assassination of a high school president Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Film noir can be painful when it's done poorly, but overall, there really doesn't seem to be enough of it out there. Sometimes, you get something as straight-faced and reverent as Brick, and at others, you get goofy-but-affectionate riffs on the genre like Assassination of a High School President and South of Heaven.

So it's nice to hear something about The Missing Person out of Sundance or, in today's case, a title called The Perfect Sleep. Twitch, as reliable a geek barometer as any, has shared the trailer with us, and I suspect that we're looking at a stylish return to that "straight-faced and reverent" thing I was just bringing up. A nameless man (screenwriter Anton Pardoe) looking to fight his way through thugs and assassins alike to get back to that one dame (Roselyn Sanchez, and who can blame him?) -- can you get more noir than that?

Sleep apparently opens in Los Angeles on March 13th, with its New York bow to follow a week after and Chicago, Dallas, and Portland after that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find out what my Orlando contacts know about a missing movie...

Coming up on the new year, it's interesting to see which films we had thought would've been released by this point. In the summer of 2007, I recall myself and several colleagues showing up for a press screening of Jonathan Levine's lauded slasher, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, only to discover it was canceled just that morning and the film had been sold from the Weinstein Company to Senator that afternoon. (The film has since landed at Sony, whose indie arm, Sony Classics, already saw Levine's follow-up, The Wackness, to a proper theatrical reception.)

At least the Weinsteins gave something up for a change. The oft-shuffled Killshot and Fanboys are tentative January and February releases at the moment, respectively, and I just want to see for myself if The Poughkeepsie Tapes has been worthy of its modest reputation following a BNAT '07 screening -- the same BNAT that featured the reportedly sweet Trick 'r Treat that WB continues to hoard.

A perhaps more morbid curiosity has me keeping an eye on Paramount's Case 39, just to see if it's really that bad, and who knows what similar straits Assassination of a High School President, The Accidental Husband (originally last March), and Possession (originally last February) are in following Yari Film Group's bankruptcy -- not that I have much invested in the last two, but Assassination is a perfectly release-worthy noir take-off that deserves a home.

So what do you guys and girls think? Which of these are you most dying to see? What was the longest you ever waited to catch something, and were you ultimately disappointed or satisfied by the time it came your way?

I already like the sound of this one: After taking a puff alongside the school stoner, a high school valedictorian decides to get the whole student body stoned, enough so for them to collectively fail the same drug test he finds himself up against.

That's the thrust behind the new comedy High School, which looks to begin production in early November, and according to this Variety notice, Adrien Brody (The Brothers Bloom) has signed on to play a drug dealer, while Michael Chiklis (Eagle Eye) will take up the role of principal, a move that'll likely play to his stoic strengths. (Bruce Willis worked wonders with a similar part in the still unreleased Assassination of a High School President; a greater pity because it's a fairly fun little flick overall.)

There is only so much else left to say about the project. It'll be directed by John Stalberg Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay with Stephen Susco (of the Grudge films) and... that's really about it for now, though -- dare I suggest -- Stalberg and Susco still have time to throw the word 'Musical' into that title somewhere and simply wait for the money to roll in. Either way, it sounds like a shortage of green will be the least of their worries.

One of the many comedies debuting at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Assassination of a High School President is a school-set spoof of film noir, with school paper journalist Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) going from outcast to in-crowd when he dopes out who's been lifting SAT papers from the administration's office. Funke hits the means, motive and opportunity triple play and pins the thefts on student council president and basketball star Paul Moore (Patrick Taylor); his article earns him a coveted internship with Northwestern's journalism program and the affections of Moore's ex, Francesca (Mischa Barton). It's all looking good. Until it isn't. Funke learns new facts that make his sure-thing story look shaky; Northwestern is calling to fact-check the story, and if they find holes, his internship's over before its begun. But Funke's ready to walk the mean halls of St. Donovan's and scour the Jersey suburbs to get the story right. ...

