The Screengrab : the road

Trailer Review: The Road

Paul Clark — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

One of the problems with big-budget post-apocalyptic movies is that most audiences are down with downbeat storylines, preferring to watch movies that make them feel good and don’t remind them of the world’s troubles. Consequently, most movies set in a dystopian future tend to be action-oriented, to make the stories’ hard truths more palatable by adding plenty of chase scenes and shootouts. The most troubling thing about this trailer for The Road is that the Weinsteins look to be selling just that kind of movie when the story doesn’t really call for it. Sure, this approach might get a few more asses in the seats, but the I Am Legend crowd might grow uneasy with the despair and desperation that the story- or at least the original novel by Cormac McCarthy- traffics in, and might feel ripped off. Another really hamfisted tactic this trailer uses is the liberal use of Charlize Theron, who by all rights should be barely in the movie itself, but is portrayed as more or less a co-lead with Viggo Mortensen. Still, I have faith in this movie’s potential- even if Harvey Scissorhands gets his choppers on this one, McCarthy, Mortensen and director John Hillcoat bring enough talent to the party that it should at least be interesting. More interesting than the trailer, anyway.

Screengrab 2009 Preview: Scott Von Doviak’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Again using the ever-popular 3 Up, 3 Down format, I will pick up the gauntlet thrown down by my colleague Andrew Osborne. (Hey, nice gauntlet, Osborne! You get a hat with that?) I must say, a cursory scan of the upcoming release schedule doesn’t exactly have me all a-quiver with anticipation, but hey, it’s early yet. Herewith, my picks to click and tips to slip. Or something like that.

3 UP

A SERIOUS MAN

I could really get used to this annual Coen Brothers movie routine. This year’s edition isn’t due until October, but it should be worth the wait. It’s “the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV.” Unlike Burn After Reading, the film doesn’t boast an all-star cast, unless Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed and Richard Kind are at the top of your A-list. But who cares, as long as we get that Coen Brothers feeling.

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL

The long-awaited (by me anyway) return of Jim Jarmusch is “the story of a mysterious loner (Isaach. De Bankolé), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. The film is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise).” Okay, that’s a little vague, but it’s enough to intrigue me. The cast also includes Gael García Bernal, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and, of course, Bill Murray.

THE ROAD

Left over from last year, which isn’t necessarily a great sign. Then again, there are indications the editing was being rushed to meet the end-of-2008 deadline, and that probably wouldn’t have been a good thing either. Quoting myself from last year’s fall preview, the Cormac McCarthy adaptation is a “grim post-apocalyptic tale brought to the screen by John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition, a western that certainly counts McCarthy’s Blood Meridian among its influences. Viggo Mortenson has the lead, and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garrett Dillahunt and The Wire’s Omar himself, Michael K. Williams.”

3 DOWN

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3

Oh good, a completely unnecessary remake of a perfectly fine ‘70s movie, over-directed by Tony Scott and featuring John Travolta in an unconvincing villainous mustache. But at least it has Denzel Washington looking dumpy. Maybe that’s his homage to Walter Matthau.

LAND OF THE LOST

''You're not going to see the zipper up the back of the Sleestaks' costumes,” says Will Ferrell, star of this preposterous remake of the beloved Saturday morning show of yesteryear. Is that supposed to make me want to see this?

STATE OF PLAY

The original British miniseries is an intricate work of intrigue about a newspaper with seemingly unlimited resources investigating political scandal. (Eat your heart out, David Simon.) The trailer for the American remake promises a generic, forgettable thriller.

WILD CARD: Watchmen, of course. Will it suck? Will it somehow blow our minds? Heck, will it even be released?

