WilliamH.Macy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from Bart Got A Room, featuring William H. Macy (complete with awesome Jewfro) and newcomer Steven J. Kaplan. One of my favorite films from last year's Tribeca Film Festival, Bart Got A Room follows one skinny, nerd-ish dude on his quest to find a prom date and secure a hotel room for himself and said prom date, all while navigating his way around two embarrassing parents (played by Macy and Cheryl Hines) and a host of potential female lovers.

Back when I reviewed Bart Got A Room, I called it "a contemporary version of Brighton Beach Memoirs if it featured an only child and was set in South Florida." The film itself is pretty damn funny, and Macy steals the show as a sex-starved divorced dad who has no problem sharing his thoughts with whoever may be in the room. Check him out in the scene below, and make sure you catch a screening of Bart Got A Room when it hits theaters on April 3.

I've always found it tricky to navigate the indie world by trailers alone. Many mundane trailers taint great films, and many decent trailers leave the nagging question: Is it cute in two minutes, but falls flat at an hour-plus? Armed with a great review and the solid trailer above, I don't think we'll have to worry about that with Bart Got a Room.

Unlike the hordes of teen comedies where the kids all look "perfect," the lives seem more Clueless than real, and it's all thrust into the mainstream pop mindset -- a habit that really must die -- Bart Got a Room sets snarky realism against a far-from-flashy South Florida backdrop. There's the obligatory teen trauma: Getting a date for the prom, but as Erik said in his Tribeca review last year: "It's not complex, it's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks, but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun."

And you've gotta feel for a kid (Steven J. Kaplan) who can't find a prom date when the school loser (Bart) can -- which only leads mom (Cheryl Hines) to secure a hotel room for the kid in extreme pity, while dad (William H. Macy) goes on and on about sex. The film hits theaters on April 3.

Get ready Milla Jovovich fans -- on top of her zombie butt-kicking ways, and thrillers in paradise, Variety reports that the actress is entering the already-packed halls of stripperdom by signing on for a new comedy called Keep Coming Back. The film focuses on a young, sheltered (and, well, stupid) guy who joins Alcoholics Anonymous just so he can seduce an alcoholic former stripper (Jovovich).

While the neverending hordes of new stripper films never fails to irk me, there's a silver lining to the story. The film will be the directorial debut of William H. Macy, who will also co-star alongside Jovovich and Steve Buscemi. I imagine neither of these men are the young guy, so we still get to wait and see who gets the honor of breaking into AA for lust.

Man, time flies. I remember the days when Milla's sexy roles were dancing around for George Kuffs and killing time in the paradise of the Blue Lagoon. Will Aldis wrote the screenplay, and the film will jump into production next year.

Disney has Pixar. Fox has Blue Sky. Paramount has, for now, Dreamworks. As seemingly the last studio to get into animated features, Universal has offered up the trailer for their maiden effort, The Tale of Despereaux, over at Yahoo! Movies.

Based upon the 2003 Newbury Award-winning novel by Kate DiCamillo, the film follows the adventurous antics of Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick), a mouse with large ears and - I'm just guessing here - an even bigger heart, as he bucks the status quo of cowardice that seems to have imprisoned his kind to a fearsome existence.

Besides being an animated tale of a brave rodent with a tongue-tricky title and thus fated to merit comparison to those which have recently set lofty standards for similar fare, this project genuinely looks and sounds pleasant enough for all its yay-for-being-yourself familiarity. Besides, there's only more hope to be had when we're looking at a voice cast that includes the likes of Broderick, Kevin Kline, Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Stanley Tucci, William H. Macy, and Tony Hale, not to mention a Harry Potter veteran or two.

With its eye on the year-end holiday season, The Tale of Despereaux is scheduled to hit theaters on December 19th.