Many critics and observers have already pigeonholed Assassination of a High School President as"Brick played for laughs." And yeah, that's a fairly simplistic assessment; then again, Assassination of a High School President's a fairly simplistic film. Written by ex-South Park production assistants Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski (and between this film and Hamlet 2, it's interesting how the road to Park City, Utah seems to have had an on-ramp in South Park, Colorado this year), Assassination never quite clicks as a total experience. Yes, it's amusing when Thompson, in his self-celebrating inner monologue, says he'll be on the case " ... like pink rubber bands on your sister's braces." And director Brett Simon finds lively, well-shot moments of visual excitement in the clichés of high school life: detention is shot like the big house, a party sequence moves and grooves with giddy chaos. But Assassination has a meandering plot line that dithers when it should drive forward, and lingers at times it should leap ahead. As Funke works leads, we get scenes that expand the running time instead of advance the plot. And yes, holding this film's central pitch up to the life-and-death stakes of Brick -- one of the best films I've ever seen in seven years of attending Sundance -- is going to make the funny-and-goofy stakes of Assassination seem slighter in comparison.

When Mischa Barton was unceremoniously killed off the teen soap, The OC; I think most of us thought this was her chance to transform her teen stardom into a successful movie career. So far that hasn't happened, and I personally doubt her latest role is going to do anything to change that. Variety reports Barton has signed to star in the psychological thriller Walled In. The story centers on "a demolition company rep who supervises the razing of a mysterious building and discovers horrifying secrets and past inhabitants entombed within its walls by a vicious murderer". Based on the French novel Les Emmeures by Serge Broselot, Barton will play the demolition company rep -- and is it just me, but when you think commercial demolition and construction, someone who looks like Barton doesn't exactly come to mind?

Joining Barton are Deborah Kara Unger (Silent Hill) and Cameron Bright (Juno -- you can catch Scott's TIFF review of that film here) and set to direct is French helmer Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Gomez and Tavare). This will be the first English-language feature for Brenner, who also helped adapt the novel for the screen. Barton has been piling on the projects lately, having signed for the caper film St. Trinian's back in May and she also just finished the drama Finding t.A.T.u. Barton is still hard at work on the high school comedy Assassination of a High School President with Bruce Willis. Walled In is a French-Canadian co-production and is scheduled to start shooting on October 22nd, in the most glamorous of all Canadian locations: Saskatchewan (believe me, it's funnier if you are a Canadian).

Once he's finished playing John McClane for a fourth time, Bruce Willis will be going back to school ... as a high school principal, that is. The Los Angeles Times tells us that Willis has signed on to play a supporting role in Assassination of a High School President, based off a script from newbie scribes (and former South Park assistants) Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski. Pic, which the Times describes as "a riff on JFK, All the President's Men and Robert Towne's neo-noir classic [Chinatown]," apparently revolves around a bullied high school journalist who's investigating the theft of the school's SAT exams.

Of course, this SAT controversy will most certainly lead to conspiracy theories and, I imagine, the assassination of the school's class President. Says Jakubowski, "Everything mattered so much when you were in high school - that's your world. And something that would happen to a student council president is as big as if the actual president was assassinated." Willis will play a Desert Storm veteran-turned-Catholic school principal -- the kind of guy who refers to his students as "filth." Picture the first half of Full Metal Jacket set in a high school, and you get the idea. Though it was one of the "most-liked screenplays late last year," the plot obviously delves into some sensitive territory, what with the recent Virginia Tech tragedy.

Right now, there's no word on whether the two writers will have to alter their script because of the shooting that took place on that campus (God knows rushing to greenlight a school shooting-type flick wouldn't exactly be the PC thing to do), but here's hoping they weather the storm and stay the course. Apart from Willis, ladies like Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan are showing interest in the film's "femme fatale," Francesca. Music video helmer Brett Simon will make his directorial debut, and the Yari Film Group (who optioned the script last fall) plan to begin production this July.