Revolver Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When I first saw Robert Pattinson as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, I thought "Well, he's cute." I never thought about him again. (When it comes to Potter crushes, mine will always be the dude with the long blonde mane.) Who could imagine that his would be the face that would launch a thousand shrieks? Still, Pattinson's story isn't that unusual and girls have screamed and cried over plenty of handsome lads, and will probably do so until the end of time. But is it really worth filming a documentary about?

Someone thought so. According to Screen Daily, UK distributor Revolver has snapped up Robsessed, a feature length documentary that studies the "the teenage phenomenon known as being Rob-sessed" (also known as puberty). It'll follow Pattinson's career from a relative nobody to being Edward Cullen and a man who gets hit by a cab while running from fans. Hopefully it will take some time and examine all his likes, dislikes, solve what's going on with his hair, or reveal just what he was doing at my downtown Denver fish-and-chips place. (I'm not kidding. There's a signed photo of him at the restaurant that thanks them personally for "the best fish and chips!")

The documentary will be released in the US and the UK in November to coincide with the release of New Moon. They're also planning to release a boxed set that includes Pattinson's little seen (we wonder why) 2006 film Haunted Airmen. So much Pattinson in one month might just inspire someone to film Robsessed 2: The Reckoning.

Surprise! Jason Reitman's Juno, the most buzzed about teen pregnancy comedy of the fall, hauled in an overwhelming take of $60,000 per screen at seven theaters in New York and Los Angeles, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo, easily topping the indie box office chart. It got a head start by opening on Wednesday, but it actually began building momentum when it screened at Telluride more than three months ago. Critical response has been nearly unanimous (93% positive per Rotten Tomatoes), with our own Kim Voynar leading the hosannas. Juno will be opening wide soon, so it will be interesting to see if it can cross over to mainstream acceptance.

Also widely praised since its debut at Venice, Atonement scored very well with a per-screen average of $25,531 at 32 theaters in major markets. Keira Knightley and James McAvoy star in director Joe Wright's adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel. Christopher Hampton scripted the screen version of an epic period romance. Cinematical's James Rocchi participated in a roundtable interview with McAvoy; you can read McAvoy's thoughts on Atonement and much more.

Other indies struggled to find audiences. Grace is Gone, starring John Cusack as a father having trouble telling his daughters that their mother has been killed, had the highest profile, but earned just $3,500 per screen at four theaters. Long on the shelf, The Amateurs may be heading quickly to DVD; despite the presence of Jeff Bridges and Ted Danson, it managed to earn only $4,000 per screen at three theaters in Los Angeles and Dallas. Bridges did all he could to publicize the film; he and Danson participated in a junket, which our own Patrick Walsh just wrote about, and was present for a post-screening Q&A on Friday night in Dallas.

Also debuting over the weekend: Maurice Jamal's comedy Dirty Laundry ($7,700 per-screen at two theaters), Paul Schrader's Washington drama The Walker ($5,533 per screen at three theaters), Guy Ritchie's crime drama Revolver ($2,316 per screen at 18 theaters) and David Wall's religious drama Noelle ($802 per screen at 203 theaters).

First of all, I've been reliably informed that it's actually not new, just out of use for a long time -- long enough that last week was the first time I'd ever heard of it in over two years of seeing movie screenings in Manhattan more or less daily. I'm talking about a critic's screening room that's actually located inside a Planet Hollywood in Manhattan's Times Square. Right up until the moment I showed up for my screening of Revolver earlier this week, I thought 'Oh, Planet Hollywood has funded a new screening room, how interesting.' Then when I showed up to the address, it was the address of the restaurant. I walked inside and looked around for a few minutes, re-checked the address I'd written on my notepad, and then walked up to a waiter and said "Where's the screening room?" expecting to be looked at like a crazy person. But she simply pointed me to a little stairwell and told me to go all the way up.

Cut to me walking through a dining room full of people eating their burgers and fries and waiters twirling around me with their trays. This was the first time I'd been inside one of these places since I was like, 15, when the big draw was still memorabilia, and the fate of the franchise was of some concern to Bruce Willis, as I recall. I suppose there was some memorabilia in this place, but I didn't see any as I looked around, and that was disappointing. If I was going to eat at Planet Hollywood, I'd want the Predator's dreadlocks hanging in my soup -- why else go? Also, although there *were* drink holders on the chairs in the tiny and rather unimpressive room, eating in there was apparently as taboo as in any other screening room. That's the end of my story.