Back in March, Jessica shared a script review for Robert Rodriguez's next film -- not the still-suffering Barbarella, but rather Shorts -- a quirky family adventure movie. Now, finally, we've got the cast in place. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jon Cryer and James Spader have jumped on board, joining William H. Macy, Leslie Mann, Jimmy Bennett, Kat Dennings, Trevor Gagnon, Leo Howard, Devon Gearhart, Jake Short, Jolie Vanier, and Rodriguez's super-cute offspring, Rebel Rodriguez.

The descriptions of the movie on THR and the script review are a little different, but the basic gist of the film is about a magic rock in a suburb where everyone works for the Black Box company. Kids find this rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes, and go a bit nuts with it before the adults get their hands on it and things get even crazier. Bennett plays the protagonist, Toe Jackson, Cryer and Mann play his parents, and Dennings plays his older sister. Spader, meanwhile, plays Mr. Black, and Macy plays "the father of a germphobic genius," which I imagine makes him Dr. Noseworthy. If Robert pulls this off with the same spark that Spy Kids held, this could be one fun flick.

Per usual, Rodriguez is involved in many aspects of the film -- he wrote it, is producing with ex Elizabeth Avellan, and will be director of photography, editor, and visual effects supervisor. According to Variety, production is just gearing up in Austin.

I'm happy to say one of the films I was most looking forward to this year actually lived up to my expectations -- and though it's still very early in the festival, Bart Got a Room is easily my personal favorite so far. It's not complex, it's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks, but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun. It's alive, it's colorful, it's got well-written characters and more than a handful of memorable scenes; if I had to describe this film in one sentence, my pitch would go something like: Picture a contemporary version of Brighton Beach Memoirs if it featured an only child and was set in South Florida. That's Bart Got a Room.

Danny's (Steven Kaplan) a skinny Jewish kid with low self-esteem, eccentric, over-protective parents and no prom date. While he can easily take his best friend Camille (Alia Shawkat), Danny would rather take a girl he might have a romantic chance with. Like the pretty, flirtatious blonde cheerleader he carpools with, or the reserved Asian classmate who writes exotic, pornographic poetry. He'd let his friends set him up with "that girl who sleeps around," he'd throw open the phone book and dial up a girl he hasn't seen in years -- all of which makes Danny a man on a mission. And that mission becomes even more complicated (and important) when Bart, the school's biggest loser, not only secures a prom date ... but also a hotel room. Yup ... even Bart got a room.

We're going to have plenty of Tribeca Film Festival coverage here as the festival revs up in the next week. In the meantime, if you're fortunate enough to be headed to the pricey, exclusive fest, Variety has posted a primer to the movies that have a good chance of getting picked up for distribution based on their reception there -- movies that are "piquing interest among execs." Making the list are the William H. Macy comedy Bart Got a Room; a psychological thriller called From Within that sounds oddly similar to this summer's The Happening; a documentary about a senior citizen hip hop dance team called Gotta Dance (also known as Young@Heart 2); Tennessee, a road movie starring Mariah Carey; and 6 others.

Not too much is known about most of these, but I can tell you that Bart Got a Room features the big screen debut of one Brandon Hardesty, who became a YouTube sensation by posting dead-on reenactments of famous movie scenes in which he played all the characters. He's one of the few instances of YouTube popularity that stems from actual talent -- he's an amazing impressionist, and a really funny guy -- so I'm thrilled for him. I hope the movie's good.

Stay tuned for Erik Davis's dispatches from Tribeca, including his own must-see list.

One of the films I'm most looking forward to at this year's Tribeca Film Festival is Bart Got a Room, directed by Brian Hecker (in his feature debut) and starring William H. Macy, Cheryl Hines, Steven Kaplan, Alia Shawkat and Jon Polito. Before I go any further -- I'm sorry, but how awesome does Macy look with that haircut? Only he can pull off the White Man's Fro and do it with style (click on the image to enlarge).

