The Screengrab : uma thurman

Morning Deal Report: Megan Fox Crosses the Border

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Megan Fox will star in the “border thriller” The Crossing. “Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi penned the pic, in which a couple returning from a Mexican vacation is carjacked and the husband kidnapped. The wife (Fox) must smuggle heroin across the border in order to spring him,” per The Hollywood Reporter. A spokesman for the film claims that Fox is “ideal for the role of a woman who must be both victim and hero,” which I think is his way of saying she’s hot.

Eighteen years after the ill-fated The Dark Wind, Errol Morris is taking another shot at directing a narrative film. Currently known as Untitled Cryonics Project, it’s the true of Robert F. Nelson, “a TV repairman who in the 1960s joined a group of enthusiasts who believed they could cheat death with a new technology: cryonics. But freezing dead people so scientists could reanimate them in the future turned out to be harder than Nelson thought,” Variety reports. It’s described as a dark comedy, and Ira Glass is among the producers.

Catherine Keener has joined Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman for Percy Jackson, a Christopher Columbus adaptation of a fantasy series by Rick Riordan. “The books, which put Greek gods in modern times, involve Poseidon's half-human son, Percy, who is on a quest in modern America to prevent a war among the gods.”

Related:
Megan Fox Goes Deep
When Good Directors Go Bad: The Dark Wind

Screengrab Presents: The Best Stage-To-Screen Adaptations Of All Time (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:30:00 GMT

HENRY V (1989)

There’s been a lot of impressive speechifyin’ over the course of this past election year, and the Screengrab is currently accepting nominations for a Top Ten (or maybe even Twenty) of the greatest movie speeches of all time (to run in conjunction with Obama’s sure-to-be-classic inaugural oration)...yet, for my money, the tippy-top of any such list would have to include the classic St. Crispin’s Day pep talk from Shakespeare’s Henry V, wherein the titular monarch rallies the seemingly doomed, vastly outnumbered British army to give their lives gladly in the upcoming mother of all battles with France. Delivered by Kenneth Branagh (directing himself in a gripping action movie adaptation that makes you forget all about the pesky iambic pentameter stuff), the scene was so powerful on screen I wanted to rush right out and sack the concession stand. (And the rest of the movie ain't bad, neither.) Too bad the kind of talent (and ego) that allows a young firebrand like Branagh to helm and star in ambitious adaptations like Henry V and Hamlet tends to burn bright then quickly fade...at least, of late, from high-profile leading man movie roles (not to mention Emma Thompson’s heart).

ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930)

As a cinematic object, there’s not much to recommend Animal Crackers. Its staging is stiff as a rail, its romantic subplot just sits there and dies, its musical numbers aren’t much to write home about, and it’s hardly on the cutting edge of big-screen audiovisuals, even by the standards of eighty years ago. But it does do one thing that forever cements it in the upper echelons of stage-to-screen adaptations: it introduces the Marx Brothers to the world. Animal Crackers was one of the brothers’ most successful Broadway shows, running for almost 200 performances with the same cast, so Paramount took a chance that the comedy stylings of Groucho, Chico and Harpo would translate easily from play to film. In a certain sense, they were wrong: a number of Groucho’s more salacious lines, which were big hits with sophisticated New York audiences, were judged too risqué by the Hays Code bosses and cut out of the film version. But in most other respects, the Marx Brothers proved even more popular in the world of cinema than they did on the stage in Manhattan. Even the most cerebral elements of their mile-a-minute comedy, like the metahumor qualities evident in Groucho’s asides to the camera and Chico’s famously copping to not being Italian (the only movie in which he does so), proved to be as beloved by the heartland, and even foreign audiences, as they were to their Broadway fans.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS (1988)

Stephen Frears made a risky choice when he helmed the first English-language adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ oft-filmed 18th-century novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. While most stage plays are opened up on film – made to look as non-theatrical as possible – Frears deliberately played up the staginess of the production. Instead of shying away from its origins as a play, he soaked it in theatrical elegance, and intentionally called attention to its artificiality. He couldn’t have picked a better play on which to attempt this tactic: Dangerous Liaisons, written in a high-nasty style that evokes the sadistic game-playing and one-upmanship of the courtier class of its day, is all about lies, about artifice, about theatrical chicanery. That’s why Frears and his screenwriter Christopher Hampton (updating his theatrical adaptation of the original novel for the screen) made such a wise choice; the world in which Glenn Close’s Marquise de Merteuil and John Malkovich’s Vicomte de Valmont lived was as unreal as a play, and that sensibility rightly pervades the entire movie. It also further provides us all the evidence we need that Keanu Reeves cannot act, and that Uma Thurman can – and is might purty to boot.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce

OST: "Pulp Fiction"

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:15:00 GMT

We knew this day would come. We knew that eventually, we were going to have to address the man who is arguably almost as famous for his game-changing approach to soundtracks as for the actual movies he directs. Quentin Tarantino, like a lot of smart-ass culture vultures of his generation, is a pop-cult omnivore, as well-versed in music as he is in literature, film, television, and fashion, and it should come as no surprise that in his greatest accomplishement as a director, 1994's Pulp Fiction, he brought his encyclopedic knowledge of pop music to bear on the soundtrack with a geek's precision and an auteur's passion. Tarantino's instincts as a music director proved as profitable to Sony Music as his instincts as a filmmaker did to Miramax: the movie was a huge success, and the soundtrack went platinum almost immediately after its release. Selling over a million and a half units in its first year, it was one of the most popular soundtracks of the decade, and not only launched one career (that of Urge Overkill, the Chicago band who covered "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" on the album) but revived two more (those of Kool & the Gang and Dick Dale, who enjoyed a popular resurgence after two of their best-known songs were featured in the film).

