Philip Seymour Hoffman Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I can think of at least three movies in the coming two weeks that feature scenes that are strikingly out of tone with the film they're a respective part of and yet seemingly included as a means of getting people to tell their loved ones how ridiculous Bit X in Movie Y is. And so today's Cinematical Seven list will be an arbitrary, far from ultimate compilation of the most distractingly disgusting and supremely superfluous parts in recent movies. Sure, most of these are comedies, and yes, most of them seem to have been released from the year 2000 on, and as always, we welcome your comments below. Just make sure they're not too gross.

(Speaking of which, NSFW clips follow after the jump.)

When actors grab the directorial chair, my response is usually dictated by two things: the person's charisma, and their film choices. Considering how awesome Philip Seymour Hoffman is, and how his recent roles include Synecdoche, New York, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Savages, and Capote, the thought of him as a director is downright lovely. And now Variety reports that he's going to helm Jack Goes Boating -- an adaptation of Bob Glaudini's Off Broadway play.

The play is "an unconventional romantic comedy about two misfits in New York City, laced with cooking classes, swimming lessons, and illegal drugs." Hoffman will divide his time between directing and starring as the stoner limo driver, alongside Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan. Finishing off the cast is John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega, who are both reprising their roles from the stage.

At the very least, this will be a slice of laughs and romance without the trite and overused stereotypes. But I'm betting it will also be one heck of a fun film -- it's not everyday that Manhattan-based drug films deal with cooking and swimming classes, nor is it everyday that a romcom gets Hoffman and Ryan as the leads.

Does this whet your cinematic appetite?

As many movie fans know by now, the prologue to last summer's Tropic Thunder features some brilliant spoof trailers, including one for a phony film called Satan's Alley (which won the "coveted Crying Monkey Award at the Beijing Film Festival"). Better seen than described, it's a brilliant deconstruction of every pompous award-hungry film that comes out in December. The trailer for John Patrick Shanley's Doubt looks a lot like that, but if I've learned one thing this year, it's to not trust trailers. Happily, the real Doubt is a great deal sprightlier, cleverer and more powerful than its dreadful promo would suggest.

Shanley is a playwright who occasionally forays into movies, and he adapted his own 2004 play into the screenplay for Doubt. He won a Best Screenplay Oscar for Moonstruck (1987), and his other writing work ranges from Five Corners (1987) to an adaptation of Congo (1995). As a director, Doubt is only his second feature; his first came 18 years ago, with the bizarre, wonderful, underrated Joe vs. the Volcano (1990). That movie was a highly stylized, colorful, very dry, very black romantic comedy that left most Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fans (or, to put it another way, just about everybody on the planet) completely baffled. Shanley brings some of that same skill and style to Doubt, although this time expectations and delivery are more in harmony.

Did you watch Almost Famous and wish that Philip Seymour Hoffman would do a full retro film that has him chatting on the radio? Have you ever wished that you could see Nick Frost lounging lasciviously on a bed? Do you like/love Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, and/or Notting Hill? If you can answer yes to any of the three, watch the clip above.

This is the UK trailer for Richard Curtis' The Boat That Rocked, which follows rogue DJs in the '60s who fuel a pirate radio movement from the most logical and appropriate place -- a ship at sea. (ARR!) The idea itself sounded good, but seeing it ... man, 2009 cannot come fast enough!

However ... this is making me wish for a remake of Pump up the Volume with Hoffman as Hard Harry. He's too old, and it would be ridiculous, but I can't get the image out of my head.

Having just seen the film version of Doubt, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, I was encouraged to dig up this Defamer post in which Philip Seymour Hoffman goes off on a junket journalist who couldn't help but ask whether or not his priest character had indeed done the dirty with a young boy at his Catholic school.

Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers to be heard there or read here, but believe me when I say that whether or not Hoffman knows the truth is more important than whether or not we, the audience, know. To a greater point, such an admission would dilute only the whole purpose of the film and play, the relentless ambiguity of the story at hand, and Hoffman -- surely having feared this inquiry, and perhaps already having tackled it elsewhere -- clearly suffers no fools.

For my money, though, that still has nothing on this bout of humiliation.

See below gallery for larger images of each

Above you will find the two For Your Consideration ads for The Dark Knight that have been running in Variety this week. One promotes Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor, while the other targets a Best Picture nomination for the film itself. With The Dark Knight approaching $1 billion at the box office, it'd be a stupid move on the Academy's part to not give this flick the credit it deserves. From a ratings standpoint, knowing The Dark Knight is up for a few big awards (including Best Picture) would probably bring in tons more viewers, and, well, from a normal human being standpoint, the movie is freaking awesome! Give it some love!

