After the festival reportedly passed on the film, producer Braxton Pope tells MTV News that ‘audiences will decide whether it is successful or not.’ By Jocelyn Vena Lindsay Lohan in “Canyons” Photo: Sodium Fox/ PrettyBird
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Is Lindsay Lohan’s ‘The Canyons’ Too ‘Controversial’ For SXSW?
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Tagged appid, braxton, braxton-pope, context, festival, Hollywood, invalid, jocelyn, Lindsay Lohan, missing, News, the-festival, TMZ
The Sundance Film Festival is passing its midpoint, but there are more world premieres of some of the films that will grace the Specialty Big Screen this year. Beginning last week Movieline posted details about this year’s U.S. and World Competition films and filmmakers in their own words. In this round, Kyle Patrick Alvarez ( C.O.G. ), Matthew Porterfield ( I Used to Be Darker ), Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland ( Shopping ), Eliza Hittman ( It Felt Like Love ) and Jerusha E. Hess ( Austenland ) preview their films. [ Related: WATCH: Get To Know 5 Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers (And Their Films) AND SUNDANCE: Directors Tease ‘Dirty Wars,’ ‘Fire In The Blood,’ ‘God Loves Uganda,’ ‘A Teacher,’ ‘Narco Cultura’ ] C.O.G. by Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez [U.S. Dramatic Competition] Synopsis: David has it all figured out. His plan—more a Steinbeckian dream—is to spend his summer working on an apple farm in Oregon with his best friend, Jennifer. When she bails out on him, David is left to dirty his hands alone, watched over by Hobbs, the old farm owner and the first in a series of questionable mentors he encounters. First there’s Curly, the friendly forklift operator with a unique hobby, and then Jon, the born-again rock hound who helps David in a time of need. This first film adaptation of David Sedaris’s work tells the story of a prideful young man and what’s left of him after all he believes is chipped away piece by piece. With such beloved source material come great advantages and immense pressure. Writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez proves more than up to the challenge as he delivers a finely wrought story that remains true to both the author’s voice and his own. Jonathan Groff perfectly embodies David and imbues him with abundant wit that masks the uncertainty that he hides. C.O.G. is a funny and poignant portrait of a lost soul searching for himself among the amusing characters in life’s rich pageant. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival] Responses by Kyle Patrick Alvarez The C.O.G. quick pitch: C.O.G. is the first film based on any of writer David Sedaris’ work. It chronicles the time he spent as a young man working as an apple picker in the Hood River Valley in Oregon. …and why it’s worth seeing at Sundance and beyond: I think that this is the first (and possibly only) time David Sedaris has allowed anyone to adapt his work before is notable enough. I also think our cast, which includes Jonathan Groff, Corey Stoll, Dennis O’Hare, Dean Stockwell, Casey Wilson, Dale Dickey and Troian Bellisario, is so strong and they’re so good in the film, I can’t wait for people to see their performances. About getting permission and other challenges: The first difficult step was getting Mr. Sedaris to agree to let me turn it into a film. After trying to reach him through more traditional means, I finally decided to just show up at one of his readings and give him a copy of my first film “Easier with Practice”. Fortunately, he really enjoyed the film and we started a dialogue. I expressed my sincere intentions with the piece and broke down exactly how I planned on approaching the material. He agreed and has been incredibly giving and gracious ever since. Financing took a long time as well. Even though people did like my first film and were intrigued and excited about the adaptation, the movie still tackles challenging themes about religion and sexuality. It has quite a dark edge to it that I don’t think people will be expecting. Getting the movie made finally was a product of lowering our budget and our shooting days. It meant making production more challenging, but to have the opportunity to finally shoot the script was well worth it. Shooting on location in Oregon was a truly great experience. We only had 18 days to shoot and encountered heavy rain and bad weather almost every day. We had to shoot up to 9 pages a day so it was always a scramble. Fortunately our crew and cast were so prepared that always met our days. We even shot right in the same areas David was actually in when he wrote the story. At one point our base camp was in the parking lot of the apple factory he had worked in (though we chose to shoot at a different factory). And how Alvarez assembled his cast: Mostly through the traditional process of making offers and meeting with the actors. I’m very hands on with casting, so for me it’s a process of being very thorough and thinking of the actors out there I love and would be thrilled to work with. I’m still in awe that we got the cast we did in the film. I’m very proud of the work each and every one of them did. —
