The Screengrab : jeffrey wright

"Cadillac Records": Beyonce', Jeffrey Wright Sing the Blues, Adrien Brody Plays Chess

Phil Nugent — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Darnell Martin made an impressive feature directing debut in 1994 with the smart, energetic comedy I Like It Like That--the title wasn't her idea, thanks--and then seemed to vanish from the scene. So it's great news that she's back, and at the helm of one of the few December releases that gives promise of being more about showing the audience a good time than whoring after Mammon or Oscar: Cadillac Records, the story of how Chess Records, led by Leonard Chess (played in the movie by Adrien Brody, who's way overdue for a big role where he doesn't spend the movie getting the shit kicked out of him or losing the girl to a 25-foot gorilla), brought blues and rock and roll to the Clearasilled masses of young, white America. Although Martin wrote the script, she didn't initiate the project: it fell into her lap when someone as Sony BMG, in the throes of a bout of corporate good sense, pitched her to come on board. It turns out that Martin, who grew up in the Bronx, wasn't exactly what she calls a "blues maniac." She immersed herself in the period, reading books and talking to those who were there, until, Frank Di Giacomo writes, "She came to see the film as an ensemble story that depicted the intersecting lives of some of Chess’s biggest stars." Martin told Di Giacomo that “I started to see these guys with each other,” and "It’s like GoodFellas. It’s like a Western. The blues is about machismo.” Besides Brody, the cast includes such tough hombres as Jeffrey Wright, who plays Muddy Waters, and Mos' Def, who got to update his Halloween wardrobe when he scored the role of Chuck Berry. Steve Jordan, who served as music director on the film, and who's played with Berry, says that "“Mos Def is Chuck Berry. Chuck’s sarcasm, his wit, and his naïveté—Mos displays it all at some point in this film.”

Jordan's presence on the set is a reassuring sign that the movie, whose action spans a quarter of a century, will get the right things right. Martin is already braced for attacks from the blues maniacs who don't get artisitic license or who, rather than see their own favorites omitted, would just as soon the movie have a running time of twenty-five years. At the center of her script is a love story between Leonard Chess and Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles), the blues balladeer who, Martin says, once called Chess "the only man who knew that she was vulnerable.” Martin's daring to speculate about their relationship will give purists fits, though Leonard's son, Martin, who ran the company for a while after his father's death in 1969, and who remains friendly with Etta James, has already signaled approval of, at least, Knowles's performance, saying, "“I’ve been around enough junkies in my life to tell you it was real.” Cadillac Records arrives at an interesting time, as a reminder that, just fifty years before the election of America's first black president, interracial dancing was a revolutionary act. Di Giacomo describes the shooting of a scene re-creating a Chuck Berry concert, where a voice boomed over the intercom, complaining to some of the undermotivated extras: “Cops, you’ve got to go crazy! You see people mixing. That is not right!”

Screengrab Review: "W."

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

It's not for me to offer unsolicited advice to a famous and successful filmmaker like Oliver Stone, especially when it's too late for said advice to be taken anyway – but what the hell, while I'm here I might as well tell you my idea for the movie Stone should have made instead of W. As you may have read here in the Screengrab or elsewhere in the liberal elite media, W. is a biopic of our current president, George W. Bush, who is not up for re-election and is leaving office in January no matter who wins. (Unless he barricades himself inside the Oval Office with a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey, which might have made for a good scene in W…but I'm getting ahead of myself.) As such, W. is unlikely to have a substantial effect on the upcoming election.

What if, instead, Stone had made a movie about the administration of President John McCain? Stone and his screenwriter Stanley Weiser could have cooked up a juicy, paranoid fantasia of a potential McCain Era in American history, supplemented by flashbacks from McCain's actual colorful past. It would be a similar movie in many ways; as Tom Dickinson writes in the fascinating Rolling Stone cover story "Make-Believe Maverick," McCain and Bush were both youthful fuck-ups with daddy issues, the major difference being that "George W. Bush was a much better pilot."

