Stop asking Russell Crowe about “Gladiator 2.”
“They should be fucking paying me for the amount of questions I am asked about a film I am not even in,” he told journalists at Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
“It has nothing to do with me. In that world, I am dead. Six feet under. But I do admit to a certain tinge of jealousy, because it reminds me of when I was younger and what it meant for me, in my life.”
“I don’t know anything about the cast, I don’t know anything about the plot. I am dead! But I know that if Ridley has decided to do a second part of the story, over 20 years later, he must have had very strong reasons. I can’t think of this movie being anything other than spectacular.”
Crowe has been a colorful presence at the Czech fest, accepting an award...
“They should be fucking paying me for the amount of questions I am asked about a film I am not even in,” he told journalists at Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
“It has nothing to do with me. In that world, I am dead. Six feet under. But I do admit to a certain tinge of jealousy, because it reminds me of when I was younger and what it meant for me, in my life.”
“I don’t know anything about the cast, I don’t know anything about the plot. I am dead! But I know that if Ridley has decided to do a second part of the story, over 20 years later, he must have had very strong reasons. I can’t think of this movie being anything other than spectacular.”
Crowe has been a colorful presence at the Czech fest, accepting an award...
- 7/1/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Opening ceremony featured Johnny Depp trailer, which poked fun at the actor’s 2021 attendance.
Russell Crowe brought rock and roll to the opening night of the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), playing a 90-minute set having earlier accepted the Crystal Globe for outstanding contribution to world cinema.
Crowe and his band Indoor Garden Party combined their own music – including new single ‘Let Your Light Shine’, the title track from their upcoming album, and ‘Southampton’, about the English city – with covers including Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘A Hazy Shade Of Winter’, a Crowe-solo...
Russell Crowe brought rock and roll to the opening night of the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), playing a 90-minute set having earlier accepted the Crystal Globe for outstanding contribution to world cinema.
Crowe and his band Indoor Garden Party combined their own music – including new single ‘Let Your Light Shine’, the title track from their upcoming album, and ‘Southampton’, about the English city – with covers including Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘A Hazy Shade Of Winter’, a Crowe-solo...
- 7/1/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
The 57th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival got off to a banging start on Friday evening as free opening concerts by Russell Crowe — with his musical collective Indoor Garden Party — and British electronic music band Morcheeba got crowds rocking and grooving in the square in front of the picturesque Czech spa town’s Hotel Thermal.
Morcheeba fans came out in droves in the early evening despite some rain, cheering and moving along to such hits as opening number “The Sea” and “Trigger Hippie.” The performance followed the fest’s opening ceremony and seemed to put the town into party mode.
After Morcheeba’s appearance, anticipation started building for the late music act. Just before 11 p.m., Crowe arrived on stage, with a drink cup in hand, where he was greeted with loud cheers and applause. Earlier in the evening he had received the Crystal Globe for outstanding...
Morcheeba fans came out in droves in the early evening despite some rain, cheering and moving along to such hits as opening number “The Sea” and “Trigger Hippie.” The performance followed the fest’s opening ceremony and seemed to put the town into party mode.
After Morcheeba’s appearance, anticipation started building for the late music act. Just before 11 p.m., Crowe arrived on stage, with a drink cup in hand, where he was greeted with loud cheers and applause. Earlier in the evening he had received the Crystal Globe for outstanding...
- 7/1/2023
- by Georg Szalai
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Bertrand Mandico's After Blue (Paradis sale).The lineup for the 2021 Locarno International Film Festival includes Piazza Grande screenings of Michael Mann's Heat and Gaspar Noé's Vortex, and the latest by by Bertrand Mandico, Axelle Ropert, Abel Ferrara, Salomé Lamas and more.The great filmmaker and actor Robert Downey Sr. has passed on at age 85. His incredible filmography includes Babo 73 (1964), Sweet Smell of Sex (1965), Chafed Elbows (1966), No More Excuses (1968), Putney Swope (1969), Pound (1970), and Greaser's Palace (1972).In an interview on the Armchair Expert podcast, Quentin Tarantino announced that he has purchased Los Angeles' Vista Theatre, emphasizing that though the theatre will screen both new and old movies, it will be "only film [...] the best prints." Screenwriter and filmmaker Clare Peploe has died. Though best known for her screenplays for Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged and La Luna,...
