The Screengrab : the fountain

Trailer Review: The Wrestler

Paul Clark — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

When I first heard about Darren Aronofsky’s latest, it sounded like an odd mix of director and subject material, though the casting of Mickey Rourke in the title role had me intrigued. But the buzz from the fall festival circuit (it took the top prize in Venice) was pretty deafening, so I’ve been eager to get a peek of it myself. And this trailer certainly doesn’t disappoint. Following the disappointing reception for his dream project The Fountain a few years back, it looks like Aronofsky has adopted a more low-key style for this project, with emphasis on character study and the working-class milieu (dig the Springsteen song) over visual pyrotechnics. But what has me most excited is Rourke, who was a fine actor who lost his way for some time there, but has worked his way back with impressive work in films like The Pledge and Sin City before landing this plum of a leading role. Will the Academy take notice? Let the entertainment rags worry about that. It’s just nice to have the big lug back.

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?

Aronofsky Takes Up Residence In Riverview Towers

Andrew Osborne — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

If Lost is too straightforward and predictable for your television palette, take heart: The Hollywood Reporter reported last week that indie film darling Darren Aronofsky is currently developing a series for AMC, the network that's recently out-HBO-ed HBO with edgy, critically-acclaimed new shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

The psychological thriller (originally an HBO project, as it happens) is being scripted by John J. McLaughlin (screenwriter of Aronofsky’s upcoming film, Black Swan) and unfolds within the titular Riverview Towers apartment complex, presumably located somewhere south of Colorado’s Overlook Hotel and Twin Peaks’ Great Northern, east of The Kingdom hospital and within shrieking distance of Zuul's old haunts, Room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel and the building where Rosemary had her baby.

As a fan of Aronofsky’s Pi, a foe of the humorless, overrated Requiem For a Dream and an unashamed defender of The Fountain, I’m curious to see whether Riverview Towers plays to the director’s edgy, imaginative strengths or disappears up its own psychological abyss like David Milch’s recent disaster of self-indulgence, John From Cincinnati. Here's hoping for the former, although I suppose the latter could be equally entertaining in its own way.

Digging Dirt on Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Not much is known about Tree of Life, the latest from secretive director Terrence Malick (Badlands, The New World), which I guess has something to do with the fact that he’s a secretive director. We know the film stars Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, who replaced the originally cast Heath Ledger (fortuitous turn of events there). We know, thanks to this casting call, that Tree of Life Needs Babies (which sounds almost as ominous as “Soylent Green is people”). And we know that the film is now shooting in the Austin area. In fact, as fortune would have it, it’s being shot a few blocks from the home of Austin American-Statesman columnist Michael Corcoran in Smithville, Texas, and thus Corky has been able to unearth a detail or two.

First of all, it appears that “Smithville is standing in for 1950s Waco, where Malick grew up. We know this because the film has asked the Waco Tribune to make some mock 1950s front pages. Could this be Malick’s first personal memoir film?” If so, it would come as something of a relief, since the title Tree of Life is conjuring up bad flashbacks to The Fountain for me.

Secondly, “Brad Pitt plays the father and Jessica Chastain is the mother of three boys, ages 7- 12. One scene filmed Tuesday was at a barbecue pit on Lee Street and one witness told me that Pitt was driving three boys in a vintage 1950’s car. The day before filming started, the three kids were hanging out at the house on Burleson Street where the title tree is planted.”

And…that’s about it, aside from the photo Corcoran snapped, which may or may not depict the titular tree. Oh, and then there’s this tidbit: “Another publication printed the rumor that someone had been defecating on the front porch of the film house. Not true, says the chief of police. The house is under surveillance around the clock, lest some Brad Pitt fan want something he touched.”

Stay tuned for further developments.