RichardGere Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you are the type of person who believes what you are told, then the release of James Gray's Two Lovers is probably your last chance to see Joaquin Phoenix 'the actor' before he takes the hip-hop world by storm -- but that's only if you believe what you've been told. For every person who is convinced that Mr. Phoenix has gone around the bend (and you can't blame them with footage like this floating around), you will find another person who thinks that the whole thing is a big hoax...and it wouldn't be the first time we've been taken for a ride by a celebrity. But until Casey Affleck releases that 'documentary' of his, we won't know for sure, and I decided it might be worthwhile to look at other Tinseltown hoaxes to remind us that you can't always believe what you read -- especially in Hollywood.

1. Stanley Kubrick Fakes the Moon Landing
It's been a popular conspiracy theory that the director provided most of the footage for the Apollo 11 and 12 Moon landings; and as the story goes, Kubrick was right in the middle of post-production on 2001: A Space Odyssey, when he was approached by NASA to create footage of a moon landing since his was so realistic. Over the years, most of these theories have been debunked, but defenders of the 'Kubrick connection' love to remind us that Kubrick later used lenses for Barry Lyndon that were developed by NASA -- which they say is the proof of payment for faking the lunar adventure.

After the jump: the birth of 'Bigfoot' and hoaxes that ended with hard time...

Cinematical spoke with Brooklyn's Finest director Antoine Fuqua on a sunny Saturday afternoon; within hours, Fuqua's gritty police drama would have sold to Senator Entertainment, the first distribution deal made at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Of course, as Fuqua talked with Cinematical about his exemplary cast, how exactly you make a cops-and-crooks film in the wake of The Wire and the challenges of shooting in New York, the film's sale was in the future. Fuqua also defended the film's controversial final shot, even as he noted he was willing to entertain discussions about changing it; "The whole point of the movie is that they don't have the proper help in the police force, and there's a huge piece in The New York Times about more police killing themselves than dying in the line of duty that just came out a few months ago ... and when you read that, it's so sad and heartbreaking, and you go "You gotta show that. ..."

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Movies like Nights in Rodanthe are beyond reviewing, because intellectually analyzing them cancels out their intended effect. This is a weepie, pure and simple. If you're the type that likes crying at the movies, you'll love it. If you loved Richard Gere and Diane Lane together in a thriller like Unfaithful (2002) but you don't like to cry, you probably won't like it. Me, I found a few things to like and much to loathe.

Diane Lane stars in Nights in Rodanthe as Adrienne Willis, a frazzled single mother with a young son and a teenage daughter; the latter has just begun talking back and expressing her universal disdain for everything her mother does. Adrienne's no-good husband (Christopher Meloni), who, we learn, has had an affair, arrives to pick up the kids so that Adrienne can go help her happy-go-lucky pal Jean (Viola Davis, playing a typical movie "best friend") look after a sexy, beach-side North Carolina hotel during its off-season. Unfortunately, the husband now wants to get back together.

Confused Adrienne arrives at the hotel, which is decorated head-to-foot in all kinds of colored, tinkly bric-a-brac and prepares for its one and only guest. Dr. Paul Flanner (Richard Gere) is a doctor struggling with a dark secret, and who has arrived for an equally mysterious errand. The attractive duo eventually warm up to one another and talk, but their dark secrets get in the way. Meanwhile, a huge storm threatens to blow away everything that isn't nailed down. I guess it's not too hard to guess what happens next. (Trivia hounds: this is Gere and Lane's third movie together. Besides Unfaithful, they were in Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club together way back in 1984.)

Two things I enjoyed about Definitely, Maybe, which came out on DVD today: the cheesy jokes about New York City in the early '90s and the fact that it is a chick flick for guys. What I mean by the latter is that the movie seems targeted to females yet it caters more to the male viewer. It's basically a male fantasy: Ryan Reynolds tells the story of how he dated three beautiful women (played by Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks), one of whom he married and later divorced -- meaning he's now single again. And he also got a cute, precocious daughter (Abigail Breslin) out of the deal who becomes beneficial to him in his return to bachelorhood.

But then is it really a chick flick? I guess it is if you count romantic comedies in that grouping, though the genre has never necessarily been aligned with the term, nor vice versa. And in the age of Judd Apatow, it's more likely that any new romantic comedy is actually a guy movie. Do many men realize it's a movie for them, though? Probably not. Though chick flicks are typically movies primarily populated by women characters and/or a female protagonist (think Steel Magnolias), romance films not made by either Apatow or the Farrelly brothers may be thought of as being for the ladies, even if they feature a male lead, like Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe.

I'll admit I've always been confused about chick flicks as a term. I apparently enjoy many so-called chick flicks, including even (especially) Beaches. So, I may not be using the term correctly in this list. However, I am a guy and I know what guys want. So, I'm going to do this my way, and answer the following question: What other films may have been initially perceived by males as being made for chicks but which turned out to be more for them (us)?

[Photo removed at request of 20th Century Fox]

This is too good not to share. It's no secret that I wasn't pleased with the last round of Amelia pics that hit the net. Hilary Swank just looked goofy, and the images did nothing to drum up excitement. In fact, it did just the opposite. But man, the picture above, part of a slew that went up on Oh No They Didn't, is definitely worth it.

