Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and Rashida Jonesare in negotiations to join the Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller scribed Muppet movie which is still without a title.
The project, which is gearing up for a November shoot, is one of a few options Adams was eyeing before signing on. The film is a big one for Disney, as it's a return to a franchise that hasn't been on the big screen in quite a few years. Over the summe, a table read for the film was held at Pixar withfilmmakers John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Michael Arndt, Bob Peterson and president Ed Catmull, all on hand to lend their input and make sure everything was right. From what is being revealed of the parts the actors are attached to, it looks like the show biz world setting that we gleaned in an early script review remain's intact. The film will find the Muppets reuniting to put a show to save the studio. Jones will play an ABC executive, Adams will play the girlfriend of Segel's character, helping him reunite the Muppets for the show while Cooper has the meatiest role as the villain (sweet) "who wants to buys the studio to dig for the oil hiding underneath it and who never thought the Muppets were funny to begin with."
James Bobin ("Flight Of The Conchords") will direct the film that is aiming to hit theaters on December 25, 2011.
Our man on the ground at the New York Film Festival certainly didn't think much of the Centerpiece Film, Julie Taymor's "The Tempest" and now that we have our first look at the latest visually dazzling take on Shakespeare from the director we are beginning to understand where he's coming from.
The gender switching take on Shakespeare's last masterpiece stars Helen Mirren as Prospera, a woman scorned after being unjustly usurped and exiled by the brother of her deceased husband so he can claim her title. Shot in Hawaii (yes, it does look very nice) the film also boasts a helluva supporting crew of actors including David Strathairn, Djimon Hounsou, Reeve Carney, Alan Cumming, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Felicity Jones, Ben Whishaw and Russell Brand.But while the dazzling effects are impressive nothing in the trailer particularly stirred us, not even the desperate addition of Sigur Ros in the spot's final moments to try and wrest some kind of emotion out of whomever might be watching it.
The film will open in NY/LA on December 10th before rolling out. You can watch the trailer below or in HD at Apple.
Everything associated with Julie Taymor's "The Tempest," at least in the initial build-up of pre-release hype, has been built around the faux-provocation of Helen Mirren, distinguished British film actress, multiple award winner, Queen of England, playing Prospero, a character that has traditionally been portrayed as being male, in Shakespeare's classic play. (In the new movie, she's now called Prospera.) It's only after you've been watching the movie for a few minutes, after you take in the changes in the character (if you're a Shakespeare fan or graduated with a Literary Studies degree), that the momentary thrill subsides and then vanishes altogether. The reason all the hype is centered around this slightly oddball casting decision is because there's nothing else to sell the rest of "The Tempest" on.
Which is to say: "The Tempest" is bad. Like, really, really bad.
But it does have a nice title card: large, crisp font, taking up much of the screen, superimposed over the arresting, surreal image of a tiny sandcastle in the palm of a young girl's hand. But once this image is gone, and it's gone fairly quickly, the goofy overwrought nightmare that is "The Tempest" consumes you. "The Tempest" is considered, at least by Taymor herself, to be one of Shakespeare's "greats." In her movie, Prospera is a would-be duchess who has been banished to an inhospitable island to live with her child (played by the apple-cheeked Felicity Jones) after charges of witchcraft are leveled against her. When the film opens, it's been 12 years since her banishment, and, using her keen mastery of both science and magic, as well as her friendship with an androgynous nature sprite named Ariel (Ben Whishaw), she maroons those who conspired against her on the same forbidding isle. Said conspirators include King of Naples Alonzo (David Strathairn) and Alonzo's brother and son (Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming). Also on the island: a pair of bumbling drunks (Alfred Molina and Russell Brand) and the island's natural inhabitant Caliban (Djimon Hounsou).
The plot is classically Shakespearean, with the three threads interweaving haphazardly throughout until they all reconcile at the end, with a message that is less about vengeance and more about forgiveness and moving on. A nice sentiment that still resonates four hundred years later. (There's also some stuff about Prospera's daughter getting involved with Ferdinand, played by Reeve Carney, but those are probably the dopiest sections of the already dopey movie.)
It's clear what a huge mess "The Tempest" is from very early on, with the titular storm bearing down on the conspirators' ship. It's well photographed by cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, with the action being staged not unlike something from the latter "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. At this point, the score by Eliot Goldenthal hasn't gotten too overbearing. Yes, it's a bit much, but it's a couple of scenes later, when Prospera is going over the attack with Ariel, do we realize just how awful this is going to be. As Ariel recounts the storm, we see him gliding above the ship, laughing maniacally, with Goldenthal's music mutates into some kind of acid rock mutation, with gnarled electric guitars raging; the word "embarrassing" comes to mind.
But, amazingly, this is the tip of the bad-taste iceberg, as throughout the film, Taymor takes advantage of the digital visual effects she fell in love with on her borderline unwatchable Beatles jukebox musical "Across the Universe," to turn Ariel into a swarm of frogs, a giant crow, and a pack of flame-breathing dogs. The effects, supervised by the amazing title designer Kyle Cooper, have an ethereal look that doesn't conjure magical surrealism but a rather a liquidy impermanence. All the while, Ben Whishaw, a normally fine actor, does his best to look dignified, even when his face is being digitally painted into the trunk of a tree and his hair has more product in it than the entire cast of "Jersey Shore" (he looks slightly electrocuted). As far as casting goes, Whishaw is one of the better calls. Chris Cooper seems wildly out-of-place, but then gets into a groove with his character; by the end of the film you'll be glad he was there, because he seemed to add a little bit of authenticity and humanity to a movie that seemed more concerned with its glitzy visual effects and elaborate costumes than with emotional connectivity. Mirren is wonderful, of course, but spends stretches of the movie off-camera. That was sort of a given. It should, however, be noted that there hasn't been a recent example of sticking-out-like-a-sore-thumb casting as shameful as Russell Brand's. His performance, as the bumbling clown, is supposed to be a little larger than life. Every time he shows up it's like somebody has painted a yellow slash down the center of the screen; it's distracting, off-putting and awful.
Taymor keeps large sections of the text, and outfits her characters in decadent duds (we'd kill for one of those YSL-ish leather jackets) that she said were meant to symbolize timelessness. What they really symbolize is a director more comfortable with camp than with craft, and the way she shoots much of the movie, with the actors taking up the foreground of the shot while the backgrounds (the movie was shot on location in Hawaii) turn into indistinct mush, robs the movie of any sense of scope. It becomes less about the text, the amazing actors that are saying the lines, and the scale afforded by motion pictures, and more about Taymor's lackluster staging.
Bogglingly, "The Tempest" is the "Centerpiece Film" at the New York Film Festival and closed out Venice earlier this year and is being groomed by some as an Oscar heavyweight, once it opens in December. It's absolute absurd to think this, and we're quick to peg it as this year's "Nine:" a movie that seems to have prestige written all over it, until people actually see it. Or, in the words of the Bard: "the past is prologue." [D]
What are they looking at? We have no idea what the conceit is behind the new poster for the upcoming, downsizing drama "The Company Men" but we really hope it's not a riff on the kitty on a wire, Hang In There Baby poster because that would be quite lame.
StarringBen Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner and Maria Bello this film by John Wellspremiered at Sundance, was picked up by The Weinstein Company and then sort of forgotten about.In the film Affleck gets the role of the (upper) middle class everyman whose life is changed when he loses his job at the age of 37.
At any rate, we'll see if this film is an awards horse or not when it opens on October 22nd. As a refresher, you can watch the trailer here. [Cinematical]
Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and Rashida Jones are in negotiations to join the Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller scribed Muppet movie which is still without a title.
