One of the many things Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did this week — instead of resigning from his position, as many people desired — was sign into law an increase on tax credits for films produced in his state. So, it should be only appropriate, and somewhat bittersweet, for the inevitable movie about his life and corruption hearings to be shot there.
Now that we’ve got a location for the film, it’s time to cast the players in Blogojevich’s scandalous tale. The Washington Post has already published a list of possible actors to portray the lead (John Travolta, Sean Astin, Gary Cole, Stephen Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Ray Liotta, Charlie Sheen, Mike Myers and Steve Carrell), but more difficult than casting Blogojevich (see our pick below) is determining what other significant figures should be prominently featured.
A straight biopic calls for way too many characters, so we’ve narrowed the film down to focus on just Blagojevich’s arrest and subsequent (forthcoming) trial. As always, if there’s another character to be included or another thespian suited to a role we’ve cast, chime in with a comment. Also, due to the fact that we’ve previously done posts about Barack Obama casting, let’s just assume that he’ll only be portrayed by a voice on the phone, a la Al Gore in Recount. …Read more
Movie posters have become increasingly more controversial in the past decade, or else people have become a lot more sensitive. Either way, it seems like there’s a new and controversial movie poster or billboard being banned somewhere. Usually it’s for one of two reasons: sex or violence, with violence being far more popular. One of the first sexually banned posters I could find was 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, which featured an A-frame design that was banned. It wasn’t so much the vaginal roof as it was the exposed buttocks, so they had to release a retouched version that covered more derriere.
It’s been more than 25 years since that poster was sent back to the drawing board, so why do posters keep getting banned? Marketing people know that controversy can turn into a marketing campaign of its own, so maybe they’re pushing the boundaries in the vein of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” With that in mind, here’s a look at controversial movie posters from the past several years. Prepare your innocent eyes and take a look after the break.
As the shit hits the fan on Wall St., a more gradual, but equally serious shake-up is happening in the world of independent film. Paul shares stories from Independent Film Week, a tumultuous clash of ideas about what the future of cinema sans Hollywood will look like.
Karina checks in to tell us about Fantastic Fest. Along with alcohol, karaoke, and BBQ, she’s enjoyed the films Cargo 200 and Ex Drummer.
Choke, the new film based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), comes out tonight. Is this Sundance alum truly provocative cinema, or just the same old thing with some extra sex thrown in?
Chuck Palahniuk, the author behind David Fincher’s Fight Club and Clark Gregg’s Choke, opening in theaters this Friday 9/26, pens intelligent, well-written junk food. I enjoy reading all his books, and even have a friend I nicknamed Brandy Alexander after the transgender lead character in Invisible Monsters, yet whenever someone asks me the plot of a particular novel that isn’t Invisible Monsters, I draw a blank. I mean, I’m certain I’ve read his books, just like I’m certain I ate dinner last Thursday, I just can’t tell you exactly what it was.
So when I learned I had an email interview with the author himself scheduled I had to dig out my old copy of Choke and check the jacket. Ah, sex addicts who work at a fake Colonial village – how could I have forgotten? No matter. The writing is terrific. Palahniuk might be able to shed some light on the grander themes he seems to be addressing, from numb consumer culture to transgender issues to the difference between nonfiction “truth” versus “truth” in fiction, I reasoned.
You see, I just couldn’t accept Choke on the same terms as a piece of well-made but empty entertainment like The Scorpion King, which worked because it didn’t overreach beyond what was necessary, tailored the script specifically to The Rock’s charming, self-deprecating personality and nothing more. I wanted to know why I always felt an important statement about society was being made in Palahniuk’s books.
But after finally interviewing the author I got a strong sense that his working method is more akin to that of the car mechanic he was for years. As a writer he seems to take the same sort of Meyerhold biomechanics approach (“I saw a bear, I ran, I was afraid”) that I learned in acting school. In other words, through the physical, mechanical act of writing – and not reflection – he gets at a deeper truth. Which is deep in itself. Now if only I could remember what Rant was about…
Former New Line heads Bob Shaye and MIchael Lynne have announced their first project under their new deal at WB. They’ll adapt Foundation from Isaac Asimov trilogy about “a society that has figured out how to predict the future based on a method called psychohistory and sets up a foundation devoted to scientific research to protect itself and ensure its survival.”
