abel ferrara Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Werner Herzog's new film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has raised all kinds of hackles, mainly over the "remake" issue. Some movie buffs are crying foul over the remaking of Abel Ferrara's classic Bad Lieutenant (1992), including Ferrara himself, who launched some famously acid comments in the press. This fuss has caused most critics to address the issue of how closely the two films resemble one another. In most cases, critics have concluded that the two films are entirely different with totally different feels and approaches.

Frankly, I'm fascinated by the two films, given that both directors are crazy mavericks, both indulging in their looniest personal whims, no matter what the cost or the outcome. This is not a remake in which anyone is concerned with "staying true to the material" or anything boring like that. Ferrara went nuts on his original film, and Herzog has gone nuts on the new film. Herzog has claimed that he never even saw Ferrara's film, and indeed, it more closely resembles his own earlier films with Klaus Kinski, with Nicolas Cage playing the part of the unhinged, psychopathic terror onscreen. (Most people I have spoken to have compared Cage's performance with some of his earlier, more extreme work, such as Vampire's Kiss).

You just never know what Hollywood is going to give us. First, we get the rarely emotive Keanu Reeves set to take on the world of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which wasn't an idea that pleased many readers. Almost a week later, we're getting another remake of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and this cast might surprise you more than the first -- although it's still sure to be better. Variety reports that Abel Ferrara is re-imagining the story into a contemporary setting, calling it Jekyll and Hyde, and getting Forest Whitaker and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson to star. (To be fair: Fangoria got the scoop a few weeks ago.)

Variety just says they'll play "the lead roles," but the Fangoria link fills in the particulars. While I would love to see Whitaker really command the role and both Jekyll and Hyde, which I'm sure he could do with ease) Ferrara is, sadly, splitting up the duties. Whitaker will play Jekyll, while 50 Cent plays Hyde. Nicholas De Cegli, who also grabs a role, said: "It's gonna be played totally straight. In this movie, it's the rich white people who get terrorized, and I'm going to be playing one of those white guys."

It sounds interesting, but I'm still wishing we could see Whitaker grab both and command the world of split personalities. But what do you think about this new reimagining?

Finished with my jury responsibilities, I managed to check out some features. A favorite of mine was Chelsea on the Rocks, by Abel Ferrara (director of Bad Lieutenant and a terrific little mob flick called The Funeral). It's a documentary about the infamous Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, but it's far from traditional. There are lots of odd transitions and edits, the interviews are beyond casual (Ferrara says something along the lines of "No shit!" every ten seconds while listening to the stories of those living in the building), and there are some utterly ridiculous and unnecessary re-enactments of notorious events in the hotel's past (actors play Sid and Nancy, Janis Joplin, and assorted hangers-on). Truth be told, the whole thing was kind of a mess. But watching it felt a lot like spending a night in the hotel, and it's a ride I'm glad I took. I didn't learn a thing, but it brought me inside a place full of fascinating characters, a place I walked past countless times in Manhattan without a second thought.

My fellow jurors and I selected our short film winners yesterday, but I can not share any results until the award ceremony next weekend. You likely wouldn't know any of the titles anyway, but I can pretty much guarantee you will see the filmmakers' names again in the coming years -- some big talents in the mix. There's a party every night here, and I've been having a blast. One of my favorite past-times has been playing a game I call "Hooker/Not a Hooker." Pretty self-explanatory, basically you try to decide which gals are on the payroll, and which aren't. Here's a hint: If she's gorgeous, 22- years-old and hanging off the arm of a 400-pound dude with a combover ... she's available.

I checked out Get Smart yesterday, at an event for The Rock, excuse me, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, excuse me, Dwayne Johnson's charity. Johnson introduced the film and told the audience that "Steve Carell has very soft lips," which made a lot more sense once we watched the flick. For the most part, I agree with Eric's review. It was no masterpiece, but it was just funny and entertaining enough to have been worth the time. Steve Carell can elevate just about anything, and Alan Arkin was hilarious. Now that I've got more free time, I hope to pry myself away from the video poker (currently $45 in the red) and the pool (my skin is also "in the red") and check out some of the more indie-leaning films screening here. Abel Ferrara's Go-Go Tales screens tonight, and I don't think I can pass up that title. Right now there's yet another two-hour "happy hour" starting, so ah...talk to you later!