Wall Street Meltdown Boosts Dark Knight’s Oscar Hopes

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Another unforeseen aspect of the financial crisis has been dubbed “The Oscar Recession” by former Radar magazine editor Willa Paskin. Writing for The Daily Beast, Paskin makes the case that the economic slowdown “is changing the dynamics of the Oscar race, and narrowing the Best Picture field. Since full-fledged Oscar campaigns can break the bank, some studios are pushing potential Academy Award into 2009, taking them out of the running. Paramount’s The Soloist, an uplifting tale of a schizo, homeless violinist, and Weinstein’s The Road, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s soul-crushing apocalypse novel, have both been pushed back to next year.”

Paskin makes the somewhat more dubious claim that “an unusually high number of films are also being released late in the season, which means they may not have time to build the word-of-mouth momentum to clinch votes,” citing Revolutionary Road, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Gran Torino, among others. In fact, this happens every year: a certain number of Oscar contenders open very late in the year, often only in New York and LA (for qualification purposes), before slowly rolling out nationwide. (For example, 2004 Best Picture winner Million Dollar Baby opened in limited release on December 15, 2004 and didn’t go into wide release until January 28, 2005.)

Nevertheless, Paskin has a point: The Dark Knight would seem to have a better shot at the top honors than anyone would have imagined before its release. Critical acclaim is part of the reason, but as with Wall Street, it’s the bottom line that counts. “The Dark Knight is exactly the kind of film that may help the Academy itself, which makes revenue off the Oscar telecast, weather the financial crisis. Ratings for the tinsel town extravaganza tend to correlate with the popularity of the films nominated. Last year 32 million Americans tuned in to see indie No Country for Old Men win in the least watched awards ceremony ever. In 1998, 55.3 million people watched all-time box office champ Titanic triumph in the most watched awards ceremony ever. Dark Knight, easily the highest grossing film of the year, could be a corrective to last year’s poor showing, hugely boosting the ratings.”

Related:
Why So Serious? The Dark Knight in the Political World
Suppose They Gave an Oscars and Nobody Came

Morning Deal Report: Brad Pitt Jilts Aronofsky Again

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Now this is just sad. As you may recall, Brad Pitt was originally set to star in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. He ever grew a big, scary beard for the role. Then he dropped out over creative differences and did Troy instead, while Hugh Jackman took his place in Aronofsky’s bizarre sci-fi epic. Now history seems to be repeating itself. Per Entertainment Weekly, “Director Darren Aronofsky's The Fighter, a boxing biopic about pugilist Micky Ward that's his long-planned follow-up to December's The Wrestler, is falling on hard times: Paramount confirmed to EW.com that Brad Pitt, who was long attached to play Ward's half-brother and trainer, recently dropped out of the film.” Mark Wahlberg is still on board, although he is reportedly troubled by the proposed scenes in which he talks to animals.

I was just pondering this morning before my third cup of coffee, “When was the last really good Napoleon comedy?” Well, Steve Carell is ready to give it a shot. He’s attached to The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, scheduled for an early 2009 shoot. Variety reports Carell “will play the title character, the bravest soldier in Napoleon’s army and also the dumbest. Gerard follows Napoleon from his rise to power to his permanent exile. The comedy is based on stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” Ol’ A.C. Doyle’s making quite the comeback these days.

Viggo Mortensen may not be hitting The Road this year after all. The Hollywood Reporter is saying that the film “based on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale about a man and his son wandering a bleak landscape,” which has already been pushed from its original November release date to December, may be moved out of 2008 altogether. “John Hillcoat's movie, shot this year mainly in Pennsylvania, is in post and decidedly not done, those familiar with the project said.”

Related:
Aronofsky Takes Up Residence in Riverview Towers
Barack Obama and Brad Pitt: Separared at Birth?

Screengrab Fall Preview: Leonard Pierce's Picks

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

So,my fellow Screengrabbers have thrown down the gauntlet, and once again, I gotta clean it up. What movies am I really looking forward to this fall? Burn After Reading, The Road and Synedoche, New York, among others. But thanks to the quirky rules we set up just to get on each other's nerves, we're trying not to repeat ourselves, so I've chosen to focus on a few films that have gone unmentioned by my beloved associates.

