GinaGershon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Between brothels and blues, here are some new bits of casting:

• First up, there's Love Ranch, the film we've been telling you about that focuses on the first legal brothel in Nevada. After the initial casting of Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren, the roster has slowly grown, adding likes of people from Bai Ling to Bryan Cranston. Now The Hollywood Reporter says that sex-goddess Gina Gershon is also spending some time at the Love Ranch. She will play, not surprisingly, a veteran at the brothel, working alongside a newcomer played by Scout Taylor-Compton. But the real story is in a "dangerous love triangle" with Pesci, Mirren, and Sergio Peris-Mencheta, who plays a South American boxer. Cranston (playing a senator) somehow gets "entangled in their sordid affairs."
• Meanwhile, THR also reports that the cast for Chess, the dueling Leonard Chess biopic, is slowly coming together. Aside from Alessandro Nivola, whose casting I told you about earlier this month, there's also David Oyelowo and Jon Abrahams. While Jeffrey Wright is playing Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records, Oyelowo will tackle the icon in this production. He hasn't built up the same cred yet, but he certainly isn't a shoddy casting move -- aside from The Last King of Scotland, Oyelowo is known for being the first black actor to play an English monarch for the Royal Shakespeare Company (he played Henry VI). Jon Abrahams, well, you might not know his name (I didn't recognize it) but there's a good chance you're familiar with him -- Kids, Boiler Room, Meet the Parents, Boston Public, House of Wax, or any of his other roles. He will play Chess' younger brother Phil, "who worries when Leonard becomes involved with a singer who has been signed to their label." I'm still more intrigued by the other film in the works, but again, I think a lot will bank on Etta James and the rest of the casting.

Hi, there -- here's my first celeb sighting at Sundance. (A little background: Moviefone does a star-interviews-star [or sometimes director] video show called Unscripted) The first one I got to watch tape this go-round was for 'Delirious.' One of the stars of that film, Gina Gershon, and director Tom DiCillo sat down and chatted. That's what they mostly did -- they got through maybe two questions each -- and they were cool. They obviously know each other well and get along; great rapport. And, not surprisingly, DiCillo was pretty damned funny ... the movie comments on celebrity, and DiCillo ragged on it as well (e.g., he claimed he'd read in the tabloids that Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston were going to, like, fight to the death, and Brad Pitt was O.K. with that -- he'd just take the winner).

He also said that with his first movie, 'Johnny Suede,' he'd turned down bringing it to Sundance, because back then it was known as the Granola Fest, with crunchy movies about a little girl living on a farm who could see God through her dog. And Gina was gorgeous (actually better looking in real life than she is on screen, if you can believe that), if a little nervous. She needed reading glasses to see the questions on the monitor -- it was adorable. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the movie yet -- ironically, it was screening at about the same time as this taping -- but I've heard great things about it. Don't believe me? Read Scott Weinberg's review.

Satire is not a blunt instrument. In the hands of an overzealous filmmaker, jokes and pointed barbs can readily fly over your head, leaving you to think "Hey, wait, was that supposed to be funny? Cuz it kinda was." (Or, even worse, the satire is presented in such a ham-fisted fashion that the insight ends up buried beneath moronic punchlines) Such is quite definitely not the case in Delirious, a poker-faced but insightful and amusing comedic drama that takes square aim at pop stars, paparazzi and stargazers without ever settling for the obvious joke or the predictable punchline. This comes as no big surprise to me, considering that the writer/director of Delirious is Tom DiCillo, frequent Jim Jarmusch cinematographer and rather astute filmmaker in his own right. (DiCillo gave us Johnny Suede, The Real Blonde and -- one of my favorite movies about filmmakers -- the excellent Living in Oblivion)

Delirious is the tale of a kind-hearted but depressingly unfocused homeless kid called Toby (played brilliantly by Michael Pitt) who starts an unlikely friendship with a fast-talking paparazzi photographer named Les (Steve Buscemi, as good as he's ever been) and somehow manages to find himself in close proximity to K'harma Leeds, a teen idol pop sensation who is as beautiful as she is obtuse. (As the pop star, Alison Lohman is nothing short of stellar; she avoids the really obvious digs on Lindsay, Brittney and Paris ... but she sure does nail 'em to the wall anyway)

You know that really sexy actress who played a lesbian in Bound and a stripper in Showgirls? Yeah, Gina Gershon, right. Well, did you also know that Gina and her brother Dann just wrote a kid-friendly horror book called Camp Creepy Time? Yep, they did. And guess what? DreamWorks bought it to make a movie version! And here's the best part: They hired a really solid screenwriter to bang out the adaptation.

According to reliable sources, Camp Creepy Time (which won't hit bookstores until May) is about a young boy who discovers that what oughtta be an idyllic summer camp -- is actually a haven for aliens who love nothing more than turning human children into hideous monsters and shipping them across the cosmos as exhibits for interstellar zoos. Nifty! (That sound you're currently hearing is the clackity-clack of the Gershon siblings working on the sequel.)

Turning the as-yet-unpublished book into screenplay form will be Richard LaGravenese, whom astute movie fans will fondly remember as the guy who wrote The Fisher King, The Ref and A Little Princess. His previous page-to-screen adaptations also include The Bridges of Madison County, Unstrung Heroes and The Horse Whisperer. (Plus his very first screenplay was Rude Awakening, and I think that movie is pretty funny.)

Anyway, yeah: summer camp, aliens and monsters. I smell a smash hit as I sit here kicking myself for not hatching this concept five years ago.

[Thanks to Variety for the news and the pic.]

Claudia Myers' Kettle of Fish is, in many ways, a throwback, but this is not a bad place to throw back to every now and then. Recalling all manner of classic screwball romantic comedies, from When Harry Met Sally ... back to The Awful Truth, it's essentially really well-done fluff that makes full use of the greatest unnatural backdrop in the world, New York City.

As per the conventions of the genre, a sometimes whimsical, sometimes melancholy jazz score propels the proceedings, which concern the adventures of Mel (a surprisingly no-longer-boyish Matthew Modine), a full-time bachelor and sometime saxophonist with deep attachments to a ramshackle railroad and a goldfish named Daphne, but who is otherwise incapable of commitment.