little taste: The Monster Masha I talked with Bernhard about her experience making the movie, her scene with three-fourths of the British punk band the Clash , and her thoughts on whether a movie as prescient as The King of Comedy could be re-made at a time when the world is full of Rupert Pupkins and Mashas. Movieline: Let’s start with all the talent you beat out for the role of Masha. You’ve talked about how Debra Winger and Ellen Barkin were in the running, but Meryl Streep wanted that part as well. Any others that come to mind? Sandra Bernhard: I had heard that as well. So many people were up for that role, but I don’t know who exactly because they obviously didn’t tell me. I only knew about Ellen because I heard from her directly. I know that the part kind of came down to me and another actress, but I don’t remember who it was. Somebody did tell me at one point but it wasn’t anybody really compelling. How has the movie’s meaning for you changed over the years? I haven’t seen the movie in a long time. How many times can you watch yourself, you know? It’s uncomfortable. I am curious to see it again all cleaned up and restored. The film was so representative of an era in filmmaking when people would take their time in a scene. It wasn’t a case of rush, rush, rush onto the next moment. You had room to breathe, and I think that in itself made people uncomfortable because the topic was so weird and out of left field at the time. Now, expectations of fame and desire run so extreme that the film almost seems tame in comparison, but there’s still something about The King of Comedy that’s very disarming and offbeat and something you’ll never see again. And so those are the emotions I feel. It was very evocative. I agree. One of the reasons the film is so memorable is the way the camera lingers on the discomfort that you and De Niro create in your scenes. It’s very visceral and pure in a way. Exactly. All of this extreme in-your-face social media doesn’t really have any impact because it doesn’t breathe. You don’t have to stay with it. As quickly as you look at it, it’s gone. This film has resonance and depth. It’s made of earth and mud and shit — stuff that sticks to you. And yet, for a film that observes the old rules of filmmaking, it’s pretty prescient when you consider the celebrity-obsessed moment we’re now experiencing. Yes, but even though it was predicting where things were going to go, it did so in a much more human, relatable way that we’ve lost in the inception of all the things that The King of Comedy predicted. Do you think this movie could be made or remade today? No way. At one point, Jack Black wanted to remake it, and I was like — I mean I love him, he’s fabulous, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it would have worked. It’s too late to remake it. We’re here and there’s nothing to really predict. It’s just an ongoing conversation you have every day of the week like, “Can you believe he’s famous?” There’s nothing to say about it. We’re in the middle of it. Scorsese has said making the film was very difficult and trying because of the subject matter, and he and De Niro didn’t work together again until 1989 for Goodfellas . Was that evident when you were filming? I don’t remember it being that way, but I think Marty puts a lot of his own intellectual and emotional weight into everything he does. He’s a brooding kind of person and I think that things get under his skin and affect him. I’m so the opposite. I just go and do it, and then I pull out of it. I try not to stay with the feelings. Maybe it shook him up in a way that didn’t affect me. When it’s your film and you’re making it, you’ve got a lot more at stake. Do you have one particularly memorable moment of him directing you. Did you crack Scorsese up? I cracked him up more than once, but I think the most important thing I learned from working with him was keep to things very small. I was used to working on stage where everything needs to be big and gesticulated and over-the-top. Whereas, when you’re making a movie, the littlest nuance and the littlest emotion are read very easily when the camera is right there in your face. So he would always tell me, “tone it down.” Your performance is very real and that makes the movie all the more unsettling. I remember flinching while watching the film and thinking, “This is so intense.” It was, and in order to not, like, completely shatter the screen, there had to be a little bit of holding back. You have a scene where you tangle with members of the Clash in the movie: Paul Simonon, Mick Jones and the late Joe Strummer. How did that happen? Marty was a big fan of theirs, and I think they were in town doing something and he just got them to do the scene. We shot that in front of the Colony Records on a very, very hot day — sometime in July. It was nuts. They were just smoking and leaning against the place, you know, talking to me, and I said: “look at the street trash….” It was crazy. Did De Niro or Lewis give you any guidance on the set? Well, Jerry loves to direct. Whereas he is not as magnanimous as the rest of them, he would still acknowledge a powerful scene or a