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SUNDANCE: Directors Tease ‘C.O.G.,’ ‘I Used To Be Darker,’ ‘Shopping,’ ‘It Felt Like Love,’ ‘Austenland’
Shia LaBeouf appears to be going full-tilt method acting of late. First, the actor said last summer that he was going “all the way” in Danish director Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac , and at the Sundance Film Festival , currently underway, he said he dropped acid while working on The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman . [ Related: Shia LaBeouf Ready To Perform Sex ‘For Real’ In Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac? ] LaBeouf said at the festival that he took the hallucinogen, not because he “wanted to be on drugs,” but to relate to his character. The Sundance debut revolves around a young man (LaBeouf) who travels to Romania after the death of his mother (Melissa Leo) and falls for a dangerous young woman, played by Evan Rachel Wood. During one sequence in the film, LaBeouf’s character takes L.S.D. “I’d never done acid before. I remember sending Evan tapes. I remember trying to conjure this and sending tapes. And Evan being like, ‘That’s good, but that’s not but, that is,” he told MTV News. “You reach out to friends and gauge where you’re at. I was sending tapes around and I’d get 50 percents from people and that just starts creeping me out. I was getting really nervous toward the end. Not ’cause I wanted to be on drugs — I’m not trying to mess with the set or anything like that. It’s really just fear that propels people.” The trip apparently took place last August. He told USA Today at the time he dropped acid for The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman in order to “immerse himself in the character.” “What I know of acting, Sean Penn actually strapped up to that [electric] chair in Dead Man Walking ,” he told the paper. “These are the guys I look up to.” [Source: Huffington Post ]
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Tagged actor, after-the-death, awards, character, festival, Hollywood, medium, necessary-death, romania, Sex, shia labeouf, sundance film festival, told-the-paper, usa
Naomi Watts and Robyn Wright star in what has likely been the most divisive film to screen at the Sundance Film Festival so far. Two Mothers is the story of two close friends (played by Watts and Wright) who have secretive affairs with each other’s sons. The weekend premiere in Park City sparked a mix of laughter and polarized reaction that took the feature’s stars and director, Anne Fontaine, by some surprise. Speaking to The Daily Buzz , Watts and Fontaine noted the difference between American and European audiences in finding humor. During the post-screening Q&A Fontaine told the audience that she wasn’t quite sure what to make of the spontaneous laughter during sensitive moments in the film, and later Watts echoed that sentiment on a radio show in Park City hosted by The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Eugene Hernandez that she was unnerved by the guffaws. ” “We were sort of sitting there thinking, ‘oh my goodness, is that the reaction we want?'” said Watts. “But, in speaking to people after, I think they understood it.” Vulture reviewer Kyle Buchanan typified the polarizing effect Two Mothers had here, calling the film both “The best and the worst movie” at Sundance in his review , adding, “it is a doozy.” Set in an insular seaside community, Two Mothers has its share of lust and secrecy as the pair carry on their affairs with the others’ sons over the years. But once their relationships are discovered, the revelation threatens to tear their lives as well as the lives of the young men apart. “I couldn’t imagine that [the response] would be like that,” Fontaine said on The Film Society’s Daily Buzz. “It was so direct.” The audience continued to laugh even as the mothers’ sexual secrets came to light, further heightening confusion for the filmmaker and the film’s stars. “It was clearly an instinctual reaction to what was going on on the screen and I think before they had a chance to process it, it just came out,” Watts surmised. “I’ve been in situations where I certainly wasn’t supposed to laugh. Like even at a funeral or if someone tells me some bad news. I am capable of laughing because I can’t deal with it, it’s too much and it’s uncomfortable and I think that’s what was happening.” [ Sources: FilmLinc Daily , Vulture ] [Image courtesy of FilmLinc Daily]
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SUNDANCE: ‘Two Mothers,’ Two Secret Affairs And Uncomfortable Laughter
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Tagged during-the-post, festival, films, lives, robin-wright, society, spontaneous, sundance-film, TMZ, two mothers, watts
Our Skin Skout is at the Sundance Film Festival this week, and he reports that former child star Gaby Hoffmann makes her nude debut in the indie flick Crystal Fairy ! Gaby is best known for playing the little girl in Uncle Buck, and Kevin Costner ‘s daughter in Field of Dreams , but now she’s following in the skintastic footsteps of her notable mother, Warhol Superstar Susan “Viva” Hoffman. More after the jump!
