Juliette Lewis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In the last several weeks, "Shelf Life" columns have examined venerated films from different genres or filmographies that were tangentially if not directly related to the week's new releases: Carrie in anticipation of Jennifer's Body, Dawn of the Dead before Zombieland, and so on. This week, we're looking ahead at a future Blu-ray release, next week's Natural Born Killers, because, quite frankly, who's seen this thing in the last decade?

That of course isn't to say it's not still an incendiary classic, but in retrospect, Oliver Stone's treatise on media savagery feels like both a product of its time and a random blitz of imagery that has since dulled our perceptions of (and reactions to) the film's overall effect. But then again, it just might have been ahead of its time, or maybe just a misunderstood romance, or some other unholy beast that looks a lot different 15 years after it debuted in theaters. As such, Stone's Natural Born Killers is the subject of this week's "Shelf Life."

It's no Citizen Kane. It's not meant to win awards. I watch movies to enjoy them. These standbys are frequently trotted out before us fuddy-duddy critics whenever we decide that a movie ostensibly meant to be two hours of pure mindless fun simply isn't very good at doing just that. More often than not, it seems that films are championed for their laziness, their relentless adherence to formula, and rarely do these formulas serve a story that's worth more than the sum of its beats. School of Rock managed to work wonders with its wholly predictable plot; I'd vouch for Fever Pitch in much the same way. And joining their ranks of surprisingly satisfying comedies is Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It, a coming-of-age tale fused with an underdog sports story that hits all the expected developments with unexpected personality and grace.

Some people go to Fantastic Fest to focus on horror films; me, I grab the rare opportunity to see animated movies made for grownups. I especially like animation that looks and feels a little different than the mainstream -- for example, the rotoscoped look of A Scanner Darkly. Metropia touches on some of the same themes as A Scanner Darkly, but this animated feature looks like nothing else you've seen onscreen lately.

Metropia is set in Europe in 2024, in a grim future where natural resources have dried up, financial collapse has left most people struggling, and the biggest corporation in the world is Trexx, which runs a giant Metro system (subway) all across the continent. Roger (Vincent Gallo), a Swedish call-center worker, is considered paranoid for worrying about whether Trexx, and the Metro, are involved in some sort of oppressive conspiracy. When his bike is broken and he's forced to ride the underground train, he has to fight a voice in his head that doesn't quite sound like his own, as well as the urge to follow his dream girl, Nina (Juliette Lewis), whose face adorns popular shampoo ads and bottles everywhere.

Call it Juno on Wheels. The first image of Ellen Page in the upcoming roller derby flick Whip It has been released, showing her strapped into a girl scout uniform as she skates around a track with Drew Barrymore and Kristen Wiig. The photo above, and several others, can be viewed at USA Today (additionally, check out two extra images below)

The film represents Barrymore's directorial debut. Page stars as 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, who is tired of competing in beauty pageants at the insistence of her mother (Marcia Gay Harden). She rebels by joining the Hurl Scouts, a women's roller derby team in Austin, Texas, and finds her true calling -- or, at least, a good place to unleash some pent-up aggression. Barrymore skates with the Scouts, as does Saturday Night Live's Wiig and the great Zoe Bell (Death Proof). Juliette Lewis is described as the villain of the piece, an opposing player determined to defeat Page and the Scouts, and the players all have cool nicknames: Smashley Simpson, Maggie Mayhem, Bloody Holly, and so forth.

As Jenni Miller advised, Fox Searchlight will distribute the film, which is set for release on October 9. Roller derby vet Shauna Cross (AKA Maggie Mayhem) wrote the screenplay, based on her own novel, Derby Girl. A very good doc about the Austin roller derby scene, Hell on Wheels, is available to view at SnagFilms (we also embedded it after the jump), and if Whip It can approach that real-life excitement, it could break out of the fall pack. Since nicknames are de rigeur for roller derby players, what nickname will you choose if you decide to see Ellen Page Whip It?

At the beginning of this year, there was news that Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page were setting their sights on Whip It! -- a flick about snarky chicks, toughness, and roller derby action. It sounded like a whole wackload of fun. The rumored March start date came and went without a sound, but now, luckily, things are on track for this summer. Even better: The Hollywood Reporter posts that joining Page and Barrymore on-screen will be Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, and Zoe Bell.

Page is playing Bliss Cavendar, a beauty queen who runs away to join the roller derby league in Austin, Texas. Harden will play her mom, an ex-beauty queen herself who wants her daughter out of the skates and back on the beauty circuit. Meanwhile, Wiig will play Bliss' rolling mentor, Malice in Wonderland, Lewis will be top star Dinah Might, and Bell will be "a medical technician moonlighting as derby star Bloody Holly." With first-time feature director Drew Barrymore taking on a role as Page's teammate, that's one heck of a roller roster.

I wonder if 5'1" Page will have to take on 5'8" Bell? Hell, I'm trying to imagine how she'd do against anyone, being as teeny as she is. We should find out soon enough -- the film heads into production this summer in Texas and Michigan.

Have no fear -- Vincent Gallo isn't going to become the next Tim Allen -- one of those unlikely men whose interesting past is buried as they become a bright and shiny Disney name. And no, this new project is not a big-screen version of the Canadian TV drama. Metropia is gearing up to be adult fare with a Swedish twist, and Variety reports that Gallo and Juliette Lewis are leading the film's voice cast.

