Morning Deal Report Threat Level Orange: Hilary Duff Remakes “Bonnie and Clyde”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:30:00 GMT

OK, maybe there’s no need for a panic. After all, this Variety piece assures us that the upcoming indie The Story of Bonnie and Clyde is “a new adaptation of the story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow rather than a remake of the 1967 classic film starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.” Still, even though I know she’s all growed up now, reading that Hilary Duff will star in the new version written and directed by Tonya S. Holly puts me in mind of Bugsy Malone. I’m sure it will all work out just fine.

Another Hilary, last name o’ Swank, will co-star with Minnie Driver in Betty Anne Waters. Per The Hollywood Reporter, it’s based on the true story of Waters (Swank), an unemployed single mother who saw her brother convicted for a murder-robbery in 1983 and sentenced to life in prison. Convinced of his innocence, she spent the next decade earning a law degree and working on her brother's case, challenging the conviction with DNA evidence.” It’s Swank’s Erin Brockovich, y’all!

Brendan Fraser is seeking Furry Vengeance. Fraser plays “a real estate developer whose new housing subdivision pushes far into a pristine part of the Oregon wilderness, pitting the developer against a band of angry critters,” Variety reports. I sure hope they’re talking cartoon critters.

Related:
Hilary Duff Stays Cool
Trailer Roundup: Bonnie & Clyde vs. Dracula

Tribeca Film Festival Review: "War, Inc."

Phil Nugent — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 14:00:00 GMT

John Cusack gets his smug on in War, Inc., a satiricial action comedy with a touch every bit as light and precise as its sledgehammer title. Cusack, who co-produced the movie with Grace Loh for his New Crime Productions, and splits the screenplay credit between himself, novelist Mark Leyner, and Bulworth scripter and Huffington Post blogger Jeremy Pikser, plays a hit man who is hired by Tamerlane, a Halliburton-like corporaton that is staffing America's first war that has been fully outsourced to the private sector. The movie intends an attack on how big business profits from, and may even influence, American foreign policy, but its ideas about how that's reshaping the world seem to have only gotten as far as slapping company logos on the sides of tanks and in smoking urban war zones, a device that mainly results in some really questionable product placement deals. (The Get Smart-style entrance to the lair of the American intelligence officers is through a Popeyes chicken joint, arguably the most prominent space that franchise has been awarded in a major Hollywood production since the Adam Sandler vehicle Little Nicky established that the denizens of Hell thought quite highly of their product.) The movie hits its targets only once in a great while, particularly when it goes after the gullibility and culpability of the media. There's a choice sequence about an imbedded group of reporters who get a taste of what it's like in a war-ravaged country by being treated to a Sensurround-style simulated ride through rough terrain. (They cheer with excitement, just like Geraldo every time he sees his name in the paper spelled right.)

War, Inc. positions itself as a sort-of-sequel to the 1997 New Crime Production Grosse Pointe Blank; it doesn't continue that movie's story or revive its characters, but it does reunite some if its key personnel while aiming for something similar in tone and approach. Cusack's emotionally confused master assassin with a streak of white in his dark hair is Martin Blank with ten years on him in all but name; Joan Cusack is once again his personal assistant (but this time, infuriatingly, is subjected to unflattering lighting and funhouse lenses and camera angles), and Dan Aykroyd turns up to do his Dick Cheney impression as the self-satisfied master of the universe dealing Cusack his orders. (They are joined by Marisa Tomei, who, as usual, pumps an incredible amount of sexiness and vitality into her corner of the vaccuum, and Ben Kingsley, who attempts what I think is meant to be a Texas accent, though it could just as easily have labeled his character as an Australian, a Venusian, or just a raving nut.) This is actually a clever approach--just as it was when the cast of A Fish Called Wanda did it in Fierce Creatures, a movie that didn't work either--but it mainly serves to highlight how opportunistic the difference between the two pictures feels. Grosse Pointe Blank, which came riding in on the last fumes of the Pulp Fiction bandwagon, treated murder as a hip slapstick joke. War, Inc. has the same kind of what-me-worry approach to violent chaos and the same admiring attitude towards its hero's murderous prowess, but it expects to be taken as being on a deeper, more meaningful level of smirking cynicism because Cusack has sunk to working for Republican CEOs. (In both films, Cusack is paired with a heroine--Minnie Driver in Grosse Pointe Blank, Marisa Tomei here--who expresses horror at his violent side until she needs rescuing.) War, Inc. is set to go straight to DVD after a non-victory lap of the festivals and a token New York/Los Angeles theatrical release, and Cusack and company are welcome to console themselves with the thought that their movie was punished for the sharpness of its bite. But its "satire" is the kind of thing that The Daily Show regularly makes fun of.

The Screengrab : minnie driver

Morning Deal Report Threat Level Orange: Hilary Duff Remakes “Bonnie and Clyde”

Tribeca Film Festival Review: "War, Inc."