mercy Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Savannah Film Fest: Where Indie Meets Oscar
Filed under: Independent », Festival Reports », Exhibition », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand », Oscar Watch », Other Festivals », Cinematical Indie »
I'm in Savannah, Georgia to spend a week as a guest blogger for the Savannah Film Festival, an eight-day fest hosted in the historic Southern town by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). [Read my entries in the "Voices from the Fest" section on the festival website.] As the town prepares to kick off the 12th annual festivities with the Iraq film, or rather post-Iraq film, The Messenger, I'm wondering how SFF's growing success might reflect or even influence the rise of film festivals that similarly fall somewhere in between the biggies (Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice) and the little guys.
For starters, a brief look at SFF's line-up and star-studded guest list. The festival begins today, October 31, with The Messenger, a Sundance entry that has Oscar possibilities but more likely will make a run at the Indie Spirit Awards. Stars Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster will be in attendance. (I will be attempting to run into them at the local Starbucks or wherever it is that Hollywood actors hang out when they visit other cities.) Another Oscar hopeful, the Emily Blunt-starring period biopic The Young Victoria, is screening the following day.
And then there are the almost certain Oscar pictures: George Clooney in The Men Who Stare At Goats; Lone Scherfig's An Education; Michael Haneke's Cannes winner The White Ribbon; Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, with star Jeremy Renner in attendance; and Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, which will bring both director Lee Daniels and his star Gabourey Sidibe to town.
Read on for more about this year's Savannah Film Festival.
Help Gen Art! Watch Movies! Have Fun!
Filed under: Fandom », Exhibition », Newsstand », Gen Art »
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As some of you may already know, I've been a big supporter of Gen Art for a long time now. Aside from being heavily involved in their annual film festival in New York City (this year I was a programmer), I'm real close friends with the folks who work there and feel their footprint on the indie film community is invaluable. Gen Art, in case you're not aware, is a company (based in New York) that helps promote emerging talent in film, music and fashion all year round. Not only do they host a very cool film festival in NYC in the spring, but they also host a mini-fest in Chicago ... and part one of this post is dedicated to that.
Beginning tonight with the very cute and quirky 500 Days of Summer, the Gen Art Chicago Film Festival will continue through to June 27 and feature other buzzed-about festival films like Mercy, Patriotville and Shrink. Other than opening night, which will set you back $25 for the movie and after party (open bar!), the other three nights will run you a fairly inexpensive $20 for a short, feature and after party w/ open bar. So if you're in Chicago, please head down to the festival and support these small films, as well as Gen Art. You can find out more information on the festival right here.
In addition to the festival, Gen Art is hosting a benefit in New York City tomorrow to help raise money to keep the company afloat while they navigate their way through some tough economic waters. I know -- yet another company hit hard by the recession. But understand that companies like Gen Art -- who make their living and invest everything they have in supporting emerging talent -- don't really exist anymore. And so they need our help.
CineVegas Review: Mercy
Filed under: Drama », Independent », New Releases », Theatrical Reviews », Festival Reports », CineVegas »
Stop me if you've heard this one before. A womanizing cad doesn't believe in true love, even though he makes his living writing novels about it. He sleeps with one beautiful woman after another, never getting attached, always pleased when the women leave before he wakes up in the morning. But his whole world is turned upside-down when, out of nowhere, he actually falls in love with one of them.
Yes, it's the ol' "education of a douchebag" story, going by the title Mercy this time around and starring Scott Caan, who also wrote the screenplay. (It's actually his third script; he directed the other two himself, and the first, Dallas 362, won the jury prize at CineVegas in 2003.) One is tempted to find autobiographical elements in Caan's swaggering character, especially since his real-life father, James Caan, plays his dad in the movie, but I don't know if that's accurate. But it might be the more charitable interpretation, since without a personal connection there's no reason to tell a story this generic.
