harvey keitel Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'm not sure what to think of this Bad Lieutenant remake (or re-imagining) since the first one was so ridiculously off the charts that when news first broke about a re-do, most folks gave a look like they just stepped on a cockroach and the thing was still squirming around all half-squashed and whatnot. Translation: "Yuck ... really? They're remaking THAT film?" Nevertheless, if anyone can make this sucker shine, it's Werner Herzog, and Variety now tells us that Eva Mendes is eying a role opposite the already-cast Nicolas Cage.

Apparently they're straying quite a bit from the original, so all we know at this point is that Cage will play a corrupt cop who likes to play dirty. In the original, Harvey Keitel starred as a corrupt cop investigating a nun's rape, though there's no word on whether that storyline will remain in this new version. If so, will Mendes play the nun (originally played by Frankie Thorn)? Mendes and Cage last worked together on Ghost Rider, which I haven't seen, so I can't comment on their chemistry. However, I've been waiting to see Mendes get a little nutty on screen since she usually plays it safe. This should be an interesting one to watch, whaddya think?

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 ...

Taxi Driver. Street Scenes. Mean Streets. The Last Temptation of Christ. I Call First. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. What do all of these have in common? Each comes from good ol' Martin Scorsese, and featured Harvey Keitel. He's not just the bloody-car-solving Wolf, and he's certainly not only the Bad Lieutenant. Most of the above films were on the streets, one was on the road, and one, well, it was in the ancient, Biblical dust. So what could they have planned for their cinematic reunion 20* years after they last worked together? Variety reports that it will be on Daphna Kastner's Chaos, which she wrote and will direct, while Scorsese is the executive producer. It's worth noting -- she's Keitel's wife, so this casting announcement isn't an entirely huge surprise.

So it's not quite the re-team you'd expect (maybe that will come in the future!?), but for now, I'll take what I can get. The drama is set in New York City, but it isn't about a cab driver and a prostitute or mean streets. It's the story of "two lovelorn people whose lives intersect in the city." Fie those vague descriptions! One of the film's other producers, Michael Cerenzie, says: "Marty, Harvey, Christine and I all share a tremendous passion for Daphna Kastner's original script and a strong belief in her talent as a filmmaker." Since the script is already in the bag, they're hoping to finish up casting and get the flick shot in New York City before SAG's June 30th contract expiry.

*Edited, thanks to David!

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]

I just about lost my breakfast trying not to laugh when Harvey Keitel brought out the President's Book of Secrets -- a book that holds all the answers to this country's most puzzling questions, like who really killed J.F.K. and what's really going on at Area 51. Dun. Dun. Dun. And guess who's job it is to steal it? That's right, Nicolas Cage is back hunting treasures, but this time there's a lot more at stake -- like clearing his family's name. When a piece of John Wilkes Booth's super secret diary is found, not only does it tell us who his top five crushes were, but it also implicates Cage's (or his character Ben Gates, that is) great great grandfather in the conspiracy to murder Abraham Lincoln. And since our man Gates doesn't want to be known as the great great grandson of the guy who conspired to kill one of our greatest Presidents, he sets out on an adventure to clear his family's name. Little did he know the secrets he'd uncover in the process.

This new full-length trailer looks similar to the first film in that Gates needs to keep following clues -- breaking into protected buildings, utilizing a number of one-liners, and even kidnapping the President -- until he gets what he needs. Of course, like with any sequel, the stakes are higher, the missions are harder and the wisecracks are that much funnier. Cage, Keitel, Jon Voight and Diane Kruger all return for part two, with pretty nifty additions like Ed Harris and Helen Mirren. While I'll joke about the film, I kind of dug the first flick. It's no Indiana Jones, but it's light, fluffy and fun to watch Cage figure out a way to pull off a stunt that seems utterly impossible. Kind of like Mission Impossible ... but, ya know, for kids. National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets hits theaters on December 21.

Franc. Reyes is the man responsible for the 2002 crime flick, Empire, which starred the likes of John Leguizamo, Peter Sarsgaard, Vincent Laresca and Isabella Rossellini. (Oh, and by the way, the period after his first name is supposed to be there. I don't know why, and neither does our Erik Davis.) Despite the film's cast, the movie got less-than-stellar reviews. Undeterred, the writer/director is following it up with The Ministers, which is currently filming in New York City. At first, it was looking to be a feature free of big names, besides the return of Leguizamo. Now it seems that the film will be topped off with one more -- Harvey Keitel.

The film centers on a female NYPD detective who lost her father years ago to a group named the Ministers. When the group reinvigorates their killing ways, she attempts to avenge her father's death. Unbeknownst to her, she is already romantically involved with one of the Ministers. Keitel is close to signing a deal to be one of the good-guy cops. However, "an unfortunate incident" sends him on another life path. That's all sorts of ambiguous. I'm not sure if that is suggesting that he's gone bad and is, perhaps, one of the Ministers, or if it's something more mundane. Regardless, we'll see a lot of Keitel in 2007, although I suspect not in his infamous full-frontal fashion, as he has 3 other films coming up this year -- My Sexiest Year, National Treasure: The Book of Secrets and The Dust of Time.

