Mike White Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Mike White Starts a Santa Claus Civil War
Filed under: Comedy », Deals », Scripts »
Not pleased with the likes of our latest serving of A Christmas Carol? Want a little more originality served with your ho-ho-ho's? This might be the answer: Variety reports that Paramount Pictures has tapped Mike White to write the script for a new comedy called Santa Wars. Oh yes, it's just like you'd imagine.This project will follow the story of two rival factions that emerged within a group of professional Kris Kringles, and how they "became arch enemies during a Santa Claus civil war." And I should probably point out -- this concept is based on a true story. It all stems from a segment on Ira Glass' radio show This American Life, which aired last December and talked about how two professional Santas formed the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, only to become bitter rivals.
Talk about picking the perfect pen. White is the writer of all things weird, whether that be with creepy stalkers, transcript trouble, discontent with mundane life, rock 'n' roll classes, strange wrasslers, or dog obsession. Furthermore, he's jumped back and forth between mainstream and edgy indies, which means the potential for a film that will appeal to more than just the casual, family fare moviegoer. Let's just hope Paramount ignores this year's strange release schedules (Valentine's Day in the summer, Christmas before Thanskgiving) and serves this puppy up during the right season.
Live from Fantastic Fest: Opening Night Red Carpet
Filed under: Comedy », Fox Searchlight », Fantastic Fest »
Last night, Fantastic Fest got underway in Austin with the world premiere screening of Gentlemen Broncos, the latest comedy from director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite). Although most of the movies at this genre film festival screen at the Alamo Drafthouse, the festival has expanded to bring premieres to the larger Paramount Theatre downtown, which could hold all the fest attendees plus just about anyone who wanted to buy a ticket. Judging from the crowds outside and in the theater, it was a fairly full house.
Cast and crew from Gentlemen Broncos arrived in Austin for a red carpet event before the film, and a Q&A afterwards. Not only that, but Jemaine Clement (The Flight of the Conchords) appeared onstage before the film started, in character as renowned science-fiction author Dr. Ronald Chevalier, to read some science-fiction haikus.
I was lucky enough to take the above photo on the red carpet when the Gentlemen Broncos actors and filmmakers were all in one spot. From left to right: Sam Rockwell, co-writer Jerusha Hess, director/co-writer Jared Hess, Mike White, Jemaine Clement and Michael Angarano. Check out Peter Hall's review of the film..
Get Gun Practice With 'Gentlemen Broncos'
Filed under: Comedy », Independent », Fandom », 20th Century Fox », DIY/Filmmaking », Movie Marketing », Fantastic Fest », Trailers and Clips »
I've only been following Gentlemen Broncos from afar, and by that I mean it was on my "Sam Rockwell is in that so I'll see it sometime" list. Until today, I'm ashamed to say I didn't even know what it was about, or that it also features the sexy Kiwi known as Jemaine Clement. But Gordon and the Whale landed an exclusive behind-the-scenes video from Broncos, and it's so random and funny that I'm now going to obsess about this film for the rest of October. Especially because of Clement. I'm not over the loss of Flight of the Conchords just yet.
If you're as behind as I am, here's the official synopsis: "Benjamin, home-schooled by his eccentric mother, is a lovable loner whose passion for writing leads him on an offbeat and hilarious journey as his story gets ripped off by the legendary novelist Ronald Chevalier and then is adapted into a disastrous movie by the small town's most prolific homespun filmmaker." Sounds good, doesn't it?
This is video #7, and videos 1 through 6 are available on the film's official site. I don't know if they're all this funny, but I do know that you will find no better way to spend five minutes today. Watching Rockwell do anything is a blast, but toss in a ridiculous wig and a dubious activity known as "ray gun practice," and you can thank your lucky stars that the Internet was invented so we could while away our time with such footage. Gentlemen Broncos hits theaters on October 30. Those lucky punks going to Fantastic Fest this year will see it sooner. The video is below the jump. Be sure to visit Gordon and the Whale and say something nice, because they're good people.
Jack Black Officially Going Back to 'School of Rock'
Filed under: Comedy », Music & Musicals », Deals », Paramount », Scripts », Newsstand », Remakes and Sequels »
It's official! According to Variety, the School of Rock band is getting back together. Jack Black is returning to reprise his role as Dewey Finn, Richard Linklater will be sitting in the director's chair again, and Mike White is writing the script. Talk of a sequel has been flying for weeks, so this really comes as no surprise. In School of Rock 2: America Rocks, Finn will lead a group of summer school students on a cross-country field trip that delves into the history of rock and roll. Expect lots of cameos as the students study the roots of blues, rap, and country. I'm putting my money on B.B. King already and Snoop Dogg. Maybe Bono and Bruce Springsteen, too. (Actually, that would be pretty cool.)