Things weren't so peaceful in the movie buff land when word got out a few weeks ago that Werner Herzog plans to remake Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage in the lead role. Even noted trash auteur Abel Ferrara publicly complained about having his work redone. Bad Lieutenant isn't anybody's idea of a good time: Harvey Keitel puts on a freakishly raunchy performance. Still, it definitely sounds like Herzog's pumped about the gig. Defamer cornered the director in New York today for a few questions about the project, and the responses are kind of amazing. Herzog tends to do a great job of explaining himself, no matter what crazy scheme he has cooked up, but the best part of this interview arrives when the guy claims utter cluelessness about Ferrara's work. Way to stick it to the source material.

To hear Herzog tell it, his version of Bad Lieutenant isn't a remake, although he wouldn't know, since it sounds like hasn't actually seen the original. However, he says that Cage's character's name and the plot are entirely new. Herzog apparently liked the "very, very dark story," written by William M. Finkelstein, and he can't wait to work with Cage (given Herzog's notorious appreciation of Anna Nicole Smith, this last bit actually makes sense). Hearing about Ferrara's discontent, Herzog just eggs him on: "Let him fight the windmills, like Don Quixote." It's a feud made in heaven, almost too good to be true. You might just call it ecstatic truth.

Top: Early poster art for the new 'Bad Lieutenant,' snapped at the Cannes Film Festival last month.

As soon as this story hit, I had to check to make sure a) it wasn't April 1st, and b) we all still lived on the planet Earth. Yes, I'm not kidding about this one -- The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Werner Herzog is remaking Abel Ferrara's gritty, NC-17-rated cult classic,Bad Lieutenant, and none other than Nicolas Cage is going to star. Nic Cage! Werner Herzog! Am I the only one who's completely blown away by this bizarre news? (Though, to be fair, we did kinda see this coming ...)

Cage will take on the role originally played by Harvey Keitel; he'll slip into the part of a drug and sex-addicted corrupt cop, though there's no word on how far they'll take this version of the film. However, exec producer Avi Lerner did promise this new take will "deliver as much filth as the original." Wonderful! We'll look forward to it Avi! Nu Image/Millennium Films will finance, with Pressman Film Corp. producing. When asked about his opinion on this new project, Cinematical snark expert Scott Weinberg said "Awesome, let's hope it's as funny as his last remake. The Wicker Man as a comedy ... brilliant!" (Oh man, this is such a nasty, nasty film.)

Okay, now it's your turn: I know you folks are dying to sound off on this one below ...

It has been 15 years since the release of Abel Ferrara's controversial film, Bad Lieutenant, but the LA Times reports that Producer Edward R. Pressman is looking to update the film by using, "...the raw material of the original film and weave it into 21st century, post- 9/11 New York". The original starred Harvey Keitel as the unnamed NY policeman, a drug and gambling addict who finds redemption while investigating the rape of a nun. The film was written by actress-model Zoë Tamerlis Lund and Abel Ferrara. The producers brought in Billy Finkelstein last year to rework the script, with the working title, Bad Lieutenant '08. Finkelstein has turned in scripts for a variety of crime TV; including Law and Order and NYPD Blue. Some the changes that Pressman and company have planned for the script are the addition of a back story of the lieutenant character, as well as finally giving their lead character a name: Terence McDonough.

While the original was famous for shocking audiences with scenes of misogyny, drugs, violence, and all kinds of bad behavior, Finkelstein told the LA Times that, "I don't know that the same sorts of things that caused us to sit up and take notice 15 years ago are necessarily gonna have the same effect now." The man has a point, but it doesn't get much more disturbing than Harvey Keitel doing full-frontal nudity. Neither Keitel or Ferrara are attached to the film, but Pressman said that he has spoken to both of them about the update. So what do you think? Is Lieutenant due for an update? Or will this be just another in a long series of bad remake ideas?