It's been a while since we've had some news on Arthur and the Minimoys, save a trailer. Wait, Invisibles. No, Minimoys. Is anyone else getting a Sorcerer-vs-Philosopher flashback? To recap, the film is based on Arthur and the Minimoys, a book written by Luc Besson himself. In the book, Arthur and his grandmother are facing eviction, suffering in the absence of his grandfather, who is missing. After discovering one of his grandfather's drawings of a red-haired princess, he travels to the land of Minimoys in an attempt to save his family.

A mixture of live-action and computer graphics, Martha Fischer previously reported on the interesting cast that contains the voices of pop music icons Madonna and David Bowie. Now it's time to add a whole mess of non-musical names to the list. There are the funny men, like Jason Bateman and Jimmy Fallon, but there are also a whole slew of actors known for their macho image. With the likes of Harvey Keitel, Chazz Palminteri and Robert De Niro also in the film, do the Minimoys have their own collection of mini-mobsters?

Now that Besson is retiring from filmmaking, this could very well be his last directorial effort in the feature film world. If you're trying to get in all the Besson you can before he commits himself to a life of civic work and youth groups, you can also catch the Luc-penned Taxi 4 next year, although the third sequel to a franchise hardly seems like the right send-off to the man who made Leon. Arthur and the Minimoys will enjoy a limited release on December 15, and grab a larger release in the new year.

It might be hard to believe, but Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs turns 15 today. Now, before you haul out the abacus, you've probably noted that 1992 + 15 = 2007. Reservoir Dogs premiered in October of 1992 the last time we checked, and it seems like only yesterday there was much fanfare over the tenth anniversary edition of this film (which was released in 2002), complete with five different covers for the same DVD ... collect them all! Perhaps 14 just wasn't as sexy of a number, and of course Lionsgate wants you to double dip when the HD-DVD version comes out at some point, so that leaves us with a 15th anniversary edition a year early. Although if you want to get extremely technical with the dates, Tarantino actually workshopped some of the scenes from Dogs at Sundance in 1991, so is this the date they're shooting for?

At any rate, the packaging alone is pretty cool on this release. They've housed the DVD in a metal case that looks like a gas can, and when you slip the interior packaging out, it is in the shape of a huge matchbook from "Uncle Bob's Pancake House," which is where Steve Buscemi tells everyone "I don't tip" as Mr. Pink. The whole package is sort of a gruesome reminder from one of the scenes in the movie. When the tenth anniversary DVD came out, Lionsgate sent out fake foam rubber ears announcing the release, which have become highly collectible among fans. I guess they like reminding us how violent the torture scene in this movie really is.

Tarantino's now cult-classic film opened the door for ultra-realistic violence in films, but it also helped usher in a new era of non-linear storytelling. After this movie came out, writers and directors began to play with the concept of time a lot more often, using flashbacks and flash-fowards to help make a simple story a lot more interesting, to show it from different angles and perspectives, and to flesh out character development. Tarantino didn't pioneer this technique, but he made such extensive use of it that you can still the effects of it in movies today.

The film also helped establish Tarantino's visual "look," from the black suits with the skinny ties, to the minimal sets with dialogue-heavy scenes. It also showcased his love for vintage and 70s music through "K-Billy Super Sounds of the 70s," on the radio throughout the movie, and DJed by deadpan comedian Steven Wright. Additionally, he took chances on B- and sometime C-list movie stars who had either fallen from the limelight, or had not worked in quite some time, which is something he continues to do -- reviving the careers of John Travolta, Robert Forster, Pam Grier and others.

Tarantino is a self-proclaimed cinephile, and in this movie he has lifted several scenes and plot elements directly from other films, particularly from Ringo Lam's excellent City on Fire which stars Chow Yun-Fat. If you haven't seen it, rent it some time and you'll see how similar the two films are, down to exact scenes. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while Dogs isn't a direct ripoff, it comes close at times. Tarantino has claimed that he steals from all of his favorite movies, and if that's the case, then Dogs is no different.

Today also sees the release of the Reservoir Dogs video game (featuring the voice and likeness of Michael Madsen), which promises to bring the same ultra-violence to your home gaming systems. It seems an odd choice to make a game out of this film, given the extreme violence and open and closed plot, but we've also seen Scarface and The Godfather made into games as well recently, so stranger things have happened. Just don't look for Jackie Brown: The Game anytime soon. We hope. ...

When National Treasure hit the screens (in a big way) in late 2004, everyone and their symbologist grandmothers were scrambling over each other to dub it a blatant rip-off of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. But now that we can look back to the starchy disappointment that was Da Vinci Code: The Movie, all of a sudden National Treasure doesn't look so silly. I know I didn't think much of the flick upon my initial visit, but it's managed to grow on me just a little bit since then. (Plus a good portion of it was shot in Philadelphia, so it can't be all bad.)

Anyway, you know where I'm going with this: National Treasure 2 is about to get underway, complete with the entire cast (Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel) but minus Sean Bean, presumably because Jerry Bruckheimer thinks it's time for a colorful new villain. Cool. The plot for the sequel is being kept under wraps, but director Jon Turteltaub dropped a hint regarding "Mount Rushmore," a location that might be able to lend itself to quality cinema.

Whether or not National Treasure 2 qualifies as "quality cinema" is up to you; the flick should be ready by late 2007.