Kevin Bacon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Over to the right you can check out the fancy new poster for Kevin Bacon's latest movie, Death Sentence. It's been a while since we've told you about the revenge thriller. In September, Scott Weinberg posted that Brian Garfield's book would be adapted into a feature directed by Saw helmer James Wan, and would star the famous side of Bacon. In October, John Goodman signed on to play a drug boss, of all things. Now the film has wrapped, and is set to be released at the end of next month. Sentence is about a man who witnesses the murder of his oldest son, and goes on an elaborate quest of revenge as a result -- kind of like the other upcoming revenge flick -- The Brave One.

Now, I'm trying to get into this movie, but I'm just not buying into the premise and star. Although I actually enjoy a lot of Kevin's work, he's got that rough, harsh edge to him these days, and it'll take a lot to convince me that he's the "mild-mannered executive" that 20th Century Fox says he is. What always intrigues me about stories where good people seek revenge is just how out of character the action is, and considering the film company's description of the man, we're on the same page. Looking at this poster, Bacon seems like the perfect vengeful guy, not the one you'd never expect. I've heard soft, caring and far-from-violent fathers spout tough words about what they'd do if someone ever messed with their family, but it's no trouble at all to imagine the Hollow Woodsman doing it. However, at the very least we should get some pretty creepy revenge scenarios that allow us to live vicariously and wipe our annoyances away.

This Frost/Nixon is turning into the "character actor" event of 2008. All they need is Steve Buscemi! The cast includes Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, Matthew Macfadyen, and now the great Oliver Platt is on board as Bob Zelnick. Zelnick was the executive editor of the Frost/Nixon interviews. Ron Howard is directing the film, Peter Morgan (writer of Oscar bait The Queen and The Last King of Scotland) is adapting his Broadway play, which is a dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate interviews between British talk show host David Frost (played by Sheen) and former President Richard Nixon (played by Langella). Sheen and Langella will reprise their stage roles, Langella just won a Tony award for his performance.

I'm a big Oliver Platt fan, he's a welcome addition to just about any movie. I remained supportive even through the 1999-2000 "dark period" when he appeared in pretty much every bad film released, including the jaw-droppingly terrible trifecta of Bicentennial Man, Gun Shy, and Ready to Rumble. Today brings two bits of Platt casting news -- you television fans will be pleased to learn that he has also just been cast in a recurring role on the FX drama Nip/Tuck (Apparently he's only appearing in works with slashes in the title these days). Platt will appear in five episodes as "Freddy Prune, the producer of a TV show on which Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) serve as consultants," Remember, the boys are in Hollywood this season. Nip/Tuck (a guilty pleasure if ever there was one) is a favorite of mine, and I'm very interested in the Frost/Nixon subject matter, so this is a good time to be an Oliver Platt enthusiast.

Last year, you might remember that Netflix teamed up with Alamo Drafthouse to sponsor Alamo's nationwide Rolling Roadshow Tour, in which movies played outdoors in significant venues around the country. For example, The Warriors was screened at Coney Island. I noticed that when Alamo's 2007 Rolling Roadshow Tour was announced last month, Netflix was entirely uninvolved, and I figured that the movie-rental company was no longer interested in outdoor screening events.

Happily for all of us, I was wrong. Turns out that Netflix is coordinating its own tour of movies around the country this year, this time in a series that blends films with concerts from actors in those films. The "Netflix Live! On Location" tour features three events that sound like fun. On June 21, you can watch The Big Easy in New Orleans and listen to the movie's co-star Dennis Quaid performing in concert with The Sharks beforehand. (If you listen carefully, you also can hear New Orleans natives mocking the leads' accents in the film, but it's a good movie despite that.) On July 15, The Bacon Brothers (Kevin and Michael) will play in Baltimore before a screening of Diner, arguably Kevin Bacon's breakout movie. And on August 2, the Bruce Willis Blues Band will rock the Kennedy Space Center before Armegeddon. Admission to all these film/concert events is free, although you have to pay for Kennedy Space Center admission if you go there. The events will be emceed by reporter-turned-actress Maria Menounos.

