Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
Nicole Kidman Out, Lucy Punch In - Woody Allen’s Got a New Hooker
Posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Woody Allen is working on his new movie to be filmed in London this Summer, and the cast he’s planned includes Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Naomi Watts and, until recently, also featured Nicole Kidman. She recently bowed out, however, when the schedule for Rabbit Hole was set and clashed with Woody’s plan. Rabbit Hole took precedence as Kidman is not just acting in it, she’s also producing. As a result, Woody Allen has now replaced Ms. Kidman and his choice is a fascinating one. Against all of my intuition, he’s gone for the British actress Lucy Punch, who you probably know best from CBS sitcom The Class or Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz.
I just got back from ShowWest in Las Vegas. ShoWest is a convention for theater owners where, among other things, Hollywood previews some of their upcoming movies. You’ve seen some of my ShoWest overage on the site over the last week, but there was so much going on that I couldn’t get to it all. Frosty from Collider joins me in this video blog wrap-up, where we take a look at nearly everything that we saw over the course of the four day convention. We broke it into two parts because it runs a little bit long. Here is some of the stuff we talked about:
Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, Tron 2 3-D, Beauty and the Beast in 3-D, Angels & Demons, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works, The Hurt Locker, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Hangover, Terminator Salvation, Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, The Proposal, The Princess and the Frog, Men in Black 3, Spider-Man 4, Ghostbusters 3, The Ugly Truth, Julie and Julia, and The Year One.
In the last 5 minutes of the video, George (El Guapo) from Latino Review, Alex from First Showing, Ed from Coming Soon, and Katey from Cinemablend make a cameo appearance and briefly discuss their favorite things from the con. A big thanks goes to Katey Rich for producing this segment. She did the camera work and helped us organize the talking points. Without her, we would have been babbling even more than we did. Part 2 is after the jump.
VOIR has the first production photos from Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works. The movie stars Larry David as a highly eccentric character who runs into a girl from the South named Melodie, played by Evan Rachel Wood. The two of them, joined by Melodie’s Mother and Father, “get into a series of highly improbable, far out, romantic entanglements.”
Welcome to another edition of Movie Playlist, where we talk to the writers, directors, and stars about their favorite films. I’ve always found the celebrity playlists on iTunes to be interesting. Most everyone in the film business moved to Hollywood after discovering their love of films. And I’ve always love talking to people about their favorite films. So talking to the people who make the movies about their favorite films just seemed like a natural idea.
In this week’s Movie Playlist we interviewed director Brad Anderson, who I first discovered through the wonderful but unseen Boston indie Next Stop Wonderland, which featured Hope Davis and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. In 1997, Anderson was named by Variety as one of the “Ten Leading New Independent Directors to Watch.” His filmography includes Happy Accidents, Session 9, and The Machinist. His television credits include episodes of Homicide; The Wire; The Shield; and Surface. His new film Transsiberian, which hits theaters today, is a Hitchcockian thriller which he also co-wrote.
/Film: I just want to start off saying, I’m a big fan of all your work. I’m from Boston,
Brad Anderson: Oh yeah, really.
/Film: so I’ve been following your career since Next Stop Wonderland.
Brad Anderson: Oh great, wow!
/Film: So this is great, so – I want to talk to you today, I’m not sure if they briefed you but we do a feature called Movie Playlist which basically talks about your favorite movies of all time, or maybe not even just your favorite movies but movies you watch a lot, or movies you love. What are some of your favorite movies?
Brad Anderson: Favorite movies? It runs the gamut, in no particular order and no particular preference, I just caught, anything by Stanley Kubrick, I can watch those movies again and again I don’t know why, but just something about what he invests in his films and the meticulous level of detail, and choreography that I just find as a filmmaker craft of film making is so apparent in his movies that every time you watch them it’s like being taught how to make a movie, so yeah, I just caught 2001 recently again and it’s just like the kind of thing you’re clicking through the channels and you sort of catch a piece of it and you’re like yeah, I’ve seen this about 20 million times and you’re about to switch to another channel and you just find yourself watching it and the next thing you know you’ve watched it all over again.
/Film: 2001 is one of those movies that if you come across on cable, basically you’ve lost three hours of your life.
