David O. Russell makes bipolar disorder, dance competitions and the NFL the stuff of romantic comedy in Silver Linings Playbook, a seriously funny feature with star turns by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. Miguel Arteta interviews writer/director Russell and executive producer/star Cooper.
by Miguel Arteta on Nov 1, 2012No one can say actor/musician Ryan O’Nan didn’t pull his weight in his directorial debut, Brooklyn Brothers Beat The Best, which makes its theatrical debut on September 21 via Oscilloscope Laboratories. Besides directing, writing, and starring in the film, O’Nan wrote and sang most of the songs on the soundtrack (album out 9/18 on ATCO Records). A 2011 IFP Narrative Labs project that premiered at Toronto last year, Brooklyn Brothers is the story of two ne’er-do-well musicians who make an unlikely alliance, embarking on the kind of quixotic journey that’s tailor-made for a buddy movie. But O’Nan’s film finds itself […]
by Jim Allen on Sep 18, 2012The word on the film is that this is David O. Russell going back to his roots somewhat, returning to the territory of films like Flirting with Disaster, which is something I can definitely get on board with. It seems like this might be the film that will let us know if Bradley Cooper is (or at least wants to be) an actor rather than a movie star — what he shows here is certainly promisingly different from what we’ve seen before from him. And it’s also nice to see Jennifer Lawrence coming back to a role with a little […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 29, 2012Jamie Stuart, well known to Filmmaker readers for all the videos he’s shot for the site over the years, was commissioned to shoot the intros and promos for the New York City Made in New York Awards, held at Gracie Mansion last night. Here’s his intro spot featuring all the recipients, including Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 5, 2012As a child growing up in Scituate, Massachusetts, Nick Flynn (pictured here at left and below with director Paul Weitz) was often left to explore on his own, and he got into varying degrees of trouble. Flynn’s parents were divorced and he had no contact with his father, living instead with his mother, who worked in a bakery. She remarried to a 21-year-old Viet Nam vet, and, after their divorce, Flynn wound up living with her and a new boyfriend — a member of one of the largest drug smuggling rings in New England. Around the age of 18 Flynn […]
by Alix Lambert on Mar 2, 2012Talk about a frame grab to use as the trailer image! Here’s the first trailer from Paul Weitz’s Being Flynn, an adaptation of memoir writer Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. It stars Robert DeNiro, Paul Dano, Julianne Moore and Olivia Thirlby and will be released by Focus Features this coming Spring.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 15, 2011The Cannes Awards Ceremony has just begun, hosted by Melanie Laurent. I’ll be refreshing this page as the awards unfold. The Short Film Prize, announce by Michel Gondry, goes to Cross Country, by Ukraine’s Maryna Vroda. The Camera d’Or, given to best first film, goes to Argentinia’sLas Acacias, by Pablo Giorgelli. To the strains of Morricone’s score for Once Upon a Time in America, jury president Robert De Niro joins Laurent on stage to introduce his fellow jury members: Olivier Assayas, Uma Thurman, Johnnie To, Martina Gusman, Nansun Shi, Linn Ullman, and Mahamat Saleh Haroun. And they announce the Jury […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 22, 2011We’ve kinda been down this road before. In early 2010, around the time of the Berlin Film Festival, reports rumors hit the blogsphere that Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro were planning a remake of Taxi Driver in the vein of The Five Obstructions by making it five times, each with rules created by von Trier. Now out of Cannes, Scorsese and von Trier are bringing up the idea again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Scorsese project to be dissected has not been decided yet but shooting will begin after Scorsese is done with the Daniel […]
by Jason Guerrasio on May 13, 2011From Focus Features comes this on-set interview with author Nick Flynn, whose book Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is being turned into a movie by director Paul Weitz. Here he talks about recreating his Boston youth in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and what it’s like to have Robert De Niro playing his dad and Paul Dano playing himself.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2011