susannah grant Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It seemed like Christina Aguilera would be a pop princess that kept herself free of Hollywood. (Free aside from some "Lady Marmalade" and a voice in Shark Tale.) But no -- she's finally joining the rest of the singers-turned-actresses and grabbing a starring role in a new movie. Luckily, it won't be any sort of stretch. Variety reports that she'll make her big-screen debut in a new sexy musical called Burlesque.

Written and to be directed by Steven Antin (Troy Perkins from Goonies!), with a revision by Erin Brokovich scribe Susannah Grant, Burlesque follows "an ambitious smalltown girl [Aguilera] with a big voice who finds love, family, and success in a Los Angeles neo-burlesque club that appears to be right out of Bob Fosse's Cabaret." Big voice? Check. Experience in saucy dance and titilating the mens? Check.



Clint Culpepper says: "I couldn't be more excited, as this was a project written with her in mind." I'd say so. She's got the voice, and has done her share of saucy dancing. And at the very least -- it isn't Crossroads! But what do you think? Could this be a whole new career for Christina?

Hollywood loves to stereotype people with mental illnesses as being merely quirky, or easy to cure if you just give 'em a lot of the right kind of love. The Soloist aims for a more realistic portrayal, and even tries to build awareness about the problems of homeless people in America. Unfortunately, the overall film isn't compelling, and the plot falls into the easy traps of traditional melodrama.

Steve Lopez's nonfiction book was adapted by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich, Catch and Release). Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is always on the hunt for more material to fill his LA Times column space, even cannibalizing his own cycling accident to tell a good story. When he encounters Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) playing violin by a statue of Beethoven, and learns that this homeless man once attended Juilliard, he figures he's hit the columnist jackpot. Little by little he starts to try to "fix" Nathaniel -- finding him a cello and a safe place to play, taking him to symphony rehearsals -- but it's not all that easy. And naturally, Steve's life starts to change too, and he's not sure how to handle it.

Steve Lopez first stumbled onto Nathaniel Anthony Ayers near a tunnel in Los Angeles, not far from Skid Row. Lopez, a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, was hard up for a column topic, heard an unusually talented street musician in an unlikely place, and struck up a conversation. Articulate, clearly unwell, and doing impressive things with a broken-down violin, Ayers half-intrigues and half-amuses Lopez, who comes back to see him. On his second visit, Lopez notices Ayers scrawling names in the asphalt. "Who are those people?" Lopez asks. "Oh, those are just my classmates from Juilliard," Ayers answers.

Wait, what? That last sends Lopez back to his office to do some Googling and make some phone calls. Indeed, it turns out that Mr. Ayers attended Juilliard as a bass violinist before paranoid schizophrenia drove him out and eventually onto the streets. If the word "Juilliard" means nothing to you, suffice it to say that musicians with the chops to get into the immensely prestigious New York City academy do not ordinarily wind up homeless. Here, Steve Lopez thought, was a column. Maybe a couple.

You've got to be familiar with Rachael Harris. Or, at least recognize her. If not, I demand that you go out and introduce yourself to one of the best comic filmmakers we have in this world -- Christopher Guest. She's popped up in a number of his films, starting off as "Winky's Party Guest" in Best of Show, and most recently playing Mary Pat Hooligan in For Your Consideration. On the more mainstream and less-awesome side of things, you might have seen her in License to Wed or Evan Almighty. All of the above is comedy, but The Hollywood Reporter posts that the actress is about to get musically serious for the upcoming drama The Soloist.

The film will focus on the story of Nathaniel Ayers -- a schizophrenic homeless man in LA who once went to Juilliard. An LA Times columnist, Steve Lopez, befriended the man and brought his story to the public. Word on the production first came out in August, noting that Jamie Foxx was starring, and Atonement helmer Joe Wright had the directorial chair, from a script by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich). Later that month, Robert Downey Jr. grabbed the role of Lopez. Catherine Keener was next to board, jumping into the role of Lopez's wife, and now Harris has signed on to play another Los Angeles Times employee. Production will kick into gear next month, and after that, the waves of awards buzz.

Back in June of last year, Erin Brockovich scribe Susannah Grant was tapped to write the next inspiring Hollywood biopic. This time around, it's about the struggles of Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless man in downtown Los Angeles who suffers from schizophrenia, but also happens to be a talented violinist who once went to Julliard. The script has since been finished (it is now called The Soloist), Joe Wright (Atonement) is directing and musical biopic wonderman Jamie Foxx has been cast as Ayers. The big remaining role was that of Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist who befriended Ayers and brought his story to the masses. Forget about resemblance, instead of finding a look-alike, Variety has reported that DreamWorks has singled out Robert Downey Jr. for the part.

