roy scheider Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Have you ever liked an actor that no one else seems to like? You almost want to keep your adoration to yourself, for fear that you'll be laughed out of a party or a gathering when you say how much you like Josh Hartnett. I actually do like Josh Hartnett, quite a lot. For a pretty boy, he has a very warm screen personality, and though he can appear perfectly comfortable playing a boxer or a cop, he also has a wonderful sense of humor. In short, he's not a brooder or a poser like most of his other pretty boy contemporaries. And yes, he was in Pearl Harbor, but he made up for that with excellent performances in The Virgin Suicides, O, 40 Days and 40 Nights, Hollywood Homicide and The Black Dahlia. Incidentally, these are all under-appreciated or misunderstood movies, just like Josh himself.

There. I've gone on record. Looking down the list of movies currently playing on 400 screens or less, I came up with several other actors I like that have not really received the love they deserve. First up, we have Amy Adams, who I just caught in the new Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. As far as I'm concerned, Amy walks on water. She's like a Carole Lombard for the 21st century. That means that she's not particularly suited for low-key "realistic" roles, such as the one she plays in Charlie Wilson's War (97 screens); in that, she basically trails Tom Hanks and occasionally reads some complicated dialogue to him. (I thought Mike Nichols was supposed to be good with actors.) But in Enchanted (329 screens), Amy is perfectly cast as a slightly cartoonish, screwball kook. She can move her eyes and her entire body in very precise ways for outlandish results, but she still retains a strain of humanity; she never spirals off into anything untouchable or unknowable. I thought she deserved an Oscar nomination for this one, but I'm afraid she'll need to put on a lot of "ugly" makeup before she wins anything.

Director Brett Morgen doesn't make conventional, talking-head, "impartial" non-fiction films; he himself notes "I'm certainly more interested in creating modern-day mythologies than historical documentaries." After co-directing On the Ropes and The Kid Stays in the Picture, he next, ambitiously, decided to use state-of-the-art techniques to bring a 40-year old event to life in Chicago 10. Combining computer-animated footage and dramatic interpretations of court transcripts with footage and audio from 1968 -- some of it previously undiscovered -- Morgen's film audaciously animates and recreates the trial of activists Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale and others that followed in the wake of the protests they organized outside the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968. Speaking with Cinematical from New York, Morgen talked about the level of digging required to unearth the unseen archival material he found, the differences he encountered between his actors who had done animation before and those who hadn't, what he learned about the '60s from making the films and much more: "This is a timeless story, that I think is relevant at any time -- and more relevant during wartime."


This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



For Cinematical's reviews of Chicago 10, you can find Christopher Campbell's take here and my review from Sundance 2007 here.

2008 is not this generation's 1968. Let's get that matter straight, right away. Even if we can draw some parallels or see some similarities between now and then, the truth is that it was a very tragic year, and despite our penchant to fetishize the period and wish that our time could be so important and powerful, we need to pray no politicians are assassinated this year (the fact that one particular candidate has been compared to both MLK and RFK is especially upsetting) and we need to be thankful that there is no draft. But mostly we need to just move on from the '60s already and stop attempting to appropriate its events in order to heighten the relevance of the 2000s. 2008 is indeed a significant year on its own, or it could be if we let it exist as such.

That said, Chicago 10, the latest documentary from Oscar-nominee Brett Morgen (On the Ropes) is literally about events of forty years ago, though the filmmaker claims it is a film about now. Okay, sure, there may be some relevant themes, but imprisoning your film with such definite statements of purpose makes it possibly less enjoyable to the people who are tired of these weak and easy-minded juxtapositions. Without acknowledging the obviously apparent intent, Chicago 10 is actually appreciable as one of the most creative and entertaining documentary films in years. And it could indeed be viewed as significant on its own, if we let it exist as such.

It's a good thing that Steven Spielberg's Jaws is a film that gets watched over and over again by generation after generation, because that means Roy Scheider has now become immortal. Sad news, movie fans: Roy Scheider, star of Jaws, Klute, The French Connection, All That Jazz, Blue Thunder, 2010, Marathon Man, and a whole bunch more, passed away earlier today at the age of 75.

According to The New York Times, "Mr. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection, his wife, Brenda Seimer, said."

Born in New Jersey in 1932, Mr. Scheider made his big screen debut in 1964's The Curse of the Living Corpse. From those inauspicious beginnings he became one of Hollywood's most unlikely leading men. Although his later career was peppered with lots of low-end product, the actor left behind a lot of excellent work*. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award (The French Connection and All That Jazz), but to millions of movie-lovers he'll always be remembered as the uncomfortable, no-nonsense, oddly lovable Police Chief Martin Brody, the island cop who hated the water.

* I'm sure you have your favorite Scheider moments, but here are a few (relatively) lesser-known titles that you might enjoy checking out: The Seven-Ups (1973), Sorcerer (1977), Still of the Night (1982), 52 Pick-Up (1986), and Naked Lunch (1991). One of the actor's last quality jobs was providing the narration for The Shark Is Still Working, a Jaws documentary that he endorsed quite happily. Fans will definitely want to check that one out.