great moment by his reaction. He would register total fear and shock while sitting across the table from this lunatic Jewish girl. He had never seen anything like me. In that respect, the movie also represents a real moment in comedy: you’ve got Lewis, the old guard, starring opposite you, who was satirizing his brand of Vaudevillian comedy in your nightclub act. Absolutely. There couldn’t have been two more disparate worlds than the ones Jerry Lewis and I inhabited in 1981 when we shot the picture. Jerry had never been in a movie with a lady like me. I was deconstructing self-deprecating female comedy and the kind of dusty shtick of that generation — my father’s generation. I think that was another reason they liked me for the role: I brought that new avant-garde attitude to the whole thing. Did you improvise the entire dinner scene with Lewis? There were parameters — points that I needed to get to throughout the scene — but Marty wanted me to bring some of the act I was doing at a time into it, and he just let me go. I was supposed to be this crazy character who was on her own in the world. And I just tapped into who I was at the time and let it fly. Both Masha and Rupert are incredibly self-involved characters seeking fame and attention. All these years later, it feels like a world of Mashas and Ruperts is being spawned before our eyes. That certainly was the most prescient part of the movie when you look at it now. But at least they were interesting, complex characters. Now they’re just morons. I’d do anything to see anybody as interesting as the two of us, God forbid. Look at the crap on all the different websites and the blogs. It’s like, sorry, you’re not cutting the mustard. You have nothing to add to this conversation.Can it. Will you be in attendance on closing night? I can’t be there because I’m performing in Pittsburgh in association with the Andy Warhol Museum . The gig has been on the books for six months now. They wouldn’t let me out of the gig so I said, at least I had more than 15 minutes of fame . Last question. What are you doing next? I’m on the road doing my one-woman shows. I’m in the middle of trying to set up this TV series for myself and another actress, but I don’t want to talk about it as this stage. And I’m shooting a little independent small film in Brooklyn in the fall called Love in Brooklyn . It’s a cute film that supposed to take place in the ‘80s. It has a dance vibe to it. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Tuesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, a new actor joins the next Hunger Games . A surreal comedy by electronic musician Quentin Dupieux is headed to screens. Reese Witherspoon boards a new romantic comedy. And a man is arrested in Ohio for bringing in weapons into a screening of TDKR . Tribeca 2013 Unveils Festival Dates The 12th annual Tribeca Film Festival will take place April 17 – 28 in New York City. The festival also announced a new Transmedia program spotlighting new trends in digital media, using innovative, interactive, web-based or multi-platform approach to story creation. The festival will present a new award for this new section. Submissions are open September 17th with an Early Deadline set for October 19th for features, shorts and transmedia projects. November 30th is the Official Deadline for all features, shorts and transmedia, while December 28th is the Late Deadline available only for feature-length films. For more information, visit Tribeca’s website . Meta Golding Joins The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Golding will play Enobaria, a former career tribute from District 2 in the series. Her character is a particularly brutal victor in The Hunger Games. Lionsgate will release Catching Fire , directed by Francis Lawrence, on November 22nd. Drafthouse Films Nabs Wrong for N. America The film by electronic musician Quentin Dupieux is a surreal comedy, which made its world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, about a man’s frantic search for his kidnapped dog and the strange characters he encounters along the way. A limited theatrical and VOD release is set for 2013. Around the ‘net… Leonardo DiCaprio’s Great Gatsby Film Delayed To 2013 The 3-D adaptation by Baz Luhrmann will be released next summer, Warner Bros said. The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, had been due for release on Christmas Day in the U.S.. The new dates makes the film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald out of the upcoming Oscar race, BBC reports . Reese Witherspoon Set for Rom-Com The Beard Story details were not revealed, though it’s noted that a “beard” is often referred to a woman who acts as a surrogate date for a gay man to give the impression he’s not in fact gay. Witherspoon will produce with Peter Chernin, THR reports . Ohio Man Arrested For Carrying Weapons Into TDKR A manager was apparently suspicious when a man carried a satchel into a 10pm Saturday showing of The Dark Knight Rises . The manager and an off-duty police officer searched the bag and found a gun, ammunition and several knives, Deadline reports via The Cleveland Plain Dealer .
