Posted Nov 20th 2008 7:51PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Sports, New Releases, Exhibition, Fox Searchlight, Movie Marketing, Toronto International Film Festival, Trailers and Clips
There was no hotter ticket at the Toronto International Film Festival in September than
The Wrestler,
Darren Aronofsky's new drama about a washed-up professional body-slammer played by
Mickey Rourke. I vividly recall the press screening, where every seat in the fest's largest theater was occupied by eager journalists, many of whom had sworn they'd miss whatever other films they had to as long as they could see this one.
It paid off, too -- the acclaim for the film was nearly universal. (Read
Cinematical's James Rocchi's rave review
here.) Now, in advance of the film's limited release on Dec. 31 (just in time to qualify for Rourke's inevitable Oscar nomination), Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer.
Variety has it, and we've got it here, at the end of this post.
The trailer is good in the sense that it accurately conveys the tone of the film: moody, reflective, and only partially set in the wrestling ring. Bruce Springsteen's theme song is a nice touch. We get a few glimpses of Marisa Tomei, who plays Rourke's stripper friend (you'll catch more than a glimpse of her in the movie itself, if you know what I mean), and Evan Rachel Wood as Rourke's estranged daughter. Their performances are terrific, too, as is Aronofsky's direction -- man, I really hope this gets the Oscar attention that everyone thinks it will. It deserves it.
What do you think of the trailer? Does it make you more or less interested in the film? Let us know in the comments.
Posted Nov 17th 2008 4:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Images, Posters
I imagine that I should feel my cinematic fandom pulsing, eager to see
Mickey Rourke pull out talent that many thought was long-gone, when I look at the awesome one-sheet for
The Wrestler (courtesy of Fox Searchlight) over there to the right (see larger image in gallery below). And of course, I'm eager as all hell to see what Darren Aronofsky has come up with.
But instead of counting down the days to the December 17 premiere, I'm feeling an almost unstoppable urge to climb on my desk and get my elbow ready, Macho Man-style. It's probably a good thing I'm home alone.
The Wrestler does, however, take a good deal from that world, as it deals Rourke's Randy -- an ex pro wrestler who considers going back to the ring even though it could kill him.
James Rocchi's glowing review described: "Randy's part Hulk Hogan, part Randy "The Macho Man" Savage."
So here I sit, wondering whether I should get renting some old-school wrestling discs and remember the days of Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and the rest before next month. And this also makes me wonder: If you're going to see
The Wrestler, are you doing so as an anxious cinephile, or is this tapping into old-school WWF love for you as well?
Continue reading Check Out the Official Poster for 'The Wrestler'
Posted Nov 10th 2008 12:03PM by William Goss
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Romance, Sports, Artisan, Warner Brothers, Fox Searchlight, Toronto International Film Festival, Fan Rant
(from left to right) Sean Gullette in Pi, Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream, Hugh Jackman in The Fountain, and Mickey Rourke in The WrestlerI had been writing a rambling introduction to this piece, but to make a long anecdote short, I decided to re-watch the works of writer-director
Darren Aronofsky prior to seeing his new film,
The Wrestler. Out of more happenstance than planning, I began his first film exactly a day to the minute before this one would end, and now I offer up my thoughts on his career to date. (Who knows what more could come following this: 24 Hours of
Fincher? 36 Hours of
Boyle? My Dinner with Andre Benjamin's
Idlewild?)
Continue reading Fan Rant: 24 Hours of Aronofsky
Posted Nov 2nd 2008 3:03PM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Sports
Here's something I've figured out over the last few years: Most hardcore movie geeks are NOT sports fans, and I think I know why: Watching, discussing, and (perhaps) writing about movies is pretty much a full-time hobby. It sucks a lot of hours away, believe me. Sports? Pretty much the same thing. Unless you're a casual "glance at the box score" sort of fan, sports fanaticism means a lot of hours enjoying the games, clicking through highlights, checking your fantasy / roto stats, watching SportsCenter, reading the paper the next day, calling into sports-talk radio, and arguing with people about why your lead-off hitter is better than theirs.
