little odessa Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Greatness in the Making: Director James Gray
Filed under: Drama », New Releases »
It's so exciting -- literally exciting; pulse-quickening -- to watch a monumental new talent emerge and begin to edge toward what will eventually be his rightful place among the filmmaking greats. After watching his fourth film, Two Lovers (which opens this weekend and which I'll just comment on obliquely here) I'm ready to call it: James Gray is the next... well, the next something. I'm tempted to say Scorcese, which seems absurdly hyperbolic, but I'm kind of serious. He's that good: that ambitious, that interesting, that attuned to the details of human behavior. Watch this guy. He's gonna be important.
Almost no one saw The Yards (though you should), even I haven't seen his debut feature Little Odessa, and Two Lovers hasn't seen release yet, so I'll talk about We Own the Night: plot-wise a fairly ordinary cops-and-mobsters drama, but one that's pitched at the emotional wavelength of an epic Greek tragedy and as finely observed as any work of arthouse "naturalism" you can think of (Chop Shop? Flight of the Red Balloon?). Scene after scene, the film teeters on the edge of becoming corny and laughable, but it never quite tips over. Part of it is Gray's total conviction, completely committed to an almost absurdly grandiose screenplay. Even more important is how real the movie feels, how almost tactile: 1988 Brooklyn comes alive in front of you; the club scenes seem populated with hundreds of real human beings, not just extras; there's an important scene in a cavernous church that just deposits you in that church in an extraordinary way I can't quite articulate. It's the attention to detail, the rich sound design, the sense of geography and space -- in other words, skilled filmmaking. And then there's that justly renowned car chase in the pouring rain. Wowza.
Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow are 'Two Lovers'
Filed under: Drama », Independent », Casting », Cinematical Indie »
Since his 1994 debut, Little Odessa, filmmaker James Gray has been sparse with output. It took six years for him to deliver his follow-up, The Yards, and another seven years to give us We Own the Night, which premiered earlier this year at Cannes and opens in theaters on October 12. However, there won't be such a long wait for Gray's fourth film; titled Two Lovers, the film begins shooting in November with Gray regular Joaquin Phoenix and possibly Gwyneth Paltrow, who is in final negotiations. Two Lovers marks a third collaboration with Phoenix, who starred in both The Yards and We Own the Night. If there's a part somewhere for Mark Wahlberg, it could be a perfect reunion. Our own James Rocchi reviewed We Own the Night at Cannes, highlighting the performances of Phoenix and Wahlberg, who also co-starred in The Yards. According to Variety, Two Lovers will star Phoenix as a Brooklyn man torn between two women. There's the family friend who his parents are trying to set him up with, and then there's the beautiful new neighbor who he prefers and with whom he falls in love. I'm going to go ahead and guess that Paltrow is being cast as the neighbor. The script is by Gray and Ric Menello, who wrote the Run-DMC vehicle Tougher Than Leather and who received a 'Thanks' credit for The Yards. It will be produced by Oscar-winner Donna Gigliotti (Shakespeare in Love) and Anthony Katagas (We Own the Night), while being overseen by 2929 Production's Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban and Marc Butan. If all goes well, Gray could have only a year between his third and fourth films -- we would have settled for anything fewer than five -- which will very good for his career if We Own the Night performs a lot better than his prior work.
Phoenix and Gray to team up again
Filed under: Drama », Thrillers », Casting », Newsstand »
Joaquin Phoenix looks set to follow up his critically-acclaimed work in
Walk the Line by reuniting with his
The Yards director, James
Gray. The two will collaborate on We Own the Night, a thriller set during in the 1980s struggle between
Russian organized crime and the NYPD. The story, which Gray also wrote, will focus on a night-club manager (played by
Phoenix) who struggles to save his cops brother and father, both of whom are being targeted by gang hitmen. (It sounds
exciting, but why is a nightclub manager trying to save cops? Can't, I don't know, other cops help them out?) Also in
the cast are Robert
Duvall (hopefully playing the dad) and Eva
Mendes whose role is undefined, though she'll surely spend some time wandering around looking hot.Interestingly, this movie marks a return of sorts for Gray to the subject matter of his first film (Little Odessa), which was also a crime story involving New York's Russian immigrant community. Though We Own the Night will be only his third film, Gray - who also writes all of his projects - has shown in the past that he's very good with small, emotionally intense stories. He also tends to get very strong performances from his actors, all of which make this latest effort sound awfully promising.
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