[via Big Screen Little Screen]

It should be a green-tie affair at the opening night gala of this year's Tribeca Film Festival. The event, happening April 25, will be hosted by Al Gore and is set to feature some entertainment that will focus on the global warming issue. This entertainment is part of a partnership with the SOS (Save Our Selves) Campaign, which raises climate crisis awareness and will include live performances from some of the artists participating in SOS' Live Earth concert series happening on July 7. The acts set for the gala weren't revealed, but some of those involved with the Live Earth shows include Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Mayer, John Legend, Black Eyed Peas, Korn and Melissa Etheridge, who recently won an Oscar for the song she wrote for the Gore-featured documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Also, the night will include the premiere of seven short films, each of which deals with the problems and the solutions of the crisis and each of which is shorter than ten minutes. The directors and titles of these shorts were not yet revealed either, because the seven showcased films have not been chosen yet. They will be selected by the festival's planners from the 60 shorts that were commissioned by SOS. Some of the filmmakers who participated include Jonathan Glazer, Kevin Macdonald, Abel Ferrara, Amy Berg, Ari Sandel, the doc duo Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady and someone from Aardman Animation (Peter Lord? Nick Park?). It isn't completely made clear, but it seems that all 60 of the commissioned films will be shown during the Live Earth event. So, if you can't make it to New York City for the world premiere of the seven shorts, you can see at least those if not all of them at one of the concerts (so far the only locations announced are Shanghai, Sydney, London and Johannesburg, while the cities in the U.S., Brazil, Japan and Antarctica are TBA). I probably won't be able to attend the gala or one of the concerts, so hopefully there will be another place for me to see the films. After all, this is the best news for shorts fans since Cannes' announced its own opening night compilation.

I remember the first time I heard of Abel Ferrara. Well, it wasn't him so much as his movie, Bad Lieutenant. I was in high school, and my friend came into school one morning traumatized. She had just seen her first instance of on-screen junk by means of full-frontal Harvey Keitel. But that's Mr. Ferrara for you -- he's the man who also has Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy(Cat) under his belt. It seems that he's quite taken with the city, since he's gearing up for another Italian film after just wrapping the comedy Go-Go Tales, which Chris Ullrich posted about last November.

Variety is now reporting that he is set to shoot a $4 million mob noir film based on an Italian best-seller by Giuseppe Ferrandino, Pericle il Nero -- which translates into Pericles the Black Man. According to Umberto Massa, the film's producer, it will revisit Bad Lieutenant in a Neapolitan setting. The producer also says of the film: "The cop, who works for a Naples Camorra crime syndicate boss, is a very disturbed man who sometimes sodomizes his victims." Lovely, eh? As for the rest, it's up in the air. Not only has casting not been decided (other than that it will feature US and Italian stars), but they haven't figured out which language they want to film it in. Since they plan to start shooting in September, I'm assuming they'll figure it all out soon enough.

Oh Abel Ferrara, you crazy so-and-so. How I've loved your masterful, yet often flawed, visions of the dark side in films like King of New York, The Addiction and, of course, Bad Lieutenant. I even thought your attempt at Sci-Fi with Body Snatchers was, in many ways, superior to the earlier versions. Plus, the film had that super-cute Gabrielle Anwar in it so that didn't hurt either. She's so much more pleasant to look at than Harvey Keitel's junk -- so kudos on that casting decision.

Ferarra's movies have shown me the darker side of life and through his eyes I've gained a deeper appreciation for what makes the world the way it is -- warts and all. After all this exploration of the seedy underbelly, how was I to know that for all these years, what he really wanted to do was get away from all the "darker side of life" crap and make a screwball comedy? That's something I really didn't see coming. But apparently, according to Production Weekly, its true because as of Monday, Ferrara began principal photography on the film Go Go Tales -- which is, you guessed it, a screwball comedy.

The film, which Ferrara also co-wrote with Scott Pardo, tells the story of one night at Ray Ruby's Paradise, a classy go-go club/ cabaret in Manhattan where dreamers come to dream and try to make their mark in society. It's the home of the world's most beautiful and talented strippers, who work at the club honing their skills and waiting for their shot at super-stardom. Joining Ferarra on the project as actors in the film are Willem Dafoe as club owner Ray Ruby, Bob Hoskins, Matthew Modine and the lovely and talented Asia Argento. Man, as much as I like Ferrara and respect his talent, he just doesn't quite fit as the director of a comedy. That said, I like the man's previous films, this story, and the cast -- so put it all together and it might just add up to something. Besides, Abel Ferrara and a bevy of hot strippers should at least pique your curiosity, don't you think?

The film will shoot for a month at Rome's Cinecitta Studios and then will move to New York in January.