With this cast, the film is sure to titillate the biopic crazy who love beautiful music in the face of adversity. It's also almost destined to be pretty damned good -- how could it not be with Downey Jr.? The guy can pull off anything from a singing detective to a body full of hair. But the production won't gear up until early next year, probably to hit for the Oscar push in late 2008. In the interim, we can catch him as Tony Stark in Iron Man next May, and in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder next July (a flick that happens to have been co-written by Justin Theroux.)

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Jamie Foxx is returning to the genre that brought him loads of acclaim and an Academy Award -- he has signed on for another musical biopic. Foxx will be portraying Nathaniel Anthony Ayers in The Soloist, the true story of "a homeless musician with schizophrenia who dreams of playing at Walt Disney Concert Hall." Wow. A 1) Homeless 2) Musician with 3) Mental Problems and 4) A Dream? Foxx is pretty much demanding the award here, isn't he? Can't we just give him the Oscar before production begins? They're probably polishing it up for him right now.

So how does this movie differ from all the other schmaltzy musical biopics? Producer Gary Foster tells the Los Angeles Times: "Midnight Cowboy is a perfect example of what we want this movie to feel like. It won't be slick and glossy. It's going to be emotional and real." He says that now, but I'll bet you $100 the movie ends with a teary-eyed audience jumping to its feet and bursting into applause. Joe Wright (director of the surprisingly non-boring Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice as well as the upcoming Knightley film Atonement) will direct the film. Susannah Grant (writer of a very solid run of chick flicks that includes 28 Days and Erin Brockovich) wrote the script, which is based on a 12-part series of articles by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. The film will focus on the relationship between Ayers and Lopez. Lopez has yet to be cast, and his photo doesn't have any casting choices leaping out at me. Any ideas?

There were clearly a lot of cooks in the kitchen for Catch and Release. One of those cooks, writer/director Kevin Smith, unquestionably wrote every dash and comma of his substantial 'chubby best friend' part in the film, despite receiving no official credit for his work. Smith's recognizable writing flair turns up early and often throughout the piece, even in scenes not involving his character. Another cook, whether he knows it or not, is self-appointed generational guardian Zach Braff, who used his film Garden State to accelerate the iPod-ization of movies, filling every possible quiet moment with a dollop of weepy-man indie-pop. The characters in Catch and Release can't walk from the kitchen to the living room without being quickly dunked in a carefully-chosen soundtrack sampling. The chef who should have the tallest hat, Oscar-nominated screenwriter-turned director Susannah Grant, is more often than not sidelined in her own film. The simple romance she wants to unfurl, about a woman falling into the arms of her boyfriend's best friend after his untimely death, must fight for center-stage.

Jennifer Garner is Gray, a 30-ish woman apparently going on 13, since her only friends in the world are Kevin Smith's character, who walks around in a bathrobe and chews food with his mouth open in every scene and another male friend played by Sam Jaeger, whose entire mission in life is two-fold: to quietly pine for Gray and to occasionally admit to said pining so that she can knock his romantic aspirations back down like a whack-a-mole. Since neither of these clods will do as a romantic interest, economy of character demands that Timothy Olyphant's rich television director character will be carrying home the trophy before the credits roll. The film's opening scene, at the post-funeral gathering for Gray's recently deceased boyfriend, has Gray hiding in a bathroom and watching, horrified, while Olyphant's character bangs the caterer on the kitchen sink. Is this supposed to throw us off the trail? It doesn't work. With no credible rival for Gray's affections in the film, Olyphant's character could have a hundred inappropriate quickies and still walk away with the leading lady.

The opening scene of Catch and Release is a funeral reception ... on what was supposed to be a wedding day. A tragic accident befell the groom during his bachelor-party weekend. We see the florist accidentally bringing wedding bouquets instead of funeral flowers, a multi-tiered cake stashed in a refrigerator, and a very sad young woman in black instead of white. She escapes to a bathroom and hides in the tub to cry, but suddenly is interrupted by a laughing couple who ducks into the bathroom for a quickie. The combination of touching drama and absurd comedy is excellent and promises a good quirky movie, full of dysfunction, dark humor and the unexpected.

Unfortunately, Catch and Release doesn't fulfill the potential of that well-balanced opening, and ultimately turns into a typical contemporary romantic comedy, with the stress on the romantic. It's still an interesting movie to watch, but the cliches can be a little grating at times, and even as a romantic comedy it never reaches the level of, say, The Truth about Cats and Dogs.

The film is set in Boulder, which provides a charming background that's a pleasant change of pace from LA/New York. After her fiance's funeral, Gray (Jennifer Garner) tries to return to as normal a life as possible. She moves in with her two male buddies, Sam (Kevin Smith) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger). Gray finds out that her fiance was secretly a millionaire, and that every month he sent money to some unknown person. Grady's California friend Fritz (Timothy Olyphant) sticks around to help Gray deal with these revelations, and maybe because he likes her, too. Is he becoming another friend, or something more?