passing strange Tagged Articles at Cinematical
SXSW in 60 Seconds: Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Filed under: Independent », SXSW », Festival Reports », Cinematical Indie »
Wednesday was a transition day at SXSW. To quote Eric D. Snider: "You can tell the SXSW music fest is starting and the film fest is ending because everyone's skinny and bearded instead of fat and bearded."
SXSW Scene. With so many things happening, I forgot to mention my Spike Lee sighting. While riding a shuttle bus late Tuesday afternoon, my eagle-eyed colleague Jette Kernion spied Lee walking with John Pierson, an original investor in Lee's She's Gotta Have It, now arguably best known as the husband of SXSW Producer Janet Pierson. Our shuttle bus instantly transformed into a Hollywood Stars Tour Bus, as we all stood up and gawked. Lee was in town for a special screening of Passing Strange, about the Broadway rock musical.
Cinematical Coverage. The last title in the SXSW Presents Fantastic Fest at Midnight section to premiere, The Haunting in Connecticut, struck William Goss as "a run-of-the-mill spooker." Virginia Madsen, Martin Donovan, and Elias Koteas star. Lionsgate will release the film on March 27. The Snake, a comedy about "an entirely unlikable character," is "hilarious from the outset," says Kevin Kelly. Adam Goldstein stars as a man who is willing to do anything to bed a bulimic woman (Nina Braddock); Golden co-wrote and directed with Eric Kutner. The film is seeking distribution.
Ben Steinbauer's Winnebago Man "touches on issues of privacy, frustration, friendship, and loneliness ... but what I found most interesting was the theme of simple respect," wrote Scott Weinberg. The filmmaker tracks down a man whose profane tirade was caught on tape.
Spike Lee Goes to Broadway
Filed under: Deals »
Nothing really happened when Spike Lee was set to remake Stalag 17 for the stage last year, but now he's reportedly heading to Broadway again. However, this time it's in a cinematic capacity.Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider reported last week that Lee is grabbing his cameras and spending part of July filming the Tony-winning Passing Strange. Originally developed at the Sundance Institute's Theatre Lab, the musical focuses on "a young black musician who sets off on a journey to find 'the real' after being raised in a church-going middle-class Los Angeles neighborhood." I have a sneaking suspicion that the guy wouldn't have to go far. Anyway, Lee will film two performances with an audience, and a third without, and while no distribution agreements have been reached, there's talk that the recording will hit cable television. (Variety investigated the report and their sources say an announcement about the production will hit on Wednesday.)
While recorded theater is not the same as the in-person experience, I'm happy to see more of New York's theater making its way out to the country/world. Joseph Papp did a lot of it in the late seventies and early eighties, and you might have seen some of them, like A Midsummer Night's Dream with William Hurt and Christine Baranski, or the theatrical version of Pirates of Penzance, which came before the film and featured the same cast (Kevin Kline, Lindsa Ronstadt, etc).
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