I'm of two minds on this. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the first movie; in fact think it was probably the first Jack Black movie I actually liked. But does it really lend itself to a sequel? While it's encouraging that the entire team is coming back, we all know that's never a guarantee of comedic success. How many awesome comedy sequels can you name?
Plus, there was that whole story about White weeping as he wrote the script. I'm still weirded out by that. Barring a fiery schoolbus crash, or the children discovering that Britney Spears was allowed to cover the Rolling Stones, why would you shed tears? Hmm. I think my official position has shifted from lukewarm to DO NOT WANT. What about you?
Mike White HAS Written a Script for 'School of Rock 2'
Filed under: Music & Musicals », RumorMonger », Scripts », Newsstand »
Back in May, Jack Black was chillin' in Cannes, talking about Angelina's twins, and then letting loose some surprising news: a script was written for School of Rock 2. He didn't say much else, so it seemed like one of those early Arrested Development rumors -- something that could be great, but was so vague that it could easily be nothing more than a rumor or a hope.But it's not! Defamer reports that on Sunday, School of Rock writer Mike White was part of a screenwriting panel at LAFF with Catherine Hardwicke and Craig Gillespie. He said: "I actually just completed a draft of what's potentially the sequel [to School of Rock], and I'm still, like, crying as I'm writing the script. I try to come at it from a personal place..."
Wait. A sequel -- a real sequel -- has been written, and it made him cry? He wouldn't say what it's about, but that he just turned it in, and doesn't know if it will even get made. Perhaps they were just tears of personal happiness, but he did go on to discuss his writing process and said: "But at least now I have a better sense of what it was we created -- what worked and what didn't. I can kind of reboot it." Reboot? What!?
What say you? Are you ready for a rebooted School of Rock?
YouTube Spotlights Indie Films
Filed under: Animation », Shorts », DIY/Filmmaking », Home Entertainment », Cinematical Indie »
Today YouTube launched a new section of its site titled The YouTube Screening Room, which it calls a "platform for films from around the world to find the audiences they deserve." Here, they will showcase four short films every two weeks and will even offer an occasional feature. Some of the films have been previously screened at film festivals and some have been nominated for or have won an Academy Award. But others will be premiering on the site. Apparently, the filmmakers will be paid a percentage of YouTube's ad revenue based on views and each film will also feature a "Buy Now" button so that you can purchase that film or other films.
Today's debuts include Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?, a 2005 short written by Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), directed by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl) and starring John C. Reilly, Mike White and July. I've embedded it above for your viewing pleasure. The other three are The Danish Poet, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2007, Love and War, which is a stop motion opera from Sweden, and Our Time is Up, which was nominated for Best Live Action Short in 2006 and which stars Kevin Pollak.
Jack Black is Down for 'The School of Rock 2'
Filed under: Comedy », Paramount », Remakes and Sequels »
Something in the water over in France has got Jack Black loose-lipped. First he lets it out that Angelina is indeed having twins. Now, according to film-industry.biz, he's claiming there's a sequel to School of Rock in the works. There's even a script already written, and Black is anxious to return to the role of music teacher Dewey Finn. But it's not a done deal just yet. As he explained from the Cannes Film Festival: "In a few weeks we have to decide if we go through with the project or not."I may be one of the few people who didn't love the original School of Rock, but then, I'm one of those curmudgeonly fellows who can't stand Jack Black in anything. Of course, after watching his Eddie Murphy parody in the awesome new R-rated trailer for Tropic Thunder, I'm starting to think he could do some right in the film world. Or, maybe he has that one really funny moment and a whole lot of obnoxious moments, as usual.