According to ATMO... "Metropia is taking place in a not-so-distant, terrifying Europe. The world is running out of oil, and the net of undergrounds has been connected, creating a gigantic web underneath Europe. Roger from Farsta (a suburb of Stockholm) tries to stay away from the underground. He think it's unpleasant and he sometimes hears strange voices in his head." Then, this dude finds out that every detail of his life is being controlled. (But I ask, if every detail was controlled, could you actually discover that and change it?) The best part: "To succeed, he needs supermodel Nina to help him. Or, is it maybe Nina that needs Roger?" The best way to survive the scary future: supermodels!

Since Gallo and Lewis are leading the voice cast, I imagine they will be Roger and Nina. Are they the people you would pick for a guy suffering from strange voices and a future-saving supermodel? Joining them -- Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgard, Sofia Helin, Shanti Roney, and Alexander Skarsgard. In the works for a handful of years now, this project should be pretty interesting -- the plan is to blend live action with animation, and Tarik Saleh, the film's director, says: "The border between animation and regular fiction film is blurring. In the future, the audience will not categorize films in the way we tend to do today. Metropia is steps ahead." Well, we'll find out fairly soon -- the film's release is slated for Spring 2009.

Yes, this is Gary Oldman week for me and retro cinema, but you won't see me complaining. Usually, the chameleon Oldman morphs and slides onto the screen for one of his many diverse supporting roles. Most recently, he's taken on heroes like Sirius Black and Lt. James Gordon, but he's got a past that includes the little person Rolfe, the creepy Mason Verger, Pontius Pilate, Zorg, a Russian hijacker, and as I shared earlier this week, Ludwig van Beethoven. 1993's Romeo is Bleeding, however, marks one of the few times like Immortal Beloved where we can see him shine in the lead.

Oldman plays Jack Grimaldi, a cop who has been lured by the dark side in a noir '90s landscape. (Think Twin Peaks' timeless quality and haunting music, but set within a violent urban environment.) To supplement his low-pay job as a sergeant, Grimaldi is working for the mob -- directing them to the locations of different witnesses under protection. For his efforts, he gets thousands of dollars, which he hides in the back of his yard. But this is only the tip of Jack's moral failings. While he has a wife named Natalie (Annabella Sciorra) at home, he's also acting out fantasies with his grating girlfriend, Sheri (Juliette Lewis).

Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas! No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here! We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f**king Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of a**holes this side of the nuthouse!

-- Clark W. Griswold (Chevy Chase)

After European Vacation, no one had any reason to believe the Vacation series would get back on track. Not to mention, almost without exception, movie series tend to get worse as they go along, right? Well, not this time.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ranks just slightly behind the original in terms of laughs, and it packs in even more heart without resorting to schmaltz. Again, I'm going to give a lot of the credit to John Hughes, the sole writer this time out. He makes just about every line funny, memorable, and quotable. He gives us a whole lot of characters, each well-defined and amusing. Hughes may have hit his peak here unfortunately, because after the following year's Home Alone, the man never wrote a great script again. (I think Dutch is hilarious, but even with all my Hughes love I can't call it "good.")

It was a "last hurrah" of sorts for Chevy Chase, too. Chase is really terrific here in what is, I'm sad to say, his final funny starring role (although I didn't see The Karate Dog). Oh, Chevy. What happened? Beverly D'Angelo returns, and is typically great ("Clark! Slow down! I don't want to spend the holidays dead!"). And my Lord, does Randy Quaid step it up here as Cousin Eddie. Chase's exchanges with Quaid are some of the film's funniest moments ("Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?"). If Quaid's delivery of gems like "Merry Christmas! Sh*tter was full!" and "That's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year!" don't make you laugh, well ... lighten up.

The opening scene of Catch and Release is a funeral reception ... on what was supposed to be a wedding day. A tragic accident befell the groom during his bachelor-party weekend. We see the florist accidentally bringing wedding bouquets instead of funeral flowers, a multi-tiered cake stashed in a refrigerator, and a very sad young woman in black instead of white. She escapes to a bathroom and hides in the tub to cry, but suddenly is interrupted by a laughing couple who ducks into the bathroom for a quickie. The combination of touching drama and absurd comedy is excellent and promises a good quirky movie, full of dysfunction, dark humor and the unexpected.

Unfortunately, Catch and Release doesn't fulfill the potential of that well-balanced opening, and ultimately turns into a typical contemporary romantic comedy, with the stress on the romantic. It's still an interesting movie to watch, but the cliches can be a little grating at times, and even as a romantic comedy it never reaches the level of, say, The Truth about Cats and Dogs.

The film is set in Boulder, which provides a charming background that's a pleasant change of pace from LA/New York. After her fiance's funeral, Gray (Jennifer Garner) tries to return to as normal a life as possible. She moves in with her two male buddies, Sam (Kevin Smith) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger). Gray finds out that her fiance was secretly a millionaire, and that every month he sent money to some unknown person. Grady's California friend Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) sticks around to help Gray deal with these revelations, and maybe because he likes her, too. Is he becoming another friend, or something more?