But not me. I'm a sports fan, and a big one. Baseball and (American) football mostly, but I proudly support all of the Philadelphia teams. So please join me in one massive
WOOO-HOOOOOOOO because my beloved
Philadelphia Phillies just won their first World Series since 1980 and only the second championship in the team's 126-year history! (Yes, seriously.) And man oh man, that victory parade was
awesome. Best of all, aside from a small handful of morons, nobody "trashed" the city at all. We were expecting mini-riots, believe me.
So enthused am I that I'm taking this odd opportunity (the END of the baseball season?) to provoke a little bit of discussion regarding Baseball Cinema. It's a fantastic little sub-genre, peppered with solid dramas, decent comedies, and a few true-blue classics. Of course I (or any movie fan) could rattle off a bunch of worthwhile baseball flicks, but I'll just opine the following and then open the floor: The best baseball film ever made is John Sayles'
Eight Men Out, followed closely by Barry Levinson's
The Natural. Discuss!
And thanks again to the Phillies for giving this city one awesome shot in the arm. What a great season.
Posted Oct 21st 2008 8:45PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Warner Brothers, Celebrities and Controversy, Family Films
You might have thought that
We Are Marshall seemed a lot like every other Inspiring Sports Drama you'd ever seen, but a pair of producers recently sought to prove in a court of law that it resembled a specific film -- one they'd made six years earlier.
That film,
Ashes to Glory: The Tragedy and Triumph of Marshall Football (which IMDB has never heard of), was a documentary about the real-life events depicted in
We Are Marshall. The doc's producers, Deborah Novak and John Witek, sued Warner Bros. for copyright infringement, fraud, and breach of contract, but a U.S. district court judge has ruled against them.
"Though the two works tell the story of the Nov. 14, 1970, airplane crash, that event, and the events that preceded and followed, are all matters of public record which cannot be copyrighted," the judge wrote in his decision, as
reported by
Variety.
Novak and Witek's claim was based on the fact that they originally negotiated with
We Are Marshall's production company, Thunder Road, for rights to officially adapt their documentary into a fictional film. That deal fell through, and Thunder Road made the film anyway. The judge says that was OK, since the events were a matter of public record. So my question is, if nobody can own the rights to a historical event, why did Thunder Road bother negotiating to adapt the documentary in the first place? Just to be polite?
The judge also ruled that since Novak and Witek later tried (unsuccessfully) to sell their doc to other production companies, they obviously didn't think they had a deal with Thunder Road, so the breach of contract claim is out, too. It all seems pretty logical to me, but I'm sure the lawyers made it sound more complicated.
Posted Oct 17th 2008 7:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Sports, Casting
Brad Pitt's got a busy schedule. Not only has he attached himself to
George Miller's outer-space adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, but he's also planning to star in an adaptation of Michael Lewis's non-fiction
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
Moneyball is an insider account of the way Billy Beane put together the 2002 Oakland Athletics, using the power of scouting and sabremetrics to overcome a financial disadvantage. (The A's went 103-59 that year, winning the division but losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Minnesota Twins.) It's kind of a nerdy book, as you can imagine -- the A's defy the odds... through the magic of computerized statistical analysis! -- but it does have the classic underdog framework that has done wonders for a lot of sports movies. Pitt would be great for the role of Beane, who was 40 years old when the events of the book took place.
David Frankel will direct the film as his follow-up to
The Devil Wears Prada and this holiday season's
Marley & Me.
Steven Zaillian, whose last job was
American Gangster, will write the screenplay. It's a good story, if not a terribly cinematic one; I'm curious to see what they do with it.
Posted Oct 10th 2008 7:03PM by Jette Kernion
Filed under: Sports, New Releases, Universal, Theatrical Reviews, Family Films
It's football season, which means it's also the season for at least one heartwarming and inspiring movie about the sport. This year the film comes from Universal --
The Express, a biopic of Ernie "The Elmira Express" Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, back in 1963. However, the movie divides its time between Davis and his coach at Syracuse University, Ben Schwartzwalder, and shows the ways in which the two characters changed one another (for the better, natch).