Brad Anderson: [laughs] Yeah, it’s so amazing to me that movie and all his films, but that one in particular because it’s like, you think about it the way – I don’t know what you’d call it, it’s not a thriller, it’s not a straight out sci-fi film, it’s not necessarily a straight out adventure movie, it’s just a study in visual brilliance, you know, and the way that his use of sound and his use of music and anything by Kubrick.
Welcome to another edition of Movie Playlist, where we talk to the writers, directors, and stars about their favorite films. I’ve always found the celebrity playlists on iTunes to be interesting. Most everyone in the film business moved to Hollywood after discovering their love of films. And I’ve always love talking to people about their favorite films. So talking to the people who make the movies about their favorite films just seemed like a natural idea.
This week’s edition is with Jonathan Levine, the writer and director of The Wackness and All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. I first saw The Wackness at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where the movie went on to win the audience award. I’ve seen the film three times since January, and it still remains on my list of the top five films of 2008. Levine is an up and coming filmmaker who is sure to impress in the years to come.
Manhattan, written and directed by Woody Allen
“Just because of the sweeping kind of romantic scope of it and also the humor and the way it looks.”
Billy Madison by Tamra Davis
“I think it’s just really fucking funny.”
Band of Outsiders by Godard
I really like, well Godard, I think is, I really really like the way he makes films and the way he plays with form is really interesting to me. And I think it’s actually in many ways kind of consistent with hip-hop and sampling things and just the things he does with music and sound. I think he’s like a one of a kind, very unique, and I like to rip him off as much as I can.”
La Notte by Michelangelo Antonioni
Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick
“It’s just like a tone, you know? As much as Woody Allen kind of revels in the emotion, those guys kind of have a healthy distance from the emotion that in many ways is just as impactful. There’s a misanthropy to it that is not cynical. It’s like you’re showing that the worst side of people but in doing so, you’re allowing… you know, it’s Tom Cruise, you’re like ‘oh shit! Like Tom Cruise is this scumbag… he has the weirdest thoughts and his wife wants to cheat on him with a marine and he’s Tom Cruise but he’s so fucking fucked up by it that he has to go put on a mask and go to an orgy.’ But you identify with these base desires and with the worst part of human beings and then you realize all right, it’s not that bad. The movie ends on this note where it’s like, oh yeah, we got fucked. I really liked that movie. It might not be my favorite movie… the only one of those movies that constitutes my favorite movie is Manhattan but the other ones do really interesting things that I respect out of movies.”
Check out Jonathan Levine’s latest movie The Wackness, which hits limited release this Friday.
The Weinstein Co has released a new trailer for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The story follows “two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky is sensible and engaged to be married; Cristina is emotionally and sexually adventurous. In Barcelona, they’re drawn into a series of unconventional romantic entanglements with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charismatic painter, who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz). Set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen’s funny and open-minded celebration of love in all its configurations.” The film premiered at Cannes and was well reviewed. Kim Voynar called is “a lovely gift from a filmmaker who, when he’s on his game, truly hits the mark.” And Emanuel Levy called it Allen’s “most entertaining and commercial work since Bullets Over Broadway”.
The important thing to know is that Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz get it on. Check out the new trailer below, and as always, share your thoughts in the comment section!
You can watch the new trailer in High Definition on Yahoo. Vicky Cristina Barcelona arrives in theaters on September 5th 2008.
Movie Trailer: Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
The movie trailer for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona has hit the web, in preparation of the film’s premiere at Cannes. The story follows “two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky is sensible and engaged to be married; Cristina is emotionally and sexually adventurous. In Barcelona, they’re drawn into a series of unconventional romantic entanglements with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charismatic painter, who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz). Set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen’s funny and open-minded celebration of love in all its configurations.”
It certainly looks like Woody Allen’s sexiest movie. I’m sure a lot of men will check it out just for the scene where Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz get it on. And apparently there’s apparently a sexy threesome scene between Bardem, Johansson and Cruz. Although there is something creepy about knowing that Woody Allen is standing behind the camera. Wait, didn’t he write this movie too? If you were a 72-year-old famous Hollywood director, what’s to stop you from essentially writing a dream porn where you could cast your fantasy starlets. I’m sure we’ll hear more about the movie when it premieres at Cannes.
