Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a riveting documentary airing June 9 at 9:00pm on HBO, digs into the facts of Polanski’s notorious case around his sexual misconduct with a 13 year old, and how the justice system failed them both. The Promotion–opening tonight–looks like a comedy but is more an unnerving lightning rod for middle class anxiety, a darkly comic portrayal of what the American Dream has become. People expecting John C. Reilly and Seann William Scott to be foolproof laugh material will be surprised.
(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)
FilmCouch #73 - Be careful what you laugh at
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, The Promotion
Steve Conrad took two actors known for broad comedy, Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly, and cast them in something dark and fresh. The Promotion plays to their funniest qualities, but also allows for some darker moments of real middle-class anxiety and racial tension. I talked to writer/director Steve Conrad about some of his decisions for this unusual comedy and how it all began in a grocery store parking lot.
***Music video icon Mark Romanek (see his infamous clip for Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” above) is set to direct Ben Stiller in a comedy called In Deep. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dreamworks is resurrecting the project, which crashed and burned in the late 80s (!) when the prodution company behind it went bankrupt. Steve Conrad has been hired to do a “Page One rewrite/reconceive” on the ancient script, which has something to do with unpaid parking tickets.
***In another high-profile partnership, Frank Miller is turning Raymond Chandler’s noir Trouble is My Business into a star vehicle for Clive Owen. Miller and Owen are apparently BFF since Sin City, and with Trouble Miller will be taking cues from that project, shaping the script around narration to be delivered by Owen.
***Michael Apted, the mastermind behind the 7 Up documentary series, will direct the next Narnia pic.
***The Los Angeles Film Festival will screen a program of celebrity-directed shorts this Sunday to celebrate Live Earth Day, including clips helmed by Casey Affleck and Madonna.
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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.
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