In a story published online last night, Variety’s Sharon Swart named the 15 films across both the Cannes Film Festival and the Cannes market that are expected to attract the most attention from buyers. At least one of the titles, Steve McQueen’s Hunger, has been bought in the hours since the story hit the website. At least one more, described as a “martial arts fantasy actioner, currently shooting in Romania…[starring] Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore and Japanese popstar Gackt,” sounds unspeakably (but not necessarily unsaleably) ridiculous.
Two more of the films on Swart’s list are related in that they were made the focus of unexpected and unwanted attention in January by the death of Heath Ledger.
The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, which made some snippy headlines last month after Focus gave the film an undesirable September release date, has been selected to open the Venice Film Festival. For those keeping track: the last film Focus landed in that slot at that festival was Atonement; three years ago, they used the ame method to launch Brokeback Mountain.
There’s a long piece in this morning’s Hollywood Reporter on Sex and the City––the show, the movie, the brand––as a New York City tourist attraction. Says Michael Patrick King, director of the film: “The amount of girls coming to New York to have a $17 cosmo — everybody benefited in a great way.”
2929 Productions have bought in to two projects from producers Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti and Ben Mezrich––AKA the creative team behind the hit 21. Brunetti sums up the appeal of working from a Mezrich literary source: “Guys that normally aren’t readers will dive into a Ben Mezrich story and read it quickly, and then pass it around to other guys. It’s chick lit for men.”
Are real celebrities now taking self-parody cues from an unusually trite episode of Entourage? The same morning that Paramount announces a major acquisition for producer Brad Pitt and the production company Pitt started with former wife Jennifer Aniston, Aniston announces that she’s starting her own production company! Through which she’s going to make movies “about distinct characters that embody something relatable and relevant about human nature’s double-sided coin of vulnerability and mettle.” Anything you can do, I can do better! Even if you maybe married the homewrecker you knocked up whilst trying to rebuild New Orleans with your multi-culti band of orphans!
Richard Brenner, described as Toby Emmerich’s “right-hand man,” will stay on at the new New Line as president of production.
Variety has a raft of release dates for fall Oscar hopefuls, including Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Ron Howard’s adaptation of Frost/Nixon.
I hope my mom sees this: researchers have discovered that Brad Pitt is related to Barack Obama while Angelina Jolie is related to Hilary Clinton. Surprising? Apparently not, considering the rest of the findings by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. The presidential candidates are actually related to a whole mess of celebrities. For Obama, there’s Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman, James Madison, George Bush I & II, Dick Cheney, Winston Churchill and Robert E. Lee. For Clinton, it’s less political, more artsy; her relatives include Madonna, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Jack Keroac and Camilla Parker-Bowles. And even John McCain has been included in the research. But he’s only connected to Laura Bush (his ancestry was more difficult to trace than the Democrats, however — because Republicans are so much shadier?).
Now I guess I can shrug off the fact that I’m an ancestor of the English monarchy (broken off, I believe, at Edward II). And to think I was actually beginning to get cocky about being a blue blood, despite my sitting here in a free t-shirt and writing on a four-year-old laptop that doesn’t completely work. Well, now I’m throwing out my DVD of King Ralph. I’m back to my argument, which my mom has heard from me many times, that if you go back far enough, we’re all related (whether via Adam and Eve or monkeys). I bet I’m even related to both Obama and Clinton, as well asMcCain. Same as you. Fortunately, thanks to the revealed research, we can check our own ancestries for at least a few names: 17th century Cape Samuel Hinkley connects Obama to the Bushes; 18th century Virginian Edwin Hinkman links Obama and Pitt; and 18th century Canadian Jean Cusson unites Clinton and Jolie.
The MPAA has rejected a proposed one-sheet poster for Alex Gibney’s documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. The original design incorporated an image from a news photo, of a hooded detainee flanked by two soldiers. The MPAA says since they won’t allow hoods on posters for torture porn, they can’t allow similar imagery to promote a torture doc. Distributor ThinkFilm plans to appeal.
Brad Pitt is in talks to replace Heath Ledger, who was previously cast opposite Sean Penn, in Terrence Malick’s upcoming drama, Tree of Life. There are still few details to report about the project itself, although I guess we can reasonably deduce that whatever character Ledger was going to play has suddenly become about 14 years older.