Our 43rd president's career as a pilot isn't covered in W. but Stone's film samples most of the greatest hits from Bush's misspent youth. We see his hazing as a Yale fraternity pledge, his inability to hold down a job for long (whether it be on a Texas oil rig or on Wall Street), his fondness for the demon alcohol, his courtship of librarian and future wife Laura (Elizabeth Banks), his baseball dreams, his sobriety and salvation, and finally his entry into "the family business." And although we don't see much of brother Jeb in the movie, it's clear that (in Stone's view, anyway) patriarch George Herbert Walker Bush (James Cromwell) sees the boy he calls "junior" as the Fredo of the family.

These blasts from the past are scattered throughout W., which primarily concerns itself with the Bush administration’s ramp-up to the war in Iraq. The film opens months after the 9/11 terror attacks, as the president and his cabinet brainstorm a catchphrase that will resonate with the American people. “Axis of hatred” falls short, but…ahhh, “Axis of Evil! I like that!” This scene plays exactly like the moment in Stone’s The Doors when Ray Manzarek dreams up the keyboard intro to “Light My Fire.” Sometimes it seems there is only one biopic in the world.

Stone’s unique brew of absurdity, paranoia and psychobabble is at its most potent in these Strangelovian war room scenes. The cast alone makes for compelling viewing, if only for the wide variety of acting approaches. As Condoleezza Rice, Thandie Newton is such a near-perfect replicant, she doesn’t come close to resembling an actual human being – she’s like something Disney shipped in from the Hall of Presidents. Jeffrey Wright is doing a voice as Colin Powell, but to the best of my recollection, it’s nothing like Powell’s actual voice. Others barely attempt any imitation at all; as the man Bush calls “Vice,” Richard Dreyfuss only once hints at Cheney’s Penguin grin, but he’s got the prince of darkness vibe down pat. When Cheney explains what the real plan is for Iraq – that is, the establishment of a new American Empire in the Middle East and Asia, with delicious black oil flowing from every pipe – W. is at its most giddily satirical and subversive.

It’s a shame the rest of it is so pedestrian. It all flows together and moves along at a brisk pace – it doesn’t feel like a movie that was shot, edited and released within the span of a baseball season – but the script is far too reductive and simple-minded. (Yes, you could argue that’s appropriate to the central character, but then you still have to sit through it.) Stone likes to be able to claim he’s depicting both sides of the story, so he appears to treat key points like W’s religious conversion and romance with Laura seriously. Then he turns around and gives us one of those classic Bushisms (“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”) and jars us right out of the movie.

As Phil Nugent posted earlier this week, Stone had originally planned to include more black comedy and surreal elements, and I do think that might have been the more fruitful approach. To the extent that W. does work, give credit to Josh Brolin – he’s the one member of the cast who gives both a pitch-perfect impression and a genuine performance. It’s hard to play dumb and spoiled and, y’know, carelessly destructive of an entire country, and still maintain a modicum of likeability – but Bush did pull it off for a while and Brolin pulls it off here. Poor Elizabeth Banks is saddled with a conception of Laura Bush that doesn’t extend much beyond “enabling airhead,” and James Cromwell projects too much gruff gravitas to pass for the patrician elder Bush.

It all comes down to “Poppy didn’t love me best, so I’ll show him,” and even if that’s true in reality, it’s a boring cliché on the screen. And since we’re dealing with Oliver Stone, a point worth making once is worth making a hundred times, in 100-point boldface type, until not even the dimmest bulb in the audience can possibly miss it. I’m reminded of a scene in Barcelona, where a character explains that he understands subtext to mean a “hidden message or import of some kind,” but wonders what you call “the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious?” That is, of course, the text – and Stone’s movies are all text all the time, right there on the surface, completely open and obvious.

