Anand Tucker Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I love director Anand Tucker's professional trajectory. He dove into music, sisters, and drama with Hilary and Jackie and followed it up with Steve Martin's strange romance, Shopgirl. Then there was some father and son dynamics before grabbing upcoming projects about the Yorkshire Ripper, sex changes, and a CIA spy thriller. So, what does he top this all with?

Variety reports that he's signed on to helm Harry Elfont and Deb Kaplan's upcoming romcom, Leap Year. The one that Amy Adams grabbed last month. The film, which heads into production in Ireland this March, follows a woman who flies over to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend on leap day. Why? Because an Irish tradition says that when men get proposals on that day, they have to say yes. She gets delayed, and surely doesn't want to wait another four years to make her possible marriage a sure thing, so she's got to race across the country to make it.

Good ... or bad? Well, this slightly brings to mind a certain Matchmaker story, which was bad in a sweet sort of way. Harry and Deb brought us Can't Hardly Wait, which rocked, but they also gave us flicks like Made of Honor and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. But Tucker is involved, and would he sign on for a crappy romcom? Eh, I can't decide. What say you?

While the collection of features that began with Red Road never got off the ground, the UK is trying again, with a different sort of feature. (One that will hopefully be fully completed and released.) Forget about a long drama like Zodiac -- Variety reports that three directors have signed on to helm films about the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper in the 1970s and early 1980s -- each taking a certain time-span of the crimes, based on David Peace's collection of books called Red Riding Quartet.

The books were adapted by Tony Grisoni, who did a heck of a job on the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas adaptation, with Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane) to cover Nineteen Seventy-Four, James Marsh (Man on Wire) to tackle Nineteen Eighty, and Anand Tucker (Shopgirl) to helm the final installment, Nineteen Eighty-Three. (Nineteen Seventy Seven will be split amongst the three other features.) The films will be brought together into a television series, with a theatrical release to follow (one that hopefully includes overseas distribution).

The tale of the Yorkshire Ripper -- Peter William Sutcliffe -- is pretty grisly. (Check that link for the whole story.) He was convicted in 1981, and while he is still alive, he has gotten a bit of the "eye for an eye" treatment from fellow criminals.

When Anand Tucker went for And When Did You Last See You Father, rather than helm His Dark Materials, it looked like the filmmaker was sticking with familiar territory -- interpersonal relationships, drama, artistry. But now it looks like he is finally ready to shake things up a little bit after his work with Father, plus Hilary and Jackie and Shopgirl. Variety reports that he has been tapped to direct an upcoming, fact-based spy thriller called A Forest of Mirrors.

Written by Jeremy Gough, and inspired by a true story, the project takes on the world of spies in the '60s. A "CIA agent travels to Guatemala to investigate his brother's death and uncovers a conspiracy that threatens to turn the tide of the Cold War." While the film goes back a good 40 years, producer Andrew Lauren says that it parallels today's political climate.

Yet even with spies and intrigue, it looks like Mirrors is still reminiscent of Tucker's cinematic sensibilities. He says: "Jeremy's script is a rare beast, both a perfect thriller and deeply emotional experience." Unfortunately, there is no word on potential production start dates or release dates, so stay tuned.

There was a time when Shopgirl director Anand Tucker was supposed to helm The Golden Compass, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy. However, he left the project due to creative differences, and filled his newly-open schedule with another film -- And When Did You Last See Your Father? -- which Sony Pictures Classics grabbed in September. Judging by the trailer that was just thrown up by Empire Online, it might have been the right choice for the director. It's a bit safe for the Tucker, treading on relationships and drama again like he did with Hilary and Jackie, but if the whole is anything like the short clips you can see now, it should be a pretty successful tissue-box-necessary drama.

The film is based on the book by British poet Blake Morrison, which details the writer's life with his father, who Booklist describes as "a genial general practitioner with a kind heart, a roving eye, a quick wit and a penchant for minor duplicities." In some particularly dead-on casting, Colin Firth plays the poet, while Jim Broadbent plays his father, Arthur. The trailer shows all the basics of the story -- Arthur is a wacky dad full of life and prankish ways, but he also has a terrible roaming eye. As a child, Blake discovers his father's infidelities, and this creates a rift between them. Unfortunately, years later, he finds out that is father is ill and close to death, so Blake goes home to talk to Arthur about those times, and to "put things in order." The only thing to watch out for -- the trailer loads and plays on its own without any controls to pause or restart -- you can just click on the image to start, pause and play again. Tres annoying. As for the movie, if it does half as well as I imagine, I'm wondering if we'll see any of Morrison's other work hit the screen. He also has a book about his mother called Things My Mother Never Told Me.

After briefly replacing Chris Weitz as director on The Golden Compass (the first part in the big-screen adaptation of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy), then leaving the project due to "creative differences," Anand Tucker (Shopgirl) will, instead, helm an adaptation of British author Blake Morrison's memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father.

Though filming isn't set to begin until next month, Sony Pictures Classics has snagged the North American and Latin American rights to the pic. Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent will star in a story that revolves around one man's relationship with his dying father. Yeah, so once this puppy finally does hit theaters, I'd recommend checking your laugh at the door, and replacing it with a box of tissues -- this one looks like a downer. As of now, Father will shove its emotional baggage into theaters next year.