The curious alchemy that took place when Tarantino put the soundtrack together -- and it is no exaggeration to call him the creator of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, as he personally selected every single track, often building entire scenes around a piece of music he felt would be appropriate -- has become characteristic of his films, and has led to his reputation as a director who has an uncanny ability to match up visual and musical elements in his films. And yet, many of his detractors -- and, for that matter, a number of his supporters -- are quick to point out that the story of music in Tarantino's films is one of missed opportunities, and a triumph of metareference over originality. After all, in his soundtracks no less than in his movies themselves, Quentin Tarantino is a pastiche artist. A filmmaker of his caliber is perfectly capable of doing what Jim Jarmusch, another director with a reputation for crafting stellar soundtracks, does: use a few existing pieces of music as ringers, and then commission an original score that conjures its own mood and moment, rather than relying on the emotions generated by preexisting songs to create impact. Just as his films constantly serve as a sort of postmodernist irritant, a nagging little voice saying, hey, do you remember this? Do you get what I'm referencing here?, his film music can be viewed as little more than a catalog of referents, a mixtape to the last half-century of junk culture that's designed not so much the create a thrilling film experience so much as remind you of a thrilling film experience you've already had.

And yet, as reluctant as we are to engage in such dismissive approaches, who cares? When the alchemy works so wonderfully, why pick nits? As long as Tarantino isn't being dismayingly obvious in his lifts -- a crime of which Reservoir Dogs was occasionally guilty -- they come in such rapid bursts (as in Kill Bill) or with such a dazzling degree of clever storytelling techniques (as in Pulp Fiction), the gentlemanly thing is not to notice. Sure, Quentin Tarantino is just a gifted rip-off artist. But he's so gifted, and his rip-offs are so amazingly successful, so exquisitely framed in new viewpoints and new contexts, and delivered in such a supremely confident and technically competent way, that he earns our indulgence the way a lesser filmmaker wouldn't. A Pulp Fiction with an original score might have had more integrity and originality, but it probably wouldn't have been as good. The key to Tarantino's genius, musically and as a filmmaker, isn't that he's showing us something we've never seen before; it's that he's showing it to us in a way we've never thought of, and making it seem new and exciting again. The greatness of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack isn't that he gathers together a bunch of songs we've never heard before, but that he's presenting them in such a way that we now inextricably associate them with the images he chose them to accompany. If this is a rip-off, let us make the most of it.

BEST TRACKS: The most memorable use of an extant song on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack is one of the most memorable in movie history: John Travolta's hitman and Uma Thurman's moll dance wildly and seductively to Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell." It's the purest distillation of Tarantino's genius for matching music to visual, surpassing even the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs, and it's so smashingly effective that it's entered our cultural vocabulary in half a dozen ways. But there's plenty of other treats to be had here, including Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man", Al Green's "Let's Stay Together", a devastating use of "Jungle Boogie", and the weird, creepy ode to isolation, "Flowers on the Wall" by the otherwise sunshiney Statler Brothers. I've always found dialogue snippets on a soundtrack to be gimmicky and distracting, but there's plenty of them here for those that disagree. Worth seeking out is the collector's edition to the soundtrack, issued in 2002, which features a brief but generally enjoyable interview with Tarantino, and a handful of dynamite bonus tracks, including "Rumble" by proto-Dalean Link Wray & HIs Ray-Men, and "Out of Limits" by the Marketts, another surf classic.

Related Posts:

OST: Run Lola Run

OST: Fight Club

Morning Deal Report: Sienna Miller in the Hood

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Add Sienna Miller’s name to a list that already includes Audrey Hepburn, Uma Thurman and Rich Little. That would be the list of people who have played Maid Marian in one version or another of Robin Hood. Ridley Scott’s “revisionist take” called Nottingham already has Russell Crowe on board, but not in the role you might think. According to Variety, Scott’s version “focuses on the Sheriff of Nottingham (Crowe) as a noble and brave lawman who labors for a corrupt king and engages in a love triangle with Marion and Robin Hood.” Miller is currently shooting G.I. Joe, so she should have action figures aplenty in stores by this time next year.

Insert your own “offer they can’t refuse” joke here. The estate of Mario Puzo “has filed suit against Paramount Pictures, claiming the studio owes it at least $1 million in revenues from the series of video games based on the Oscar-winning film The Godfather,” per the Hollywood Reporter. The author’s son Anthony is behind the lawsuit, which states: “Despite the vast wealth Puzo created for Paramount, it has refused to pay his children their agreed share of the revenue from that audio-visual product.” No truth to the rumors that Puzo’s lawyers are responsible for the horse’s head found in the Paramount CEO’s bed.

