richard dreyfuss Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Throughout My Life in Ruins, a couple of characters are frequently reminded that they are not as funny as they think they are. Unfortunately, this also applies to the movie itself. It wants to be a bubbly and occasionally zany comedy with a touch of romance surrounded by gorgeous Greek scenery ... but it often feels flat and forced, and even the landscapes seemed blah. It's being touted as a follow-up to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with the same lead actress (Nia Vardalos), but it doesn't have the pleasing blend of comedy and family sentiment that made its predecessor a success.

The movie is about a five-day tour of legendary ruins in Greece (thus the title). Georgia (Vardalos), a former history instructor whose stopgap job as a tour guide has extended for years. She hates her job, fusses because she's being assigned "second-class" tourists, and finds fault with everything in Greece that isn't at least 2,000 years old. Various Greeks -- her boss, her bus driver -- tell her that she has lost her kefi, a Greek word meaning joie de vivre or mojo or the ability to not annoy the audience. She just needs to relax and get laid and stop worrying her pretty head about things.

It looks like our James Rocchi wasn't the only one thinking something was off with Oliver Stone's W. as Richard Dreyfuss isn't exactly thrilled with it either. He recently popped up on The View and discussed his thoughts on the film and working with Stone. (Clips online aren't completely inclusive. Jezebel will give you his intro and the start of the discussion about W., while Huffington Post cuts off the beginning, but gives more at the end.)

All in all, Dreyfuss says that he participated in this film for the money, that it's 6/8 of a good film, wonders if the film has any historical legs, and likens working with Stone to working with Sean Hannity. But this is also a good case of needing to see it for yourself. Out of context and in print, his words sound quite rant-filled, but come off as wryly critical in video, with a little sarcasm and humor for good measure.

I must say I appreciate this. In fact, I'm much more likely to see a film where an actor gives his completely honest opinion. Saying "it's pretty good, but not awesome," makes me trust the statement a heck of a lot more than "it's sensational!" What do you think?

After seeing Oliver Stone's W., I found myself wishing I had a little more time to think it over before writing a review; then again, I'm sure there are some involved with the film who found themselves wishing they had a little more time to think over the Bush administration before making it. Distance grants perspective, or so we're told; what could a film about the life and presidency of George W. Bush released while he's still in office really have to say about his life and times? If distance grants perspective, though, you could also argue that proximity grants immediacy, and argue that Stone's W. is not meant as a somber, serious look back but rather a cautious, nervy attempt to peer into the recent past, a film with, in the words another Presidential candidate recently borrowed, "the fierce urgency of now."

But W. has plenty of urgency; you could argue that what it lacks is a point of view, or rather a point of view other than Freudian family psychodrama, with George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) fighting for the presidency and fighting in Iraq as a way to earn the respect and love of his distant, driven father George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell). But to many, examining the inner life of George W. Bush is like asking yourself about the source of the lumber when you're being hit in the head with a baseball bat. We get a lot of dialogue in W. about the difference between the external and the internal, between ideology and identity; Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks) offers that "I don't think politics should define a human being ..." while George H.W. notes that "I've always believed in leaving personal feelings out of politics." But in W., it feels like Stone doesn't even want to let politics define politics, and leaving the politics out of the personal feelings he's exploring.

More photos from Oliver Stone's upcoming George W. Bush satire, W., have arrived online via USA Today, and a good amount of them show what it looked like behind the scenes on one of this fall's most talked-about films. Above you get a pretty good look at Stone going over notes with Thandie Newton (Condoleeza Rice), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), Bruce McGill (George Tenet), Josh Brolin (George W. Bush), Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell) and Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney). Also featured in this selection of images is James Cromwell as President George H.W. Bush.

Apparently the film opens with Bush Jr. standing in the middle of a baseball field, listening to the roar of the crowd as an announcer calls forth the 43rd president of the United States. However, the camera pans back to reveal no one there but Bush. What's up with what? Stone notes, "We all have retreat fantasies. He did have the express desire to be baseball commissioner, and I think some people, historically, would say if he had become baseball commissioner, it would have saved us a lot of problems."