Rest in peace, Mr. Scheider. I'm about to go grab my Jaws DVD.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Yes, this is Gary Oldman week for me and retro cinema, but you won't see me complaining. Usually, the chameleon Oldman morphs and slides onto the screen for one of his many diverse supporting roles. Most recently, he's taken on heroes like Sirius Black and Lt. James Gordon, but he's got a past that includes the little person Rolfe, the creepy Mason Verger, Pontius Pilate, Zorg, a Russian hijacker, and as I shared earlier this week, Ludwig van Beethoven. 1993's Romeo is Bleeding, however, marks one of the few times like Immortal Beloved where we can see him shine in the lead.

Oldman plays Jack Grimaldi, a cop who has been lured by the dark side in a noir '90s landscape. (Think Twin Peaks' timeless quality and haunting music, but set within a violent urban environment.) To supplement his low-pay job as a sergeant, Grimaldi is working for the mob -- directing them to the locations of different witnesses under protection. For his efforts, he gets thousands of dollars, which he hides in the back of his yard. But this is only the tip of Jack's moral failings. While he has a wife named Natalie (Annabella Sciorra) at home, he's also acting out fantasies with his grating girlfriend, Sheri (Juliette Lewis).

Roy Scheider is one of those actors that was really popular many years ago and who appeared in several important and successful films and then, for the most part, disappeared. Sure, he's been working here and there but after you've starred in some of the best and most interesting films of the 70s: The French Connection, Klute, Marathon Man and, of course, Jaws, you probably are not so quick to highlight your more recent appearances in such "classics" as Chain of Command, Dracula III: Legacy and Dark Honeymoon.

Even if his recent projects may not up to his former standards, according to Vanity Fair's James Wolcott, Scheider deserves recognition for his past triumphs as well as for his most recent TV role -- as a psycho killer matching wits with Vincent D'Onofrio's detective Goren on TVs Law and Order: Criminal Intent. In fact, Wolcott is so in love with Schneider and his latest role as a TV psycho he wants next Monday -- the day the episode airs -- to be declared a holiday commemorating Scheider and his body of work.

According to Wolcott, "Roy Scheider Day," as he wants it known, "is my way -- America's way -- of toasting an actor too seldom seen these days on big screen or small." I have to agree with Wolcott on this one -- Scheider is a good actor that deserves recognition. Not only was he in some great films over the years that I, an many others, enjoyed but he also had the brains not to make any more Jaws films after Jaws 2. For that, alone, he deserves our respect. Kudos to you Roy. What's your favorite Roy Scheider film?

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.'

Over the years, Toronto has become the faux façade for many films. So many, in fact, that I'm surprised there isn't a cheesy guided tour of the filmed locales, a la L.A.'s death tours, star homes and the like. Nevertheless, many Torontonians play the "Spot the neighborhoods of Toronto " game. Some are obvious. The Dan forth became the windy city for My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Patrick Bateman ran around the financial district in American Psycho. Roy Thomson Hall hosted a political conference in X-Men.

But The Poet is going to do all of them one better. The film, which just began shooting, is a period piece set in occupied Poland during World War II. Damien Lee is directing the feature, which is adapted from a story by Jack Crystal. You might be familiar with Lee's work on such cinematic powerhouses as Baby on Board or Ski School, or maybe Corey Haim's Watchers, which Lee co-wrote with Bill Freed.

The Poet is a bit different. It's a romance about a German officer who falls in love with the Polish daughter of a rabbi, who is set to wed a doting, Orthodox Jewish man. Ah, the classic story of the lure between bad passion and boring sweetness. The theme might be over-done, but the cast looks promising. The leads are less well-known -- prolific bit-part actor Jonathan Scarfe is the German officer, and Nina Dobrev of Sarah Polley's Away From Her is the young woman. However, the supporting cast makes things a touch more intriguing – Daryl Hannah, Colm Feore and Roy Scheider.

Check out this cast: Roy Scheider, Daryl Hannah, Eric Roberts, and Sean Young. In an indie flick, for which each is probably earning about $30/day, plus meal money. How crazy is that? I mean, if it was, say 1987, this would be a huge studio picture, complete with lots of posh trailers and personal assistants, glamorous magazine layouts for the ladies and talk show appearances for everyone except, possibly, nutso Sean. Ah, memories.

Anyway. This new, cheapie-flick is a thriller called Dark Honeymoon, and sounds like it could easily be either over-the-top terrible, or subtle and creepy. The story is about a man who marries a hot woman he barely knows, only to "[uncover] the terrible truth about her as those around them begin to die mysterious and violent deaths." Me, I'm worried mainly about the men here: despite the fact that Scheider played a nearly impossible part perfectly in All That Jazz and was wonderful in Jaws, the horror of his performance in Romeo Is Bleeding has never left me - and you never know what the hell Eric Roberts is going to get up. Do you see what I'm saying here? The chances for a lot of screaming and yelling are dangerously high. That said, I'm intrigued in spite of myself.

Shooting is due to being in May.