A first look at Kelly Reichardt's Western, "Meek's Cutoff"

As we slowly emerge from a rather seriously dreary movie winter, good movies are coming with us, and the poster above is for one I'm definitely looking forward to. James Gunn's "Super" stars Rainn Wilson as an average guy who transforms himself into the super hero shown above, The Crimson Bolt, to take out the drug dealer (Kevin Bacon, naturally) who has absconded with his wife (Liv Tyler). Throw in Ellen Page as his sociopathic sidekick, and I'm certainly in.

And best of all, if you live in the world of wide releases only like me: This is an IFC release, so it should be coming to IFC On Demand on your cable box right around the same time it hits (a few at least) theaters April 1.

But what really caught my eye this morning was the first trailer I know of for director Kelly Reichart's Western, "Meek's Cutoff," which will be coming to at least some theaters a week after "Super," and will probably be the first 2011 movie I'll drive an hour up the road to see in Atlanta.

Judging from the one Reichart movie I've seen so far, "Wendy and Lucy," starring Michelle Williams as a young woman whose fragile life unravels after she loses her dog, this new flick will be a really low-key, low-action affair, but I'm still betting on something pretty great.

"Meek's Cutoff," which again stars Williams and also Paul Dano, tells the story of Stephen Meek, a hired guide who, according to The Playlist, "led an ill-fated contingent of wagons through a shortcut en route to the Willamette Valley in 1845."

Here's more of the official synopsis from Oscilloscope, which is releasing this:

The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.

Man, does that sound great to me. Enjoy the trailer, and if you happen to live in one of this country's very biggest cities, definitely check this one out on April 8. Peace out.


Meek's Cutoff
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DVD review: "The Extra Man"

Be warned: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's "The Extra Man" is indeed a "character study," but thankfully it's a genuinely odd and often endearing one.

Based on the Jonathan Ames novel of the same name, it stars Kevin Kline as the titular "Extra Man," a bizarre, sexless gigolo of sorts for rich old ladies, and Paul Dano as his protege. Much like Ames' "Bored to Death" on HBO, it's also an ode to the kind of New York eccentrics that are being buried by the city's continued Disneyfication.

Berman and Pulcini, who wrote and directed the fabulous "American Splendor," about the late Harvey Pekar, are at their best when they shine the light on American oddity, which is certainly the case with "The Extra Man."

Fans of "Bored to Death," of which you can certainly count me as one, should be warned, however: The humor is much less broad than with that NYC stoner romp starring Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifianakis and Ted Danson. That doesn't mean, however, that the laughs aren't here, there just more delicate and sometimes hard to watch.

Ames always writes a lot of himself into one of his characters, and in this case you have to wonder how many of the issues he shares with Dano's Louis Ives. As the movie opens, he's being fired as a professor at Princeton because his boss discovers him trying on a co-worker's bra in the teacher's lounge.

From there, he sets his sights on New York City, and ends up matched up with Kline after answering an ad seeking a roommate who's a "gentleman." From there on out, the movie is mostly about the relationship of that odd couple and their various adventures squiring old women around town (yes, it often really is as crazy as it sounds.)

Having read on the DVD box that this was "Kevin Kline's best performance since "A Fish Called Wanda'," I was bracing for an over-the-top mess, but for the most part he dives into the part of Henry Harrison and delivers a portrait of a genuine New York eccentric. Dano, for his part, slowly learns to give as good as he gets with Henry's odd life advice, and they play off each other very well.

Ames' tale constantly straddles the line between genuine oddity and contrived quirk, and at least a few times dashes right across it. On the good side is Lewis' visit to a "recession spankologist," something that would be right at home on "Bored to Death" and funny enough that I won't tell you any more about it here.

On the down side, however, is the usually reliable John C. Reilly, who plays Harrison's neighbor with a high-pitched squeal that will grate on you almost as much as his overall performance. And, because of course any movie like this needs a potential love interest for our hero, Katie Holmes makes an appearance too, but never for long enough to be too annoying.

Watching "The Extra Man," I was reminded of two directors: Woody Allen (who turned 75 this week - bully) and Wes Anderson. Allen for the extremely strong sense of place that marks the best of his old New York movies ("Manhattan" being my all-time favorite) and Anderson, of course, for the oddity, at its very best and worst.