Finally, we've got Swank in the flying ensemble! She's got on the obligatory leather jacket, cap, and goggles, although the wardrobe gurus seem to have decided against Earhart's oft-worn scarf, and selected a striped tie instead. But that's not all. We know that it's Richard Gere standing on the right, but do you recognize the woman on the left? I've loved her since Fire with Fire, but didn't notice at first that the lady in red is, indeed, Virginia Madsen. Okay, I'm a bit more excited now.

You?

Quick hits on three titles of interest: As I wrote last November, Meeting Resistance "is not the end-all, be-all of Iraq War documentaries, nor does it pretend to be. Filmmakers Steve Connors and Molly Bingham stay tightly focused on their subjects -- members of the resistance movement in Iraq -- and get them to open up about their motivations. In doing so, they provide an invaluable window into a world that remains unknown to most foreigners." The DVD from First Run Features includes an audio commentary, filmmaker Q&A, biographies, and a photo gallery.

Olivier Meyrou's documentary Beyond Hatred examines the aftermath of the brutal murder of a young gay man by a gang of skinheads. Ed Gonzalez in Slant Magazine felt it "arrives at essential truths about suffering and loss through abstract means." The DVD from First Run Features appears to be a bare-bones edition; no extras are listed at the official site.

I'm waiting for my rental copy of The Flock to arrive in the mail, but I don't have high hopes for this psychological drama, even though it stars Richard Gere and Claire Danes. Hong Kong director Andrew Lau can be hit (Internal Affairs) or miss (Confession of Pain), and the long delay between production (late 2004) and release doesn't bode well. The DVD from The Weinstein Co. has no extras, according to this review by Brian Orndorf at DVD Talk, who felt the movie looked too much like a bad TV show.

After tons of speculation and millions of votes counted, the results are in -- Richard Gere is still The Man. Seriously, how many people do you know who look 33 when they're actually 106? None. Gere. That's it. And Variety tells us he's signed on for not one, but two more films. The Pope turned 81and he's riding around in a little bulletproof car. Gere is 106 and he's doing two movies! Who do you think is more awesome? Hint: His name rhymes with Fear??

First up, he'll star opposite Hilary Swank in Amelia -- a biopic on the famed aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, which will be directed by Mira Nair off a screenplay by Ron Bass. Gere will play Earhart's husband, publisher George Putnam, and the film will document their rocky relationship. Additionally (and this is something we already reported), Gere will co-star in the cop flick Brooklyn's Finest, alongside folks like Don Cheadle and Ethan Hawke. Antoine Fuqua will direct. (Currently, there's no word on which young actress Gere will be shaggin' in that film, but we'll let you know when more info is released ...)

Two reasons I'm writing this story: 1) I love screenwriter success stories, and 2) I love New York City screenwriting success stories. (No, I'm not very interested in seeing a sequel to New Jack City ... unless, of course, Chris Rock loses fifty pounds and plays another crack addict.) Over at Yahoo, they have a great story about a NYC tollbooth worker who wrote a crime script last year called Brooklyn's Finest. See, his car was totaled in an accident and so he entered this screenwriting competition with hopes the cash prize would help pay for a new ride. While Michael Martin had studied film in college, he had never written a full screenplay before -- and though his script placed second, it attracted attention from all over the place; landing on the steps of a Warner Bros-based producer who was searching for someone gritty enough to write the sequel to New Jack City.

Dude eventually moved to Los Angeles, wrote for the Showtime series Sleeper Cell, but then got homesick and returned to New York -- where, to this day, he works for the Transit Authority (he was just promoted to construction flagger). In between flagging, he still works on the New Jack City 2 script (which will probably go direct to DVD) on break in the subway tunnels, all while Brooklyn's Finest gears up to go into production this May -- in Brookyln -- with Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere and Ellen Barkin starring. Training Day's Antoine Fuqua will direct.

Oh, and he has a new car now.

Great story; you can read the entire thing here. And good luck to you Mr. Martin!

Last May, word came out that a remake of the Japanese tearjerker Hachiko monogatari was in the works, starring the actor who has had a bum rap when it comes to animals -- Richard Gere. The production was supposed to kick into action back in September, but as is usually the case, the project was delayed. Hachiko, A Dog's Story now has a new start date in January, and Variety reports that it's also got a co-star and director. Joan Allen (The Upside of Anger) has signed on to star with Gere, and Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules) will take the directorial chair.

The project is based on the true story of the Hachiko statue in Tokyo's Shibuya station. A teaching assistant had a devout dog who would meet him every day. When the man gets sick and doesn't return home, the dog continues to wait, for what Variety says is almost ten years. As the remake story goes, Gere is a college prof who takes in an abandoned dog, so I'm not sure if the dog gets abandoned twice, or if he gives it a new home after it waits around for its master for years. Either way, it's sure to be full of tears and heartbreak, just what every moviegoer is looking for! Annoyingly, there is no word on who Allen is playing. Gere's lady friend? A sinister person from the pound? Who knows. The film heads into production this January in Rhode Island, if there are no further delays.