Mike White Sees 'The Glory of it All'
Filed under: Comedy », Deals », Scripts », Miramax »
Thanks to the wonderful Whit Stillman, we've gotten lots of elite Manhattanites in the eighties. Younger folks have acted like 40-year-olds in Metropolitan, and young yuppies have pulled the last little bits of dancing wonder from The Last Days of Disco. But now the whole rich eighties scene is switching coasts and coming from the hands of Mike White.The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Scott Rudin and Miramax are bringing Sean Wilsey's high-society memoir called Oh the Glory of it All to the big screen, with Mike White signed on to produce and adapt it. Glory focuses on Wilsey's strange youth in San Francisco during the 1980s, tracking "his journey from dubious role models to a tour of boarding schools and an Italian 'therapeutic community.'" His father was a strict and distant man who drove Wilsey to rebellion, a man who divorced Wilsey's mother to marry her best friend. His mother, meanwhile, was the belle of the social scene, a woman who entertained everyone from movie stars to Black Panthers and inspired a character in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. But she also proved to be devoid of certain motherly traits, like, say, keeping her son safe -- she attempted to convince him to commit suicide with her.
Obviously, this is retro dysfunction at its finest, one that could make for a very funny movie in the hands of White, as long as there are actors to pull it off well. So, who would you cast?
Indies on DVD: 'Offside,' 'Antibodies,' 'Red Road' and More
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Thrillers », New on DVD », Home Entertainment », Cinematical Indie »
A glance at DVD Journal's release calendar reveals a jam-packed week. My personal pick is Jafar Panahi's superb Offside, which manages to pack drama, humor, tension, sports, feminism and social commentary into an Iranian girl's burning desire to watch an important soccer match in person. It's entertaining too! Cinematical's Erik Davis was positive in his review and so was Jeffrey M. Anderson. If your cinematic diet includes thrillers, check out Antibodies (from Germany) or Red Road (from the UK). Antibodies borrows an idea from Silence of the Lambs by featuring a serial killer who will only talk to a local bumpkin cop. The cop has become obsessed with catching the killer of a local girl, to the point that his family is falling apart and he's suffering from nightmares. As a whole, the film doesn't completely work, the narrative crumbling as it dives deeper into madness, but director Christian Alvart has a terrific visual sense. Andrea Arnold's Red Road is a quieter work that relies more on the slow building of tension. Jeffrey M. Anderson's positive review has all the plot details you'll need.
In the indie comedy/drama aisle, we have Year of the Dog, written and directed by Mike White, which received nods of approval from both Scott Weinberg and Kim Voynar; when those two agree, it's an automatic "must rent." Molly Shannon stars as a lonely women dealing with the loss of her beloved canine companion. Joe Swanberg's second feature, LOL, gets the deluxe treatment from new distributor Benten Films. Karina Longworth quite liked it when she saw it at SXSW last year -- and Mr. James Rocchi offers a brand-new review right here.
Though I haven't seen either The Beautiful Washing Machine (from Malaysia) or The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (from the Philippines), both received good reviews. For example, David Ng of the Village Voice said Washing Machine "demands at least two viewings" and Dennis Lim wrote that Maximo was "further evidence of a mini renaissance in the country's long dormant cinema."
'Year of the Dog' Scores Mike White a Big Fat Lawsuit
Filed under: Drama », Celebrities and Controversy »
It seems to be the time of questionable lawsuits. Last week, Scott Weinberg posted about the Canadian author, Rebecca Eckler, who is suing Judd Apatow for similarities between her book and his latest -- Knocked Up. Now, Mike White is getting sued for his recent Year of the Dog. It seems that his former friend, Laura Kightlinger, says that the idea came from her, although the claim seems a little weak. She's filed suit alleging that she gave him a script called We Are Animals (about a woman who loves rescuing cats), which became his doggie film.Now, if you caught James Rocchi's interview with White in April, you might remember where the writer/director says that he got his material -- a stray cat he had inherited who had died: "this cat's death just totally spun me out in a way that I totally did not expect... I just thought, 'Well, that's an interesting idea for a movie premise -- somebody who has a relationship with a pet, and the loss of that changes their life in a way.'" If this is the case, I can't see her script being the source, unless he follows her plot closely. However, White says: "They are totally different scripts. I know there is a similarity in the sense that (the female leads) both have pets that they care about, but beyond that, everything she is saying that is similar seems like a real stretch to me." Meanwhile, Kightlinger's lawyer says: "There was an expectation that if she told him her idea and he was going to use it in some way, she would be paid and she would also be involved in the project." So, they'll continue going through a he-said, she-said with broken ex-friend egos, and potentially some undisclosed settlement.
Peter Jackson Says Spielberg's 'Tintin' is Done Filming, but...
Interracial Harmony: 'Ninja Assassin' vs. 'Blind Side'
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Exclusive 'Nine' Poster Premiere!
Exclusive: Title Track for 'The Road' Soundtrack
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