The bottom line: "The Extra Man" certainly isn't for everyone (it got a measly 41 percent positive at Rotten Tomatoes), but if you want to spend a little time with some genuine characters in a New York City that's rapidly fading away, you could do a whole lot worse than this mostly fun little flick.

And, of course, I always like to wrap things up with a couple of fun clips.

First up comes a clip from Julie Taymor's "The Tempest," which isn't likely to be on anyone's best of 2010, but along with "The Extra Man," it's sure to be among the craziest of the year, and that's always OK in my book. As you'll see below, this stars Dame Helen Mirren and Djimon Honsou, and also somehow Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming. Keep an eye out for this in at least some corners of the world Dec. 10, and enjoy the clip.



Next comes the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's tribute to his friend, the late great monologist Spalding Gray, "And Everything Is Going Fine." It pains me that in the many times I've been to New York City, I never got to see Gray live before he dived off the Staten Island Ferry, but hopefully this IFC documentary will be playing somewhere when I return there in early January. Enjoy.



And with that, I'm off on this rare Friday off to go see Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" in Atlanta, and really looking forward to it. Peace out.

Atlanta Film Festival report No. 3: "The Good Heart"

Since when I'm not on vacation (like I am now), this is often about movie news, here's first a tidbit that intrigued me this morning.

If I were list say, 10 or so favorite directors, I think Greg Mottola would make the list somewhere in the bottom half. His movies are far from complex works of art, but I have unconditional love for "Superbad" and almost as much for "Adventureland," so I'm certainly a fan.

He'll be back this summer (I believe, but I've allegedly been wrong at least a few times before) with "Paul," which sounds like nothing but a big geeky ball of fun. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost star as a couple of British blokes on a cross-country tour of the U.S. on their way to Comic-Con who encounter and sort of adopt the titular alien on a visit to Roswell. Count me as thoroughly psyched for that, whenever it will actually be coming out.

And now comes word of his next project, which will be a romantic comedy but likely less raunchy (but hopefully nearly as fun) as what he's done this far. He's signed on to write and direct a movie based on the novel "Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry" (the title of which rather wisely will be shortened to simply "Important Artifacts.")

The movie, is set to star Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman (sheesh, can a movie just be too good looking?) in a tale described as "a fictional estate auction catalog full of personal items and photographs from the four-year romance between a male photographer and a younger food columnist." Like I said, fairly heady stuff for Mottola, but I'm still intrigued.

However, since I'm a guest at the Atlanta Film Festival, this is supposed to be about the pretty uniformly great sights I've seen there, and I'm certainly happy to share them (I suppose this would feel more like "working" if I were ever to get paid for it.)

We start (and perhaps finish, depending on how long I go on about this flick) with "The Good Heart," which I was thoroughly psyched to see on the strengths of its two leads, Brian Cox and Paul Dano, who would both make any short list of my favorite actors. And, unlike with most of the movies being shown at the festival, you can probably see this one right away for a few bucks using the On Demand function, depending on your cable provider.

And, despite some qualms (the ending is ludicrous!), I'd say it would be well worth it for an evening rental. I deliberately read nothing about the movie going in except for the barest of plot structures: Cox plays a cantankerous bar owner who takes in a young homeless man (Dano) and tries to make him his protege. Within that loose framework, however, what you get is much more of an intense character study than you usually find in movies nowadays, and a real showcase for its two stars.

The two are brought together after Cox's Jacques, who is none-too-slowly drinking and smoking himself to death, suffers what is apparently not his first heart attack and meets Dano's Lucas, who has tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide, in the hospital. It would be hard to find two sadder sacks, so they form an immediate bond, and Jacques decides to help Lucas out (and get in the process an indentured friend, of course.)

Most of the joy in watching "The Good Heart" comes in seeing the two of them spar with each other and slowly adopt to each other's idiosyncrasies, which are many. In lesser hands, the story arc - Jacques slowly lowering all of his hostility and Lucas realizing there's something to live for - would be pretty seriously hallmark stuff, but here it never fails to engage. Most of the credit for that goes to Cox, who clings to Jacques' maddeningly inane fixations, like how to make the perfect cup of coffee, and makes you almost understand why he lives that way even as you just want to shake him and yell "wake up!" Dano, however, holds up his half of the successful equation too, letting his nerve build up at a steady pace until he finally stops taking all of Jacques' considerable abuse.