- 7/7/2021
- MUBI
Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Echo Chamber,” the final project the acclaimed director was worked on prior to his death last month, will be coming to the big screen.
Indigo Film, an Italian production company behind several Paolo Sorrentino films including “The Great Beauty” and “Youth,” is working to finish the film as a tribute to Bertolucci, one of Indigo Film’s founding partners Nicola Giuliano told TheWrap.
“The Echo Chamber” would’ve been Bertolucci’s first film as a director since 2012’s “Me and You.” No director has yet been selected to direct the picture in his stead. Bertolucci was wheelchair bound for much of the end of his life and died on Nov. 26 at age 77 after a short fight with cancer.
Also Read: Martin Scorsese Says Bernardo Bertolucci 'Inspired' and 'Opened Many Doors' for Him
Bertolucci wrote the first draft of the screenplay along with Ludovica Rampoldi, a writer for the Italian series “Gomorrah,...
Indigo Film, an Italian production company behind several Paolo Sorrentino films including “The Great Beauty” and “Youth,” is working to finish the film as a tribute to Bertolucci, one of Indigo Film’s founding partners Nicola Giuliano told TheWrap.
“The Echo Chamber” would’ve been Bertolucci’s first film as a director since 2012’s “Me and You.” No director has yet been selected to direct the picture in his stead. Bertolucci was wheelchair bound for much of the end of his life and died on Nov. 26 at age 77 after a short fight with cancer.
Also Read: Martin Scorsese Says Bernardo Bertolucci 'Inspired' and 'Opened Many Doors' for Him
Bertolucci wrote the first draft of the screenplay along with Ludovica Rampoldi, a writer for the Italian series “Gomorrah,...
- 12/6/2018
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
“The Echo Chamber,” the unfinished project that Italian great Bernardo Bertolucci was working on before his unexpected death last month, is to be brought to the big screen by Italy’s Indigo Film.
Nicola Giuliano, a founding partner of Indigo (“The Great Beauty”), confirmed that the chamber piece would be produced as a tribute to Bertolucci’s artistic vitality. The project would have marked Bertolucci’s first time back in the director’s chair since his 2012 coming-of-age drama, “Me and You.” Giuliano said that a new helmer for the film had not yet been chosen.
Bertolucci, who died on Nov. 26 in Rome after a short bout with cancer, had completed a first draft of the screenplay, which he co-wrote with two young Italian writers: Ludovica Rampoldi, whose credits include hit series “Gomorrah,” and Ilaria Bernardini, a novelist who has worked on the Italian adaptation of “In Treatment.”
Very little is...
Nicola Giuliano, a founding partner of Indigo (“The Great Beauty”), confirmed that the chamber piece would be produced as a tribute to Bertolucci’s artistic vitality. The project would have marked Bertolucci’s first time back in the director’s chair since his 2012 coming-of-age drama, “Me and You.” Giuliano said that a new helmer for the film had not yet been chosen.
Bertolucci, who died on Nov. 26 in Rome after a short bout with cancer, had completed a first draft of the screenplay, which he co-wrote with two young Italian writers: Ludovica Rampoldi, whose credits include hit series “Gomorrah,” and Ilaria Bernardini, a novelist who has worked on the Italian adaptation of “In Treatment.”
Very little is...
- 12/5/2018
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Oscar-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci, best known for his nine-time Oscar-winning masterpiece The Last Emperor, has died at 77. The Italian auteur behind groundbreaking works like Last Tango in Paris and The Conformist passed away in Rome this weekend following a battle with cancer, according to his publicist (via Deadline). He is survived by his wife, British filmmaker Clare Peploe, […]
The post Bernardo Bertolucci, Oscar-Winning Director of ‘The Last Emperor’ and ‘Last Tango in Paris,’ Dead at 77 appeared first on /Film.
The post Bernardo Bertolucci, Oscar-Winning Director of ‘The Last Emperor’ and ‘Last Tango in Paris,’ Dead at 77 appeared first on /Film.
- 11/26/2018
- by Hoai-Tran Bui
- Slash Film
Bernardo Bertolucci, the director of “Last Tango in Paris,” has died. He was 77.
The Italian filmmaker lost his battle with cancer on Monday, according to the Associated Press. He passed away in Rome, surrounded by family.
Bertolucci was a self-professed Marxist, which could be seen in his films.