Jennifer Lopez will attempt to return to the thematic site of past glories, playing a preternaturally sophisticated servant who falls for her boss in The Governess, a new film for her Maid in Manhattan director Kevin Wade.
New films from Darren Aronofsky, Jonathan Demme and Kathryn Bigelow will join the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Readingat the Venice Film Festival. And these are just the Americans––Barbet Schroeder, Hayao Miyazaki and Takeshi Kitano are among the international auteurs to show work in the competition.
Meanwhile, due to “unforeseen events and personal reasons,” Anjelica Huston has backed out of a planned appearance at the Locaro Film Festival, where her film Choke will screen and where she was to accept a special award.
I knew the whole red-band fad would come to this: Fox Searchlight is promoting the latest trailer for its Sundance-pickup Choke as “the raunchiest red-band trailer EVER.” Well, I don’t know if I agree with the statement — maybe if Fox hadn’t censored the sex scenes with “Big Screen Only” banners — but something about this latest spot makes me more interested in the film. Could it be the nudity? Or the swearing? Or maybe it’s simply the greater exposure to the coarseness we’ve come to expect from Sam Rockwell. And here he appears more depraved than usual.
On the film’s adults-only website (also available to kids who know how to pick the age-restriction locks), there are also four new promotional videos featuring strippers reading passages from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, on which the movie is based. They’re pretty funny if you’re still into the dumb stripper stereotype (I prefer the smart MENSA strippers/porn stars like Asia Carrera, of course). Also on the site, you can kinda learn how to do the Heimlich Maneuver.
Choke won a Special Jury Prize for its ensemble cast (including my current celebrity crush, Kelly Macdonald) at Sundance this past January. It opens in theaters nationwide September 26.
Wow. About three and a half hours ago, I posted this story about how there hadn’t been any deals in two days. Then I went to a screening. By the time I came back, three features had landed multi-million dollar deals. The hugest of these is the $10 million Focus paid for the Steve Coogan comedy Hamlet 2. That’s Little Miss Sunshine money. That’s insane. Also off the maket: Mark Pellington’s Henry Poole is Here, which went to Overture for $3.5 mil, and Choke, which sold to Searchlight for $5 million. All of the above have been added to our comprehensive Sundance deal chart.
A note about the chart itself: yesterday I removed the $$$ column, as up until that point there had been minimal information released about how much distributors had actually paid. But all of today’s deals have had dollar values clearly attached–– I guess nobody spends $10 million on ANYTHING without making sure that someone knows about it–so from here on, I’ll append dollar values if applicable in the Rights column.
David Poland on the DGA’s snubbing of Atonement: “It’s not shocking that Joe Wright hasn’t been nominated for either of his two Oscar-chasing films. He is not a local and the films are not breathtakingly visual.” Not breathtakingly visual, huh? We imagine the DunkirkLong-ShotCircleJerkClub would disagree.
Yesterday, we learned that hacky, studio-beholden critics occasionally outlive their usefulness. Today, we bring you The Best Worst Blurbs of 2007, through which Gelf Magazine attacks the marketing campaigns that twist the words of (mostly) reputable critics into blatantly misleading, top-of-the-poster one-liners. Via The Consumerist.
Filmdrunk thinks “it’s retarded that after Fight Club becomes a phenomenon, [Chuck] Palahniuk’s next movie adaptation still gets a first-time director (not that I think he’ll do a bad job) and a budget in the single digits.” Said adaptation, Choke, premieres at Sundance next week.
“For this one, it was kind of a hard choice between Ron or Keith, but on the basis that Keith would probably just lie down in Central park until the world stopped spinning, I figured Ron would be the better choice to rip Lady Liberty’s head clean off.” Scaramouch explains why Ron Wood beat out his bandbate Keith Richards, to make #2 on YesButNoButYes’ list of Ten Things We Hope The Cloverfield Monster really is.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
Former New Line heads Bob Shaye and MIchael Lynne have announced 
Wow. About three and a half hours ago, I posted 
David Poland