Of course, there's plenty to look forward to in theaters this fall above what's on my top three list below. The indie film about an Arab-American teenager's crisis of conscience, Towelhead; the wide release of the clever Assassination of a High School President; the American big-screen debut of Wong Kar-Wei's breathtaking Ashes of Time; and the mainstream debut of the sparkling Lily Rabe in the otherwise uninteresting What Just Happened are all enough to put your butt in a padded theater chair if you're a film fan. But beyond that, there's the movies I'm most -- and least -- looking forward to, beneath the cut.

3 UP

Milk: The story of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California history, would be compelling enough, but with the sporadically brilliant Gus Van Sant behind the camera and three terrific actors playing the key roles (Sean Penn as Milk, the always-compelling Victor Garber as Mayor George Moscone, and Josh Brolin as the homophobic ex-cop who becomes their assassin), this is one I'm going to look forward to until its opening night.

Miracle at St. Anna: Will this World War II epic be directed by the good Spike Lee or the bad Spike Lee? A pointless feud with Clint Eastwood during production suggests the latter, but the screenplay (by the book's author), a cast mixing young newcomers with skilled veterans, and the fact that Spike's movies are never less than interesting even when they're not great pull me towards the former and ensure I'll be in line to see this come Christmas.

Lakeview Terrace: Much like Spike Lee, Neil LaBute can deliver precise hits and broad misses. But this story about racial tension in Los Angeles is right in his wheelhouse, with its themes of hidden anger, authority abused and real ugliness burbling under residential bliss. And a menacing Samuel L. Jackson is a good Sammuel L. Jackson, as Grand Theft Auto fans can testify.

3 DOWN

Beverly Hills Chihuahua: It's a tiny little CGI dog! Who hobnobs with the rich and famous! In Hollywood! And it's got...attitide! And sass! If you need me, I'll be over here in the corner, killing myself.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: From the asinine title to the 'gosh-isn't-New-York-uniquely-wonderful' feel to the promise of a soundtrack filled with precious tunes by indistinguishable groups of mildly sad white people to the calculated air of cuteness to the presence of one-note Hollywood darling Michael Cera, there's pretty much nothing about this movie that doesn't make me want to punch somebody.

Punisher: War Zone: Sick of superhero movies? Waiting for a real stinker to come out so that everyone will just shut up about them already? This oughtta do it.

WILD CARD

The Spirit: In the world of comics, Frank Miller -- in recent years, at least -- has developed a reputation as an exquisitely skilled artist, a craftsman nonpariel, but also a man who increasingly takes less and less care with this plots and stories, which grow ever more abstract and nonsensical as his art gets better. Which one will show up behind the camera for The Spirit? I'm afraid it'll be both, but there's no denying the appeal of the project, so I'll be taking a chance.

Related Posts

Screengrab Fall Preview: Andrew Osbourne's Picks

Screengrab Fall Preview: Scott von Doviak's Picks

Screengrab Fall Preview: Paul Clark's Picks

Screengrab Fall Preview: Scott Von Doviak’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

We’ve reached that part of the summer when Rainn Wilson comedies and films by Fred Durst are considered top new releases, so it must be time to look ahead to the fall. Traditionally this is the movie season for Oscar contenders and challenging indie fare, so let’s put away the robots and superhero tights and play a little 3 Up, 3 Down. (Feel free to weigh in with your own picks, my fellow Screengrabbers – if you dare.)

3 UP

1. Burn After Reading – No Country for Old Men was a return to form for the Coens, and we’re all happy they finally got their Oscars. But it’s been a while since we’ve had a pure shot of that Coen Brothers feeling. No Country was adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Ladykillers was a remake, and Intolerable Cruelty originated with other writers. Based on the trailer, Burn After Reading looks like a return to the inventive goofiness of The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?, which puts it right in my wheelhouse.

