john carney Tagged Articles at Cinematical

One of the true underdog stories of the year, "art house musical" Once arrives on DVD today from Fox Searchlight. Written and directed by John Carney, the film won the Audience Award at Sundance back in January and ended up earning more than nine million dollars in the US. James Berardinelli at Reel Views wrote: "This isn't a perfect motion picture but, in the midst of summer's vapid pursuit of spectacle, a movie that provides real heart and emotion is a rare find." The DVD includes music and film commentaries by Carney and actors/musicians Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, two featurettes and an animated "webisode."

I don't understand why John Landis' Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project was selected to screen at the New York Film Festival. It's a fine celebrity documentary with plenty of well-known faces praising the acerbic, long-lived insult comic, Landis keeps the pace snappy, and it's quite entertaining, but it fits in quite well on HBO (where I saw it) and if there were any transcendent angles, I missed them entirely. Cinematical's Jette Kernion had a similar reaction. The DVD from Vivendi is a two-disk "collector's edition," but I haven't been able to find specific details on what's included.

Deep Water sounds intriguing: the "stunning true story of the first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race." Richard von Busack felt that the documentary by Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell "seems like a last word; the film gives a full and aesthetically satisfying overview" of the events that occurred, effectively meshing interviews with dramatizations. (His review is well worth clicking through to read in its entirety.) The DVD includes additional interviews with sailors, family members and journalists involved with the race.

John Carney has been actively pursued by Fox 2000 to direct their upcoming comedy Town House. The director of Once -- that Sundance mega hit (and winner of the Audience Award) which tells the love story of two musicians in Dublin -- has said yes to helm the film, written by Doug Wright (Quills). Carney's current repertoire of work is both self-written and directed, so this will be his first directorial project penned by another writer.

Town House is a comedy that, according to Variety, centers itself around a man who is the son of a deceased rock legend. The man is a recluse who maintains his social anonymity by selling his father's mementos and eventually their home -- the town house in which he lives after running out of things to pawn off. This catapults the character into a life altering self-realization, all while attempting to be funny at the same time. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by author Tish Cohen. The book itself has received rave reviews and is said to have been "film ready" for quite some time. Lots of books are "film ready;" it's just a matter of finding someone who's ready to actually make the film. Shooting will begin in January, but the cast has yet to be announced. I'd love to see the sequestered main character as Ryan Gosling (a spin off of his character in Half Nelson?), or maybe Clive Owen -- since I wouldn't mind seeing him in everything.