OrenMoverman Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Messenger opened the 12th Savannah Film Festival with a bang: a sellout crowd, international press, and Hollywood stars Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in attendance to rub elbows all night. Even without the glitz, though, Savannah was a smart place to screen the Iraq drama. Oren Moverman's film is a character study about a soldier (Foster) dealing with the aftermath of war, but like Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq film The Hurt Locker, it's about the personal toll Iraq leaves on soldiers who survive and the families of those who don't; the politics of war are hardly an issue. And so, in a city that supports two military bases and the men and women who serve them, The Messenger played like gangbusters.

Foster stars as William Montgomery, a recent Iraq returnee dealing with serious leftover issues and a new assignment to play out his final three months of service: informing families that their loved ones have been killed on duty. As Montgomery's partner, Harrelson provides moments of levity, but there were plenty of sniffles throughout the film just the same.

While it was pretty easy to figure out what the general consensus was, there were three figures in particular I was watching for a reaction – the only three uniformed soldiers in attendance, who may or may not have been connected to the production. (The film has been screened for military personnel, and Harrelson and Foster personally met soldiers at Hunter Army Airfield prior to the night's screening.) When asked what military folk have thought of his film in the post-screening Q&A, director Moverman deferred to one of the officers in the audience to share his reaction with the crowd. What follows is the unnamed soldier's impromptu review of The Messenger.

Click image below to view full poster

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for The Messenger -- scribe Oren Moverman's directorial debut starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, and Jena Malone. What a jolt, eh? The dark and stern look in Harrelson's eyes is a far cry from all the zombie fighting we've been watching him tackle lately, and this is also a decidedly more adult role for Foster (who you might remember from 30 Days of Night and X3).

Yes, this is a new Iraq War drama, but between the talent involved and the fact that this comes from the pen behind Jesus' Son and I'm Not There, this should make for a bold, brave journey -- one said to be quite the emotional rollercoaster ride. Jessica Barnes first posted about the film back in February of 2008 when Foster signed on, and Morton and Harrelson signed on soon after. The Messenger premiered at Sundance earlier this year to some very positive buzz (especially for Harrelson and Foster), and is slated for release on November 13.

Check out the poster by clicking the image below and the synopsis after the jump.

If you had to pick one of the break-out stars in 2007, chances are Ben Foster would be one of the names at the top of the list. Between his performances in 3:10 To Yuma and 30 Days of Night there is no question that this young actor has earned the right to get his own starring roles. Besides, anyone that can make me laugh or scare the crap out of me in equal amounts deserves a little respect. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Foster has signed to star in the military drama, The Messenger.

The story centers on an army man (Foster) who has been given the unpleasant assignment of informing families that a loved one has died in combat (talk about being the bearer of bad news). Forced to work with a partner he can't stand, things become even more complicated when he begins to fall in love with a soldier's widow. So far, only Foster has been officially attached to the film, so there is still plenty of time to fill out the rest of the cast.

The film marks the directorial debut of Oren Moverman, who is probably most famous for co-writing Todd Haynes' Dylan 'biopic' I'm Not There. Alessandro Camon co-wrote the script for The Messenger and is already hard at work on the Leonardo DiCaprio thriller, The Chancellor Manuscript. Foster has also lined up a role in the dysfunctional family comedy Birds of America, but for that role it looks like it's going to be another ensemble piece. Luckily for Foster, he's not the type of actor who fades into the background. The Messenger is scheduled to start shooting in April.

According to Variety, David Slade will now direct Unthinkable, the story of a nuclear bomb in the United States. Tarsem Singh, director of the visually spectacular but dramatically weak 2000 thriller The Cell, was originally attached to direct (we brought you that announcement over a year ago). He has moved on, and no reason is given, but I'm sure it's something along the lines of "creative differences." Peter Woodward (Closing the Ring) penned the script, and Oren Moverman (co-writer of I'm Not There) is now listed as a co-writer.

Unthinkable centers on "investigators who push the limits of interrogation as they seek a suspect's knowledge of an impending nuclear attack on the United States." The film is budgeted at $15 million, so it will likely be a pretty small affair. No casting announcements have been made at this time. Slade made his feature debut with Hard Candy. That sharp, entertaining 2005 thriller starred a pre-Juno Ellen Page as a young girl who turns the tables on a pedophile. He followed that with 30 Days of Night -- last year's vampire flick that was chock full of beautiful camerawork...but not much else. Slade is definitely a director to watch though, and I'm excited to see what he'll bring to this project. Miss this one? Unthinkable! Damn, I'm good.

The guy who wrote Jesus' Son and Face, Oren Moverman, has fallen off the radar over the last 5 years, only to explode with a slew of new writing projects, including two biopics -- Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There and Interrupted, about Rebel Without a Cause director Nicholas Ray. He's just added one more to the pile to change things up, an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's recent novel -- Empire. The film will be a Joel Silver production under Warner Bros., the second Card adaptation for the company in recent months, as they're also bringing Ender's Game to the big screen.

The story is set in the near future, when the United States has gone into chaos after the assassination of the president and vice president. The former is killed by a rocket launcher that fires into the south wall of the West Wing, and more creatively, the VP dies when a dump truck, of all things, backs up into his limo. The country is flung "into civil war and a team of special forces operatives try to unravel the conspiracy and save the country." Moverman says: "The premise is balanced by an entertaining storyline that is not some dark and foreboding polemic." Considering the death-by-garbage thing, I can only imagine what the rest of the book reads. But truthfully, I'd rather have a flick on Card's family. According to Wikipedia, it's pretty interesting. His ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and his family later became big LDS'ers (Mormons), some of whom fled the U.S. for Canada years ago to keep up their polygamy practices.