Trailer Review: Quantum of Solace (Trailer #2)

Paul Clark — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, I said I wasn’t sure what to expect from Quantum of Solace- whether it would keep the super-sweet mix of action and drama that was introduced with Casino Royale or if it would go too far one way or the other. Well, this trailer eases some of my initial fears, largely because it gives us a good taste of both. Much of the magic is in the casting- Craig is surely the best actor to don the tux to date, and he’s backed by capable costars both old (Dame Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeffrey Wright) and new (Matthieu Amalric). As Bond’s female counterpart, Olga Kurylenko seems a step down from Eva Green, but then she’d pretty much have to be. Plus the action looks great, especially that great shot of the Bond and a baddie falling through the glass ceiling. All in all, this trailer has me relieved about the quality of the film, although even if I still had my original misgivings I’d still be there opening weekend.

Oliver Stone Finds His Dick

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:30:00 GMT

When last we checked in with Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic, W., most of the major players were in place. Josh Brolin was busy practicing his chimplike smirk and hunched shrug of defeat for the title role, with Elizabeth Banks as the missus, and the cabinet filled out by Thandie Newton (Condi Rice), Rob Corddry (Ari Fleischer) and Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell).

One major hole remained: the man behind the throne, Dick Cheney. Speculation pointed to Robert Duvall (who reportedly turned down the role) and Paul Giamatti (who may have had his fill of White House machinations with John Adams). Now it appears the role has been filled.

The Hollywood Reporter sez: “Richard Dreyfuss could soon make the trip to Oliver Stone's White House, entering final negotiations to play Dick Cheney in the provocateur director's upcoming W.” The Reporter also passes on the following helpful tidbit: “The 60-year-old Dreyfuss has never played a U.S. leader, but has had a few related roles. He starred as an opposition senator to Michael Douglas' commander in chief in 1995's The American President, as Alexander Haig in a television movie about Ronald Reagan and played the president of a banana republic in the 1980s comedy Moon Over Parador.”

How appropriate that it took the addition of a Jaws star for the casting of W. to jump the shark.

Awesome Casting Announcement of the Week: Mos Def Plays Chuck Berry

John Constantine — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:04:00 GMT

Hey, Mos, it’s your cousin! Your cousin, Marvin Def. You know that new part you’ve been looking for? Well dig this!

While you might expect Marvin to point his fav relative Mos Def in the direction of Michael J Fox doing something appreciably sweet and rad, that’s not the case here. However, Mos Def will indeed be playing the role of legendary rocker Chuck Berry in Cadillac. About the rocking lives of Leonard Chess and the many culture-changing artists he released through Cadillac Records in the 1950s, Cadillac has got great casting across the board. Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Beyonce Knowles as Etta James are as inspired as Chuck Berry Mos Def. The flick is written and directed by Darnell Martin, a regular TV director but almost unknown on the big screen.

Thanks to AICN for the spot!

Oliver Stone Pitches a “W”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:30:00 GMT

President George W. Bush threw out the traditional first pitch in the Washington Nationals’ home opener last night, the first game in their new ballpark. (The Nationals won on a walkoff homerun by Ryan Zimmerman, who is on my fantasy team, thank you very much.) The Prez was greeted by either a chorus or a smattering of boos, depending on your affiliation. We wonder what sort of reception was Oliver Stone hoping to hear; in other words, what sort of audience will there be for his rapidly developing biopic W?

Last week we noted the casting of Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks as Dubya and his First Lady, Laura Bush. Now Entertainment Weekly reports that “James Cromwell is in negotiations to play George Bush Sr., and Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale) is in talks for the role of Colin Powell. But at press time, it was still unclear who will take the role of Vice President Dick Cheney. A source close to the production tells EW that Stone will reach out to Oscar winner Robert Duvall, though the actor's agency says that an offer has not yet been presented.” And then there are the rumors. Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere says he has been “told about three casting ‘likes’ for Oliver Stone's W -- i.e., actors who are wanted for the George Bush biopic but not (as far as my source knows) signed. Toby Jones (who plays legendary super-agent Swifty Lazar in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon) is being sought to play Karl Rove. They want Jeffrey Wright to play Colin Powell, and they'd like Tommy Lee Jones to have a go at Donald Rumsfeld. Again -- nothing firm, no contracts.” Paul Giamatti is also rumored as a possible Rove, per New York magazine.