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Breaking Nudes from Sundance: Gaby Hoffmann Makes Her Nude Debut in New Movie
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Tagged crystal fairy, detected, festival, heather-graham, her-notable, Hollywood, Indie Film, Jessica Alba, keira-knightley, kevin-costner
The Sundance Film Festival opens Thursday with a new crop of anticipated indies — some of which will define the cinematic year. Last year’s narrative winner Beasts of the Southern Wild received a slew of Oscar nominations this year along with other titles. Which ones will emerge this year? Over the next week, Movieline will give a snapshot of the filmmakers themselves in their own words along with trailers. Here Andrew Bujalski ( Computer Chess ), James Ponsoldt ( The Spectacular Now ), Francesca Gregorini ( Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes ), Kim Longinotto ( Salma ), and Gabriela Cowperthwaite ( Blackfish ) preview their films. Computer Chess by director Andrew Bujalski Synopsis (via Sundance ): “Is there a computer program in the house which can stand up against a human chess master?” That’s the question posed by mastermind of the game Pat Henderson, head of an annual computer chess tournament. Set in 1980 in a nondescript hotel, Computer Chess follows several young geniuses as they try to make the ultimate chess program to beat a human player. As the nerdy guys sweat through various social situations (especially with the one girl there), and the convention overlaps with a group of new-age couples in therapy, things get really strange. Computer Chess quick pitch: Computer Chess takes place 30-some years ago at the dawn of the digital age, an era when nerds were nerds (not the well-paid guys with decent haircuts and cute girlfriends you see today), and the rest of us had no idea what was coming. Why it’s worth checking out at Sundance and beyond: Who knows when you’ll get another chance? I’m quite confident it won’t be much like anything else you see this year. How it all came together: I’d spent the early part of 2011 trying to pull together a much more expensive project, with movie stars, etc (y’know, a “Sundance” kind of movie…) and when that hit a brick wall for that year, I determined to go make this cheaper, stranger dream project I’d been fantasizing about forever. So I called up some producer buddies and said, “Hey, wanna make a movie with me that has zero commercial potential? We don’t have a dime for it, I haven’t cast anyone yet, I also haven’t written a script. It’s a period piece, on a subject matter that I don’t really know anything about. We’re going to shoot it on an experimental camera rig that we’ll have to design from scratch. We start shooting in, I dunno, 2 or 3 months. Whaddya say?” Some background on the cast: It’s the greatest cast ever assembled! Some of Austin TX’s hardest hustling actors alongside a whole bunch of explosive new discoveries. A lot of real-deal computer experts, as they bring knowledge and a feeling for that culture much better than I could ever instruct anyone to do. *Definitely* the greatest extras ever assembled. And the phenomenal Patrick Riester in the closest thing this broad ensemble has to a lead role — nothing would delight me more than for him to be the hot new flavor-of-the-week discovery out of Sundance, though I’m sure nothing would horrify him more. Next: James Ponsoldt on The Spectacular Now , starring Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley —
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Tagged blackfish, digital, festival, Hollywood, House, miles, patrick-riester, stars, the spectacular now, Year
Pro tip, indie filmmakers: After you’ve lost precious blood, sweat and tears making your indie film passion project , don’t blow it when it comes to getting your baby out there! Let big time producer Wallace Cotten show you what not to do — namely, let your goofball actors muck it up — unless you want to get stuck submitting your independent feature film to international film festivals in VHS form. Or “HD-VHS.” It’s not called “submitting” for nothing, people. Special cameo by the Slamdance offices and fest president Peter Baxter! That wraps up our exclusive premiere of Slamdance TV’s Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies series, as the Slamdance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow. You should now be equipped with all the tools necessary to go out and get ’em, fledgling moviemakers! Slamdance alums Kevin M. Brennan and Doug Manley have teamed up with Slamdance TV to present Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies. In the five part web series, Slamdance TV’s very own Ben Hethcoat goes behind the scenes of Wallace Cotton’s latest feature film, COP