Midwestern exhibition chain Marcus Theaters has declined to bookSweeney Todd on any of its 49 screens, on the grounds that Paramount is asking for too much money for the prints. This seems like a late-game decision, considering the film is scheduled to open semi-wide on Friday, but Paramount says the release will be unaffected.
Nancy Buirski is stepping down from her role as head of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, in order to create and manage “a fund to incubate and produce independent docus and fiction films.”
Go to Variety.com this morning, and chances are you’ll be greeted by a full-page For Your Consideration ad on behalf of The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Which is interesting, considering that when the film premiered in September, Warner Brothers all but declined to promote it, spending the bare minimum on advertising and making it virtually impossible for non-coastal critics to write reviews. Whether it’s a last-ditch salvage job or it was part of the plan all along, maybe Warner Brothers understands that this is a film with limited mainstream appeal that nonetheless deserves a chance to play in the awards game?
Maybe, maybe not. For me, the overall takeaway from the ad (I took a screencap and pasted it above, just to make sure it wasn’t an early morning hallucination) is that the studio is still working against the movie’s strengths. Looking what they’re specifically flogging in the ad: Andrew Dominik for Best Adapted Screenplay, at the exclusion of Roger Deakins for Cinematography, which should be a lock? Sounds like a contractual obligation. Maybe more egregiously, the ad has room for the names of five producers, but no push for Casey Affleck as Best Supporting Actor?
I know, I know––gift horse, mouth, blah blah blah. Tell me why I’m wrong in the comments.
Advancing the dangerous notion that an Oscar is the first step to the Nobel Prize, Variety asksAn Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim and producer Laurie David to confirm that “the film played a part” in Al Gore’s Nobel lauding. Meanwhile, the Guardian reveals that the film’s recent battle for educational clearance in Britain was engineered by “a Scottish quarrying magnate who established a controversial lobbying group to attack environmentalists’ claims about global warming.”
According to Pamela McClintock, Across the Universe has managed “by the far the best showing among specialty releases so far this fall” by drawing repeat visits from teenage girls. Meanwhile, the under-marketed expansion of The Assassination of Jesse James was, as could only be expected, a failure, grossing less than $400,000 on 163 screens.
Taylor Hackford will direct his wife, Helen Mirren, in Love Ranch, about “a couple who opened the first legal brothel in Nevada and the violence that resulted when their relationship was tested by infidelity.”
Did YouTube “borrow” branding from a successful internet film festival?
Nikki Finke claimed Warner Brothers had instituted a corporate policy against casting women, then baited Gloria Allred into threatening a WB boycott. WB was like, “No you didn’t,” and then Nikki was like, “Yes, in fact, I did.”
In more devastating Warner Brothers news, the studio continues to show a lack of support for Jesse James by making it nearly impossible for non-coastal critics to see it.
Juno is not a remake of another film about a pregnant teen with ‘Juno’ in the title.
The Austin Film Festival memorializesMoonlighting.
“Any network that can be used to share cat pictures can be used to bring down a government.” This and other pearls of wisdom from from academic/blogger Henry Jenkins.
On FilmCouch, Paul and Kevin talk to Rob Parrish, the mastermind of Next to Heaven, a web series carved out of the public domain. Watch the most recent episode of Next to Heavenhere.
New York Film Festival:
Mark Cuban confirmed to us that he would not release Brian DePalma’s director’s cut of Redacted. DePalma took the case to the DGA, who ruled that Magnolia could release the “redacted” version. DePalma eventually gives up.
I’m getting ready to see a four-hour Tom Petty documentary directed by Peter Bogdanovich (yes, seriously) so I’ll have to be brief, but bits of news are trickling out that indicate Warner Brothers has essentially sabotaged its already half-assed wide-ish rollout of The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford by making it nearly impossible for critics in mid-size cities to see the thing. The evidence follows after the jump; if you’ve seen/heard similar stories from your part of the country, do post links in the comments.
The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, which made some snippy headlines last month after Focus gave the film an undesirable September release date, has been selected to open the Venice Film Festival. For those keeping track: the last film Focus landed in that slot at that festival was Atonement; three years ago, they used the ame method to launch Brokeback Mountain.
The MPAA has rejected
Advancing the dangerous notion that an Oscar is the first step to the Nobel Prize, 
I’m getting ready to see a four-hour Tom Petty documentary directed by Peter Bogdanovich (yes, 