Whether there’s any truth to these rumors should become clear quickly, as shooting is scheduled to begin April 21st in Shreveport, Louisiana. Stone is looking to have the movie in theaters before Bush leaves office in January – a sort of goodbye present, no doubt. It’s still not clear what the director finds so compelling about Dubya’s story, but the official line is that the film will be “the improbable story of a man who went to the White House despite getting fewer votes than his opponent; who became commander-in-chief despite having avoided military combat himself; and who became the least popular president ever elected to a second term. W will shock and surprise you and leave you questioning everything you believe to be true.” Here’s something we believe to be true: this will be another Oliver Stone film that leaves us questioning everything.

"Chicago 10": Cartooning the Sixties

Phil Nugent — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:00:00 GMT

When Alex Cox was trying (unsuccessfully) to make a movie version of Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and later, when Terry Gilliam was (successfully) trying to make it, both of them reportedly pissed off Thompson by announcing their intention to incorporate animated sequences into their films. The good doctor is said to have objected to the idea of having his masterpiece reduced to "a goddamn cartoon." This reticence, which in Thompson's case may have been related to a feeling that Garry Trudeau owed him some royalties, may turn out to be the key failing in Dr. Gonzo's longtime mission to make sense of the sixties. Since Gilliam's movie came out, a younger generation of filmmakers seems to have taken up the idea that the period can only be captured as a goddamn cartoon. A couple of years ago, with A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater used rotoscope animation to capture a look and feel that he found appropriate to Philip K. Dick's surreal vision of paranoia among druggie burn-outs. Now, the documentarian Brett Morgen (best known for The Kid Stays in the Picture, the movie version of the autobiography of Robert Evans — speaking of cartoons) has employed brightly colored "motion capture" technology for Chicago 10, his film about the trial of '60s political radicals that grew out of the violent chaos of the 1968 Democratic Convention. (At the start of the trial, the defendents were collectively known af "the Chicago eight"; they became better known as "the Chicago seven" after one of them, Bobby Seale, after being bound and gagged in the courtroom at the orders of Judge Julius Hoffman, had his case severed from that of the others. The title of the movie is meant as a way of paying tribute to all of them as well as their lawyers, Leonard Weinglass and the late William Kuntsler.)

Morgen, who was born not long after the convention, sees his relative youth as an advantage here. "The world simply did not need another movie about the ’60s made by someone from the ’60s," he says. "We weren’t making a movie about 1968 per se. I don’t want to smell patchouli. I don’t want to see bell-bottoms." He says that he was driven to return to the protest culture of the sixties as a way of challenging what he sees as the political apathy of his own generation and those younger — and towards that end, instead of the usual hippy-dippy music choices, he includes newsreel footage of Chicago cops thrashing protestors to the accompaniment of Rage Against the Machine. (The movie also features voice work by Jeffrey Wright as Seale, Liev Schrieber as Kunstler, Hank Azaria as Abbie Hoffman, Mark Ruffalo as Jerry Rubin, James Urbaniak as Rennie Davis, Dylan Baker as David Dellinger, and the late Roy Scheider as the famously demented Judge Hoffman.) Towards that end, the movie concentrates on the trial as an example of (often hilarious) political theater, a kind of media prank. Though by all accounts it is scrupulously accurate in its details, some of the original participants take exception to its revolution-can-be-fun angle. "This is an Abbie Hoffman story." says Tom Hayden. "Abbie was a great rebel, but there is a danger in theatricalizing history." To which Leonard Weinglass adds, "The film is entertainment, but it is not a political education." (It should be noted that the idea that the trial could best serve its political purposes as an example of living satire also dates back to the time of the trial itself; as early as 1970, just months after the trial ended, Bantam published a paperback collection of comic highlights from the court transcripts. It was titled The Tales of Hoffman and included a chortling introduction by the radical "political critic" Dwight Macdonald.) For his part, Morgen is so high on trying to "get the story out" that he's thrilled by the news that Steven Spielberg is thinking of making his own Chicago seven/ eight/ whatever movie: "We’ve been consulting with them and providing them with our databases." In the meantime, the surviving participants will continue to learn what Hunter Thompson already knew about the dangers of becoming a cartoon. Or as Leonard Weinglass says, complaining about his animated doppelganger's costume design, "Never in my life have I had a lavender suit."