That upcoming Ron Howard-directed Richard Nixon movie called Frost/Nixon has just added the epic Kevin Bacon to its cast. The adapted stage play already has Frank Langella reprising his role as Nixon and Michael Sheen reprising his role as Frost, as well as Sam Rockwell as James Reston Jr., Frost's head researcher. Now Bacon has slid onto the roster to play Nixon's chief of staff, Jack Brennan. The film and play are based on the televised interviews between Frost and Nixon in 1977, where the former got the ex-president to admit his guilt in the whole Watergate scandal. Of course, as with any adaptation, there are some liberties. According to this write-up, one of the most interesting involves Bacon's Brennan. During one interrogation, Brennan held up a placard for Frost to see that said "Let him talk." The interviewer mis-read it as "Let us talk" and halted the interview for a bit. In the theatrical version, Brennan storms on-stage and demands a break. Ah, the liberties of cinematic storytelling!

I'm sure the Bacon will be a natural in the role -- he has done well with period pieces and true stories in the past (Apollo 13, Where the Truth Lies). But what I want to know is when will Kevin Bacon dance again? The guy has spent the last decade or so acting mainly in creepy thrillers and super-serious dramas, mixed in with a family film here or there for good measure -- and Beauty Shop, the one really strange blip on his recent resume. While there can sadly be no reunion with Chris Penn, I'm sure there's some sort of rebellious dance he can partake in. That is, unless he's going the Christopher Walken route and won't dance again until some great music video director casts him in an epic, short role. But by then, he won't be able to do all the moves of his past and that will just be a bummer.

Moving up in the ranks from a grip on Reservoir Dogs to producing big films like In the Bedroom, Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, Ross Katz is now making his next cinematic move. If he's even half as successful as he is at producing (he's grabbed Oscar noms for both Bedroom and Translation), this latest foray should be successful. He is gearing up to make his directorial debut in the upcoming Taking Chance for HBO Films. Not only that, but he's got everybody's favorite Bacon, Kevin, signed onto the cast.

The film is based on the true story of U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobel, and was written by Katz and Strobel. It follows Strobel's "poignant journey as the volunteer military escort officer who is assigned to accompany the body of 19-year-old Lance Corporal Chance Phelps (USMC), who was killed in action in Iraq, across America back to his hometown of Dubois, Wyoming in spring 2004." Now begins the assumptions, since that's all I have. I assume that this Phelps is not part of the infamous family, but his story is free from the Internet. And although indieWire doesn't have his role cast, I imagine that Bacon will play Phelps. If anyone is familiar with the story, please speak up! Inquiring minds want to know.

Child actors are crowding the headlines these days. Some kids are in the news for controversy, some kids are in the news for big achievements, and then there's Dominic Scott Kay, who is somewhere in the middle of the good and the bad. Kay, who provided the voice of "Wilbur" in the recent Charlotte's Web, directed and starred in a short film called Saving Angelo back when he was only 9 years-old. Now, at 10, he's in a legal battle to regain creative control of the film and to get it shown.

The short, which also stars Kay's Loverboy co-star/director Kevin Bacon, is reportedly being held back by one of its producers, Conroy Kanter, who financed the $11,000 film. Kay claims that if it weren't for Kanter, Saving Angelo could have screened at Sundance this month, or even last year. It also missed out on being shown at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival last September. Apparently the main issue with the control dispute stems from who should gain from the picture, and according to Kanter's lawyers it is actually Kay's greedy mother who is behind the lawsuit. Kanter's plan, supposedly, is to donate any profits to an animal rescue charity.

Considering it is a short film, which isn't likely to generate a substantial amount of money, I don't see the big deal. Put the thing on YouTube and call it a day. Or at least let it be finished and screened for the studios so that Kay can start a career directing features. I'm sure he'll have plenty of work in the next eight years, prior to reaching the age of independence, for everyone to milk. Just let the kid show his movie.

[via Hollywood Wiretap]

When the internet was still farting around and figuring itself out in the nineties, The Oracle of Bacon (aka Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) was born. Take any actor or actress, young or old, slide them into the search and see how many links it would take to get to the Hollow Man. Sure, people like Lori Singer, Bill Paxton and Tim Matheson can do it in one jump, but what about silent film stars who might have passed away before the actor was even born? Many of us have thrown "tough" names into the oracle, only to be surprised as a few jumps found their way to Bacon. Clara Bow, silent movie icon, needs only 3 -- she was in Hoop-La with Harvey Parry, who was in Movie Movie with Eli Wallach, who was in Mystic River with Kevin Bacon.

