Teased yesterday, available now: That new Sympatico/MSN DVD column is up, featuring my thoughtful and perhaps slightly indulgent look at the “Godfather” trilogy.
Hey, I have theoretically unlimited column space — I’m not going to go into detail about why “Part III” blows goats?
I’ve spent most of the weekend going through Paramount’s newly-remastered “Godfather” trilogy, and will be finishing that up today. So I’m a little busy.
Funny story, though: A few years ago, only half-kidding, I tried to cast a remake of the original film with present-day actors.
Think about it: Denis Leary as Sonny; Julianne Moore as Kay. Sofia Coppola, obviously, would play Connie. James Gandolfini as Clemenza. Alec Baldwin would have been a perfect Tom Hagen, though he’s a hair too old for the part now. (UPDATE: Will Arnett can step in, obviously.) Same for David Paymer as Fredo; who do you get now, Ralph Fiennes and Topher Grace?
Vito is a no-brainer; get Robert De Niro, put a little mustache on him, you’re good to go. That just leaves Michael, really … but Al Pacino owned that part from his very first frames. Who could possibly step in now?
At the time, I thought Jason Biggs would be suitably perverse casting. Now I’m thinking maybe we go even further outside the box. Russell Brand, from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”?
Or if we’re really shooting the works, how about Zachary Quinto from “Heroes”? The guy’s already played Spock, so we know he’s willing to step in to a role indelibly associated with another actor … now we just need to know whether he can play a Sicilian.
My latest Sympatico/MSN movies column is up — actually, it’s more of a gallery — and it’s a “Ghost Town” tie-in, running down the eight worst things ghosts have done to people in the movies.
I left “The Entity” out, for obvious reasons. Don’t wanna spook the normals.
No sooner does TIFF wrap up than its movies come spilling out across our screens. “Appaloosa” opened on Wednesday, and today’s new arrivals include another Special Presentation title and a full-on Gala, as well as a Midnight Madness title from last year’s festival. (The last one is the source of today’s photo.)
Let’s get right to it, shall we?
“The Duchess”: As Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire and ancestor of another winsome blonde royal, Keira Knightley wears corsets and suffers exquisitely while Ralph Fiennes fumes about stuff and Hayley Atwell looks fetching. Yeah, it’s one of those. Adam was unimpressed.
“Ghost Town“: Ricky Gervais sees dead people, including a tuxedo-clad Greg Kinnear, but is really much more interested in his widow, played by Tea Leoni. David Koepp’s supernaturally tinged romantic comedy is actually much better than the marketing would have you believe.
“Igor”: John Cusack voices a plucky hunchback in this CG comedy that looks like something Henry Selick might have dreamed while working on “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Dierdre thought it was okay, though.
“I Served the King of England”: A Czech waiter bears witness to history in Jiri Menzel’s political … comedy? Allegory? Either way, it looks all bright and charming and politically aware, and the guy who made it also made “Closely Watched Trains”. Andrew caught it, and liked it; I had to see “The Lucky Ones” instead. How ironic.
“Lakeview Terrace”: Neil Labute has a long way to go before we scrub “director of the infamously ridiculous ‘Wicker Man’ remake” from his bio, but apparently this yuppies-vs-psycho thriller is more than just a racially charged remake of “Unlawful Entry”. I guess anything’s possible. Barrett elaborates.
“My Best Friend’s Girl”: Jason Biggs and Dane Cook fight for the affections of Kate Hudson in this … wait, someone put Dane Cook and Kate Hudson, the twin quasars of prickly smugness, in the same movie? Shouldn’t that have created a black hole of charisma or something? Christ, we were lucky.
“Sukiyaki Western Django“: Takashi Miike tries to make the world’s most perverse Western — not in terms of sexual or violent content, just by having his Japanese cast learn all their English dialogue phonetically. At least the North American version is half an hour shorter than the director’s cut screened at TIFF last year, which nearly killed me.
That’s it for today, but don’t worry — there’s plenty on deck for next week, including Spike Lee’s longest picture since “Malcolm X” and a two-year-old French film that was released on DVD here nine months ago.
And I still haven’t seen “Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Adamantium Hip”. I feel like such a failure.