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First Look: Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
And the last photo we bring you from Festival De Cannes, is our first official look at Woody Allen’s next film Vicky Cristina Barcelona about two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky is sensible and engaged to be married; Cristina is emotionally and sexually adventurous. In Barcelona, they’re drawn into a series of unconventional romantic entanglements with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charismatic painter, who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz). Of course, all of this is set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona. The official plot synopsis lists a 96 minute running time and calls the movie “Woody Allen’s funny and open-minded celebration of love in all its configurations…”
First Look: Evan Rachel Wood and Larry David in the new Woody Allen Movie
Posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
JustJared has photos of Evan Rachel Wood (Across the Universe) and Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) from the still-yet-to-be-titled Woody Allen movie. In typical Woody Allen style, the film tells the story of a relationship between an older man and a younger woman. David and Wood shot a date scene on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on Tuesday. The couple walked down the street as they munched on knishes from the famous Yonah Schimmel Knishery.
Henry Cavil (The Tudors) plays a man who is set up with Evan Rachel Wood’s character by her mother (possibly played Emma Thompson?). Not much else is known about the film’s plot as the script, penned by Allen, is being kept under wraps.
Scarlett Johansson’s Steamy Lesbian Sex Scene with Penelope Cruz!?
Posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
Men everywhere rejoice - Scarlett Johansson filmed a “steamy lesbian sex scene with Penelope Cruz” for Woody Allen’s new star filled porno film Vicky Cristina does Barcelona. A source tells the NY Post that the scene is “extremely erotic” and that “people will be blown away and even shocked.” Apparently, Penelope and Scarlett go at it in a red-tinted photography dark room, and “it will leave the audience gasping.” The duo later have a threesome with No Country For Old Men star Javier Bardem, who plays Penelope’s husband. I’m guessing that scene might be more creepy than hot.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona tells the story of a painter who enters a relationship with two American tourists, but conflict begins with the painter’s jealous ex-girlfriend. The film which also stars Patricia Clarkson, Rebecca Hall, Kevin Dunn and Chris Messina, has completed filming and will likely hit theaters in late-2008.
Scarlett Johansson to Direct New York, I Love You aka New York, je t’aime
Posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
The severe void of female directors in Hollywood needs to cease, so maybe actresses with the urge like Drew Barrymore and now Scarlett Johansson can be a catalyst. Johansson, a New Yorker, is attached to direct one of the twelve short films that will make up New York, I Love You, a bookend to the recent swooning hit Paris, je t’aime. Like dirty pigeons flocking together to form a feathery heart, the shorts will take a look at “the universal theme of encountering love within the five boroughs of New York City.” And if you haven’t yet confessed your love to a semi-stranger in one of the city’s many dark rooms while under the influence, you’ve got a fun homework assignment for Monday.
While Woody Allen won’t direct a segment, he’s Woody Allen and can help where he wants. I was surprised to see that some of New York’s finest like Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Jim Jarmusch won’t be contributing, nor will wildman Abel Ferrara. But it makes sense that a guy nicknamed The Rat will direct aka Brett Ratner. And Zach Braff is there to lend some [chortle] indie cred. Williamsburg calls, Zach. And where’s that mumblecore dude? Interesting choices include the Hughes Brothers, Old Boy’s Chan-wook Park and The English Patient’s Anthony Minghella.
In other news, Page Six reports that Johansson’s still up for the part of Courtney Love in the Kurt Cobain biopic Heavier Than Heaven. I forgot my sunglasses today, so I’m not in the mood to discuss that.
Movie Trailer: Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream
Posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 by Peter Sciretta
The international movie trailer for Woody Allen’s next film, Cassandra’s Dream is now online. The film tells the story of two Cockney brothers (Collin Farrell and Ewan McGregor) in south London and their relationship with a young woman (Hayley Atwell) who lands in London on her search for fortune. She crosses the two men by accident on her path and when one them falls in love with her, she becomes aware of her power to attract the opposite sex and uses this to the point of leading the two brothers, who are in financial difficulty, into crime, and creating a dangerous rivalry between the two men.
It looks pretty interesting. The movie premiered at a film festival in Spain a couple months back and his been very well received (9.1 on imdb). Most people didn’t latch on to Allen’s latest (Scoop), and this looks to be a return to the non-comic genre story that launched his resurgence (Match Point) a couple years ago. Check out the trailer after the jump. Read More »