But there wouldn't be enough for a feature-length movie with just the two of them, so a temptress inevitably enters the picture to compete for the attention and affection of Lucas in the form of Sarah, played with vibrant appeal by Stephanie Szostak. Even better, however, are the bar regulars (none of them played by anyone you would recognize, so I'm not gonna bother to try and track down their names) who turn this into something we haven't seen since "Barfly," a genuine drinker's movie. And though that may not sound terribly appealing, I promise you that you'll be surprised by just how perfectly writer/director Dagur Kari knows this world, and how quickly what seem like deep bonds can be revealed as the empty shells they are, especially when a patron manages to piss off Jacques for what is inevitably the most trivial of "infractions."

OK, as predicted, I went on about that longer than I had planned, but it would be a real disservice if I didn't mention that the ending, which I won't reveal, will either bewilder you (as it did me, though not nearly enough to not like this movie) or seem like a natural fit. All I'll say is that if you think about the title a bit while you're watching this, it won't seem like nearly as much of a slap in the face as it did to me.

This one isn't showing again at the Atlanta Film Festival, to which I'll be returning Thursday, but like I said, you can probably find it on cable On Demand, and if you like Paul Dano and Brian Cox (and if you don't, why the heck not?), I hope I've made enough of a case to make you want to check it out.

And I'll leave you today with the trailer for a movie that looks like it will appeal to me in the same sort of way. Called "Get Low," it stars Robert Duvall as a man who decides he wants to plan his funeral party so he can attend it, and Bill Murray as the attorney who helps him plot this madness. It's set to come out in at least some corners of the world on July 30. Enjoy, and have a perfectly passable Tuesday. Peace out.

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Just about the best news animation fans could possibly hope for

Actually, before we get into any of that goodness today, there's some very dark news about the world of TV, which directly impacts the show I was most amped about for the entire coming year (which is, when you think about it, just about the least important thing about this.)

David Mills, who worked closely with David Simon and like Simon was a former newspaper reporter (Mills for the Washington Post and Simon for the Baltimore Sun), died Tuesday night of an aneurysm on the set of "Treme," the post-Katrina New Orleans series he was developing with Simon for HBO (set to debut two Sundays from now, assuming this news doesn't change that.)

Once he crossed over into TV, Mills, like Simon, had a big hand in creating some of the best TV shows of the last 20 years or so. And I'm very far from exaggerating here. He wrote episodes of "The Wire," "Homicide: Life on the Street, "ER" and "NYPD Blue," and also served as a producer for "ER" and "NYPD Blue." His greatest accomplishment, however, was probably serving as executive producer and co-writer along with Simon and Ed Burns for the simply stunning HBO miniseries "The Corner," easily the most depressing thing to come out of Baltimore besides the Orioles, but still very worth watching (and which netted him two Emmys.)

And saddest of all is that he played a key role in "Treme" at the time of his death, serving as executive producer and having already written two episodes. I'm still planning to re-up on HBO in time for the premiere of this and long enough to watch "True Blood" season 3, but this is just a sad day all around indeed. Rest in peace, Mr. Mills.

You can read a much better obituary for the man written by his fellow "Treme" creators here.

OK, enough sad stuff, because for fans of great animation, there's news out there that is nothing short of incredible. Stop-motion master Henry Selick made my favorite animated movie of 2009 in "Coraline" (followed closely by "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.") Shortly after that, however, he was left immediately unemployed after the animation house he toiled for, Laika, closed up shop.

Now, however, that's all changed, and in the best possible way. Selick has just signed a long-term deal to create more stop-motion movies for Disney/Pixar. There's no word yet on exactly what he has in mind first, but I'm betting that anything that springs from his very active mind will be nothing short of amazing.

Remember that it was Selick not, as many people mistakenly think, Tim Burton, who directed "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and he also made the even better Roald Dahl adaptation "James and the Giant Peach" (if you missed that, as many people did, rent it immediately.) And beyond giving him work to do, this welcome move hopefully shows that, despite Pixar's current fixation with 3-D, it and Disney will keep being committed to making all kinds of animated movies.

And finally today, I just got around to examining the lineup for the 2010 edition of the Atlanta Film Festival 365 (for which I'm somehow a member of the press), and it looks great. The Atlanta fest is really homegrown, featuring a lot of regional fare and, this year, a focus on civil rights and music documentaries. I'm incredibly psyched that included in the latter category will be the closing night movie, "The Secret to a Happy Ending," a doco about my favorite rock band by far, the Drive-By Truckers (followed, apparently, by most of the band playing for a party that I WILL get in to.)

