Whatever Works Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'm in Savannah, Georgia to spend a week as a guest blogger for the Savannah Film Festival, an eight-day fest hosted in the historic Southern town by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). [Read my entries in the "Voices from the Fest" section on the festival website.] As the town prepares to kick off the 12th annual festivities with the Iraq film, or rather post-Iraq film, The Messenger, I'm wondering how SFF's growing success might reflect or even influence the rise of film festivals that similarly fall somewhere in between the biggies (Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice) and the little guys.

For starters, a brief look at SFF's line-up and star-studded guest list. The festival begins today, October 31, with The Messenger, a Sundance entry that has Oscar possibilities but more likely will make a run at the Indie Spirit Awards. Stars Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster will be in attendance. (I will be attempting to run into them at the local Starbucks or wherever it is that Hollywood actors hang out when they visit other cities.) Another Oscar hopeful, the Emily Blunt-starring period biopic The Young Victoria, is screening the following day.

And then there are the almost certain Oscar pictures: George Clooney in The Men Who Stare At Goats; Lone Scherfig's An Education; Michael Haneke's Cannes winner The White Ribbon; Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, with star Jeremy Renner in attendance; and Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, which will bring both director Lee Daniels and his star Gabourey Sidibe to town.

Read on for more about this year's Savannah Film Festival.

Orphan
An "outwardly angelic little girl" gets adopted by a new family consisting of Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga, and then begins to unleash her hidden evilness. In his review, Peter Martin wrote that Orphan "is so bats*** crazy that it wears you down just enough to accept the lunacy and enjoy the movie for what it is: every parent's worst nightmare, writ large in childish crayon." Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Whatever Works
Woody Allen's follow-up to Vicky Cristina Barcelona and return to the Big Apple takes his old man self out of the equation to give a new dude (played by Larry David) some May-December romance with Evan Rachel Wood. Nick Schager wasn't sold, and in his review, he wrote: "rather than an inspired meeting of kindred minds, their collaboration does little except reinforce the notion that Allen's creative well has long since run dry, his films now split into either inert, heavy-handed, detached spectacles of pretty people doing naughty things in foreign locales (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), or leaden comedic larks in which notable names embody Allen's archetypal kvetching role." Rent it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
The next installment in the family film series. In his review, William Goss wrote: "All in all, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is an improvement over its massively forgettable predecessor: generally inoffensive (save perhaps for history buffs), a bit more charming than most of the non-Pixar competition, and frivolous in the best possible sense." Buy it for the family film collection. Also on Blu-ray.

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Also out: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, Nothing Like the Holidays, Night of the Creeps, Criminal Ways, Stan Helsing

Indie Roundup reviews the past week of news from the independent film community and provides a peek at what's coming soon.

Openings. This weekend will finally see the release of Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, an extraordinary, ticking time bomb of a movie. Michelle Pfeiffer returns to the screen in Stephen Frears' "scandalous romp" Cheri. The very timely Iranian tale The Stoning of Soraya M., which just played the Los Angeles Film Festival, should ignite further discussion. Afghan Star features four women who (literally) risk everything in a televised singing contest.

Box Office. Woody Allen's Whatever Works performed just fine, pulling in $29,574 per-screen at nine locations. The re-issue of 1947's Brighton Rock (a very good film starring Richard Attenborough as a small-time hood) drew $10,626 at one theater; Nazi zombie flick Dead Snow scared up $5,363 in business. Several films expanded: Duncan Jones' Moon to 21 theaters ($8,541 per screen), Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro to eight locations ($7,176 per screen), and Sam Mendes' Away We Go to 132 theaters ($6,600 per screen).

Deals. Our friends at indieWIRE provided details on the acquisition of Stanley Tucci's Blind Date (due in theaters late this summer or early fall) and West of Pluto, directed by Henry Bernadet and Myriam Verreault. Pluto screens tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF).