Of course, it's a comic book movie and we all know the serious adults who vote on Oscars don't take too kindly to them comic book kids stuff. Hopefully, though, they'll see what a terrific job Nolan did with his Batman follow-up and the unbelievable performance Ledger gave as Joker. Should Ledger find his way into a nomination, he'll most likely be up against folks like Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Josh Brolin (Milk), Ralph Fiennes (The Duchess) and Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder).

Check out larger versions of the above ads in the gallery below.



[via BoF]

Here are some stuff and things for your (very cold, if you're on the East Coast) Wednesday:

-- Nicole Kidman may join Joaquin Phoenix in actor's retirement land real soon as she told press in Australia that she's not too sure she wants to keep going at it. Kidman says, "In terms of my future as an actor and stuff, I don't know. I am in a place in my life where ... I've had some great opportunities and I may just choose to have some more children. I've no idea what is in my future but I am very at peace with where I want to be. There are many things I want to do besides act." Like ... become the next Top Chef? Which is worse for Hollywood: The loss of Kidman or Phoenix ... or do you not care much either way?

-- The 2009 Sundance Film Festival has announced its opening film ... and it's a clay-animated feature starring the voices of Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette. Directed by Adam Elliot, Mary and Max "follows a 20-year, pen-pal friendship between an 8-year-old girl in Melbourne and an obese, 42-year-old man in New York." Calm down Dateline, it's only a film! Sundance director Geoffrey Gilmore says, "This portrait of a global friendship between two marvelously dysfunctional people is an exceptionally moving, funny and thought-provoking work." [Variety]

-- If you've been wondering where The Soloist (starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.) has moved to, Variety reports that the current release date has been pushed to April 24 instead of March 13. In addition to this move, Paramount has shifted Paul Rudd's I Love You, Man from January 16 to March 20.

1. Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom (Logo)
2. Synecdoche, New York (Sony Pictures Classics)
3. Let the Right One In (Magnolia)

How on earth did an unheralded, under-the-radar movie from an untested distribution outfit manage to nearly out-earn a much-advertised period flick starring one of the biggest tabloid stars in the world, directed by one of the most respected? Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom, based on the Logo TV series, opened at theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington DC over the weekend and grossed $32,200 per screen, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. That puts it just behind Clint Eastwood's Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie. The romantic comedy follows four men and their partners as they travel to Martha's Vineyard and deal with relationship travails. The first release by Logo's film distribution unit, indieWIRE says that Noah's Arc "is already 2008's highest grossing narrative gay film overall."

If a romantic comedy starring gay African Americans sounds like an unlikely box office winner, what about a movie with a nearly unpronounceable title featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman as an aging theater director? Not exactly sexy, I suppose, but Synecdoche, New York nonetheless grossed $19,222 per screen at nine theaters in New York and Los Angeles. I don't think anyone expects this to be a huge box office smash, yet that's a good, strong start for Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, one of the more intriguing films to be released this fall season.

In one corner, we have Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman (doesn't that sound good already?). The Hollywood Reporter posts that PSH has just signed his voice up to star opposite Collette in Mary and Max, a claymation project from Down Under. Sort of like a claymation version of Love Letters, the film focuses on two penpals who foster a friendship over 20 years while one lives in Australia and the other in the US. I don't know if this is a tale of classic pen to paper, or something a little more modern with late-night Internet session while one goes to bed and the other rises. To make things even more interesting -- it's the feature debut for Harvie Krumpet Oscar winners Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs.

In the other corner, there's one of the strangest couplings I've read in a while -- Helen Hunt and Liev Schreiber. Variety reports the pair are starring in a new drama called Every Day. What's weird -- they're playing a "couple whose marriage is strained to the breaking point." Nip/Tuck's Richard Levine will make his feature directorial debut with the film, which starts production in New York this month. I don't know why, but this pairing just seems really strange. They're not far off in age, so who knows?

Weigh in below: Which pair do you want to see more?

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Synecdoche: n. A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword). -- American Heritage Dictionary

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Synecdoche, New York, which marks the directorial debut of the great Charlie Kaufman (off a script he also wrote) who's mind and pen have given us some of the more absurd, quirky and beautiful stories of the past decade (Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a theater director who struggles to balance all the women in his life with a new play he's directing -- a play, mind you, that's utilizing a giant, life-size replica of New York City built inside a warehouse.

Knowing Kaufman, that all-too-brief synopsis doesn't even come close to what this film is really about. While writing in from Cannes, Cinematical's James Rocchi called Synecdoche, New York a piece of "inspired brilliance and real humanity." Needless to say, it's on my must-see list. Is it on yours?

Synecdoche, New York will arrive in theaters on October 24. Check out the trailer after the jump.