vinessa shaw Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Movies can be very educational, especially if you look beyond the obvious marketing messages that are used to sell them. This past Friday, for example, James Gray's romantic drama Two Lovers was sold as "the movie where you can see what Joaquin Phoenix looks like without a bushy beard and a Grizzly Adams haircut" -- that's why he appeared on David Letterman, right? Tom Tykwer's The International was advertised as a "the movie where you can learn what the banks are really doing with your money." But both of these advertising campaigns obscured the educational possibilities of the films.

Two Lovers. This quiet character study follows the emotionally-wounded Joaquin Phoenix and his relationships with the beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow and the beautiful Vinessa Shaw. Single folks might be surprised at Phoenix's incredibly successful pickup technique. What I learned: He does nothing. Abso-frickin'-lutely nothing. His parents invite Shaw and her parents to dinner, and then she confesses to an interest in him. (Bear in mind that he attempted suicide, like, an hour before.) Shortly thereafter, he meets Paltrow, a new neighbor, in the hallway outside his parents' apartment. Whammo! He's juggling two relationships.

The International. The intended lesson to be learned from Tom Tykwer's tepid thriller is that bank debt is evil and makes CEOs do wicked things. (And here I thought it was simple greed and ignorance.) What I learned: Museums are dangerous. Stay out of the Guggenheim! That place is a shooting gallery. If you carry that thought through to its logical conclusion, then what the movie is really saying is that art and culture aren't good for you. Which ties in to its theme that corporations have taken over the world and there's nothing you can do about it. Unless you're Clive Owen with a three-day beard.

Cinematical has received this exclusive poster for Two Lovers, starring Joaquin Phoenix (in his final movie role?), Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw. Directed by James Gray (We Own the Night), Two Lovers is a Brooklyn-set romantic drama that follows a troubled man who returns to his childhood home and falls for two very different women: the lovely and caring family friend (Shaw) and the mysterious, volatile neighbor (Paltrow). Which woman will he choose, and will she set him on a course for happiness or turn him in the complete opposite direction? Two Lovers also stars Isabella Rossellini and Moni Moshonov, and it will arrive in theaters on February 13, 2009.

Click below to view entire poster.

Jason Freeland's Garden Party plays a bit like Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), taking a look at a cross-section of Los Angeles characters, though it runs less than half the length and, conversely, half the depth. The movie also reminded me a little of that early scene in Billy Wilder's Sabrina (1954), wherein the titular heroine secretly watches a swank Los Angeles party from a safe distance, imagining what it must be like to be there. Likewise, sophomore writer/director Freeland (Brown's Requiem) doesn't quite feel like the host of this particular "garden party," but rather like the party's Sabrina, secretly spying from the sidelines. The film feels a bit removed, unwilling or unable to muster the courage to party crash, to really engage its characters.

Garden Party starts with April (Willa Holland), a beautiful 15 year-old with an Avril Lavigne look, who tries to escape from her lascivious stepfather by acquiring a fake ID and posing for nude internet photos for cash. Then we meet Sally St. Clair (Vinessa Shaw, who played the prostitute "Domino" in Eyes Wide Shut), a successful, controlling and backstabbing realtor. She keeps a greenhouse full of prime pot that she uses to close deals, and her assistant Nathan (Alexander Cendese) is at her beck and call 24/7. Nathan drives her car, stays in her house and looks after her garden. He smokes too much pot, is confused about his sexuality and seems to have forgotten why he came to the City of Angels in the first place. Todd (Richard Gunn) is an independently wealthy artist who lives in the house he grew up in. He's obsessed with Sally, whose old, nude photos he has admired on the Internet. By chance he meets her in a parking lot and endears himself to her by removing gum from her expensive shoe.

Considering the popularity of celebrities, gossip, and the 'thrills' of famous party girls, it's not surprising that we're about to get a new film called Garden Party, which focuses on successful youths in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the film, which stars Vinessa Shaw, Willa Holland, and Erik Scott Smith, has been picked up by Roadside Attractions for distribution.

Director Jason Freeland wrote the script based on his own short stories that center on "young people trying to succeed in the Los Angeles entertainment business." But that's just the nice, vague way to describe it. To give you a better idea, the film's website says that it's about a 15-year-old who "is running from one bad situation into another, hoping to find an answer that doesn't involve taking off her clothes." From there, well, there's sexy pot dealers and "kinky entanglements."

Roadside is releasing the film in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland on July 11. Who's ready for more lascivious tales of youth and debauchery?

In James Gray's Two Lovers, Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) is torn between two women, each of whom is right for him, and wrong for him, in different ways. When we meet Leonard, he's jumping into the river in a suicide attempt; he changes his mind at the last minute, struggling to the surface and gasping for air.

It's a scene that tells us much of what we need to know about Leonard: This is a man torn between the desire to end the pain in his life, and the equally strong desire to fight against it. Leonard, we come to learn, was engaged to be married, but when he and his fiancee both tested positive for the gene that carries Tay-Sachs syndrome, her family called off the engagement and she disappeared. Leonard's mother, Ruth (Isabella Rossellini), hovers protectively over her only child, trying to help him move on, while at the same time clinging to him with a fierceness that may not be in his best interest.