Trailer. Also screening at LAFF this week is Bob Byington's Harmony and Me, which revolves around a 20-something musician (Justin Rice) who still pines for his dearly departed girlfriend. The film has been showing up at festivals all over the place, and the trailer has a good, bouncy vibe.

After the jump: Watch the trailer for Harmony and Me! Plus, more on LAFF.

Whatever Works' title is the mantra of inveterate curmudgeon Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), as well as that of Woody Allen, whose latest – and first to be set in his beloved Manhattan since 2004's Melinda and Melinda – hews as tightly to his trademark preoccupations as Of Mice and Men's Lenny clung to his rabbit. Casting David makes sense, as the Curb Your Enthusiasm star's crotchety on-screen persona more than slightly recalls that of Allen's. Yet rather than an inspired meeting of kindred minds, their collaboration does little except reinforce the notion that Allen's creative well has long since run dry, his films now split into either inert, heavy-handed, detached spectacles of pretty people doing naughty things in foreign locales (Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), or leaden comedic larks in which notable names embody Allen's archetypal kvetching role.

An erudite string-theory professor and all-around misanthrope with suicidal tendencies and an extensive vocabulary, David's Boris grumps and grouches like countless other Allen protagonists, right down to his guiding philosophy that the world is a cold, random place full of regret and misery, and that any rare chances at happiness should be seized.

If you had to pick someone to play a (slightly) younger version of Woody Allen, it'd pretty much have to be Larry David, right? Both men are overtly Jewish, neurotic, self-obsessed, and often pretty hilarious -- so it doesn't surprise me one bit to see Larry David take the starring role in Allen's latest, a quick-looking New York comedy called Whatever Works. Going only by the trailer, it looks to be an enjoyably typical (if appreciably old-school) Woody Allen comedy, but (as usual) the prolific filmmaker has managed to bring together one hell of a fun ensemble.

Joining Larry David are Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, and Conleth Hill in this story of an upper-class New Yorker who has some sort of mid-life crisis and decides to live like a starving artist. (If I have the synopsis right, then this flick sounds a little like Mel Brooks' Life Stinks, and no movie wants to sound like that.) But the trailer (available right here at Apple) made me chuckle more than once, and I'm certainly interested in seeing a cast like this deliver some of Woody Allen's neuroses. Too early to tell, of course, but Whatever Works looks like it could be a return to comedic form for Woody. (Because I think his last several comedies have been pretty weak.)

And you? Still a Woody Allen fan? Interested in the new one? It comes out on June 19.

I just came across the new poster for Whatever Works on IMP Awards (check it by clicking the image below), and beyond the too-perfect Larry David pose, I'm struck by the utter lack of Woody Allen on the thing. Beyond the billing block and maybe an especially sharp sense of font, how would anyone know that this was the latest film from the guy who made Annie Hall and Manhattan?

It was the same thing with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and I'm wondering if potentially interested people would find themselves turned off upon finding out just whose movie they've been lured into. It's the same sense of un-branding (non-branding? anti-branding?) that kept most passersby from realizing that Zack and Miri Make a Porno was a Kevin Smith joint, and really, if you're already past that title, is his presence in the trailers and posters going to keep you away?

If anything, might the name recognition lure a couple of more people to either film (not that Larry David fans probably aren't already fans of Woody Allen, and not that Kevin Smith films probably already know which new movie is his)? Have you ever been sold on a movie until you got a glimpse of the name at the helm? When? Where? Why?

My, my, the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) has certainly grown up. It seems like it was born only yesterday, and already it's celebrating its eighth edition. This year's festivities got started on Wednesday evening with a "by invitation only" screening of Woody Allen's Whatever Works, the director's first NYC-based film in five years. Only a few members of the press were allowed to attend: three of the four reviews linked at Rotten Tomatoes were negative. Coincidence?

Deals. ESPN picked up TV rights to Jonathan Hock's documentary The Lost Son of Havana, according to indieWIRE, and will broadcast the film in August. The doc follows Luis Tiant, a Major League Baseball pitcher from 1964 to 1982, as he returns to his homeland of Cuba after 46 years of exile. Tiant once said: "We should never forget what has happened to the people in Cuba for forty years."

