Straw Dogs Tagged Articles at Cinematical
James Woods Sets 'Straw Dogs' on Fire
Filed under: Thrillers », Casting », Remakes and Sequels »
Some more cast members have been revealed for Rod Lurie's "re-imagining" of Sam Peckinpah's controversial '70s thriller Straw Dogs, which is good because it just started filming in Shreveport, LA. Like, yesterday. James Woods (one of my favorite creeps) has joined the cast, as have Willa Holland and Dominic Purcell; however, there's no real info on who they will be playing, as the three leads have already been cast. Kate Bosworth is taking on the complicated character of Amy Sumner, who was played by Susan George in the original; James Marsden is her husband, David, originally played by Dustin Hoffman, and Alexander Skarsgård is her ex-boyfriend Charlie, Susan's ex and the ringleader of the escalating violence against the couple.
In Lurie's version, the Sumners relocate to Amy's hometown in Mississippi instead of Cornwall, and David is a screenwriter from Los Angeles rather than a milquetoast mathematician. I'm very curious to see how Lurie plans to handle the ambiguities of the original, especially the rape scene that had many critics leveling charges of misogyny against Peckinpah.
Did this movie really need a "re-imagining?" Can we please think of a new term of directors and writers who take pre-existing characters and put them in almost the same circumstances but in different locations? How will the cast hold up to the original? And let's not forget the iconic poster from the original -- that will be hard to top.
Exclusive: Poster for Tyler Perry's 'I Can Do Bad All by Myself'
Filed under: Movie Marketing », Images », Posters »
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Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself, which is due to hit theaters on September 11. Perry definitely has an army of supporters in his target audience -- African-American, female, and religious -- and I Can Do Bad All by Myself sounds like more of the same. Three delinquent children loot the home of the lovable-but-firm Madea (Perry), and she takes matters into her own hands. She delivers them into the care of their only relative, the hard-drinking, nightclub-singing April, played by Academy Award-nominated Taraji P. Henson. Aunt April sponges off her married boyfriend and wants nothing to do with the kids, but things start to change when a good-looking Mexican immigrant (Adam Rodriguez) moves into her basement.
In a funny marketing twist for folks outside Perry's usual target audience, the poster references a vastly different movie: Sam Peckinpah's controversial, violent home invasion thriller Straw Dogs, starring Dustin Hoffman. It may be a little obscure for mainstream audiences, but I think it's pretty clever when you consider it in light of the Rod Lurie remake that is due out next year, which will be set in the deep South -- Perry country! Check out the above poster and the original Straw Dogs poster side-by-side, as well as the full version of the new Tyler Perry movie poster, in the gallery below.
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Meanwhile, Tyler Perry fans can check out the trailer for I Can Do Bad All by Myself, which just debuted at Fandango.
Casting Bites: Dafoe, Straw Dogs, Dames, and Dempsey
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Horror », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Casting », Comic/Superhero/Geek », Remakes and Sequels »
Some mid-week casting nibblets:The wonderful Willem Dafoe is about to make a trip to Mars. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Dafoe has signed on to play Tars Tarkas in the Civil War/space project John Carter of Mars. Seeing Dafoe take a slight pause from his horror-filled schedule is nice, and it's even better that Tarkas is both a great warrior and compassionate man -- a gig that Dafoe should be able to tackle easily. But there is a twist -- Dafoe is once again going green for a gig. This is what Tarkas looks like.
And it's been a while since we got casting news for Rod Lurie's Straw Dogs remake, but now Variety reports that Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard are joining the roster. Bosworth will play James Marsden's wife, as they leave Hollywood for her Mississippi hometown. Skarsgard will play her old high school boyfriend and ex-football hero. One things for certain: this isn't the usual crop of names one would see on such an epically violent story.
Meanwhile, Christine Baranski will play Jennifer Aniston's mom in her Gerard Butler comedy Bounty Hunter, according to Variety. There's still no word on just what kind of fugitive Aniston is, and why, but Baranski should make things interesting.
And finally, Patrick Dempsey is changing things up a bit with a new big-screen role. Variety reports that he'll star in Universal's adaptation of The Art of Racing in the Rain. Yes, it's a racing movie, but not exactly a racing movie. See, it's fueled by memories from "Enzo, a family dog with a near-human soul and philosopher's mind, who evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, the race-car driver Denny Swift." No romance and fairy tale quirk this time around, just a little Marley magic and a bit of Dempsey's own race car driving ways.
