frank langella Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Tempted though I may be to do so, I won't take credit for Warners' moving up the release of Richard Kelly's hopefully good The Box after I blathered on about it for too long and then some last month. According to BOM, the thriller is now scheduled to open on October 30th and just opposite Saw VI -- and between us, if it was between either the fifth Saw sequel or a title with both Richard Kelly and Richard Matheson's names on it, my moviegoing dollar would surely find its way to the latter.

Going instead into the newly vacated 11/25 slot is the Wachowski-produced Ninja Assassin, helmed by James McTeigue (V for Vendetta, the third act of The Invasion) and starring that guy Stephen Colbert hates so much. Not much has come of that film beyond a "we're making it!" press conference -- no trailer, no poster, no nuthin' -- but the film has been formally rated R for "strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language," which suggests that the film is completed.

And when you have a completed film on your hands, you generally release it. (And then this'll be the part where the "More You Know" star will shoot overhead...)

Last month, I weighed aloud the notion of relocating oft-delayed con man crime caper The Brothers Bloom just one more time, to somewhere out from under the shadows of many May blockbusters. Summit's reaction to that piece was prompt yet delicate -- they merely blackmailed Universal into moving Bruno away from Bloom's NY/LA bow.

This time around, my latest open letter to futility is being CC'ed to Warner Bros., as my concern now lies with the latest move of Richard Kelly's bumped-and-then-some thriller, The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as a couple forced to weigh the cost of one life against a chance at considerable wealth. (In other words, they get to slip into the shoes of Hollywood executives.)

Ladies and gentlemen, may I now present you with the most horrific rumor of the day -- that, according to those super sleuths over at In Touch magazine, Johnny Depp's name is at the top of the list to star in a new Three Stooges film directed by The Farrelly Brothers. And if that's not asinine enough for you, they also note that Sean Penn could join him. Yup. An "insider" says, "They want Johnny to play Moe and Sean Penn will be Larry -- they're still looking to cast Curly." OH, I have an idea for Curly -- how about Frank Langella ... while we're being absurd and unrealistic here.

I can't imagine there being any truth to this rumor -- although stranger things have happened, and Depp certainly knows how to play up the kooky, doofus roles (see: Pirates of the Caribbean). But Sean Penn? I'm sure he'd rather stab himself through the brain with a shotgun smeared in elephant dung ... unless he'd be doing this one "for his kids." This does bring up a good question for you folks, though: Who do you cast in the iconic roles of Moe, Larry and Curly in a 2009 Three Stooges flick? The easy answer, of course, is no one (as in leave the Three Stooges alone), but since they're obviously keen on bringing these characters back to the big screen, who could you see starring?

[via JustJared]

"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore ..."
-- Richard Nixon, on his 1962 loss to Pat Brown for the Governorship of California

That statement turned out, of course, not to be true; we would have Nixon to kick around for decades more. That statement also concealed a different truth, which is that Nixon -- the hunched, scowling, puritan-satyr of American politics -- could not only take a beating, but also dish one out. Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard's film adaptation of Peter Morgan's stage play, kicks Nixon around, but it also lets him kick back, as TV personality (not journalist or reporter, but personality) David Frost faces Nixon in a series of 1977 interviews for an ambitious, expensive and poorly-planned multi-night TV broadcast. Why would Nixon agree to an on-camera inquisition? Because Frost paid him -- $600,000 -- for the chance to do so, and because Nixon thought it might be a chance to re-emerge from his exile after resigning the presidency in 1974. Two men, their careers in decline, circling each other for a shot at redemption: Frost (Michael Sheen) is wagering his fortune on the chance to re-make his reputation; Nixon (Frank Langella), with neither reputation or fortune, is desperate for a chance to escape infamy.

But Frost/Nixon is not simply the equivalent of Thunderdome for readers of The Nation, where two men enter and one man leaves. Morgan's script is smart enough to make sure there are things hidden under that clash, a quieter film about character and communication, modern media and ancient principles. And we also get the interview field of combat, which drapes the slick surface of modern manners over the kind of brute, bloody battle you normally see only in nature documentaries. The film, like Frost's interviews, is not merely about Watergate -- which is good, because we have, I should think, drained that well of venality fairly dry -- but instead about bigger issues of accountability and process and principle. Frost, stripped of all pretense, was asking Nixon a good question: Who the hell do you think you are? Nixon, stripped of all pretense, was asking an equally good question: Who the hell are you to ask?

Oy vey: after shifting more dates than an old lady working in the produce section, it appears that Richard Kelly's thriller The Box has been bumped once more, from next March to next November. Usually, this would be a bad thing, but I'm still seriously intrigued by this adaptation of Richard Matheson's short story, in which a young couple (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) are given a mysterious box that can make them wealthy, but at the cost of killing a stranger the moment they use it.

The film is completed enough to merit a PG-13 from our pals over at the MPAA (for "thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images"), so it's not post-production woes holding the film up. One suspects this is a much less sprawling film than his Southland Tales, which we'll come back to soon enough. Is it part of WB's strategy to spread out product as the strike catches up to them, as they had by moving Harry Potter from this week to next summer?

Man, if I could just kill a stranger to get some answers...

