Neil Jordan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Like everyone in the civilized world, I love Robert Downey Jr., and it's because I love him that I fervently hope that this fangbanger rumor hits sunlight, and bursts into flames. Bloody Disgusting reports that Universal is looking to cash in on the blood-sucking frenzy, and reboot Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles, and that Downey is in talks to play the famous Lestat de Lioncourt.

Lestat was the hero of most of Rice's vampire novels. Blond, bisexual, and a blend of poetry and snark, his seductive powers led him into all kinds of scrapes. He seduced men and women, ran around with the Devil, swapped bodies with humans, seduced the first vampire (who just happened to be an Egyptian queen), and found time to be a rock star. At thirteen, he was one of the most wonderful literary characters I had ever met and by my 20s I found him pretty annoying. Your mileage may vary. But I was one of the few who actually liked Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, and enjoyed Tom Cruise in the role, and was always disappointed that they didn't go on to make The Vampire Lestat together. I think Cruise could have done good things with that installment.

To bring it back now just feels wrong. It feels like a series that time has just passed by, and so much of Rice has been ripped off by every vampire series after that it's not going to really offer anything new. But if they go through with it (and with Twilight and True Blood winding everyone up, I have no doubt they will), they have to look elsewhere for Lestat, don't you think? Downey is wrong for the role, far more ill-suited to the Frenchman's fangs than Cruise ever was. Hopefully, it won't come to pass, and a new Chronicles will only happen in a universe where Alexander Skarsgard can take the role because he isn't on True Blood.

There's this little film made back in 1986 called Mona Lisa. Bob Hoskins starred as George, a man just out of prison who takes a job chauffeuring a high-price call girl named Simone (Cathy Tyson). As first, they're opposites who argue, but then they foster a friendship which leads him to help her out and get embroiled in a mess with the underworld. Michael Caine co-starred as an underworld boss, and Hoskins earned himself his only Oscar nomination.

23 years later, Production Weekly's Twitter feed reports that the film is getting a remake. Mickey Rourke will add another film to his ever-increasing roster and star alongside the radiant Eva Green. That should throw the whole relationship into another dynamic. Hoskins might be able to show the toughness, but he's no ex-wrestler and tough guy of Sin City. The big kicker, however, is the director. Larry Clark, helmer of Kids and Bully, will grab the directorial chair.

I think it's safe to say that this will be his first big production since Bully, but the bigger question: Will the new Mona Lisa have Clarke's trademark sexual shocks (Kids, Ken Park), and is that something you want to see in the world created by Neil Jordan and David Leland? Or does the remake world not matter when Green is sliding into another sexy role?

No sooner does Neil Gaiman win the Newberry Award for The Graveyard Book than the movie deal is announced. CHUD got the scoop from The Today Show and Gaiman's Twitter that none other than Neil Jordan is being tapped to direct the big screen adaptation.

I still haven't gotten my hot hands on a copy of this book (and I must rectify this right away), but the premise is awesome, and the reviews have been gushing. Graveyard is a neat spin on the classic The Jungle Tale. A young boy escapes from his crib one night and wanders into a graveyard -- and on that same night, his entire family is wiped out by an assassin named Jack. The young child is taken in by some kindly ghosts who christen him Nobody, and protect him from the dangers of the outside, living world. There's a trailer for the book on Amazon.com, but I think this is a story you should experience as freshly as possible. In other words, just buy the book as soon as you can.

Nothing has been officially announced in the trades yet, and no other details of the film or Jordan's involvement are known, except that UK FX company Framestore will be doing the effects. Jordan is certainly a great choice for the material, as his Gothic gloom is classier than anyone else's.

Neil Jordan has dabbled in the supernatural before. He'd probably like to forget the maligned Annette Bening thriller In Dreams, but on the other hand Interview with the Vampire is one of his most successful -- and most mainstream -- efforts. After a few more straightforward outings, Jordan will be delving back into fantasy with Ondine, starring Colin Farrell and Mexican-Polish newcomer Alicja Bachleda. Bachleda will play the title character, a mythical sea nymph who gets caught in the net of a fisherman (Farrell) and changes the lives of the people in his Irish town. Jordan wrote the script himself, and the project is set to start shooting next month.

