The prolific, brilliant, and almost deliberately wildly uneven Steven Soderbergh takes on the troubled and amazingly engaging monologist and actor who passed away six years ago, an apparent suicide.
After the flip, I’ve got a bonus video of Spaulding Grey from Jonathan Demme’s 1987 film of his best known work, “Swimming to Cambodia.”
Another entry in my occasional pairing of dramatically unfunny material (usually a trailer) with something that is, at least, a bit amusing.
No time for extended commentary today, but a picture is worth a thousand words and we’ll start with this misfired trailer for a film with a premise that’s apparently much stronger than the execution. What’s it’s like to be the also-ran band from Dublin, circa 1976? (H/t Deadline)
And now we have a trailer for a 1998 comedy that also takes a backward look at seventies rock. From the dependable writing team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and director Brian Gibson, here’s “Still Crazy.”
It’s not quite a laugh riot, but I know which movie I want to see, if only for the amazing cast.
One news item that Nikki Finke broke this week was that the long-delayed Jodie Foster film, which she costars in and directs, “The Beaver” looks to be getting a Spring 2011 release date. Confirming the news, Summit released a trailer yesterday, and here it is. To my surprise, this seems to be less of the black comedy I expected, and more of a straightforward psychodrama with some comedic elements.
Of course, the issue here is the film’s star, Mel Gibson, who you may have heard saying a few very impolite things. Of course, the eternal question is will audiences forgive said impoliteness. As Russ Fischer noted, there are some parallels that might help wary audiences over the hump. Who doesn’t love a redemption story? In any case, I think most people who say they’ll never see X star’s movies after X episode of misbehavior, alleged or proven, are people who weren’t fans to begin with. If the movie is something audiences think they’ll like, they’ll show and, though I’m not sure Mel Gibson is a guy I want to have the proverbial beer with anymore, I don’t believe that should be the first criteria for film attendance.
On the other hand, I seriously wouldn’t hold my breath regarding that Oscar qualifying run, at least as far as Gibson is concerned.
Members of the headshrinking community can’t even agree whether dissociative identity disorder, aka multiple personality, even exists, but it sure makes for award-winning drama. It got Joanne Woodward, with a little help from shrink Lee J. Cobb, an Oscar in Nunnally Johnson’s 1958 “The Three Faces of Eve.” It helped Sally Field, costarring with Ms. Woodward as Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, shed her “Flying Nun”/”Gidget” past with a nice shiny Emmy for 1976’s “Sybil.”
Now Halle Berry, or at least her producers, are apparently hoping for a bit more of that award-winning subject matter. This time there’s a racial twist and Stellan Skarsgard is probably just the right guy to step into the weighty shoes of the Woodward/Cobb role. Phylicia Rashad costars as Berry’s mom who, if “Frankie and Alice” runs true to form, will come in for most of the blame.
I might sound like I’m making snarky light of this as obvious Oscar bait. In a way I am, but I’m also entirely open to the possibility that, like “The Three Faces of Eve” and “Sybil” before it, “Frankie and Alice” will turn out to be a provocative, terrifically compelling drama with a first rate, if inevitably showy, lead performance. There are worse sub-sub-genres and the issue of ethnic identity and subtle self-hate is certainly not going away any time soon.
One interesting side note. Looking at the IMDb listing for this film, part of the original story credit — presumably the factual basis of the film — goes to the late Southern California-based psychologist Oscar Janiger. Janiger is best known noted for us his experimental use of LSD as a therapeutic tool during the late fifties and early sixties, with his most famous clients being Cary Grant and, a little less surprisingly, Jack Nicholson.
H/t /Film.
In what looks like another engaging science fiction drama from Duncan Jones (“Moon“), Jake Gyllenhaal is forced to relive the same unfortunate eight minutes, via computer-assisted time-travel, in search of a railway bomber in “Source Code.” For some reason, he seems to want to save Michelle Monaghan from her already past death. The rest of the passengers on the train aren’t weighing on his mind as much. Jeffrey Wright and Vera Farmiga costar.
Thanks to noted writer, cartoonist, and filmmaker Peet Gelderblom for this one.
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