But the festival has narrative features too, of course, and I think the one I'm most looking forward to is "The Good Heart." It stars two of my favorite actors in Brian Cox and Paul Dano. Cox plays the owner of a New York dive bar who is slowly drinking and smoking himself to death until he meets Dano's character, a young homeless man who he takes under his wing. I don't know much more than that, but it's enough to get me rather amped for this. Here's the first clip I know of for the movie. Enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Where the Wild Things Aren't, or how to kill a movie before it's born

I really hope none of this is true, but since it comes from the almost always reliable C.H.U.D. and certainly doesn't seem to be beyond the pale of what happens in the world of movies today, I fear it is.

You may remember seeing a very rough clip of our hero, Max, playing with one of the Wild Things that spring from his mind in Spike Jonze's take on Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are." Jonze later clarified that the clip, which you can see in one of my previous posts here, was just very early test footage.

Well, as it turns out, we might just have to savor that clip as the living record of the movie that might have been, because Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures may be on the verge of killing the entire project and starting over from the beginning.

As crazy as that sounds, it's exactly what the suits are apparently contemplating doing with Jonze's flick, which is essentially completed now but not slated for release until 2009 (never a good sign, of course.) So what's the trouble?

Well, C.H.U.D. reports that the plan to animate the Wild Things' mouths and facial features after shooting the actors in those crazy suits was proving a little more difficult than anticipated. That, however, would be surmountable.

Much more ominously, concerns have been voiced about the boy chosen to play young Max (named, conveniently enough, Max Records.) Mind you, this concern is being voiced AFTER the movie has been shot. Even worse, and more perilous for the film's future, C.H.U.D. reports "they don't like the film's tone and want to go back to the script drawing board, possibly losing the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers script when they do it. Apparently the film is too weird and 'too scary,' and the character of Max is being seen as not likable."

The questions this brings to my rather angry mind are almost too many to list, but I'll do my best. First of all, did anyone who finds this story "too weird" or "too scary" ever even read the book? I mean, I realize it's a Caldecott winner and one of the true classics in children's literature, but most of its appeal comes in the fact that it's more than a little off-kilter. And Max isn't likable? In the book, as best as I can recall, he's a petulant child who is punished for, among other things, donning his wolf costume and chasing the dog around the house with a fork (I don't know about you, but I'm laughing about that already.) This clearly isn't the cookie-cutter hero we find in most kids' movies today.

Secondly, and much more importantly, what in the world did they expect when they hired Spike Jonze for this? If they had seen either "Being John Malkovich" or "Adaptation," you'd think someone would have balked at the beginning and asked, "Do we really want to hand the reins of a purportedly $75 million children's movie over to this oddball?" Until hearing this latest distressing news I, at least, thought it was a great idea. Why not an "arthouse" kiddie flick, one that parents will be able to take their children to and sit through without wanting to claw their own eyes out?

Now, I haven't seen the almost-finished product (which a lucky few folks got to do in Pasadena late last year, apparently.) It's entirely possible that what Spike Jonze and scribe Dave Eggers have created, with the talents of Paul Dano, Catherine Keener, Forest Whitaker, James Gandolfini and others, is a true disaster. In case you can't tell by now, I'm gonna have to side with the auteurs until we find out more about this, if we ever will. Just a sad story all around.

To cheer myself up I've been listening to Carole King's "Really Rosie." Yes, an odd CD selection for an "adult" with no rugrats running around, but I really love that record. If you don't smile when you hear "The Ballad of Chicken Soup" or how Pierre learns to care, I just don't know if there's anything I can do to help you.

I was hoping to find a video clip from that "Really Rosie" TV special, but instead, here's an animated tribute to "Where the Wild Things Are" I found at YouTube. Enjoy that at least, and if you have the chance, do yourself a favor this weekend and go see Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind" instead of the anatomy of a presidential assassination (why in the world would you put that out now?) or Larry the Cable Guy getting "Witless." Sheesh. Peace out.

10 (fairly) fresh faces to watch

Though I cribbed this idea directly from Variety, anyone who's been here before (and, amazingly, there do seem to be a few of you who actually read my ramblings) knows these names are all from my own head and close to my heart.

So, without wasting any more time, here are 10 names of rising stars you probably know already but will hopefully hear a lot more about in the future, with, when I could find it, their most interesting upcoming movie project.