Once you get mega-famous farting around with guns and people who talk funny, it's got to be tough to see your career get Swept Away in one fell swoop. Since then, Guy Ritchie has tried to go back to what he does best -- tough guys and crime. Although he's currently filming RocknRolla, his flick about London's criminal underworld, he had already returned to form a while ago with Revolver. It debuted at TIFF two years ago, and is finally hitting North American theaters in limited release this December. The delay could be due to rumors of its crappiness, although IMDb has it resting at 6.2/10, which isn't great, but isn't terrible.

Now we've got a trailer to check out, courtesy of Yahoo. While it starts off looking like this tough-guy chess movie, with dark, pouring rain and sliding chess pieces, it then jumps into typical criminal territory: the games, cons, and fun of Las Vegas. There's piles of money, bets, scantily-clad women, murder, and everything else you could imagine. Jason Statham stars, sporting lots of distracting facial hair, with the likes of Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore, and André Benjamin. The trailer looks like your typical bright-lights crime caper, which should work well for it. That being said, I'm kind of wishing it was all about the dangerous life of chess players. That would be cool.

The Arizona Department of Commerce has a page on their site for the Arizona Film Office; while the page lists helpful resources, their "HotWEB!!" doesn't reveal any current productions. So I did a "power search" at IMDb. Deducting television shows and direct to video titles, about 100 shorts and features filmed entirely or in part in Arizona have a 2007 release date attached.

What I'm calling "The Arizona Hot 100" includes big Hollywood productions (The Kingdom, Next, Transformers), independent projects featuring well-known names (Sean Penn's Into the Wild, Tamara Jenkins' The Savages) and foreign-language films (Julio Medem's Caótica Ana from Spain, Pál Sándor's Noé bárkája from Hungary/Canada).

Independent feature Jolene was directed by Dan Ireland, it's based on a story by E. L. Doctorow (Ragtime) about a traveling teenage orphan and her adventures over a ten-year period. The cast includes Dermot Mulroney, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Vartan, Denise Richards and Theresa Russell, with Jessica Chastain as the title character. I couldn't find a web site for the film, though I did find an on-location production photo (pictured), courtesy of the Sonoran News, which covered a scene filmed at Big Earl's Greasy Eats in Cave Creek, Arizona. They're aiming for release later this year.

Burke Heffner's Revolver is another cross-country adventure, this time focusing on a man named Pocket and a woman named Blue. The film has an attractive and informative web site and the award-winning trailer looks very appetizing. Read a bit further, though, because the "Golden Trailer Award" is for "Best Trailer No Movie." Yup, Heffner and company are searching for investors so they can make their movie. Somebody give these guys some money, and hurry -- the trailer is sweet.

If you're an Arizona filmmaker or a resident with tips on what's in production in your state, let us know! We're especially interested in independent features. You can use this handy form or leave a comment.

Despite the fact that not a single person (I heard even Madonna thought it was crap) will confess to liking his more recent gangster flick, Revolver, Guy Ritchie is still getting jobs based on the success of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (Yeah I know -- I forget they were two different movies, too.). This time, his employer is Columbia Pictures, which has hired Ritchie to rewrite and direct a movie called Static. One guess what it's about: Yes, more gangsters for Guy.

The central figure in Static is a gangster who has been unjustly imprisoned, and is on his way to testify against the bad cops that put him away. Problematically, there are a lot of other bad cops and rival gangsters trying to keep him from doing so. Thus, it's up to the poor, misunderstood gangster and his "loyal posse" to get to the courthouse on their own. So, basically, it's 16 Blocks, except with a posse instead of Bruce Willis, and without Mos Def. Super.

Static has been on the books at Original Film (a Sony-based company that is supervising the film) for years, and has been set up in the past with both Stephen Kay and Chris Robinson (not the Black Crowe, the guy who made ATL) at the helm.

I've never been much of a Guy Ritchie fan. When people lament the poisonous affect wife Madonna has supposedly had on his career, I tell them to go back and watch Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and dare them not to cringe. After all – if there's anything worse than a Tarantino impression, it's a Tarantino impression done in a British accent. Still, the blokes got his share of fans, and surely at least one or two of them will be happy to hear the following rumor: the tabloids are buzzing that Guy, despondant over the alleged affect that Maddie has had on his film career, wants to break up. According to Perez Hilton, the split is likely to be announced by summer, but those dying for a glimpse into exactly what Ritchie's blaming the missus for would be advised to seek out Ritchie's latest, Revolver. The allegedly awful, Kabbalah-infused (and thus, evidently Madonna-influenced) caper flick, which bombed with European critics but scraped together so-so UK returns, opens in the US later this month.