As far as the target audience for W. goes, Stone adds, "I'm not interested in that radical 15% that hate Bush or the 15 to 20% who love Bush. That's not our audience. Those people probably won't come. I'm interested in that 60% in the American middle who at least have a little more open mind."

Will you be seeing Oliver Stone's W. when it hits theaters on October 17? Check out two new photos of Bush and Bush Jr. below, then head to USA Today for the rest.

Four years after Connie and Carla failed to set the world on fire, Nia Vardalos has left the writing to someone else while returning to the safe turf of Greece for her new film, My Life in Ruins. Vardalos plays an Athens tour guide tired of all the grating tourists, obnoxious locals, and scheming colleagues in her life, and if the trailer -- link removed at request of studio -- (for those who don't mind Greek subtitles) is any indication, things might just change for the better soon enough.

There has yet to be any specific Stateside release date announced -- Fox Searchlight tentatively has it scheduled for 2009 -- but the crowdpleaser pedigree of Vardalos and director Donald Petrie certainly doesn't hurt the film's chances of outgrossing the $8 million that Connie raked in theatrically (whether or not the downright loud pairing of Harland Williams and Rachel Dratch will is a different story).

Also in the name of safe-bet follow-ups is I Hate Valentine's Day, a rom-com written and directed by Vardalos that reunites her with My Big Fat Greek Wedding love interest John Corbett. That project also bears an equally vague '09 release date, but I have trouble thinking that it couldn't be out of post-production and in theaters by next February.

Here's a round-up of today's news:

• Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio's production company are looking to bring us a feature-length Twilight Zone. This one, however, won't be episodic. Instead, they hope to stretch one out into a feature. THR
• Pretty, Baby, Machine is going to hit the big screen by Landscape Entertainment and bring Al Capone down. THR
• The MPAA goes viral. Variety
• Richard Dreyfuss is narrating a new doc called America Betrayed, which will be "a scathing look at the way out government contributes to and profits from disasters both here and abroad." Variety
• Harold and Kumar are coming back... again! John Cho and Kal Penn will reprise their roles; story is being kept under wraps. Variety
• Rupert Grint is bloody in Cherry Bomb. Just Jared
• New German doc -- Hitler on Trial. AP/Yahoo
• Trailer for The Brothers Bloom. Coming Soon
• More Repo! footage. MTV

If you read any part of that draft of W., Oliver Stone's Bush biopic, which hit the net a few months back, you might think it ludicrous for the film to be likened to Shakespeare. But Stone himself has done so, as part of an L.A. Times set visit interview. Lumped in with a quote in which Stone also contrasts the project to the work of Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning director's statement is in response to the film's level of seriousness: "W. isn't an overly serious movie, but it is a serious subject. It's a Shakespearean story. . . . I see it as the strange unfolding of American democracy as I have lived it."

The Times piece, which reports from Shreveport, Louisiana, where Independence Bowl stadium fills in for the Texas Rangers' Arlington Stadium, is very filling for anyone with an appetite for more W. updates. Included are a description of and dialogue from a scene between George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) and George H.W. Bush (James Cromwell), details on a "baseball-oriented fantasy" sequence, Brolin stating that he's not out to do a SNL-style caricature and admitting his initial hesitance to take on the role, a general overview of the project's coming together, and, best of all, a picture (seen, cropped, above) of Brolin as the future Commander in Chief looking like he's just had the crap beaten out of him. Also a fact I'd somehow never known prior to reading the article: Stone was "briefly a Yale classmate of Bush."

Dum, dum, dum. The moment we've all been waiting for. While most of the cast is in place for Oliver Stone's upcoming biopic W, from Dubya himself to Tony Blair, Condoleezza, and the rest, Dick Cheney has remained just out of reach -- a wild hunter, a political Wile E. Coyote.* But not anymore. Now that the film is a week into production, we've got our Cheney -- almost.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Richard Dreyfuss is in final negotiations to play Dick in the upcoming film, which is the last major role that needed to be filled. Playing Cheney is not quite the same as getting to play President Alphonse Simms in Moon Over Parador, a task that pulled him out of the Public Theater in New York and threw him into a dictatorship, but I'll take it.