We've got two portrayals of U.S. Presidents vying for Oscars this year: Josh Brolin as W in W. and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. I've yet to see either one, though I did see Langella in the Broadway play, which I hear the movie faithfully replicates. On the eve of W.'s release, it seemed like a good time to get a discussion going on Best Screen Presidents, real or fictional. Here's my list, which is surely missing some obvious choices -- but that's part of the fun.

1. President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) - The Contender
For the past couple of elections, pollsters have asked people which of the two presidential candidates they would rather "have a beer with." Inevitably it is pointed out that the person you would rather have a beer with is frequently not the person you would want to run the country. Jeff Bridges's President Jackson Evans, though, wins at life: he's the guy I'd want to have a beer with, and the guy I'd want running the country. Seriously, I would vote for Jackson Evans over either John McCain or Barack Obama. He's charming, and funny, and a bit of a jerk when called for, but he stands up for what's right and gives the best Rod Lurie Speech to date. My favorite movie president -- though for the record, I think The Contender is only pretty good.

Okay, so the Monsters vs. Aliens and My Life in Ruins trailers may have been leaked and subsequently pulled earlier this week, as was the case with certain awards contender Frost/Nixon, but now we can offer up the trailer straight-up, fully legit, by way of Yahoo! Movies.

The incongruous song selections aside (honestly, though: going from "Baba O'Riley" for the sake of nostalgia to Clint Mansell's wondrous score from The Fountain for the sake of drama in a matter of minutes just distracts me), I have little reason to think that this won't deliver on its considerable stage pedigree.

Frank Langella won a Tony Award for his portrayal of disgraced prez Richard Nixon, and as British talk show host David Frost, Michael Sheen looks to tap into that same sense of dignity under pressure that served him so well as Tony Blair in The Queen. It doesn't hurt that both political dramas share the same writer, and it also doesn't hurt that this looks to be the punchiest thing that Ron Howard has directed in quite some time.

Landing smack-dab in the middle of the Oscar drama blitz, Frost/Nixon should open in select cities on December 5th and will expand through Christmas.

Maybe it's because this was my first summer writing for Cinematical, but it's felt like an exceptionally intense movie season: the event movies just kept coming, and many of them wound up having real traction. There was a lot to watch and a lot to talk about. It's barely ended, and in just a couple of weeks, Telluride and Toronto officially kick off the fall -- and "Oscar season". I'll sleep when I'm dead, I guess.

One of awards season's most formidable contenders -- already slated for the familiar December platform release -- is Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, based on the acclaimed West End and Broadway play about journalist David Frost's famous televised interviews of post-resignation Richard Nixon; the ones where Nixon delivered the infamous line about how "if the President does it, it's not illegal." There's a well-crafted trailer for it over here, (trailer link removed at request of studio) and yep: we're in Oscar mode.

I saw the play with Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost, both of whom reprise their roles in the film. The show was great but very much a stage show, deriving a lot of its power from the foreboding set and the hugeness of Langella's Nixon impression which, from the looks of the trailer, remains very much intact. It worked great in the theater, but I'm worried it might overwhelm the film. I liked Anthony Hopkins' take on Nixon in the Oliver Stone film, where he basically said to hell with the impersonation and did his own thing.

I hate to spread totally speculative bad buzz, but if any advance development merits the term "not a good sign," it's a movie getting its release date pushed back seven months to early September, the year's most notorious dumping ground. Yep -- Richard Kelly's The Box is now scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. on September 11, 2009.

Now, to be clear, its original February release date wasn't exactly a plum spot either. But occasionally something sneaks through early in the year -- think Cloverfield. The few weeks around Labor Day are where movies go to die. The only recent exception I can think of is 3:10 to Yuma.

I'm hoping against hope that the switch isn't actually a vote of no confidence, since a Twilight Zone-style sci-fi film from the director of Donnie Darko sounds fantastic. If it is a low-confidence move, I'm hoping it's a case of a studio not knowing a good movie from a hole in the wall. That happens a fair amount, don't you know. Richard Kelly could use a boost after Southland Tales sank last year.

The Box is about a suburban couple who receive a mysterious wooden box with a single button. The box comes with a promise that if one of them presses the button in the next 24 hours, they will get a million dollars -- but somewhere in the world, someone will die. The film stars James Marsden, Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella.

[hat tip: Cinema Blend]

I guess members of Arcade Fire like to keep an eye on their online reputation, because it took a total of eight days for the band to reduce a popular rumor to rubble. A little over a week ago, Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) had posted that, "a very famous band who is honoring us with being the first filmmakers they've ever scored a film with" had signed up to score his upcoming thriller, The Box. Before you knew it, Pitchfork had picked up the story and was reporting that Arcade Fire was that "famous band".

Cut to one week later and Arcade's co-founder, Win Butler, posted the following message on his blog (through the band's official site): "Arcade Fire is NOT doing the soundtrack to any film. We are all off for the summer, writing songs, reading books and keeping our plants alive" -- although he did concede that he might compose some original music for the film along with band mate Owen Pallet (Final Fantasy).

The Box takes place in 1976, where an unhappily married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) receive a mysterious box from a stranger (Frank Langella). The box will reward the couple with a massive payday, but only on the condition that a complete stranger dies in return. Erik gave us the heads up on some production photos back in February, but so far there is no release date. Hopefully the 'stink' of Southland Tales has finally worn off, and Kelly will be able to secure an official date soon.