GuillermoArriaga Tagged Articles at Cinematical

For someone who made just as much of an impact in No Country for Old Men as Josh Brolin did, Javier Bardem has been taking it easy in the face of possible stardom. He took on some Cholera and a little Vicky Cristina Barcelona, dropped out of some other projects, and that's about it.

But now Variety reports that he's going to star in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's new Spanish-language film, Biutiful. Being in the early stages, not much is being said about the plot, other than Bardem will play "a man embroiled in shady dealings who is confronted by a childhood friend, now a policeman." Could it possibly be Gael Garcia Bernal? The actor is pretty well linked to Inarritu.

I'm sure this will be a great project for Bardem, should this not become another film he backs out of, and one that has a decent chance of bringing him more critical acclaim. *

*Edited, thanks to Princess of Peace -- while we might hope for a reunion, this is all Inarritu's film.

Award-winning screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga uses a convoluted narrative structure to tell a tale of love, betrayal and regret in The Burning Plain, his directorial debut. Arriaga opens the film with a shot of an old trailer in the middle of the desert burning to the ground, and he then proceeds to bounce around among several seemingly disparate characters, Babel-style, before finally bringing it all together in the film's final act.

The film stars Charlize Theron as Sylvia, a composed-but-icy manager of a fancy Portland, Oregon-area restaurant who spends her spare time having empty, emotionless sex with a wide array of men. Arriaga takes us back and forth from gray, rainy Portland, where Sylvia lives, to the New Mexico desert; early on we learn that the burning trailer, when it exploded into flames, was occupied by Gina (Kim Basinger), a white married housewife with four kids, and Nick (Joaquim De Almeida), a Mexican-American man, also married with kids.

Gina's daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and Nick's son Santiago (J.D. Pardo) are drawn together as they struggle to deal with their parents' infidelity and death, much to the consternation of their respective families. Also tossed into the mix are a crop-duster pilot, his best friend, and his young daughter, whose lives are thrown into disarray when the pilot's plane crashes.

Oh, you can do all the "look at me, I'm a serious actress!" roles you want, Kim Basinger, but you'll always be Vicki Vale to me. Variety is reporting that Basinger is attached to star with Charlize Theron in The Burning Plain. Erik Davis, an officer and a gentleman, told you about the film here. Plain marks the directorial debut of Guillermo Arriaga, the pretty much always excellent screenwriter of Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, and the criminally under-seen The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Arriaga wrote the screenplay for Plain as well. The film starts shooting early next month in New Mexico.

The film will intertwine two storylines, one of which takes place in the past, the other in the present. The intersection of stories is a trademark of Arriaga's work, though some detractors (I am not one) would claim he uses the device as a crutch. Basinger plays Gina, "the mother of Charlize Theron's character as seen in childhood." Theron plays Sylvia, a woman trying to "find common ground with her parents after a turbulent childhood." The two stories collide. That description doesn't tell us much, but I'm up for anything Arriaga. As for the lead actresses, Basinger has never made much of an impression on me, but Theron is really shaping up to be quite the talent. Her subdued turn in In the Valley of Elah -- one of the best films of the year, even though no one is seeing the thing -- convinced me that Monster was no fluke.

For months now, once-partners Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga have been arguing over credit for the ideas that created the duo's three successful films -- Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. When I reported on the feud earlier this month, screenwriter Arriaga was claiming that he was upset the the films were considered to be his partner's creations, while they were, in fact, his own. His partner was saying the opposite, but much less publicly. Not anymore. Presumably sick of the claims coming from Arriaga, González Iñárritu wrote an open letter to the screenwriter, which was published in a Mexican magazine called Chilango.

According to González Iñárritu, Arriaga holds an "unjustified obsession with claiming the sole authorship of a film." He goes on to tell his ex-partner: "You were not -- and you have never allowed yourself to feel -- part of this team," and "Your declarations are a sad and very reductive end to this wonderful collective process that we have lived and are now celebrating."

It almost sounds like the director is trying to tell the screenwriter to shut up, grin and bear it (instead of fighting for ownership of his ideas). The letter is signed not only by González Iñárritu, but also by Perros star Gael García Bernal, Oscar-nominee Adriana Barraza, composer Gustavo Santaolalla and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Ouch. He might have also wished the writer "luck in your future movies," but the damage has already been done to Arriaga's reputation. Then again, he's the only one of the duo to have a successful award-winner outside of the partnership, so time will tell.

Another cinematic power-duo has hit the dust. In the 90's, it was Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. While the details have remained fairly tight-lipped, the duo, who had originally met at a video store in the 80s, went their separate ways after the release of their mega-hit, Academy screenplay winner, Pulp Fiction. Rumor has it that Avary felt that he wasn't given proper credit for his work on the film. Now, over a decade later, Guillermo Arriaga is spouting similar claims following the split between himself and film parter Alejandro González Inárritu.

The pair were largely responsible for the rise of contemporary Mexican cinema. Together, they brought us three high-impact dramas -- Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Oscar nominee, Babel. Now, they don't speak to each other, which could make things very interesting come Oscar night -- they've got a whole slew of nominations, so chances are the film will win something. While Inárritu doesn't seem to be saying much about the split, Arriaga is making up for it. He is not happy with those who consider the three films González Inárritu's trilogy, and he swears that the ideas pre-dated their collaboration. His ex-partner, on the other hand, says that Babel was his idea, that Arriaga wasn't his first choice and that the writer's words were overhauled.

The partnership was far from smooth, and perhaps their antagonism is what made their collaborative efforts so successful. Their solo work has not equaled the success of their joined work, although Arriaga's The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada came close when it scored a best screenplay award at Cannes. Perhaps he is right, and audiences should pay more attention to the writing credit, and the director.