2. The Road – Speaking of Cormac McCarthy, the second adaptation of his work in as many years in due in November. The grim post-apocalyptic tale is brought to the screen by John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition, a western that certainly counts McCarthy’s Blood Meridian among its influences. Viggo Mortenson has the lead, and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garrett Dillahunt and The Wire’s Omar himself, Michael K. Williams.

3. Synecdoche, New York – Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut didn’t exactly wow most critics at Cannes, but the guy hasn’t let me down yet. (Well, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind didn’t really do it for me, but I’ll blame Sam Rockwell for that.) Even if it doesn’t really work, the premise – which has theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman building a replica of New York in a warehouse – should provide more of the Kauf’s trademark reality-bending weirdness.

3 DOWN

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still – Unnecessary remake of a sci-fi classic, with Keanu Reeves as an alien? The first time I saw this trailer, I thought it was a fake. The second time, I just said “No thanks.”

2. Twilight – I understand I’m not the target demographic for this “y.a.” phenomenon, but I still resent the fact that it’s in my face everywhere I go these days, and that’s only going to get worse as the release of this adaptation approaches.

3. The Women – This has got to be the uber-chick flick of the year: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Bette Midler and Debra Messing in a remake of the George Cukor classic. If I grow a vagina between now and when it comes out, maybe I’ll reconsider.

WILD CARD

Oliver Stone’s W. This can’t possibly be any good, can it? And yet I can’t wait to see it. We might be looking at a train wreck for the ages here.

Related:
Movie Magic: Making Pittsburgh Ugly Enough For "The Road"
Oliver Stone Finds His Dick

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: May 24-30, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:00:00 GMT

By the clock on the wall it looks like it’s Happy Hour, so amble on down to one of the Top 15 Bars of Cinema, order a cold one and play the Screengrab Drinking Game:

A shot of whiskey for each of the Five Kinds of Twist Endings

A strawberry daiquiri for Miranda July and a bottle of Night Train for Abel Ferrara

Margaritas for Summer Lovers and a pouch of powdered scotch for Capricorn One

A jug o’ moonshine for Rose McGowan in Chains!

A shoe full of Jagermeister for Jena Malone

Heartbreak motor oil and Bombay gin for Mad Max

A six-pack of Fosters for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia

A Mai Tai for Sharon Stone

And one for The Road

Turned Stick-Up Kid, But Look What You Done Did

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

The fifth and final season of The Wire, considered in some quarters to be the best show in television history, has wrapped up, and with an August release set for the DVD box set, it's ready to take what we're guessing will be a lofty place in the annals of TV drama. One of the great strengths of the show was its dynamite ensemble cast -- there wasn't a bad actor on the show, and it was a character actor's dream. Very few of the urban drama's regulars were established name actors; Frankie Faison, who played the politically adept police commissioner Ervin Burrell, was probably the best-known face to moviegoers from his appearances in the Hannibal Lecter films. And although the series gave a lot of otherwise unknown talents a chance to shine, a lot of fans wondered if their success on The Wire would translate to roles elsewhere.

As New York magazine's Vulture blog reports, after a few rough patches, at least a few Wire alums are going on to prominent roles outside the confines of HBO: Amy Ryan, after an Oscar-nominated role in Gone Baby Gone, is now a series regular on The Office; Lance Reddick is appearing in Lost and on the big screen in Fringe; Jamie Hector will have a recurring role on Heroes next season; Gbenga Akinnagbe appears in the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3; Idris Elba (who was so compelling as the drug kingpin Stringer Bell) will be in both Rocknrolla and The Unborn; Tristan Wilds, who was fantastic as corner kid turned stick-up boy Michael Lee, will be in (of all things) the upcoming Beverly Hills 90210 TV series; series star Dominic West will be in the sequel to The Punisher; and Michael K. Williams, arguably The Wire's most charismatic actor as the thuglife Robin Hood named Omar, will be appearing in high-profile roles in Spike Lee's WWII epic Miracle at St. Anna and the eagerly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Which is all well and good, but if Robert F. Chew -- one of the show's greatest actors as the conniving drug dealer "Proposition Joe" Stewart -- doesn't get some big-screen time soon, we're gonna be most upset.