It's at the release party for his third novel that Johnny Ryan (Scott Caan) meets Mercy (Wendy Glenn), a gorgeous, slender brunette who, unlike most heterosexual women (or so we're led to understand), is not instantly bowled over by Johnny's smooth cocky charm. Nor, it turns out, does she like his writing. This wouldn't normally bother Johnny -- he prefers women who can barely read anyway -- but in this case it's troubling because she's a New York Times book critic. Now with two reasons to pursue her (the usual one, and her negative opinion of his work), Johnny redoubles his efforts to get close to her.
Casting Bites: Vandervoort, Glenn, and Washington
Filed under: Action », Comedy », Drama », Romance », Casting »
...and here is another round of Variety casting bites:Last July, Canadian actress Laura Vandervoort nabbed herself a super gig as the role of Supergirl in Smallville. Now it seems that she's heading for the seas. She's scored a lead role in Into the Blue 2. Vandervoort will play a girl on a professional scuba team who get hired to find Columbus' hidden treasure. I guess there was more to the story than the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.
Meanwhile, that Scott Caan-written story Mercy has got itself a leading lady. Wendy Glenn, who recently played Isabella in The L Word (who played Bev in Lez Girls), will play the title role, who is the love interest of Caan's character. The story is about a cynical writer who writes about love, but doesn't believe it until ... Mercy.
Lastly, there's Kerry Washington. She played Della Bea Robinson in Ray, Jasmine in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Alicia Masters in Fantastic Four, and Kay Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Now she gets to be married to a doomed husband. She's signed on to play Eddie Murphy's wife in the comedy A Thousand Words. Her character wants her husband to settle down and spend more time with the family, but I doubt he'll have much to say about it, since the guy finds out that he'll die after he utters his next one thousand words.
Scott Caan Shows Dylan McDermott 'Mercy'
Filed under: Romance », Casting », Scripts »
Get ready for some indie romance!Variety reports that Dylan McDermott and Scott Caan have signed on to star in a new romantic, independent film called Mercy. But Caan isn't just starring -- this is a story he wrote, and is also producing through a new company formed by himself and the film's director, Patrick Hoelck.
Also starring the likes of Alexie Gilmore, Erika Christensen, Troy Garity, and John Boyd, Mercy focuses on a young and cynical novelist. For some reason, this cynic writes about love, although he doesn't believe in it himself. But this is a story brimming with romance, so of course, he then falls in love for the first time and starts believing. Sappy, eh?
There's really not a lot to go on yet, but so far, I'm not impressed. But thinking of McDermott lead me to think about Campbell Scott and Chris Eigemann. Now, if the film was focused on an older novelist, played by one of them, I'd be all over this.
Anyhow, we should find out soon enough whether the film is too sappy, or nicely balanced. The film begins production Monday in Los Angeles.
So Urban Legends are the New Superheroes?
Filed under: Horror », Independent », Deals », Universal », Newsstand », Cinematical Indie »
Apparently someone has told all of Hollywood that the apocalypse is coming, and we can all be saved only be making MORE MOVIES ABOUT URBAN LEGENDS. And, because they have our best interest at heart, our friends in the movie industry have leaped to humanity's defense: On Monday, Universal bought a super-secret spec script about an urban legend on a college campus, and today comes the news that Intrepid Pictures (which, by the way, has a first-look deal with Universal) just picked up ... exactly the same thing. Yippee, we're saved!Universal's pic is called Agony; Intrepid's is Mercy. And that's pretty much the only difference. Seriously. Though Universal is being coy for some reason about the details of Agony's plot, it's set on a college campus, and deals with an urban legend that -- shocker! -- turns out to be true. Mercy, meanwhile, is about "a college student who sets out to debunk the urban legend of the Mercy Killer ... only to discover that he is all too real and has chosen her as his next victim."
So basically, if you snuck in under cover of darkness and switched the scripts, no one would notice. Ain't Hollywood great?
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