factotum Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Since his Academy Award-nominated turn as a racist cop in Crash, the ever-reliable Matt Dillon has starred as Charles Bukowski's alter-ego in the drama Factotum and played a hapless husband in the disappointing You, Me and Dupree. He also appeared recently in supporting roles in Kevin Bacon's drama Loverboy and opposite Lindsay Lohan in the family comedy Herbie: Fully Loaded. That selection of parts has been typical throughout Dillon's career, as he's moved easily between the independent and studio worlds and is equally at home in both comedies and dramas.

Now The Hollywood Reporter says that he's in final negotiations for two more roles, both crime-related. Dillon will play a detective who intercepts the plans of a group of bank robbers in Bone Deep. The article doesn't say whether Dillon is working for the police or on his own, only that the robbers are trying to pull off a $20 million heist. John Luessenhop is set to direct; he previously made the prison drama Lockdown. I'm hoping Bone Deep will give Dillon a chance to play a sleazy detective, possibly related to his sleazy high school teacher in Wild Things. Few people combine sleaze and charm like Dillon.

Armored features another gang of thieves, this time "armored car guards who plan to empty their truck of $10 million," according to THR. Hmm, does that mean they're more modest than the thieves in Bone Deep? Will the two gangs run into each other while they're trying to get away? No word on what part Dillon would play, but Columbus Short, who just turned down The Green Lantern, will co-star. Nimród Antal (the excellent Kontroll and the surprising Vacancy) will direct. Before those films come out, we can anticipate Dillon in Old Dogs, Nothing But the Truth and Cadillac Records.

The Black Dahlia -- I'm a huge De Palma fan, but I somehow managed to miss this one during its theatrical run. Colleagues who've seen the film assure me to take my time catching up with it. And that makes me sad, kinda. Extras include three featurettes and ... that's it.

The Descent -- The best horror flick of the year finally hits R1 DVD ... even though I've owned the British DVD for about a year now. The good news is that there seems to be all-new goodies on the Lionsgate DVD, which means I'll be dropping another 17 bucks the day after Christmas. Extras include the "unrated" version (which offers the original UK ending), two commentaries, a 45-minute making-of doco, featurettes, outtakes, deleted scenes, etc. If you're a horror fan and you skipped The Descent during its theatrical run, you're forgiven. But buy/rent/borrow this DVD some time soon!

Factotum -- The always-good Matt Dillon goes extra-good in this sobering yet colorful piece of Bukowski-inspired storytelling. Excellent supporting cast boasts strong work from Lili Taylor, Fisher Stevens and Marisa Tomei. Extras include and making-of piece and the theatrical trailer.

Haven -- A bizarrely unsatisfying ensemble piece in which Bill Paxton, Agnes Bruckner, Orlando Bloom, Sarah Carter, Zoe Saldana and Stephen Dillane bounce around the Bahamas, occasionally stopping to pay attention to some stray plot thread. There's one featurette that might help to decipher the confused mess of a movie, but why bother? Oh yeah, Orlando Bloom....

Jackass: Number Two -- More of the same. Some love it, some hate it. The DVD comes with lots of extra footage: unrated stuff, deleted scenes, outtakes, bloopers, commentaries, random craziness, flatulence, etc.

The Last Kiss -- Zach Braff stars in a romantic drama that''s also a remake of an Italian film that's not even five years old. Co-stars include Jacinda Barrett, Rachel Bilson, Marley Shelton and Casey Affleck. Extras include two audio commentaries, four featurettes, deleted scenes, outtakes, and a music video.

Woke up this morning and it seemed to me,
That every night turns out to be
A little more like Bukowski.
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read.
But God who'd wanna be?
God who'd wanna be such an asshole?

-- Modest Mouse, "Bukowski"

Hank Chinaski (Matt Dillon) is drunk. Hank Chinaski is unreliable. Hank Chinaski would like very much to be Henry Chinaski, author. Hank Chinaski is Charles Bukowski -- or, more accurately, served as Bukowski's stand-in for himself in his 1975 novel Factotum. That book is now a movie, and it is a bracing shot-and-a-chaser affair of whisky and stupidity. Directed by Brent Hamer (Eggs and Kitchen Stories) and co-written by Hamer and longtime indie producer Jim Stark, Factotum is a film depicting a man's alcoholic collapse, but it's cut to make it look like he's dancing.
Factotum (briefly defined as "A man who performs many jobs" in a helpful opening title) follows Hank through his days weaving and stumbling about a flat Midwestern cityscape drinking, smoking and writing. Dillon plays Chinaski as befuddled and beefy, like an old-model American muscle car that's been idling a while. Chinaski takes in the world with the infinite patience of the well and truly drunk, and turns it into prose that wears a stout jacket of blue-collar sincerity over a frame of shivering poetry: "The lives people live are driving them crazy, and it comes out in how they drive."