Movie Magic: Making Pittsburgh Ugly Enough for Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"

Phil Nugent — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Charles McGrath drops in on the set of The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel and directed by the Australian John Hillcoat, who seems to have a thing for arid nightmare landscapes and writers with a Biblical tinge to their prose. (His previous film was the outback period Western The Proposition, from an original script by Nick Cave. In the novel, McGrath notes, "because of some unexplained catastrophe...the sky is gray, the rivers are black, and color is just a memory. The landscape is covered in ash, with soot falling perpetually from the air. The cities are blasted and abandoned. The roads are littered with corpses either charred or melted, their dreams, Mr. McCarthy writes, 'ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts.'” In order to get the right atmosphere for such a tale, the film crew has been shooting in Pittsburgh--best known to film historians as the launching pad for George A. Romero's zombie chronicles--New Orleans, and Mount St. Helens. But even there, sometimes things just look too good for the end of the world. When McGrath arrived to observe the filming, "The sky was blue, the sun so bright that crew members were smearing on sunscreen. A breeze was carrying away the fog pumping feebly from a smoke machine. Even worse, green grass was sprouting everywhere, and there were buds on the trees." "Today is a bad day," lamented special effects director Mark Forker.

Eventually, the picnic weather will be CGI'ed out of existence. For now, Hillcoat is concentrating on his actors and what McGrath refers to as the locations' "pleasing array of post-apocalyptic scenery: deserted coalfields, run-down parts of Pittsburgh, windswept dunes" and "a burned-down amusement park in Lake Conneaut and an eight-mile stretch of abandoned freeway, complete with tunnel." The film stars Viggo Mortenson and an eleven-year-old Australian boy, Kodi Smith-McPhee as the nameless father and son at the center, with brief appearances by Robert Duvall, Michael K. Williams, Garret Dillahunt, Guy Pearce (who starred in The Proposition) and Charlize Theron, in flashbacks, as the dead wife and mother of the principals. Mortensen describes the material as "a love story that’s also an endurance contest. I mean that in a positive way. They’re on this difficult journey, and the father is basically learning from the son. So if the father-son thing doesn’t work, then the movie doesn’t work. The rest of it wouldn’t matter. It would never be more than a pretty good movie. But with Kodi in it, it has a chance to be an extremely good movie, maybe even a great one.” For now, much of the buzz around the movie is about Kdoi Smith-McPhee, "privately referred to [on the set]... as the Alien because of the uncanny, almost freakish way that on a moment’s notice he switched accents and turned himself from a child into a movie star." "I don’t even think of him as a kid," says Mortenson. There are things he’s done on this movie that I’ve never seen anybody do before. And there are many adult actors who never have a moment like he has every day."

Morning Deal Report: Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen in "The Road"

Peter Smith — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:30:00 GMT

With No Country for Old Men topping many a critic's list, the next Cormac McCarthy adaptation is just around the corner; Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen are set to star in the film version McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road.

Scarlett Johansson and Woody Allen are both contributing to New York, I Love You, an anthology film along the lines of Paris je t'aime, which collected twelve stories of love in Paris by major directors. But apparently Johansson will be directing her own segment, not starring in Allen's.

With Harry Potter 6 still to come, debate (among fans, if not filmmakers) rages over whether Harry Potter 7 should be one film or two.

Morning Deal Report: Boooooooooring

Peter Smith — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Jennifer Connolly has joined the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. But what they really need is Alex Winter as Gort.

Meanwhile, a remake of High Noon is in the works.

Guy Pearce may be replacing Viggo Mortensen in the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Woo. What a slow news day! Get back to work, you freeloaders — I need more remake announcements!

— Peter Smith