Amy Adams

While I'd hesitate to call it a "great" movie, "Junebug" is easily one of the most charming movies I've seen in many years, largely due to Ms. Adams' great performance as the very pregnant (and not terribly happy about it) Ashley Johnsten. Amazingly, according to the IMDB, she worked at a Hooters restaurant until she turned 18 and they tried to make her wear the customary cleavage-promoting attire. Look for her this December in Mike Nichols' "Charlie Wilson's War."

Paul Dano

In "Little Miss Sunshine," he managed to steal the show in a cast crowded with heavyweights even though he didn't have much to say at all until near the very end. His reward? He landed the lead role in Spike Jonze's sure-to-be-wild adaptation of Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," which we unfortunately won't get to see until at least October 2008.

Taraji P. Henson

This D.C. girl is, so far, best known as the lady who sang D.J.'s hook for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" in "Hustle & Flow." Since then, she's been the only good thing about "Smokin' Aces," playing off Alicia Keys, and David Fincher has apparently had the good sense to cast her in his next movie, so look out for her in his take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."

Jonah Hill

I've already pimped the upcoming "Superbad" to death, so instead I'll recommend another flick that proves Mr. Hill is just astoundingly funny. I rented "Accepted" from that $1 DVD machine at the supermarket, which was surprisingly good, and he was very funny in it. Though I'm not sure I can call this a good thing, he'll soon be contributing his voice to the thoroughly unnecessary update of "Horton Hears a Who."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The only good thing to come out of the rather excremental TV show "3rd Rock From the Sun" (and no, it wasn't French Stewart) was the very talented Mr. Gordon-Levitt. All the proof you need can be found in "The Lookout," which was probably seen by about 10 people when it came out earlier this year but deserves to garner a lot more fans on DVD.

Derek Luke

Of all the actors and actresses who can claim to have been snubbed at last year's Oscars, Mr. Luke gets my vote for his outstanding turn as a South African man driven to terrorism by torture in Phillip Noyce's "Catch a Fire." Look for him soon in Robert Redford's upcoming Oscar bait "Lions for Lambs."

Ellen Page

Though Ms. Page deserves the most recognition for her surprisingly hardened work in "Hard Candy," I'll always remember her for giving me just about the only reason to smile while watching Brett Ratner's simply awful "X-Men: The Last Stand." Next, she'll be the titular star of Jason Reitman's "Juno." This coming-of-age story about a young lady who finds herself pregnant also stars three of the world's funniest people, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman and Rainn Wilson, so definitely keep your eyes out for it. (And, of course, it was written by Minneapolis City Pages blogger Diablo Cody.)

Keke Palmer

I usually have little time for sweet family films, having no rugrats of my own to tend to, but "Akeelah and the Bee" was a breed apart for its smarts and young Ms. Palmer's spunk. Since then, she's appeared in an episode of Tyler Perry's fairly awful TV show "House of Payne," and her only upcoming credit is for something from Renny Harlin called "The Cleaner," which also stars Samuel L. Jackson in what sounds like a fairly run-of=the-mill thriller.

Freddy Rodriguez

I've liked Freddy ever since his work on "Six Feet Under," and it was loads of fun watching him slay zombies (or whatever they were) in Robert Rodriguez's half of "Grindhouse." He currently resides in my Netflix queue opposite Christian Bale in "Harsh Times," and is apparently working on a flick called "Bottle Shock," to be about the birth of Napa Valley wine industry.

Anika Noni Rose

After holding her own with but ultimately getting overshadowed by divas Jennifer Hudson and Beyonce Knowles in "Dreamgirls," Ms. Rose is soon to get the ultimate last laugh. For what's being billed as Disney's first black princess, Ms. Rose will voice the lead role of Princess Tiana in its upcoming musical extravaganza "The Princess and the Frog," to which I can only offer a hearty huzzah!

So, there you have it. Please feel free to add the names of any young folk who just make you smile when they appear on the big screen, and have an entirely suckfree Wednesday.

P.S. A hearty congratulations to Robert Reichert, who scored a thoroughly impressive victory in the Macon mayoral race in Tuesday's Democratic primary, virtually assuring he will be my city's next mayor. Though the horse I backed, the Rev. Henry Ficklin, only got five percent, I only wish Mr. Reichert all the best in tackling all the serious problems we have to deal with. In his honor, here's a clip of the simply stunning "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke (audio only.) Enjoy!