bill pullman Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Maybe I just follow far too many movie nerds on Twitter to get an accurate reading on this, but did Independence Day turn around and become an honest-to-goodness movie staple over the Fourth of July holiday while I wasn't looking?

I mean, I get that it was huge when it landed on said weekend back in 1996, and I know that President Pullman's speech (embedded below) is quotable as all get out -- though extra points to the pal who instead posted "Eagle-20! Fox-2!" -- but I usually see war movies and TV show marathons as go-to fodder for the 4th, however less fitting their titles may be.

So how many of you actually did watch ID4 yesterday? How long had it been since you watched it? How fond of it were you thirteen years back? Did you watch it because it harkens back to a big, loud, relatively healthy level of cheese that we used to get from our blockbusters, back when we could see what exactly was going on in any given action scene? Or was it simply a more welcome/convenient option than going to see a third Ice Age or a two-and-a-half-hour gangster drama, or perhaps a memorial to the late Jeff Goldblum?

Comment away!

Surveillance may involve three separate interviews about the same event, but Rashomon it most certainly is not. Ascertaining the truth through multiple narratives is certainly central to Jennifer Lynch's long-delayed follow-up to 1993's polarizing Boxing Helena. The three accounts provided, however, aren't juxtaposed or in real conflict; rather, they coalesce to form a tale about the fateful affairs that led FBI agents Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Hallaway (Bill Pullman) to a middle-of-nowhere New Mexico police station to investigate a horrific crime. That offense is initially shrouded in mystery, with details elucidated slowly through the agents' briefing and subsequent interviews – conducted simultaneously by Anderson and local cops, and monitored via closed-circuit video feeds by Hallaway – of the surviving eyewitnesses: traumatized 12-year-old Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins), defiant junkie Bobbie (Pell James) and combative officer Bennet (Kent Harper). It's the set-up for a rather routine procedural. Yet in a development that will stun no one who's seen Boxing Helena or any of her father's films, Lynch isn't interested in straightforward genre mundanity, and even during Hallaway's first appearance – his face twitchy, his speech halting, his eyes nervous and his comportment slightly askew – there's an underlying sense that this ordinary reality is somehow off-kilter, corrupted.

They say that the music makes the man.

Actually, no, They don't, but I do, and by "man," I mean "movie". And it isn't so much that the work of composer Paul Oakenfold single-handedly undoes Nobel Son but rather unwittingly serves an accomplice to creating one aggressively atonal crime caper. His thumping techno beats are more fitting for the likes of Swordfish -- indeed, they were at the time -- and maybe more so when accompanying a night of relentless thrusting and occasional pill-popping in Ye Local Nightclub, an activity of more potential enjoyment than sitting through this movie instead. Either way, you'd end up lots of noise, plenty of flash, and little to show for it other than a lasting headache and a lingering sense of regret.

Arriving at my place of lodging shortly before 3:00 a.m. very late on Saturday night (or early this Sunday morning), it felt like a short night at Fantastic Fest. That's not to say that everybody parties until dawn, but with three (sometimes four) screens pumping out a steady stream of genre flicks all day long -- some of which don't start until well past midnight -- Fantastic Fest attendees might be forgiven for losing track of "normal" hours.

That's what happened to me on Friday night, which stretched well into Saturday morning. But before that craziness ensued, there were the films, and I got to see a typically odd combination, beginning with Ole Bornedal's Just Another Love Story. One of two productions that the Danish director made last year, Just Another Love Story plays like While You Were Sleeping on acid, which is basically how Alamo Drafthouse / Fantastic Fest programmer Zack Carlson described it in his introduction. A family man is mistaken for the boyfriend of an accident victim in a coma. When she wakes up, the deception ensues.

Rather than romantic comedy hijinks, Just Another Love Story pushes quickly into dark dramatics and the fantasy of a mid-life crisis before circling back around to the territory inhabited by Jonathan Demme's Something Wild. I followed that up with The Substitute, also directed by Bornedal, which was a big box office success in Denmark. It's easy to see why. The terrific Paprika Steen lets her hair down, so to speak, as a farmer's wife who is possessed by an alien life form.

Your enjoyment of Your Name Here might depend on your tolerance for mind-bending narratives and acid-trip weirdness. Mine is low, I'll tell you that up front. But "Your Name Here" deserves credit for being different, and Bill Pullman's central performance is probably the most bizarre and demanding of his career.

Written and directed by first-timer Matthew Wilder, our story is set in Los Angeles in July 1974, when a trippy sci-fi writer named William J. Frick (Pullman) -- clearly modeled after Philip K. Dick -- is informed that he owes more than $100,000 in back taxes. If he could finish his latest novel, he could probably pay the bill. Trouble is, he's stuck on putting into words the spiritual epiphany he had on March 2, which he wants to incorporate into the story.

That's about the last part of the film that makes any kind of normal sense. Next thing you know, Frick is being approached by Nikki (Taryn Manning), a hot actress -- "the poor man's Ali McGraw," someone calls her -- who wants him to help her with the disaster epic she's currently shooting. Then Frick is being hurried onstage somewhere to accept an award. Then Frick is in the balcony, watching a version of himself deliver a spiel to an audience. Then Frick is being threatened by Kroger (M. Emmet Walsh), a government operative who demands to read Frick's account of the March 2 thing. Frick insists if they'd just let him go, he could go home and WRITE it, but that's not an option.

While David Lynch prepares to team up with Werner Herzog to make a guerilla-style murder drama, his daughter is doing quite well on her own, thank you very much. indieWIRE reports that Surveillance, the first film by Jennifer Chambers Lynch in 15 years, has been picked up by Magnet Releasing for distribution in the US. The thriller will be playing out of competition at Cannes next week in one of the three Midnight screening slots.