First Run Features acquired Yoav Shamir's Defamation, and plans a fall release. As reported by indieWIRE, "In the doc, Shamir embarks on a quest to answer the question 'What is anti-Semitism today?'" Ex-paratrooper Shamir previously made the excellent Checkpoint; when his latest debuted at the Berlin fest in February, Howard Feinstein in Screen International praised the director's "lighter approach," calling the film "a well-researched but unapologetically subjective essay."

Our Coverage. Public screenings began on Thursday afternoon, and our own Eric D. Snider caught The Swimsuit Issue, which is "about a group of ordinary men of varying ages and physiques who combine to create Sweden's first all-male synchronized swimming team." He observed: "Hard to believe this and Ingmar Bergman came from the same place." Eric also reviewed Fear Me Not, "a slow-burning psychological thriller" from Denmark, starring Ulrich Thomsen and Paprika Steen.

After the jump: Blog Talk (i.e., what other people are saying.)

The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off tonight with a few changes from years past. The schedule is a little leaner and tighter, and Sundance veteran Geoffrey Gilmore has just arrived at the fest's parent company, Tribeca Enterprises. Having just launched in 2002, the festival is still finding its identity. Good thing we're here to help it look! Cinematical's Erik Davis and yours truly will be covering the festival over the next week. In the meantime, here are seven films we're looking forward to.

Whatever Works
Woody Allen's latest comedy is exciting for two reasons. For one thing, it marks his return to New York after setting his last four films in Europe. For another thing, it stars Larry David, whose famed neurotic pessimism makes him a perfect match for Allen's style. This is Tribeca's opening-night film, accompanied by much ballyhoo and fanfare -- but for some reason, we lowly members of the press aren't able to attend. Our badges get us into most public screenings, but not this one. So, um, we're looking forward to it, and that's all we'll be able to do: look forward to it. It's the kind of situation Larry David would complain about before finding some way to make it worse for himself.

A whole bunch of new movie posters have been unveiled as part of this year's ShoWest conference and convention in Las Vegas, which runs through Thursday. ShoWest is like a trade show for film exhibitors who use this as a way to communicate with studios and the MPAA -- sort of like a 'State of the Union' for all parties involved. Apart from theater-related panels (future of 3D, etc) and a massive convention floor, studios arrive to promote some of their upcoming films, as well as screen entire movies. This year the films being screened in their entirety include The Soloist, The Proposal, Whatever Works and Battle for Terra, among others.

As you can see above, ShoWest is also a place to debut brand new movie posters, and Coming Soon has up a gallery of several -- including Sherlock Holmes, New Moon, Star Trek character shots, Sorority Row, 500 Days of Summer, The Hurt Locker, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and a few others. We highlighted the two we thought you'd be most interested in, but also feel free to hop over to CS' gallery for larger looks at all the new posters. We'll report back if anything sensational happens in Vegas a little later in the week.

Cinematical has just learned that Woody Allen's Whatever Works will open the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, marking Allen's return to New York (and New York filmmaking) since shooting his last few films in Europe (he last shot in NY back in 2004). On debuting his new movie in NYC, the always-brief Allen said, "A lovely idea of showing my film in a film festival in my own city. It's very exciting." The film will premiere on April 22, and the festival will run through May 3.

Though there's no firm synopsis for Whatever Works yet (other than the fact that it's being pegged as a "blackish comedy"), though we do know that it stars Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr. As a big fan of all those involved, I'm itching to see how Larry David delivers Woody Allen dialogue. I can either see them knocking one way out of the ball park or striking out miserably -- there's no way this one will settle somewhere in the middle. And knowing Rachel Wood (and Allen), I'm sure she'll be sexing it up in some way, shape or form. The Sony Pictures Classics film will be released later this summer.

Cinematical will once again provide extensive coverage of this year's Tribeca Film Festival where we'll have a review of Whatever Works to coincide with its premiere. Stay tuned ...