BobBerney Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Adjust your calenders, and don't hold your breath for Terrence Malick. (If you ever hold your breath for Malick, that is. His latest opus, The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn,was given a tentative release date of December 25, 2009. But it won't be making that date, according to Apparition Films' Bob Berney. Thompson on Hollywood caught up with Berney, who said the date was "wishful" thinking, and that the film will not be released in 2009.

Why the delay? If you know Malick at all, you know the answer to that. The film is not yet finished. The Tree of Life has already been a 30-year journey for Malick, and another year (or two, or three) won't make any difference to the notoriously meticulous director. No one has even seen the film, or knows what form its final cut will take. All that's really known about the movie is that it's a family drama that spans the 1950s and deals with the loss of innocence.

Apparition Films remains optimistic that you'll see the film in 2010. It won't make Sundance, but it's likely to make Cannes. (That is the film festival that belongs to Pitt and Angelina Jolie, so fate would dictate that's where it would premiere!) But even that is up in the air, as Berney admits he has no idea when the film will be finished, or when it will be released.

Near the end of last week, Defamer spread the rumor that Picturehouse, once the indie arm of New Line Cinema and currently dangling from the edge of the hulking entity known as Warner Bros., has its days numbered. Now that New Line is history and Warners, like many studios, has faced increasing cutbacks, it may give short shrift to the shingles responsible for handling artier fare. Along with Picturehouse, this also includes Warner Independent Pictures, whose recent release slate includes David Gordon Green's magnificent Snow Angels.

Defamer suggested that Picturehouse president Bob Berney might wind up at WIP or head up a new, currently anonymous company. On Friday, Variety's Anne Thompson put it in more coherent terms: It appears quite likely that WIP and Picturehouse will merge together as a single company, with current WIP president Polly Cohen working alongside Berney. Whatever happens, let's just hope that the final result still leaves room for the sharp selection of independent and foreign titles that Picturehouse has handled since its birth three years ago. Defamer points out that Marion Cotillard's unexpected Oscar win for La Vie en Rose matters less than the flop of Run, Fatboy, Run, while the John Simpson-directed horror film Amusement might get dumped on DVD. It was just last year, however, that the company helped edgy fare like The Orphanage and Rocket Science get the sort of release most studios would never try. Let's hope that bravery lives on, somewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I think Felicity Huffman is a great actress, but I never really understood why people liked Desperate Housewives so much. I dropped in and out of the series during the first two seasons and I could never get into it, which is saying something considering how addictive my TV viewing habits can be.

It looks like Huffman is making a smooth transition into more full time movie gigs. Variety announced that Huffman has been signed to star in the film version of the British miniseries The Politician's Wife. The original story was about the wronged wife of a charismatic MP, who quietly plots her revenge against her husband and his cronies. I'm assuming there will have to be some changes to the script since I can't see Huffman doing an accent.

The series was produced for Channel 4 in the UK and included Minnie Driver, as a high-end escort. I remember seeing the series years ago on PBS and I was pretty entertained by the whole thing, and nobody does reserve and repression like the British. Nicholas Meyer, who has some experience with adaptations, having adapted Philip Roth's The Human Stain, wrote the script and Bob Berney is on board to direct. So even if the movie is just another Hollywood re-hash, for me, it beats the shenanigans of Wisteria Lane any day.

[via JoBlo.com]

Half Nelson came and went through theatres quietly. If it weren't for living three blocks away from an independent movie house I would have never noticed it myself. Ryan Fleck's independent was filmmaking gold -- truly great filmmaking. The story is about a schoolteacher, young and inspiring who lives a double life as a crack addict once he leaves campus at night. Why did more than half the world not see, let alone not hear, about this film? Independent budgets simply do not have the kind of funding necessary to publicize their films.

It's sad but true. Most incredible independent features are never heard of before they hit DVD; where many have the chance at a more uplifting financial turn around. So, if the production doesn't have the money to publicize, if there aren't big names that will naturally draw people to the film (i.e. Babel, Notes on a Scandal or Venus) what do they do to get people to see their films? Miraculously a huge part of drawing an audience to Indies is word of mouth. I'm a firm believer that if the work is good that it will be seen. The work will be recognized, sooner or later, all based onon interested parties viewing the film.

IndieWire interviewed president of Picturehouse Bob Berney about generating success on independent projects. In his interview, Berney said something worth quoting again and again. "If films are good, audiences can expand almost without a ceiling." He's absolutely right and what a great picture to create, a film rising against absolutely no barriers. That film can and will trump any blockbuster film if it is -- good. Berney stated to IndieWire that good reviews also contribute to the success of indie films. Word of mouth, to me, is far more powerful. It's reviews that I often times let go in one ear and out the other -- I don't like people making decisions for me.

Independent films have generally had a good run in 2006. With awards season and a little patience, the Indies of 2006 may do even better ... we just have to keep talking about them.

When Robert Altman died Monday night he left behind a good deal of pre-production work on what was to be his next film, a fictionalized remake of the 1997 documentary Hands on a Hard Body. Scheduled to begin shooting next year, the new film has a screenplay, co-written by Stephen Harrigan, and a distributor, Picturehouse, but now is without a director.

Those familiar with the story presented in Hands on a Hard Body -- twenty-four contestants try to win a new truck in a contest that has each attempting to be the last to remain holding onto said vehicle -- should be in agreement that it would have been perfectly dramatized by Altman. And possibly by nobody else. Picturehouse head Bob Berney is now debating whether to go ahead with the production with a new director at the helm or to let the project die with the late, great filmmaker, knowing that it just won't be as good without him.

The first idea that comes to mind for the substitution option is to have Paul Thomas Anderson take over. He is nearing completion on his latest, the oil-tycoon-family drama, There Will Be Blood, so he may be able to fit this into his schedule, and also he recently worked alongside Altman on A Prairie Home Companion, so he is likely the most qualified to continue the project relatively close to Altman's vision. A second choice, and less appealing one, would be to have Richard Linklater have a shot, since he seems to have no new film in the works, he has done a fair job of handling the multiple-character, multiple-storyline style, he just adapted a non-fiction book as a fictional narrative, and he should feel at home working with the Texas-set film. A final idea would be to have S.R. Bindler, who directed the original doc and has since moved into shooting fiction films, redo his own film.