Apparently, Mr. Bacon was never thrilled with this game, and hoped it would go away. Why? Wouldn't a game that many people play that relies on memorizing all of your films be a GOOD thing? Guess not. However, instead of griping about it, he's decided to spin it to suit his own interests -- thus, sixdegrees.org is born. Instead of delighting in movie trivia, we can now link ourselves to charities and raise money for our favorite causes. The links aren't prime roles in feature films, but badges that you can put on your own website or blog to further the cause of some celeb's charity, or to highlight your own. Less fun and no stumping the system, but you're doing a good deed.

Acting now can do even more for your own charities as Bacon plans to share his bacon (not the kind in Wild Things) with the six top, non-celeb fundraisers listed by March 31 -- up to $10,000 -- and you don't even have to go on a gameshow to do it! Kevin's on a roll, already having over $50 grand in donations, but help a celeb out. Ashley Judd has only raised $10! The website is sure to gain momentum in the coming months, so why not lend a hand?

It's a small world, after all!

Who doesn't love Screen Media Films? Without them, we wouldn't be able to rent The Karate Dog, featuring the voice of Chevy Chase, or the spoof Disaster! The Movie, with the voices of all of Mötley Crüe. Okay, so they don't just distribute bad straight-to-video titles -- they also allow us to see the mediocre directorial offerings of Kevin Bacon and Chazz Palminteri. And they must be doing something right, because they have a great distribution deal with Universal Home Entertainment, and now they also have enough money to expand.

This week, at Sundance, Screen Media will debut its new theatrical division. The company has distributed films to theaters before, such as Bacon's Loverboy, but never on a big scale. Their first release will be Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas, a comedy that Scott saw at SXSW last year (he called it "one of the more colorful surprises" of the fest). They apparently will also be distributing Weirdsville, which premieres next week at Slamdance.

Anyway, this is mostly important news for any filmmakers out there in Park City who can't seem to find a good deal. Look for the Screen Media reps. You could be in the same library as The 12 Dogs of Christmas! And if you think you're better than that, just remember the photo above, because surely Jon Voight once thought he was better too.

Okay, someone somewhere has to be a bit ticked off at Eva Green. With each interview the girl does for Casino Royale, she spills a bunch of details regarding casting and plot for some of her other films. Case in point: She told the French magazine Studio that Eric Bana, Kevin Bacon and John Hurt have joined Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig in The Golden Compass. Just the fact that Eva Green is telling us this and not, say, The Hollywood Reporter, means it's probably something the folks behind Compass don't want sailing around ... yet. The Chris Weitz-directed film is currently in production (check out some photos) and its scheduled to slide into theaters December 7, 2007.

Oh, but we're not done with Ms. Green yet -- the gal is determined to spoil the next Bond film (currently titled Bond 22) and seems to tell us something new each and every time she opens up her mouth. Last time she talked up Bond 22, the girl unveiled some pretty big spoilers, as well as more of the plot -- which will revolve around "a dark secret of Vespers involving her lover being tortured, leading Bond to his next mission." Now, she tells EW who the next Bond villain will be: "The plan is, the Algerian boyfriend is going to be the baddie in the second Bond ..." Apparently (and I have not seen Royale yet, so correct me if I'm wrong), but at one point Vesper mentions this Algerian ex-boyfriend that she has. While she's at it, maybe next week Eva Green can tell us the cure for world peace. Stay tuned, Cinematical is attempting to record all of her future conversations ... [via Cinema Blend]

No, they haven't changed the title of the next Die Hard flick or added a fifth installment to the franchise, however Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson have signed on to star in Black Water Transit, which marks the first time these two have appeared on screen together since 2000's Unbreakable (Heh, based on this post's title, I bet you thought I'd slip up there). While we've already heard rumors about Willis' involvement in Transit, his name never showed up on IMDB and some folks were confused as to whether or not he was actually in this thing. Well, you can sleep safe tonight because he is ... we think. And hope.

The pic itself has already suffered through a few setbacks, the first coming after Vin Diesel abruptly bailed out of his role shortly before filming was to begin this past summer. Thus, the date was pushed back and instead of starting in Chicago, production will begin February 12 in New Orleans. We're not sure whether the extra time allowed filmmakers to now throw in a little hurricane Katrina subplot, but seeing as they've shifted cities, it certainly looks and feels that way. Pic will revolve around a group of criminals, cops and lawyers whose lives intertwine in dangerous ways over a shipment of illegal firearms and a double homicide. Also signed on to star are Kevin Bacon, James Franco and Sophie Okonedo.