In Dreams notwithstanding, Jordan is a remarkably consistent filmmaker, capable of doing beautiful and subtle things with sometimes schlocky material. Hopefully people are ready to try sea nymphs again after the frustration that was M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. Ondine sounds more whimsical and playful than Shyamalan's heavy-handed parable.

Bachleda has been acting in Poland since the 90's, but made her American debut in the Kevin Kline sex trafficking movie Trade, which I didn't see (and which I heard was pretty bad). Jordan's last film, the revenge drama The Brave One, was a critical failure but a moderate commercial success. For a while, Jordan was supposed to direct the fantasy thriller Killing on Carnival Row, but it looks like Ondine will be his next project.

On behalf of fans of vampire movies everywhere, I certainly hope we can chalk this one up to just a silly rumor. Bloody Disgusting is reporting that United Artists is pushing to snap up the rights to the fourth novel in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, The Tale of The Body Thief. According to BD's sources, "here's speculation on my behalf, but UA = Tom Cruise, right? Might we be seeing Tom Cruise back as the Vampire Lestat?" The casting of Tom Cruise as the Vampire Lestat in Neil Jordan's 1994 adaptation of Rice's bestselling novel, Interview with The Vampire, caused an uproar among fans (and the author for that matter). Rice had been quoted as saying that Cruise was, "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler".**

The story of Body Thief picks up with Lestat who has made a deal with a "body thief" to get the chance to switch bodies and to live like a mortal again. This would be the third attempt to make an Anne Rice book into a film, the last being the disastrous Queen of the Damned with Aaliyah and Stuart Townsend as Lestat. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Townsend's Lestat wasn't too bad all things considered. He definitely had the Lestat pout down pat, something that Cruise could just never quite pull off in Interview. Not to mention Cruise's avoidance of the obvious homoerotic content to the original story -- although kudos to Antonio Banderas and Brad Pitt for being the only two actors in that film to even hint at a little vampire on vampire action.

As we all know, Cruise's relationship with Paramount ended badly back in '06. Now that Cruise is calling shots at UA, could Tom be planning to "ruin" yet another Anne Rice property? Until we get some kind of official word on the project, lets just keep our fingers crossed that Cruise is going to leave the fangs to someone else this time.

**Rice did eventually back-track and reverse her statements once she actually saw the film and Cruise's performance.

The latest film from Neil Jordan is called The Brave One, but I'd be willing to bet money that the working title was The Stranger, since the word stranger is used repeatedly throughout the film to describe the alienated condition of the main character, a sotto voce radio personality played by Jodie Foster who turns into a piece-packing thrill-killer after being beaten nearly to death by some punks in Central Park and seeing her fiancé murdered by the same punks. That premise is oddly dated, of course, thanks to the extreme Disneyfication of New York City in the 90s, and The Brave One isn't brave or creative enough to simply posit an alternate 2007 in which those reforms never happened. Instead, the pre-existing societal ills that fuel Foster's character are laid out during a radio commentary she gives over the opening credits: chief among them is the fact that the Plaza Hotel is being closed down and her memories of Eloise are being tarnished! This is Death Wish meets Sex and the City, with all the seriousness that implies.

By choosing not to paint a portrait of a New York roiled by crime again -- at one point, a radio caller notes that the emergence of the vigilante is actually welcome, since New York has become so dull -- the film has little recourse except to make Foster's character one of the most unlucky people alive: after the brutal beating and murder in the park by a small gang of hoods -- her fiancé is played in a few early scenes by Naveen Andrews -- she becomes, in short order, the victim of knife-wielding, would-be rapists on the subway, walks in on a first-degree murder in progress and must defend herself against the killer, and happens upon a murderous pimp who mistakes her for a hooker. It's like a blood-and-guts version of that Lindsay Lohan movie where the main character's luck inexplicably turns to pot overnight. As long as the film has trouble looking for Foster instead of Foster looking for trouble, it's not saying much, really. It's only when her character starts to enjoy the violence that things start to get (mildly) interesting.