Finally, you’ll be delighted to know that the appropriately named Film Movement has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to The Pope’s Toilet. The Cannes favorite “is set in 1988, as a small Uruguayan town, Melo, gears up for the arrival of Pope John Paul II. One local resident, trying to profit from the visit, decides to build a portable pay toilet for the event, setting in motion a chain of unforeseen complications,” Variety reports. I guess that answers Steve Martin’s old question, “Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

Related:
How Bad Will "G.I. Joe" Be?
American Lawsuit

Mother of Uma Thurman Stalker Issues a Plea for Understanding

Phil Nugent — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:10:00 GMT

Anemona Hartocollis interviews the mother of Jack Jordan, the man convicted last week of stalking Uma Thurman. Beth Jordan, 64, met her husband, Thomas, a nuclear physicist, almost fifty years ago in Baltimore. They had nine children, including two that were still born; Jack was raised as "the fifth of eight", including "his sister's child, being raised by their parents" in their Maryland home. School friends remember Jack Jordan as popular, funny, and charismatic. “His entire life he’s been called perfect," recalls his mother. "He was like a golden, beautiful boy-man." But he went through a radical change when he was 25. He underwent a physical transformation losing weight after switching to a vegan diet; a University of Chicago pre-med student who aspired to become a neurosurgeon before abandoning his studies, he started working exclusively at menial jobs; and then there were the "hallucinations that he was talking to Jesus and Muhammad." Before that, Mrs. Jordan thought there was something wrong with her son, as he began to withdraw and lose his competitive nature and seem to starve himself. But she was unable to get anyone to heed her concerns: “You know, who listens to the momma?”

Mrs. Jordan is now addressing her feelings to the public in an effort to get her son the medical help he needs, as opposed to a prison sentence. "She had seen him thrive while taking Lexapro, an antidepressant, even going to graduate school for six months, she said. And she had also seen him with his tongue hanging out, unable to stop pacing, after she and his father had him committed in 2005 to a county psychiatric facility, where he was forcibly injected with drugs. 'I just want people to know how normal Jack was,' Mrs. Jordan said, 'and how normal he was for that period of time, being treated with Lexapro.' ” Jack himself refuses to admit that he needs help, and his parents are concerned that he himself would insist on prison over hospitalization if the choice were left to him. Jack Jordan, now 37, began stalking Thurman during the filming of the 2007 My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

Screengrab Writer Was Nowhere Near New York At The Time

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:30:00 GMT

No one likes a celebrity stalker story, but speaking personally, I am particularly outraged by the unfolding story of 37-year-old Jack Jordan, who is currently on trial for harrassing Uma Thurman by sending her bizarre letter and menacing doodles, breaking into her trailer, and generally acting all creepy around the Kill Bill star. Hey, pal, not only is stalking Uma Thurman evil and wrong, it's supposed to be my job. I haven't invested 20 years of my life on this celebrity crush just to have some punk like you steal my thunder.

The Jack Jordan story is filled with icky little details, such as the Henry Darger-esque clippings he left in Thurman's trailer during the filming of My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Uma Thurman stalker tip: a better thing to leave in her trailer would be a note imploring her to pick better scripts), the stick-figure drawings of himself giggling and leaping off a razor blade into a grave (Uma Thurman stalker tip: hire a professional illustrator), and the midguidedly tender notes reading "If you think you love me, then how sad that your kids and you and me would have to spend another holiday apart. Now it's the end of September and I live in my car." (Uma Thurman stalker tip: it's never a good opening gambit, with any woman, to mention that you live in your car.)

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this whole situation, however: as the Defamer points out, the New York Times article about Jordan's trial seems to take pains to mention that Thurman, who says she feared for her children's lives when the stalker was on the loose, was "haggard" with carelessly done hair, a dowdy old gray shawl, and no makeup while she testified against him. Good grief, woman, it's only a crazy man who sent you pictures of bloody razor blades! Would it kill you to get gussied up a bit?

Trailer Review: The Life Before Her Eyes

Paul Clark — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Well, it appears that it's Changed Title Week here at Trailer Review, first with Monday's Starship Meet Dave, and now this one, which was originally titled In Bloom. It was under this title that the film premiered to lukewarm reviews at last year's Toronto Film Festival, where Premiere's Glenn Kenny called it "basically Sophie's Choice meets Incident at Owl Creek Bridge meets Columbine." The trailer conveys this pretty effectively, with a sudden flash-forward from the teenage protagonist driving to the adult version behind the wheel. But what I have a hard time stomaching is the film's grief-porn aspect, for lack of a better word. Yes, a school shooting is a tragedy, but the film looks less like a complex examination of the psychological fallout from this central incident than a wallow in the heroine's misery. And in what universe does Evan Rachel Wood grow up into Uma Thurman without, uh, surgical enhancement? Just sayin'.