BenChaplin Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For girls of a certain age, the very notion of Zac Efron is enough to send them into peals of ecstasy. Personally, I just don't get it. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Efron (star of High School Musical), has signed to star in the big-screen version of Robert Kaplow's coming-of-age novel, Me and Orson Welles. Efron will play Richard, a 17 year old boy "who, while strolling the streets of New York, happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is noticed by its mercurial founder, Orson Welles. The man lands a bit part in Julius Caesar, the production that catapulted Welles to the top, and spends the next week learning about life and love." Joining Efron in the cast is Christian McKay as Welles and Ben Chaplin as the famed British stage actor George Coulouris.

Richard Linklater is signed to direct from a Vince and Holly Gent Palmo script. The Palmos are long-time collaborators with Linklater; Holly started as a production coordinator on Dazed and Confused, and Vince has worked with Linklater on most of his films. Now that the filmmaker is involved, it could raise Efron's profile as an actor to something a little more challenging than High School Musical 3? 4? How many of those movies are there anyway? Not to mention, regardless of what you may have thought of The Newton Boys, it seems like Linklater would be able to handle another period piece (this one is set in 1937). The story is considered half romance and half history of the Golden Age of Broadway, and could definitely be Efron's shot at being taken a little more seriously as an actor -- as opposed to just a cover boy for "Non-Threatening Boys Magazine." Efron is currently shooting the teen comedy Seventeen, but then he will be off to start work on Welles in mid-February and March.

*A guest review today, from Nick Schager, of Slant Magazine

Four grown-up siblings reunite to take care of their ovarian cancer-stricken mother during her dying days in Two Weeks, a melodrama that, while partially based on the life of writer/director Steve Stockman, nonetheless frequently exhibits a startling ignorance about normative human behavior. Making his feature directorial debut, Stockman approaches his downbeat material with equal measures of somberness and levity, the latter supposedly aimed at replicating the way in which people use wisecracks and sarcasm as a defense mechanism – an emotional barricade – against wellsprings of pain and misery. It's a reasonable aim, yet one that requires a lighter touch than the first-time filmmaker possesses, the result being an awkward hybrid of earnest weepiness and bouncy lightheartedness that's further undermined by numerous scenes that come across as divorced from any sense of recognizable reality.

Wasting away in the North Carolina home she shares with second husband Jim (James Murtaugh), Anita (Sally Field) gets to share her final two weeks with her quartet of kids, a motley bunch of "types" who each boast one distinctive trait. Keith (Ben Chaplin) is a Hollywood filmmaker whose life is guided by a "one day at a time" Zen philosophy, and who has never cried in front of his wife; Barry (Thomas Cavanagh) is a businessman who thinks cleaning up after mom – who does a lot of puking into a bedpan – is icky; Matthew (Glenn Howerton) is the youngest child, and thus feels bossed around and disrespected; and Emily (Julianne Nicholson) is the devoted daughter whose method of dealing with her mother's impending demise is to read every one of her local library's self-help books.

According to this morning's Guardian, a warts-and-all biopic of the entire Bronte family is being planned in England. Quite logically entitled Brontë, the film is budgeted at about $11 million and will place Charlotte, Anne, and Emily in a realistic 19th century England, filled with "dungheaps and foul drains ... open sewer[s] in the street and ... cholera and typhoid that killed most children before their sixth birthday." Mmm ... dungheaps.

Since the movie begins filming next month, most of the cast is in place -- and it features some big names, particularly considering how under-the-radar it's been flying. Starring as Charlotte (Who, as all American high school students know, wrote Jane Eyre.) will be Michelle Williams, Nathalie Press will play Emily (Author of Wuthering Heights. That's all, just Wuthering Heights.) and Anne, she of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, will be played by New Zealander Emily Barclay. Also along for the dung-laden ride will be Jonathan Rhys Meyers (sadly for JRM, his character is apparently straight), Brian Cox and Ben Chaplin.

You're not going to believe this, but Walden Media is making another movie based on a much-loved children's book. This time, they're undertaking The Water Horse, a novel for grade-schoolers by Dick King-Smith that sounds like a sort of sweet creation story for the Loch Ness Monster. The movie (in which, by the way, the main character seems to have lost his sister -- apparently audiences prefer lonely boys) will be directed by Jay Russell, and all of the effects will by done by Weta Digital and Weta Workshop, who also played that role in a couple movies released ast year that you might have heard about -- King Kong and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I think it's safe to assume that Water Horse, no matter how good or bad it is, will look fantastic.

The sad, lonely lad will be played by Alex Etel, the adorable star of Millions, and Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin are also on board, possibly to play his parents.