While throwing together this week's Trailer Park, I couldn't help but think back to one of my favorite Wonder Years episodes. See, I was a fanatical Wonder Years fan growing up. I don't think there will ever be another set of characters from a television show with whom I connect with so well. That's right, Kevin Arnold is, and will always be, my childhood hero. Admit it, you're right there with me.

Okay, so if you, like me, are a huge fan of The Wonder Years, then you should immediately remember the episode in question upon reading the following sentence: "Give me some men who are stout-hearted men, who will fight for the right they adore." Did you get it? Glee Club? Season 3, episode 16? A classic! Anyway, the following films are all about men -- stout-hearted men -- who stand up for what they believe in and refuse to give up until the job is done. Well, except, one of them is a tad on the feminine side ... but he's still driven by his passion to succeed. And that's what counts. Welcome to this week's Trailer Park:

 

I heard Bingham Ray talking about this film in the other day. He loved it, he told a friend, and was very proud of Matt Dillon's performance in it. "It's a whole new Matt," Ray assured a skeptical friend. But I'm not sure that's accurate. Look at the path Dillon has trod over the past 25 years: from Over the Edge to Midnight Cowboy, from There's Something About Mary to Crash, I simply don't think it would be a stretch to say that Charles Bukowski is/was/wrote the role that Dillon was born to play. He immerses himself completely into this thing, from the limp to the monotone slur. But Factotum, based on Bukowski's second novel about the slow and sordid misadventures of one Henry Chinaski, isn't just an actor's showcase. By highlighting Bukowski's self-mocking humor, director Bent Hamer turns Chinaski into a much more sympathetic character than the played by Mickey Rourke in Barfly. You don't just feel sorry for this Hank – in fact, at times, you sort of want to have a beer with him.

Factotum the film is more or less faithful to Factotum the book – which is to say, it's less interested in the story it's telling than in the language used to tell it. There's a part where Chinaski tells us, over voiceover, that he's confident that he can outwrite just about anyone – but the image we see, whilst he's telling us this, is of Dillon stumbling down a late night street, and into a sleazy bar. It's the inherent contradiction of the film: Chinaski/Bukowski is perfectly to hold court over his sleazy little world, and to generally approach the trials of existence with a total policy of passive resistance – even though an outplan is easily visible on the other side.

And so he hops from one menial non-career to another: he drives an ice truck (straight to a bar to get drunk) ; he bottles pickles (until he's fired for showing up drunk); he applies for a job as a newspaper reporter and gets one as a janitor (and then skips out on his first shift to – say it with me know – get drunk). All the while, the Great American Novel chugs along, a pile of loose leaf pages scrawled on in longhand, sitting amidst empty bottles on the corner of his desk.

IFC Films just sent around a press release announcing their acquisition of Wordplay, Patrick Creadon's doc on crossword puzzle guru Will Shortz. It's IFC's second buy of the fest, after picking up Bent Hamer's Factotum, and their Jonathan Sehring couldn't be more pleased. "This has been one of the most rewarding Sundance experiences in the history of IFC,” Sehring said. “With our acquiring Factotum at the start and announcing the launch of IFC’s First Take, we felt it couldn’t get any better. Then Wordplay captured the hearts of the entire team, and we simply couldn’t live without it."  IFC hasn't released financial details on the deal, but they did say they plan to release the doc sometime this year.

Factotum, the first English-language film by Norwegian director Bent Hamer, has reportedly been acquired by IFC Films. The film, an adaptation of Charles Bukowski's second novel, stars Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, and Marisa Tomei. Dillon plays Henry Chinaski, a loser obsessed with drinking, sex and gambling (not necessarily in that order) who gets fired from every job he has. Dillon's performance in the film has been lauded - between Factotum and Crash he is staking out a major career revival that could include an Oscar, and Factotum was being buzzed about at Outfest today, so it's not surprising to learn it's been picked up. The film opened last year at Cannes to critical acclaim and his been steadily picking up steam ever since. Karina will have a review up of Factotum by tomorrow.

[ via filmfestivalstv.com ]