Bart Got a Room centers on any teenage kid's worst nightmare: Imagine the school's biggest dweeb not only secured a date for the prom before you, but he also got a hotel room. That's what happened to Danny (Kaplan), and now he's on a desperate quest to find a date while his divorced parents, Beth and Ernie Stein (Hines and Macy) independently search for love. Oh man, a skinny Jewish kid with major prom anxiety and nutty parents. This film will certainly take me back a few years.

We'll have a full review and interview with writer-director Brian Hecker later on this month. Oh, and when a trailer is available, we'll let you know.

It is hard enough being a nerdy kid searching for love. It is doubly hard to be that kid when you know love sucks and rarely works out. I remember being a teen conflicted by the desire for a date and the constant reminder that divorce is the best-case scenario for what that date will lead to. Now it seems Plum Pictures is making the story of my life, in the indie teen comedy Bart Got a Room. According to Variety, the film will star Steven Kaplan as a nerdy kid living with his parents (William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines) in a retirement community in Hollywood, Florida. At the moment in his life when he's seeking love, or at least a prom date, his parents are going through a divorce. Playing his best friend -- and let me guess also his eventual love interest -- is Alia Shawkat, who is best known as "Maeby" from the best television show ever, Arrested Development. The film is the feature debut of writer-director Brian Hecker and it will be produced by Grace is Gone's Celine Rattray, Galt Niederhoffer and Daniela Taplin Lundberg.

I have to point out -- because my mom reads Cinematical -- that my own parents divorced much, much earlier than my teen years, and I wasn't actually completely traumatized nor did the divorce ruin my ability to find love. So, Bart Got a Room will not parallel my life, though I do think I could relate to it anyway. And I'm sure I won't be alone there. The high school years are probably the most formative time in our lives regarding love and relationships, and certainly we look around us, to our parents, friends and relatives for guidance in how to figure it all out. Certainly a failing marriage in the home could have a negative impact on the experience, and I'm sure that's what Hecker is focusing on here. It kinda reminds me of Sixteen Candles, actually, in that it probably deals with a selfish lack of attention on the parents' part. Of course, with great talents like Macy and Hines at the reigns of Bart's family, we'll hopefully see more concentration on the parents in this than in that.

Welcome back to The Write Stuff! I'm thrilled that there is such a strong interest in screenwriting out there. Thank you all so much for your comments last week, both here and on my site. All of your questions and comments will be addressed in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and keep them coming!

The first interview for the column is with red-hot screenwriter Adam F. Goldberg. Adam is living the dream. He writes for both television and film, and his upcoming movie projects include Fanboys, the live-action Jetsons movie, and They Came from Upstairs. Cinematical spoke with the incredibly busy Goldberg about his scripts, his process, and Goonies: The Musical.

Cinematical: You said you were being "enslaved by a director," what are you working on? And should I call the authorities?

Adam F. Goldberg: Perhaps call them for my hacky writing! It's called They Came From Upstairs for Fox. It's a family movie, kinda like Gremlins -- but with aliens. The spec was written by Mark Burton and was sold for like $1.7 mil. I believe I am making about .0001212 of that. It's been a really cool project. The movie was in pre-production and the studio realized the script wasn't ready and shut it down pretty late in the game. I came aboard to get the train back on the tracks which is always high pressure and very difficult to do. I handed in 40 pages and they re-greenlit the movie and we're casting and location scouting now. I'm on draft two currently, working next to the director and bringing his vision into it.

Cinematical: Is that an awkward process at all -- being brought in to re-write a fellow writer? Do you ever run into hurt feelings or bruised egos? I guess the $1.7 million makes the pill easier to swallow.

AFG: Well, I come from the TV world, writing on sitcoms and that's very collaborative. You have to sit in the room and watch 10 other writers tear apart your script right in front of you. That bruises your ego. As for movies, more often than not a writer can only go so far and it's your job to bat clean up. It's never a great feeling to have your screenplay rewritten, but hopefully you've moved onto your next project, so it doesn't sting so much. And believe me, that $1.7 payday is like winning the lottery. I hope I can sell a spec one day. I've had little luck in that department.