HEAT starring Brennan and Manley as the titular duo, Don and Lizard Man. COP HEAT “Two hot for the streets. Two hot to handle.” Join the festival ‘By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers’ in this Slamdance TV original web series which explores the independent filmmaking process. Slamdance Film Festival takes place January 18-24 in Park City, UT. For more information visit slamdance.com Facebook.com/SlamdanceFilmFestival Twitter @Slamdance PREVIOUSLY: ‘Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies, Episode 1: Casting’ ‘Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies, Episode 2: Directing’ ‘Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies, Episode 3: Acting’ ‘Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies, Episode 3: Editing’ Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
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WATCH: ‘Modern Imbecile’s Idiot’s Guide To Making Movies For Dummies, Episode 5: Submitting’
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Tagged awards, doug manley, exclusives, festival, indie, invalid, making-movies, modern, modern-imbecile, slamdance tv, slamdance-film, tools, wallace-cotton
The analog days of rock and soul music in the 1960s and ’70s are going to be well-represented at the Sundance Film Festival . In addition to the premiere of Sound City , Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl’s documentary about the legendary Van Nuys, CA recording studio where Nirvana’s Nevermind and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours were recorded, filmmaker Greg “Freddy” Camalier will be debuting Muscle Shoals , the story of the Alabama city and its FAME studios, which also holds an esteemed place in the annals of popular music. Camalier tells the story of FAME Studios founder Rick Hall and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section — dubbed the Swampers by singer/songwriter Leon Russell — who were the architects of the Muscle Shoals sound epitomized, according to Rolling Stone writer David Fricke by the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There.” The Swampers, who were also immortalized in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s rock classic “Sweet Home Alabama,” ended up leaving FAME to start their own studio, which is covered in Camalier’s film, as well as all of the enduring music that was created in Muscle Shoals, including the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman,” Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome,” Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo” and Skynyrd’s air-guitar staple, “Freebird.” Check out the trailer below, which includes appearances by Steve Winwood, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards , Cliff and U2’s Bono: RELATED: WATCH: ‘Sound City’ Trailer Offers Glimpse Of Dave Grohl’s Love Letter To Rock ‘N’ Roll’s Pre-Digital Era Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
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WATCH: Jagger, Richards & Bono Talk About The Magic Of ‘Muscle Shoals’
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The Clinton on-stage appearance was kept very hushed to maintain the surprise. Also in Monday’s round-up of news, Zero Dark Thirty tops the weekend’s box office as it headed into wide release; the Golden Globes had their best ratings in years; the Berlin International Film Festival sets its co-production market; and Robert DeNiro will receive honors at an Italian festival ahead of the Oscars. Steven Spielberg Behind Bill Clinton’s Surprise Golden Globes Appearance Lincoln director Steven Spielberg was the mover and shaker behind former President Bill Clinton’s appearance Sunday night at the Golden Globes. Only a handful of people at the Globes knew the 42nd President was coming. To keep the secret, those who did know were told to say the surprise presenter would be Prince Albert of Monaco, Deadline reports . Zero Dark Thirty Tops Weekend Box Office The film by Kathryn Bigelow expanded to 2,937 theaters over the weekend, grossing $24 million with an $8,712 average, easily winning the box office among domestic theatrical releases. Golden Globes Best Ratings Since 2007 NBC’s airing of the three-hour live telecast of the Golden Globes Sunday night was up 12% over last year’s showIn the 25 markets with Local People Meters, the telecast had a 25% rise in the key 18 – 49 demographic, Deadline reports . Berlin International Film Festival Expands Co-Production Market Coinciding with the festival, the Co-Production Market will present 38 new feature film projects with 450 possible projects including U.S. projects from James Bolton ( A Secret Life ) and John Michael Morgan’s The Cavanaughs , Variety reports . Robert DeNiro to be Feted by L.A. Italian Fest DeNiro will be honored by the Los Angeles-Italia Film, Fashion and Art Fest next month ahead of the Oscars. The event takes place February 17 – 23 at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. DeNiro received his first Oscar nomination in two decades for his role in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook , THR reports . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