Remember how I was saying I’m not allowed to complain about my job? I’m really not. Check out my interview with Ricky Gervais in this week’s NOW.
In the course of thirty days, I’ve had sit-downs with virtually every British comedian I adore: Gervais, Dylan Moran, Simon Pegg, Steve Coogan … yeah, I’m loving this job.
Oh, and Greg Kinnear was there, too. Nice guy.
That latest Sympatico/MSN DVD column is up now, looking at a quartet of new indie titles — one of which, “Kabluey”, had the misfortune of going direct to video despite being the most engaging of the bunch. Although I acknowledge it’d be a hard sell.
And with the accompanying image of vast plains and vistas in your mind, you might also want to check out the theatrical release of Ed Harris’ “Appaloosa“, which rides into town fresh from its TIFF debut. Sure wish it had been better, though.
Breaking non-story: Hey, Ben Kingsley takes parts for money!
An uncredited interview with Kingsley on Sympatico/MSN — apparently fluffed out of forty seconds’ chat with the guy on the TIFF red carpet for “Fifty Dead Men Walking” — reveals that Kingsley (a) did his painful cameo in “The Love Guru” for the paycheck and (b) doesn’t think he was spoofing his Oscar-winning “Ghandi” role at all.
I agree with him on both points.
“The Love Guru” hits video today. My DVD column is, understandably, about other stuff. I’ll post the link as soon as it’s up.
And it ended well: Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” took the People’s Choice award, Steve McQueen’s “Hunger” won the Discovery award, and the Canadian film prizes were not awarded to either “Adoration” or “Passchendaele”, so that’s something.
Of course, the end of TIFF just means that it’s time to start digging through all the screenings and interviews I’ve been collecting over the last two weeks, beginning with the press junket for “Ghost Town“.
But that’s cool. It’s nice to have an excuse to stay home and work instead of sprinting from the Varsity to the Intercontinental to the Sutton Place and back again.
(I promise I’ll still get some walking in. It’s important to keep in shape.)
With just one screening left before the awards are handed out this afternoon, it feels safe to say the Toronto film festival is wrapping up … or that mine is, at the very least.
Since the awards are the big deal today, it seems logical to direct you to my latest Sympatico/MSN TIFF gallery — a completely uninformed bluffer’s guide to the films I suspect will be in contention for the People’s Choice, Discovery and Toronto-City awards. Just keeping the conversation going.
Oh, and speaking of conversations: Guess who pops up in the Globe and Mail today, discussing the dubious legacy of TIFF’s closing-night galas …
It’s fun to be prominent!
The second weekend of the Toronto film festival is a time for quiet reflection and measured down-shifting — most of the publicists and virtually all of the talent leaves town by Thursday evening, and the screenings ramp down to virtually nothing.
Today, for example, I have but one film to see — “The Lucky Ones”, which opens at the end of the month — and it’s really more about the convenience of catching it today so I can turn the review around at my leisure rather than rushing to meet my deadline after some Monday morning screening.
Yup, it’s pretty much over. Except for “The Wrestler”, which I’ll see tomorrow morning, and the awards, which will be announced tomorrow afternoon. But that’s tomorrow.
Today, over in the real world, there are a whole bunch of new movies to see — specifically:
“Burn After Reading”: The Coens follow “No Country for Old Men” with a goofier project in which many actors — including George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and, yes, Brad Pitt — chase each other around Washington in the name of wacky mayhem. I have the feeling it plays a lot funnier to them than it does to us. Jason is on the same page.
“Righteous Kill“: Pacino and De Niro, together again — and boy, does the crappy vehicle reuniting them serve as a sad reality check. It ain’t 1995, this ain’t “Heat”, and Pacino and De Niro ain’t Pacino and De Niro any more. And Jon Avnet sure ain’t no Michael Mann.
“The Women”: I wasn’t able to catch Diane English’s long-in-the-works remake of George Cukor’s 1939 studio classic … oh, wait, that’s because the trailer almost physically pushed me away from the auditorium. Also, it just seemed like a better fit for Susan.
Oh, and “Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys” opens without the benefit of press screenings. Was anyone else disappointed that it’s another one of his moralizing comedies, and not an uncredited reimagining of “The Hills Have Eyes”? Or is that just me?