Also in Thursday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, Strand Releasing and Cinema Guild pick up films for U.S. release. Ashely Judd and Robert Forster take on roles in an upcoming action-thriller and Universal sets a release for The Man with the Iron Fists . Nancy Schafer Departs Tribeca Film Festival Schafer has served in various posts with the festival since its beginning in 2002, including the post of executive director of the Tribeca Film Festival which she assumed in 2009. She will continue in a consultation capacity going forward while she pursues other interests. “Nancy has been a key part of Tribeca since the festival was founded in 2002,” Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal said. “She helped grow the festival into the international showcase it is today and was instrumental in the formation of Tribeca Enterprises, the festival’s parent company. We will miss her immensely–she will always be considered family.” Strand Takes Rights to Dreams of a Life The doc centers on the death of 38 year-old Joyce Vincent who passed away in North London in 2003. Her skeleton was discovered three years later with her heating and television still on. Newspaper reports knew little about her and director Carol Morley seeks to find out who she is and how someone can be so forgotten today. Strand plans to open the film it picked up from Entertainment One August 3rd. Cinema Guild Picks Up The Law in These Parts The distributor nabbed U.S. distribution rights to Ra’anan Alexandrowicz’s Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize winner The Law in These Parts , which it will open in November. The film explores the four-decade-old Israeli military legal system in the Occupied Territories. Around the ‘net… Big Movie Musicals are Coming Universal is moving forward to adapt the hit musical Wicked while Jon Favreau is in negotiations to direct Jersey Boys , Deadline reports . Ashley Judd, Robert Forster Board Olympus Has Fallen They join the White House-set action thriller starring Gerard Butler, which is being directed by Antoine Fuqua. Judd plays the first lady, while Butler will play a Secret Service agent trying to stop Korean terrorists who have taken over the White House, THR reports . Universal Sets Date for The Man with the Iron Fists The action-adventure, produced by Quentin Tarantino will be released by Universal on November 2nd. Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA is directing the project starring Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu, Deadline reports .
Kim Nguyen’s War Witch cast a spell at the Tribeca Film Festival Thursday evening, winning the event’s $25K Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, while Una Noche ‘s Lucy Mulloy won $50K and the fest’s Best New Narrative Director prize at a ceremony in Lower Manhattan. Also taking home prizes at the ceremony were The World Before Her by Canadian Nisha Pahuja, which took Best Documentary Feature while Dutch director Jeroen van Velzen’ won Best New Documentary Director for Wavumba . “It’s been so gratifying to see the audiences react so positively to the films, and our juries have been equally passionate. I celebrate these immensely talented filmmakers,” commented Nancy Schafer, TFF Executive Director in a statement. “We salute the courage of the jury to award films that not only tell stories about real issues in the world, but are beautifully constructed and crafted,” said Frederic Boyer, TFF Artistic Director. “The amazing first-time performances by young actors are a tribute to the creativity of the films and filmmakers.” Screenings of all winning films will take place throughout the final day of the festival, Sunday, April 29. The List of 2012 Tribeca Film Festival winners : The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – War Witch , directed by Kim Nguyen (Canada) Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film – Dariel Arrechada and Javier Nuñez Florian as Raul and Elio in Una Noche , directed by Lucy Mulloy (UK, Cuba, USA) Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Rachel Mwanza as Komona in War Witch , directed by Kim Nguyen (Canada) Best Cinematography in a Narrative Feature Film – Cinematography by Trevor Forrest and Shlomo Godder, for Una Noche , directed by Lucy Mulloy (UK, Cuba, USA) Special Jury Mention – Alex Catalan for Unit 7 Best Screenplay for a Narrative Feature Film – All In (La Suerte en Tus Manos) , written by Daniel Burman and Sergio Dubcovsky and directed by Daniel Burman (Argentina) Best New Narrative Director – Lucy Mulloy, director of Una Noche (UK, Cuba, USA) Special Jury Mention – P. Benoit, director of Stones in the Sun ; and Sharon Bar-Ziv, director of Room 514 Best Documentary Feature – The World Before Her , directed by Nisha Pahuja (Canada) Special Jury Mention – The Revisionaries , directed by Scott Thurman Best Editing in a Documentary Feature – The Flat (Hadira) Best New Documentary Director – Jeroen van Velzen for Wavumba (Netherlands) Special Jury Mention – Christian Bonke and Andreas Koefoed, directors of Ballroom Dancer Best Narrative Short – Asad , directed by Bryan Buckley (USA) Special Jury Mention – Ritesh Batra, writer and director of Café Regular Cairo Best Documentary Short – Paraíso , directed by Nadav Kurtz (USA) Special Jury Mention – David Darg and Bryn Mooser, directors of Baseball in the Time of Cholera Special Jury Mention –Tati Barrantes and Andinh Ha, writers and directors of Adirake Tribeca (Online) Film Festival Best Feature Film: On The Mat , directed and written by Fredric Golding (USA) Tribeca (Online) Film Festival Best Short Film: CatCam , directed by Seth Keal (USA) Read more from Tribeca here .