Surveillance is set in the Santa Fe desert, where a blood-curdling killing spree has been unleashed, according to the official synopsis. The FBI arrives and listens to three eyewitnesses, including an eight-year-old girl whose family was brutally murdered. It becomes clear that the little girl knows something about the FBI agents ... and then two more bodies are found.

Creepy, eh? But not nearly as creepy as Lynch's first film, Boxing Helena, in which a surgeon held a woman captive and started amputating her limbs, all in the name of love. Based on the premise, Surveillance sounds much more straightforward, but perhaps the younger Lynch has some surprises up her sleeve.

The film stars Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman (David Lynch's Lost Highway) as the FBI agents, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, and Kent Harper as the witnesses, and Michael Ironside as the local police chief. French Stewart and Cheri Oteri are also featured. Harper co-wrote the script with Lynch. Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, plans a fall theatrical roll-out.

We found out from Erik back in February that Ellen Page is becoming a mom for the upcoming weird psychological thriller Peacock, which will co-star Cillian Murphy. Now Variety reports that three more have joined the cast -- Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman, and Josh Lucas. (Who they will play has not been revealed.) This film is sounding better by the minute!

If you remember back, this story focuses on Peacock, Nebraska, where Murphy's character has a split personality -- a man and wife. That's not quite as weird as the fact that he fools the whole town into believing that there are two people. (I guess this is some sort of Clark Kent/Superman thing where no one notices that they're never at the same place at once.) Anyway, Page plays a young mom "who holds the key to his past and sparks a battle between the personalities."

Oh, but it gets better. The description with this story says: "a quiet bank clerk's (Murphy) life is shattered by a train crashing into his back yard revealing a woman living there." (Page, perhaps?) A train crashes onto his lawn? Revealing a woman living there? Umm... Is there some bomb shelter? Is his back yard just really, really cluttered? I don't get it. Whatever the case, it sounds like an insanely interesting story.

One of my favorite films from Sundance, Phoebe in Wonderland, is set to open the 10th RiverRun International Film Festival, according to indieWIRE. The film, which stars Elle Fanning, Felecity Huffman, Patricia Clarkson and Bill Pullman, is about Phoebe (Fanning), a little girl struggling with behavioral problems and relating to others.

Phoebe finds hope through her eccentric drama teacher (Clarkson), who casts her as the lead in the school's production of Alice in Wonderland. Meanwhile her parents (Huffman and Pullman) struggle with balancing their work with their family life, and with accepting that raising their daughters to be creative and non-conformist also means accepting Phoebe as she is, and helping her navigate her way through the world.

Oh, Taryn Manning. Sure, she occasionally tackles a different role here and there, but for the most part, she's made her career on a mixture of cinematic drugs, sex, and hooking over and over again. It's gotten to the point where you kind of wonder if that's what her career will amount to. But maybe it'll change now that's she trading in the needles for some flashy robotics. She is co-starring with Bill Pullman in the recently-wrapped Your Name Here, which Cinematical first told you about last year. (Note: The Matthew Wilder who wrote and directed this film is not the music guy.)

It's sort of a biography of Philip K. Dick, but it's being done sort of like Fur -- using his writing and fake world rather than being a straight-out biopic. (Pullman's name in the movie is William J. Frick.) MTV recently talked with the actress and got the scoop on the movie, which is currently being submitted for next year's Sundance. She plays Nikki, who is based on Victoria Principal (the woman Dick wanted to play the lead in Blade Runner).

As Manning describes it, Frick is "infatuated with my character... she starred in that movie Earthquake, and he is obsessed with her even though he has a wife. All around his office you see pictures of me. One day, he does a huge line, and the next thing you know he's in the back of a limo, and there I am!" Well, there she is as a robot. Manning says Frick "can't tell if it's a dream or I'm really there, and the next thing you know, I'm taking him into my world. [He thinks] we're going to live happily ever after." It's zany enough that it could actually be entertaining, and if Taryn is believed, it will be: "It's deep; the writer is great; and it's kooky. I think it'll be another cool cult movie."

Too bad for fans of the book Judgement of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tastings That Revolutionized Wine. Its adaptation might be overshadowed in the same way that Infamous was overshadowed by Capote. Of the dueling films about the 1976 Paris Tastings, Bottle Shock seems to be taking the lead. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film begins shooting August 1 and it has just announced its principal cast. Meanwhile, I haven't heard much about Judgement in six months, despite the fact that it is supposedly the 'official' film about the event and had originally appeared to have the higher profile. However, according to Decanter.com, which has been following the clashing projects, Judgement producers Elizabeth Fowler and Clark Peterson are looking into suing the makers of Bottle Shock. So, maybe it is still too early to tell which film will hit theaters first.

Bottle Shock is not based on any book, but the project was commissioned by Jim and Bo Barrett, who own the Napa property Chateau Montelena. Montelena surprised many by coming in first in the blind Chardonnay tasting in 1976, which really put California vineyards on the map. The film will feature a varied ensemble of actors, including Bill Pullman as the owner of Montelena and Chris Pine as his son, who saves the winery by entering it into the tasting event. Alan Rickman has been cast as Steven Spurrier, the English wine merchant who organized the event, though his character could have a different name if Fowler and Peterson do in fact own all rights to the man's life story. Also in the cast are Elisha Eliza Dushku, who will play a bartender, and Transformers' Rachael Taylor, who will play an intern at the winery. The original script for Bottle Shock, by Ross Schwartz, has been rewritten by Randall M. Miller and Jody Savin, and Miller will be directing the film.