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Steven Spielberg Behind Clinton’s Globes Appearance: Biz Break
After Lindsay Lohan’s got busted for allegedly slugging another woman at a New York nightclub in November, I wrote her off as a lost cause , but Stephen Rodrick’s fascinating New York Times piece about Paul Schrader’s making of The Canyons with Lohan left me thinking that there’s still a talented actress in that scandal-ravaged psyche worth saving. Although Lohan exhibits plenty of ridiculous (and tragic) behavior in the story that would prove my original point, and the media has predictably chosen to run with that, I was struck by a few passages in the story that indicate Lohan is more than just a self-destructive starlet whose career is hanging by a thread. Here are three of them: “The next day, Lohan arrived relatively on time for a makeup test. She sat behind a table with a can of Sprite, looked into the camera and flashed a wholesome smile that would not have been out of place in the world’s best soda commercial. Schrader grabbed my arm and pointed at Lohan’s image. ‘See? That’s why we put up with all the crap. You can shoot bad movies with actresses who are always on time. But look! The rest is just noise.’” Then there’s Rodrick’s description of Lohan’s preparation for a scene in which she was required to be scared and emotionally naked: “All that remained was to get a close-up of Deen touching Lohan’s face with a blood-streaked finger. Only half of Lohan’s face would be in the shot. Most actresses would pop in some Visine to well their eyes with tears and be done with it. Instead, Lohan went back to her room, and everyone waited. I was standing by her door, and soon I could hear her crying. It began quietly, almost a whimper, but rose to a guttural howl. It was the sobbing of a child lost in the woods. She came out of her room, and I watched the shot on a monitor. Now, without the garish makeup, Lohan looked sadly beautiful, and it was easy to see why men like Schrader were willing to put their lives in her hands.” The last excerpt appears at the very end of the story when, after all of the drama of shooting The Canyons, Rodrick asks the writer of Taxi Driver and the director of Affliction and the underrated Auto Focus , if he regretted casting Lohan: “He shook his head. “No, she’s great in the film.” Schrader then told me a secret. Until the screening disaster, Schrader had been in talks with Lohan to star in a remake of John Cassavetes’s “Gloria,” about a woman on the run from the mob. The director lighted up, childlike; hope triumphing over memories of being stripped naked. “It doesn’t involve a co-star. She would be perfect for it.” One of the things that makes Rodrick’s piece so good is that with passages like that, the reader has to make a judgement call: Is Schrader deluded because he really needs this film to move the needle, or is that the veteran filmmaker in him — the one who’s worked with Robert De Niro , Martin Scorsese and his brilliant, late brother Leonard Schrader — talking? I say it’s a mixture of both, but more of the latter. And though Rodrick certainly leaves the impression that The Canyons is a problematic film (that was rejected by the Sundance Film Festival), he also writes this passage about Lohan’s performance that suggests that, with a lot of tough love and self-discipline, her career is salvageable. “But about 15 minutes in, something clicked….Lohan was equal parts vulnerable and dissolute.” I know what you’re thinking: That line is a distillation of Lohan’s recent life, but go back and re-read the description of Lohan’s crying scene. In the right hands, Lohan is capable of tapping into all of chaos and pain she’s experienced and putting it into her performance. It’s too bad that Exorcist: The Beginning was such a debacle for Schrader. LiLo could probably turn in quite a performance as a woman possessed. As the Times piece demonstrates, the promising actress that Lohan once was is still alive in her. It’s just that the demons keep dragging her down. More on Lindsay Lohan: Lindsay Lohan Busted Again − Is She Beyond Help? Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
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What People Are Missing In The NY Times Story On Lindsay Lohan
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