Comeback Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Do you remember the news that Fred Durst was working on his second directorial gig, a sports drama called Comeback? Well, for some reason, the film is now untitled (why change it to untitled when you at least have a working title!?), and it's got a cast to boot. But first, to refresh your memory: Ice Cube signed on to star in and produce the film, which is about a young, female quarterback named Jasmine Plummer who became the first girl to play in the Pop Warner football tournament. Cube had picked the role of Plummer's uncle and mentor.

Now Reuters reports that Keke Palmer has signed on to star as Jasmine. You might remember her from Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, or more likely, as the spelling fiend in Akeelah and the Bee. She's going to be joined by Tasha Smith (Why Did I Get Married?), Jill Marie Jones (Girlfriends), Matt Craven (Disturbia), and Garret Morris (The Jamie Foxx Show). Oh yeah, and Dash Mihok, who I left separate because, well, I have a soft spot for Benvolio, and I wanted to give him his own sentence.

Anyhow... There you have it. Comeback is still on its way, just as a different yet-to-be-released/decided name. In the meantime, I'm still waiting to see Durst's first -- The Education of Charlie Banks.

This year we'll get to see Fred Durst's The Education of Charlie Banks, and now we've got word on his next picture, as he aims to become the next in the line of "real directors" like Scorsese and Coppola. I've been dying to see Banks since I learned that two of its stars were Eva Amurri, who was absolutely excellent in Saved!, and Jesse Eisenberg, who was great in my beloved indie flick Roger Dodger. Variety gave the first flick a pretty solid review, so Durst might be onto something, even though it's hard to think of the Limp Bizkit front-man as a snappy new director. Now Variety is reporting that his second film will be a true-story sports drama called Comeback.

Ice Cube is going to star in and produce Comeback, which is based on the achievements of Jasmine Plummer -- an 11-year-old quarterback who brought her team to the Pop Warner tournament and became the first female to play in it. Cube will play the girl's uncle, who mentors her as she becomes the first gal quarterback. Prison Break writer Nick Santora adapted the story, and Akeelah and the Bee scribe Doug Atchison is currently whipping up a rewrite. I have to say that I'm impressed to see Durst picking some solid and serious fare to prove himself as a director. His first directorial effort has a great cast, and neither story is closely linked to his music roots, which helps to separate him from his past work.

If you're a horror fan who's even close to my age, then you probably have a geek-crush on filmmaker Eric Red -- and you might not even know it. Mr. Red made a big splash in the genre arena with The Hitcher in 1986, and his Near Dark (1987) would eventually go on to become a bona-fide cult classic -- even if it didn't exactly set the world on fire upon its original release. After those successes, the guy wrote and/or directed flicks like the little-seen Cohen and Tate (1989, Roy Scheider & Adam Baldwin), the intense Blue Steel (1990, Ron Silver & Jamie Lee Curtis), the semi-clever Body Parts (1991, Jeff Fahey & Kim Delaney), the really solid The Last Outlaw (1994, Mickey Rourke & Dermot Mulroney), the bizarre Undertow (1996, Lou Diamond Phillips & Mia Sara), the half-decent Bad Moon (1996, Michael Pare & Mariel Hemingway) -- and then ... nothing.

What happened to Eric Red? Well, part of it was a horrific car crash in 2000 in which two people were killed, the details of which can be found in this LA Times article. (The headline reads: "Horror filmmaker Eric Red crashed his Jeep, killing two. Then he slit his own throat. That was only the beginning." Yikes!) But now it looks like the guy is primed for a big-time comeback and, as The Arrow tells us, Eric Red's got a pretty nifty idea for a ghost story.

The 100 Feet plot goes like this: An abused wife kills her horrible husband, only he was a cop, and now his ex-partner is staking the widow out, desperately hoping she'll set off her ankle collar so he can cart her back to jail. So all she has to do is stay in the house, right? Well, yeah, but the evil ghost of her dead husband has other plans for his former Mrs.!! (I think it's a pretty cool concept, so there.) Mr. Red tells Mr. Arrow that "This is an elevated, old school and classical supernatural thriller that relies on suspense, character and suggestion," but he also promises a little gore, too. Cool. 100 Feet begins shooting in Hungary early next year.

If you're someone who grew up in the 1970s and early '80s, then you definitely know who Jackie Earle Haley is. If only for his performance as Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears trilogy (and his great turn as Moocher in Peter Yates' Breaking Away), Jack Haley made for a memorable little character actor. After co-starring with a then-unknown actor named Tom Cruise in 1983's Losin' It (which was directed by none other than Curtis Hanson), Haley kind of fell off the Hollywood radar -- in a big way. Aside from a few quick moments in Murder, She Wrote and MacGyver episodes, Jackie Earle Haley could be seen in titles like Dollman, Nemesis and Maniac Cop 3. And unfortunately he didn't work often enough to gain much of a Campbell-type cult following.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when I sat down to watch All the King's Men and noticed that -- hey, isn't that Jackie Earle Haley playing Sean Penn's ultra-tough bodyguard dude?!? How cool to see him back in a movie again! Granted, he didn't have many lines, but it was still great to see an old pal after so many years. And then I headed off to see a dark comedy / suburban drama called Little Children ... and there was Jackie again, this time with a much meatier role: He plays a convicted sex offender who moves into a cushy suburban neighborhood that most definitely doesn't want him around. And the guy gives a great performance in a really difficult role.

So who knows what's next for Mr. Haley? This New York Times article does a fine job of summing up the guy's comeback, and I think that both of the directors involved (Steven Zaillian and Todd Field) deserve a hearty round of praise for pulling Jackie Earle out of obscurity and giving him another shot in the spotlight. Based on the two performances I just witnessed, I suspect Haley will be popping up a lot more frequently in the near future.