Dreyfuss is also a decent match to Cheney, although it's been a while since I've seen him without his signature facial hair. This is not, however, the first time he's taken on the world of Dubya on the big screen. In 2004 he played Chuck Raven in John Sayles' Silver City -- a political film that might have been about the Pilager family, but was very obviously based on the Bushes.

*Originally intended to be "wily coyote," but misspelled, so I'm using the main animated dude instead.

Over a year ago, Erik Davis brought you word that Nia Vardalos was coming back, and that she was gaining rare access to the 2,500-year-old landmark -- Athen's Acropolis. That's not to shabby for a woman who hasn't found any success even remotely comparable to her break-out indie hit -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Nevertheless, My Life in Ruins is currently filming under the watchful eye of director Donald Petrie. It follows a Greek tour guide (Vardalos), and co-stars Richard Dreyfuss, Rachel Dratch, Harland Williams, and Alexis Georgoulis. After shooting at the Oracle of Delphi and Olympia* (site of the first Olympics), this past Saturday the cameras finally hit the Acropolis.

Talking to Reuters, Vardalos says: "No one has ever been granted permission to shoot at the ancient sites. This is huge." Apparently, this has been in the works for years, starting with a request during the 2004 Summer Games. "It was a lot of dinners and hand shaking, a lot of requesting permission and really assuring them that we would leave the ruins exactly as we found them." They got what they wanted, but only for one day. How's that for production pressure? It'll make it tougher that the crew won't be allowed to eat or drink on the site. I'm sure it will be a mixture of happiness and huge stress. Let's just hope that they don't have the Valkyrie film woes.

After all of this effort and unprecedented access, will it all be worth it? It's Vardalos' Greek security blanket, which should help it, but it could always become the next Connie and Carla, and being Greek didn't help the Big Fat bomb of a TV show. Anyone want to make predictions?


*Edited to include proper site of first Olympic Games.

As a lifelong fan of Jaws, you can imagine what a treat it was for me to recently conduct an in-depth interview with the four producers of the forthcoming Jaws documentary, The Shark is Still Working. Jake Gove, who is the founder of the popular Jaws website Jawsmovie.com is one of those producers, and the others are Michael Roddy, Eric Hollander, James Gelet. Our interview covered a wide range of Jaws-related subjects, touching not only on the content of the documentary itself -- it's currently seeking distribution, but we got an advance copy, and you can read Cinematical's review, which is up today -- but also on the impact of the film in general and legacy that it has left to future generations of moviegoers. We talked about the film's legendary special effects problems, the personality conflicts between the cast members, the film's sequels, and most importantly, the fact that this documentary owes much of its existence to the online movie world, which has a rabid Jaws contingent.

James: That was Eric and myself. We've been making documentaries for quite a few years, and we were just sitting down and watching another documentary that somebody else had done -- it was somebody that we had known. These people had never done one before at all. They decided they wanted to do it, and they had the wherewithal to finish it, and Eric and I really admired them for that. Right around the same time, and completely unrelated to that, we had been invited to participate in Jawsfest, because we owned some props from the movie and Eric turned to me when we were watching a documentary and said 'what would be a fun documentary we could do?' and doing one on Jaws just seemed like such a no-brainer, because we were going to be going to that Jaws fest festival and we're big fans of the movie anyway. So that was kind of it.

The original idea was that it was just going to be about the festival, period. It was going to be much more literally, a Trekkies for Jaws fans. Pretty quickly after that, we were talking to Michael about the project. He was very interested in participating as well, and because of his connections to Universal, he was able to start talking to some of the heavy hitters involved with Jaws, and just kind of hit the pavement and get us some big interviews. Once that happened, obviously the vision grew and it went from being a documentary on Jawsfest into being 'hey, we can do the ultimate retrospective and talk about anything and everything Jaws, if we want to and if we work hard enough, so that's what happened.'