The movie opens during the notorious Cotton Bowl game of 1960, when Davis (
Rob Brown) was a running back on the Syracuse University team that played The University of Texas, which had not yet allowed black varsity team members. It's a rough game, but Davis is handling himself until all hell breaks loose ... and then we flash back to Davis's childhood in the 1940s and see how he learned to handle nasty racist situations even at an early age. He's stubborn and he's speedy, and eventually decides to use those assets to strive for his goal of playing professional football. His idol, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, advises Davis to play for his alma mater Syracuse because Schwartzwalder (
Dennis Quaid) is such an excellent head coach. But Davis encounters difficulties in the ways Schwartzwalder handles the black team members. The coach's primary goal is to avoid "trouble," so they're warned away from the white female students, and worse yet, at certain Southern games they're not allowed to score touchdowns. The real action culminates when the film returns to the Cotton Bowl game in Dallas.
Continue reading Review: The Express
Posted Oct 7th 2008 9:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Casting, Deals, Celebrities and Controversy, Scripts
Celebrity interviews can be pretty nerve-wracking. The ante is upped even more when the interviewee doesn't give many interviews. You hope for the best, but sometimes that's not what you get. Xan Brooks got a chance to interview
Faye Dunaway for
The Guardian, and things didn't go so well. It started with a list of ixnayed topics, but one was left off the list -- Roman Polanski and rumors about
Chinatown. He asked if it was true that she once threw a cup of urine at the famed director and well, she didn't take too kindly to that line of questioning. Follow the link to see what happened and then comment below: Was it okay for Brooks to ask her about that? Did she overreact?
And then there's a little bit of tennis.
Variety reports that Frank Deford's adaptation of his novel
Big Bill: The Triumphs and the Tragedy, which focuses on tennis legend Bill Tilden, has been optioned by Baldwin Entertainment. This is a pretty old-school story -- Tilden won six straight U.S. Open singles titles in the 1920s, and was the first American to win Wimbledon. The plus about this feature: there's a lot more to the man than just rackets and balls. "He was also a contract bridge champ, musicologist, novelist, playwright and actor. On the other side of the ledger, Tilden was famously self-destructive, going to jail twice for sexual misbehavior with teenage boys and dying penniless." That should prove interesting.
Finally,
Michael Pena told
MTV that he'd definitely be in if a feature version of
The Shield, if one was schemed up. In fact, he thinks there could be a prequel and that it would be "awesome." Me, I caught some old-school
Felicity eps recently, and now I can't see him as anything other than the wanna-be ladies man who lived in the dorm. He's come a long way in 8 years.
Posted Oct 7th 2008 4:30PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Casting
Sports. Aside from being a Huey Lewis and the News album, it's a slice of life that has lived for a long time in contradiction. On the one hand, there's the cud-chewing, testosterone-laden toughness of actual sporting events. On the other, there's the ever-rampant tears pouring out of sports dramas and biopics -- and now we're getting one more ...
But unlike pics that raise you up to a teary conclusion, this new feature looks like it will be a heart-tugger from the get-go.
The Hollywood Reporter posts that
Ryan Merriman and
Aidan Quinn have signed on, with
Andie MacDowell in final negotiations, for a new sports drama called
The 5th Quarter. Based on a true story, the film centers on the way a young man deals with his brother's death. Basically, after 15-year-old Luke Abbate died in a car crash, his organs were donated to five people. In the wake of this tragedy, his brother (Merriman) got his football jersey changed to his brother's number (5) and then held up five fingers before the fourth quarter of each game, while his parents (Quinn and MacDowell) sat in section 5. See? Tear jerker -- one that might even require more than five tissues.
5th Quarter will also be a film that blends real life with fiction, not in the script, but in the cast and scenes -- the family's pastor is playing himself in the film, and real footage of the games will be edited into the film. Whether this will help or distract from the final product remains to be seen. Production begins this month.
Posted Sep 12th 2008 7:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Action, Sports, Home Entertainment, Trailers and Clips, Friday Night Double Feature
Long ago, before the problems with drugs and fights at strip clubs, Jean Claude Van Damme ripped himself out of the fighting world, oiled up his flesh, and became America's Muscles from Brussels. At first, the process was slow and simple -- breaking into the world of film as "Gay Karate Man" in
Monaco Forever, being a background performer in
Rue barbare, and then getting some uncredited English work as a spectator in that 1984 classic,
Breakin'.