I'm not really connecting with the appeal of The Brave One, which looks like just another revenge film elevated slightly in prestige by the Oscar-winning talents of Jodie Foster and director Neil Jordan (as well as the Oscar-winning talents of Mary Steenburgen and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot and the Oscar-nominated talents of Terrence Howard, composer Dario Marianelli and production designer Kristi Zea -- hey, maybe the movie is worth seeing). But I tend to disagree with the tastes of the majority, so the movie is probably connecting better with mainstream audiences. Even if it fails at the box office, though, one of its screenwriters, Cynthia Mort, will come out just fine. Aside from being executive producer of a new sex-filled HBO series, Tell Me You Love Me, which she is also writing, and aside from scripting that Nina Simone biopic, in which Mary J. Blige is starring, the writer has just sold a pitch to Oscar-winning producer Graham King (The Departed).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the pitch was for a murder-mystery thriller. Of course, it currently has no title and there isn't anything yet known about the plot. All that was said of the idea is that the film will be a "fast-paced morality tale" and "akin to the thriller genre films of the 1980s" (not sure what films The Hollywood Reporter is referring to with that description). King, who will produce the film, once scripted, through his GK Films, did admit the story pitched is one of the most dynamic and provocative he's heard in awhile and that it is an idea he thought must be brought to the screen. He referred to Mort as being, "at the top of her game." The Brave One is premiering tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, and Tell Me You Love Me debuts on Sunday, so we shall soon find out if King is correct about Mort's status.

Is it just me, or is Jodie Foster sort of channeling her last victim-gets-tough movie, The Accused? She's got the tough look and the short, wild hair (not to mention that she barely looks like she's aged). Granted, she didn't grab a gun and enact her own brand of justice as Sarah Tobias, but there's more than one way to skin a cat. Back in January of 2006, Cinematical first posted about Foster's latest film, The Brave One (not to be confused with the other that pops up on IMDb). Helmed by Neil Jordan, the film follows Foster's character, Erica, who is brutally attacked while on a walk with her dog and lover and decides to seek revenge when she wakes up to find her dog gone and lover dead. Considering the gun in her hands in this new poster to the right, you can see that she isn't thinking about bringing them to court.

Earlier this month, Jessica Barnes blogged about the film's trailer, which you can see here. It definitely tells a lot about the story -- which you might find spoiling, or obvious. Then again, that might only be the beginning. Regardless, it looks like a pretty solid story about that other path you can take when tragedy strikes. Many of us talk about what we'd do if a loved one met a violent end, but it's another thing to have it happen, the reality staring you in the face. This also looks like a nice return to something meaty and serious for Foster. It's been a long time since she's had a role she could really shine in.

To be honest, I don't quite know what to think of the new trailer for The Brave One. Directed by Neil Jordan, the film stars Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, and Naveen Andrews, an actor who has been popping up all over the place lately. The story centers on Foster's character, who after the loss of a loved one, goes on a somewhat "Bronsonesque" revenge spree. If you like to remain unspoiled about these kinds of things you might want to skip the trailer for now; I took the plunge and now I think I know way too much about the movie already. Not to mention an ending that almost manages to unravel any mood that the trailer managed to set.

Luckily most of the cast is already busy with their next projects; Foster has already lined up a Leni Riefenstahl bio-pic, and the slightly less heavy film Nim's Island with Abigail Breslen (Little Miss Sunshine). Howard of course, is working on Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, but The Brave One works as a nice dramatic counterpoint to the hi-profile comic book movie. Jordan is set to direct the adaptation of the fantasy novel Heart Shaped Box as well as the horror flick Killing on Carnival Row. The Brave One is just one part of Warner Bros.' slate of dramas set for this fall, including In The Valley of Elah and Michael Clayton with George Clooney. WB should had taken a cue from Clooney's film on how to make a good suspense trailer -- the operative word being suspense.

[via firstshowing.net]