James Marsden Grabs the Lead in the 'Straw Dogs' Remake
Filed under: Classics », Drama », Horror », Casting », Remakes and Sequels »
If there's one remake that's solidly irking the masses, it would be Rod Lurie's plan to re-do Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Remaking a big studio film is one thing -- remaking a controversial and violent Peckinpah film is something else entirely. In March and August of 2007, Cinematical readers weighed in with their distaste, and now a few years later, this sucker is finally getting cast ... with Cyclops.The Hollywood Reporter posts that James Marsden will be taking over Dustin Hoffman's shoes to play David Sumner. This time around, the man will be an LA screenwriter who moves to his wife's deep-South hometown before the marriage troubles begin and locals get violent.
I have to admit it; I'm kind of intrigued. It's not that I want a remake (I almost never do), but I really want to see what Lurie is doing with this. He's already expressed his distaste in the rape controversy, and swears it will be much different in his film, and he's moved the whole project over to an entirely different social landscape. Why? And then picking Marsden? I can't decide if this is a move of genius, and something that could set the actor on more of a Hoffman path than a rom-com and annoying eye-zapper path, or if this is just another reason to ignore this remake.
So far, it's like a garish accident, you're compelled to look even if you don't really want to... But what do you think? Does Marsden make you want to pick up the pitchforks and revolt, townie-style?
Peckinpah's 'Straw Dogs' Getting Remade by Rod Lurie
Filed under: Classics », Drama », Thrillers », Sony »
As movies continue to get more and more violent -- and as filmmakers keep defending the violence -- it makes sense that one of the most controversially violent films would get a remake. Yes, Sam Peckinpah's disturbing classic Straw Dogs is being redone, and this time it will of course take place in America. The original, for those who haven't seen it, took place in the English countryside, where a couple played by Dustin Hoffman and Susan George are terrorized by locals. Screen Gems is still in the process of acquiring the rights to the film, but they already have a screenwriter (Reed Steiner) and a director (Rod Lurie). The project definitely appears to be more on track than the proposed remake of Peckinpah's Wild Bunch we heard about awhile back. Considering Peckinpah's Straw Dogs is pretty sick even by today's standards, Steiner and Lurie will have to up the violence to possibly NC-17 levels. Personally, I can hardly stand the graphic nature of the raping and murdering that occurs in the 35-year-old original, so I don't know what more I could take in a redo. Fortunately the new version won't be made by someone like Eli Roth. I have hopes that Lurie, who made The Contender, one of my favorite films of 2000, will be concentrating on the themes of violence more than the actual depiction of violence, since the director tends to work with more political material. Certainly the more interesting aspect -- and one of the more controversial aspects -- of Straw Dogs is the how Hoffman and George react to the violence committed against them as well as by them.
Peckinpah, Pirates and the French Take Manhattan
Filed under: Action », Classics », Drama », Foreign Language », Thrillers », Fandom », Other Festivals », Cinematical Indie »
A trio of insanely great series recently started in New York City, once again displaying the cultural embarrassment of riches with which those of us lucky enough to live here grapple on a daily basis (I'm not complaining, trust me).Friday saw the opening of Summer Swashbucklers at Manhattan's Film Forum, a series of 30 pirate and adventure films -- most made between 1920 and 1950 -- that will unspool over the next three weeks, many of them in double features. Among the films in the series are such Errol Flynn classics as Captain Blood (his first starring role, in which he displays a surprising knack for screwball humor) and The Adventures of Robin Hood, the elder Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro and The Three Musketeers, and Gunga Din, starring the junior Fairbanks and Cary Grant.
Meanwhile, over in Brooklyn, the BAM Cinematek has put together two truly magnificent series that will run concurrently though the month of August. The first half of each week features the work of controversial American master Sam Peckinpah, from the shocking Straw Dogs (that one's showing Tuesday the 15th -- go see it, if you haven't) to the Steve McQueen starrers The Getaway and Junior Bonner. Then, from Thursday to Sunday each week, the theater is given over to a series called Leading Men of French Cinema. As you might expect, the films showcase the work of a wide range of French stars, in films that are equally diverse. Highlights of the series include Purple Noon, Rene Clement's 1960 version of The Talented Mr. Ripley (starring Alain Delon at his most impossibly beautiful), Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou (starring the wonderful Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Les tontons flingueurs, which stars Lino Ventura, a wrestler who transformed himself during the 1960s into an unexpectedly appealing screen presence.
While September is sure to bring good series of its own, these are all well worth sweating on a subway platform to see.
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