Martin Compston Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Casting Bites: From 'Magic Man' to the 'Damned' Men
Filed under: Drama », Sports », Thrillers », Casting », Cinematical Indie »
And more actors get gigs, according to Variety:First up, there's a little Russian/American indie thriller called Magic Man which is cooking up. It's about a magician who might possibly be a serial killer, and it stars Alexander Nevsky, Billy Zane, Richard Tyson, Estelle Raskin, Jed Allan, and Andrew Divoff. And now, there are two more. Both the increasingly prolific Bai Ling (who has 8 other films on the way) and infamous tough guy Robert Davi (Die Hard) have signed on for roles in the indie, which I presume has a whole ton of sliced and disappearing volunteers. Is this another Wizard of Gore?
Meanwhile, more players have been added to the Brian Clough biopic called The Damned United. The talented off-the-radar actor Michael Sheen signed on in April, and now we've got three more Brits attached to the feature -- Stephen Graham (This is England), Martin Compston (Red Road), and Peter McDonald (Festival). Clough is being played by Sheen, while Graham takes on his nemesis, Leeds United captain Billy Bremner, McDonald takes on player Johnny Giles, and Compston takes on player John O'Hare. Meanwhile, there's a slew of other actors added to the cast as well, including Liz Carling as Clough's wife. We should see all the eccentric story on the big screen some time in 2009.
Review: Red Road
Filed under: Drama », New Releases », Theatrical Reviews », New in Theaters »
Jackie (Kate Dickie) looks a bit like Chrissie Hynde in a kind of homely/sexy way. She sits gazing into a bank of video monitors. For her job, she watches, godlike, all the people who pass by the myriad of video cameras planted all about Glasgow. If trouble arises, she makes a call and someone (hopefully) shows up on the scene. It seems like the perfect job for her, hovering over other people's lives without the slightest interest in her own. She appears lost, or hollow, and the director Andrea Arnold pulls off the admirable task of making her interesting without immediately giving away her secrets. When those secrets finally come out, they do so in such a way that avoids the obvious "Shyamalan twist." Refreshingly, Red Road is a movie about a person and not a gimmick.
The catalyst comes when Jackie thinks she sees a familiar face in the monitors. We get a flicker of recognition and nothing more. We don't know if the man is a lover, a killer or even whether the man would recognize Jackie if he saw her. After work, Jackie begins to haunt the dingy neighborhood in which the man was sighted. Graffiti sprayed onto crumbling walls is more prevalent than actual intact, livable structures, and the inhabitants seem to be in a perpetual bad mood. After hanging out in a couple of sleazy cafes and bars, she manages to slip into a party at the man's apartment. He notices her and asks her to dance. He begins seducing her and she allows herself to be seduced. Or does she? It would be a disservice to continue any further with the plot, even though only part of the movie's pleasures lies in its discovery.
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