Morning Deal Report: Oliver Stone Directing Bush Biopic

Peter Smith — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:45:00 GMT

Oliver Stone is planning Bush, a biopic of the world's cleverest president, which he says will be "give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin." He's already cast Josh Brolin, apparently. Too bad this title is already taken. Still, they could do better than just plain ol' Bush, no? What about The Decider? Goin' Nucular? Where Wings Take Dream?

Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst will star together in All Good Things, the feature debut of Capturing the Friedmans director Andrew Jarecki.

If you like the National Lampoon movies, but sometimes feel alienated by their excessive classiness, we've got just the production for you: Maxim's Mardi Gras, shooting this spring. Take your chick, bro!

Adrien Brody will play legendary R&B mogul Leonard Chess, against Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, in Cadillac Records.

James Bond and the Five Stages of Grief

Phil Nugent — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:59:00 GMT

The British news services really stay on top of developments in the James Bond series, which figures, since it's probably the best contemporary evidence that they used to have an empire. (I expect that within a couple of decades, American news services will show the same obsessive interest in who gets cast to play Bruce Willis's two-fisted grandson in Die Hard VIII: Live Free, Die Hard, and Leave a Good-Looking Corpse.) The latest casting news is that Ukrainian model Olga Kurylenko, who recently starred with a shaven-headed, baffled-looking Timothy Olyphant in Hitman, will play the "sidekick" to Daniel Craig's Bond in what will be the twenty-second installment of the time-honored, recently re-booted franchise. The movie also stars Mathieu Amalric of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as the villain and features returning performers Judi Dench (as M), Jeffrey Wright (continuing to serve as the most overqualified actor ever to play Felix Leiter), and international man of mystery Giancarlo Giannini, who was last seen in Casino Royale being dragged offscreen after being tasered at Bond's request, but who apparently holds no hard feelings, being one of those adaptable European sophisticates.

It all sounds pretty good, except for a couple of things. First, the director this time in Marc Forster, the almost talent-free auteur of Monster's Ball and The Kite Runner, a man who has proven himself capable of practically anything, so long as it blows. But with Craig and the others in place, how badly can he screw it up, you ask? Well, it's reported that the new movie "is expected to follow on from the events of Casino Royale, with Bond picking up the pieces after being double-crossed by Treasury agent Vesper Lynd. Producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said Camille 'challenges Bond and helps him come to terms with the emotional consequences of Vesper's betrayal'." This has a creepy touchy-feely aspect to it that might as well be calculated to set veteran Bond fans' teeth on edge. Not that we have any problem with James Bond touching and feeling, but in his own preferred style. For instance, in the opening of Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery's Bond came to terms with the emotional consequences of the murder of his wife in the previous film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, by touching the villain responsible for the foul deed, strapping him to a surgical table, and rolling it into a handy flaming pit, after which he looked as if he felt just fine. And Connery hadn't even been in On Her Majesty, which just goes to show how he was willing to go that extra mile to come to terms with something that hadn't happened on his watch. The new Bond movie is due to be released this fall, at which point all will become clear, or at least as clear as a James Bond plot ever is. But here's hoping that, even as we speak, Forster isn't shooting a scene with Daniel Craig waking up in his bed in a psychiatric hospital to discover that Dr. Phil is barging through the door. Or if he is, that there's a flaming pit somewhere in the room.

Do the Wright Thing

Gwynne Watkins — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:00:00 GMT

It's the little things in life that make us happy. Like when Jeffrey Wright make headlines for reprising his role as a CIA agent in the next James Bond film, Bond 22. Wright is one of those actors who's received extraordinary critical praise throughout his career, yet has mostly been relegated to character roles, meaning he's not yet a household name. Among film enthusiasts, he's best known for the title role of Basquiat and for reprising his stunning Broadway performance as Belize in Mike Nichol's Angels in America. The Bond film just started shooting today, but fans can next catch Wright in the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival entry Blackout, which will see a DVD release in February.