But then came
No Retreat, No Surrender, where he played a Russian baddie opposite
General Hospital and Guiding Light star Kurt McKinney, and the rest was history. He did all he could do in the action realm -- kickboxing revenge, jail, video game flicks, soldier, and even cracking walnuts with his butt.
These days, he's whipped up an insane amount of positive buzz with
JCVD and reinvigorated his career. But it all had to start somewhere. As a well-oiled, good-guy ode to that sexy, muscled Belgian, I give you:
Bloodsport and
Kickboxer.
*Note: In the interest of good matches, I'm leaving off my all-time favorite Van Damme flick, Cyborg, to get its love another day. Gibson will have his moment to shine!Continue reading Cinematical's Friday Night Double Feature: The Muscle From Brussels
Posted Sep 8th 2008 9:02PM by James Rocchi
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Fox Searchlight, Oscar Watch, Toronto International Film Festival
After winning top honors at the Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky's
The Wrestler rapidly became the must-see of the Toronto International Film Festival, with huge lines at the press and industry screening this afternoon seemingly unaffected by the news that
Fox Searchlight had purchased the film. After seeing
The Wrestler for myself, I feel the need to extend a note of caution about the film, which sailed into Toronto buoyed by advance raves for
Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a low-level professional wrestler -- and we soon see how really, both those words could be in quotation marks -- whose '80s glory days are long over, scraping by at low-level, low-paying matches until a heart attack forces him to leave the ring and look at his life in the shadow of death. Many have already written about the parallels between Mickey Rourke and the swaggering, scarred wrestler he plays -- early success, fame and notoriety, a series of mis-steps and mistakes taking it all away bit by bit as the years advanced -- and the charge Rourke's own rise and fall offers a filmmaker like Aaronofsky looking to explore ruin and redemption.
But don't believe the hype -- or, more importantly, look past it; if a complicated, messy personal life were all it took to deliver a great performance, Paris Hilton and O.J. Simpson would have more Oscars than Katharine Hepburn. Rourke's work as Randy is physical, invested, powerful and sprawling -- but it's also quiet, sad and hauntingly wounded, too. And
The Wrestler offers viewers far more than just Rourke's performance -- which, it must be said, is excellent -- if they're willing to not flinch from what it has to say:
The Wrestler is a fascinating, rich, unblinking look at the dark, hunched mean streak that lies curled and poisonous inside of so much American popular entertainment and of so much American life. It's early to say this, but
The Wrestler is one of the most grimly exciting, magnetically repellent movies we've had in a long time; it's flat-out one of the best American movies of 2008.
Continue reading TIFF Review: The Wrestler
Posted Sep 8th 2008 12:54PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Deals, Festival Reports, Distribution, Fox Searchlight, Newsstand, Toronto International Film Festival
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After a massive, all-night bidding war,
Variety's Anne Thompson reports that Fox Searchlight has snagged
The Wrestler for roughly $4 million, marking the first big purchase of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Following its Golden Lion win in Venice and a Toronto premiere that left folks buzzing up a storm, Searchlight, along with Overture, Lionsgate, Weinstein Co. and Sony, began bidding on the flick, which some say solidifies a sure-fire Oscar nod for
Mickey Rourke. In the end, it would appear that Searchlight won out ... and after a very successful marketing campaign last year for
Juno (which landed all sorts of recognition), it should be interesting to see what Searchlight does with this.
So far all the talk has surrounded Mickey Rourke, with folks calling him the comeback kid, what have you -- but not for nothing, I think we have a nice little comeback story for director
Darren Aronofsky as well. Great vibes with this one; I look forward to seeing it. Remember when Nic Cage was signed on to this? Heh.
Bangkok Dangerous. Double heh. Check out this
preview video from Venice, and look for much more on
The Wrestler from
Cinematical in the next couple of days.
Posted Sep 2nd 2008 8:02PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Movie Marketing, Toronto International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival
By far, one of the most
anticipated movies on the festival circuit this year is Darren Aronofsky's
The Wrestler. But many have been wondering why the film had secured such an 'undesirable' closing spot at the Venice Film Festival -- could there be trouble ahead with the finished product? But it looks like all that fretting was for nothing, because Aronofsky updated his
personal blog with the news that the only reason for the delay in the selection process was that he was awaiting a completed song from Bruce Springsteen for the end of the film.
