And even as he was making it, it was a movie he assumed would only be of interest to a select few.
Instead, it turned into a project that consumed almost eight years – and now it’s being released into the world, transformed from a personal note to mass e-mail, as it were. (More…)
From “You dirty rat” to “I’m gonna make an offer he can’t refuse,” the gangster film has been an all-American genre that audiences gobble up and the rest of the world tries to emulate.
But British director Guy Ritchie turned the gangster movie inside out in 1998 with “Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.” And he’s flipping more of the same switches with “RocknRolla,” which goes into wide release Friday – a splashy dark comedy about low-level London crooks creating comic chaos while dodging the anger of their higher-ups in a plot involving real estate, missing artworks and, of course, rock’n’roll.
With its aggressive camera work and lightning-fast editing, “RocknRolla” expands upon the early films that established Ritchie as the most influential director to explode on the gangster-movie scene since Quentin Tarantino first dropped a cluster of “F” bombs. (More…)
Richard Jenkins, a son of Dekalb, Ill., scans the elaborately detailed prix-fixe menu at Maze at the London Hotel in Manhattan and chuckles to himself.
“I feel like such a rube,” he says, reading in a bemused voice, “Marinated beet root with ricotta?”
Not that he’s unsophisticated – just a low tolerance for pretension. It’s a menu meant to impress – or intimidate – but Jenkins takes the reins and orders – tortellini of beef short ribs, slow poached chicken breast, pumpkin panna cotta – then sips a Diet Coke and talks about “The Visitor,” his well-reviewed film from earlier in the year that’s now out on DVD. (More…)
They play adversaries – the serial killer and the cop who stops him – in Clint Eastwood’s new film, “Changeling.”
But sitting in a publicist’s office above Times Square on a recent afternoon, Jason Butler Harner and Michael Kelly are their own mutual-admiration society, as well as the most recent enlistees in the Clint Eastwood Fan Club.
“Working with Clint is incredible – it’s everything you think it will be,” Kelly says. “He’s that cool.”
Harner seconds the motion: “He’s like a Zen master. He’s trusts you to do your best work, which is very freeing. He’s also very funny, but not in an ‘Any Which Way You Can’ kind of way. He’s very dry.” (More…)
I had 20 minutes with Philippe Claudel, the best-selling French novelist and screenwriter, who makes his film-directing debut with “I’ve Loved You So Long.” The compelling drama, which stars Kristin Scott Thomas in what undoubtedly will be an Oscar-nominated performance, is already a hit in France and opens in New York Friday.
We were in the bedroom of a hotel press suite during the film’s press day; the room offered only a king-sized bed, a small easy chair and two tall padded barstools with backs. Claudel, dressed in jeans and a rosy purple shirt under a plum sweater, graciously offered the chair, then perched on the edge of the bed. He alternately sat and roamed restlessly, leaning on the barstool, gazing out the 19th-story window at the distant Central Park.
And the whole time, he kept up a steady stream of talk. In the course of 20 minutes, I only got in two questions. (More…)
Autumn is Oscar season – so it only make sense that Philip Seymour Hoffman has two movies coming out.
But Hoffman, 41, is a tad preoccupied, as he reclines on a couch in a suite of a Manhattan hotel during a recent press day. After all, he’s only days – perhaps mere hours – away from becoming a father for the third time. (He and partner Mimi O’Donnell have a 5-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter.)
“We used to have an apartment in Sheridan Square but it just wasn’t’ big enough,” Hoffman says, running a hand through his lank butterscotch hair. “So we moved farther west.” (More…)
“Jason!” Marianne Palka says. “You need to put your hand over the phone when there’s noise around you!”
“Here, I’m going into a park,” Ritter says, and his end of the phone conversation goes quiet.
The pair are talking on a conference call about “Good Dick,” the film Palka wrote and directed that the pair acted in and produced. They’re in New York – where they met nine years ago in acting class at the Atlantic Theater Company – but, at the moment, Palka is in their hotel room, while Ritter is out on the street.
So they’ve conferenced themselves in to be interviewed – but Palka’s Scottish burr keeps being overridden by the sounds of midtown Manhattan traffic that seem to be aimed directly at Ritter’s cell phone. Here a horn honk; there the beep-beep-beep of a truck backing up. But Ritter apparently has found a quiet spot because the background noise stops. (More…)
No, Toby Jones says with a laugh, he doesn’t expect that Karl Rove will ever see – let alone appreciate – Jones’ work in Oliver Stone’s new film, “W.”
“Oh, I expect he’ll detest it,” says Jones, who plays the presidential counselor dubbed “Turd Blossom” by his long-time boss, Pres. George W. Bush. “I believe he’ll see it in private and never admit to it. So we’ll never know.” (More…)
Barry Levinson and I are drinking tea (him: chamomile, me: iced) in one of the lobby lounges of the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan when Robert De Niro arrives, all smiles for his director.
“Look at Barry, all dressed up,” De Niro says of Levinson’s sleek blue suit, though De Niro himself is wearing a sportcoat and slacks.
De Niro, too, orders chamomile, then joins in the talk about “What Just Happened,” the film based on the memoir by producer Art Linson. The movie is a fictionalized - but still wildly funny - reworking of Linson’s book, with De Niro playing a producer during the worst two weeks of his life. He’s got two problem movies to deal with at the same time and several ex-wives to juggle, with his Blue Tooth as the life preserver that keeps him afloat. It’s all about tap-dancing around the landmines that dot his path, as Levinson and De Niro told me.
Q: So how much of an exaggeration is this film in making fun of the movie industry? Or does it not go far enough?
Levinson: There’s more than enough inefficiency in the movie industry to go around. (More…)
Sally Hawkins is wearing what appears to be a vest of a military styling – all navy blue and red and white piping – over a long-sleeved blouse. And it’s accessorized by a dark-navy sling holding her left arm pinned to her front.
She broke her collarbone recently in Dublin making a film – “doing my own stunts, never a good idea” – propelling herself through the air and “throwing myself too far with too much energy” after already doing several takes.
“As a feeling, I will never forget the moment,” she says. “A horrible noise internally – I knew there was something very wrong indeed.”
She’s smiling as she says it, the same dazzling smile she wears almost constantly in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” the new Mike Leigh film in which she stars. (It opens Friday in New York, after being featured in the Berlin, Telluride, Toronto and New York film festivals). And she remembers, “I knew I had to get to the other side of the camera before I collapsed because I wouldn’t be doing it again.”
She laughs ruefully – but the sunny optimism of Poppy, her character in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” radiates through. She isn’t Poppy, but Poppy is absolutely a part of who she is and a place she enjoyed being.