The Wrestler is the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson (played by an almost
unrecognizable Mickey Rourke); a former star of pro-wrestling in the '80s who has been reduced to appearing at high schools and community centers. With a heart condition and early retirement looming, Robinson takes one last shot at the 'big-time' in a match against a former rival. I can't say pro-wrestling is my usual area of interest, but I am pretty excited to see what a visual maestro like Aronofsky can do with that world -- and for a great primer on the difficult life of a pro-wrestler, I highly recommend the documentary
Beyond the Mat According to Aronofsky, "Springsteen wrote a beautiful original song for the closing the film. called THE WRESTLER it is a wonderful acoustic piece. makes me choke up every time i hear it. he really captured the spirit of the film and mickey's character in the piece." The pairing of Springsteen with the film seems to be a perfect fit. Because, if anyone has the knack for singing about the travails of a downtrodden man, it's Springsteen (and that Oscar pedigree probably doesn't hurt either).
The Wrestler will premiere in Venice on September 5th (we'll have a review from Toronto), and is expected to arrive in theaters later this year.
[Thanks:
/film]
Continue reading Bruce Springsteen Sings for 'The Wrestler' ... and Judd Apatow?
Posted Aug 30th 2008 4:03PM by Matt Bradshaw
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Horror, Sports, Trailer Trash, Western
It's no secret that Hollywood is sequel crazy, but it's gotten to the point where it's hard to tell at a glance if a movie is a sequel or something new all together. Here are five trailers I had to closely scrutinize before I could determine whether or not sequalization was occurring.
Fast & Furious
Yup, this one's definitely a sequel, the fourth installment in the series launched by 2001's
The Fast and the Furious. First off I give the whole franchise kudos for having the originality to give each of the films its own title and not just slapping on an escalating series of numbers. Furthermore, despite never having seen any of the others in the series, this trailer piqued my interest. Vin Diesel and co-star Michelle Rodriguez are seen here hijacking a tractor trailer hauling multiple tankers of gasoline, and the action is downright spectacular. Granted, the almost subliminal lesbian make out scene doesn't hurt either, but I could get behind seeing this. Here's what
William had to say on the trailer.
Sukyaki Western Django
At first glance one might think this was a belated sequel to the 1966 spaghetti western
Django. In reality this is an ultra violent homage to the genre with
Takashi Miike at the helm and with Quentin Tarantino appearing in a supporting role. I've seen a few of Miike's film's, but the one I remember best is the bizarre and brutal
Ichi the Killer, so I'm curious to see how he does with a Western. The preview is a frenetic barrage of action scenes with plot details being of secondary concern, but there's some wild stuff here, including bullets being deflected by samurai swords much in the way a Jedi would deflect a laser blast with his light sabre. The film is shot in English, though according to
Jeffrey's review of the film, the mostly Japanese cast's unfamiliarity with the language is a drawback. Still, this looks pretty cool.
Sukyaki Western Django goes into limited U.S. release this weekend, so I don't imagine it will be long before it's available on DVD.
Continue reading Trailer Park: To Sequel or Not to Sequel
Posted Aug 23rd 2008 3:03PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Comedy, Sports, Trailers and Clips
Just in case you have a heart of stone and weren't taken in by the awesome
Ping Pong Playa poster that Erik posted
earlier this month (which is to the right), two new clips have hit the web. To refresh your memories -- this is the story of a basketball-loving Asian American who has done everything he can to remove himself from his family's ping pong ways -- until an accident and some jerky ping pongers make him reevaluate things.
First up, over at
Coming Soon, C-Dub (Jimmy Tsai) gets introduced to his mom's ping pong class after she gets in a car accident and can't teach. C-Dub is completely not into the thought of spending his time with these tykes, and is none too impressed when he is mistaken for his ping pong champion brother.
Meanwhile, over at
MovieWeb, we get to see C-Dub get called out on his questionable behavior. See, to make this whole ping pong class more interesting, he's added betting to the mix, and the one tykes older, cute sister isn't impressed. Unfortunately, poor Free Willy gets blamed.
Ping Pong Playa hits theaters on September 5. In the meantime, check out last year's
TIFF interview where Jimmy talks about his ping pong experience, and the review
here.
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