Also Read: Ricky Jay, Magician and 'Boogie Nights' and 'Magnolia' Actor, Dies at 72
Bertolucci won a pair of Oscars for writing and directing 1987’s “The Last Emperor.” The movie itself won all nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated.
Previously, Bertolucci was Oscar-nominated in 1974 for directing “Last Tango.” Two years prior, Bertolucci received an Academy Award nomination for writing “The Conformist.”
TheWrap did not immediately hear back from our request for the Punto e Virgola press office to confirm Bertolucci’s passing.
Also Read: Nicolas Roeg, 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' Director, Dies at...
The Italian filmmaker lost his battle with cancer on Monday, according to the Associated Press. He passed away in Rome, surrounded by family.
Bertolucci was a self-professed Marxist, which could be seen in his films.
Also Read: Ricky Jay, Magician and 'Boogie Nights' and 'Magnolia' Actor, Dies at 72
Bertolucci won a pair of Oscars for writing and directing 1987’s “The Last Emperor.” The movie itself won all nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated.
Previously, Bertolucci was Oscar-nominated in 1974 for directing “Last Tango.” Two years prior, Bertolucci received an Academy Award nomination for writing “The Conformist.”
TheWrap did not immediately hear back from our request for the Punto e Virgola press office to confirm Bertolucci’s passing.
Also Read: Nicolas Roeg, 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' Director, Dies at...
- 11/26/2018
- by Tony Maglio
- The Wrap
Bernardo Bertolucci, a towering figure of world cinema, has died aged 77.
The influential Italian auteur, perhaps best known for epic The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars, and groundbreaking works such as Last Tango In Paris and The Conformist, has passed away in Rome following a battle with cancer his publicist has confirmed.
Bertolucci was a key figure in the extraordinary Italian cinema of the 1960s and early 1970s but also made a successful transition to big canvas Hollywood filmmaking with 1987’s The Last Emperor, whose Oscars included Best Picture and Best Director for Bertolucci.
Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma in 1941, the son of a poet and teacher. His father was friends with future avant-garde filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, then a novelist and poet, and Pasolino hired the 20-year-old Bertolucci as his assistant on his 1961 debut, Accattone. Bertolucci made his own directorial debut on 1962 feature La...
The influential Italian auteur, perhaps best known for epic The Last Emperor, which won nine Oscars, and groundbreaking works such as Last Tango In Paris and The Conformist, has passed away in Rome following a battle with cancer his publicist has confirmed.
Bertolucci was a key figure in the extraordinary Italian cinema of the 1960s and early 1970s but also made a successful transition to big canvas Hollywood filmmaking with 1987’s The Last Emperor, whose Oscars included Best Picture and Best Director for Bertolucci.
Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma in 1941, the son of a poet and teacher. His father was friends with future avant-garde filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, then a novelist and poet, and Pasolino hired the 20-year-old Bertolucci as his assistant on his 1961 debut, Accattone. Bertolucci made his own directorial debut on 1962 feature La...
- 11/26/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Dramas from Jayro Bustamante and Gabriel Ripstein take top prizes in Mexico.
Fresh from its won at the Berlinale last month, Ixcanul (Ixcanul Volcano), the feature debut of Guatemalan writer-director Jayro Bustamente, won best Ibero-American picture and best director at the 30th Guadalajara International Film Festival on Saturday (March 14).
The docu-drama, which won the Alfred Bauer Prize in Berlin, features mainly non-actors and centes on the poor residents who live on the slopes of an active volcano in Guatemala
Gabriel Ripstein’s arms trafficking drama 600 Miles, starring Tim as an Atf agent who is kidnapped by a Mexican gun runner, won best Mexican film in Guadalajara. It also picked up a prize at Berlin in February, winning best first feature for Ripstein.
Mexican debutant Celso Garcia’s drama-comedy road movie The Yellow Thin Line (La delgada linea amarilla) won the special jury prize, screenplay and audience awards). The film was executive produced by Guillermo del Toro.
Competing...
Fresh from its won at the Berlinale last month, Ixcanul (Ixcanul Volcano), the feature debut of Guatemalan writer-director Jayro Bustamente, won best Ibero-American picture and best director at the 30th Guadalajara International Film Festival on Saturday (March 14).
The docu-drama, which won the Alfred Bauer Prize in Berlin, features mainly non-actors and centes on the poor residents who live on the slopes of an active volcano in Guatemala
Gabriel Ripstein’s arms trafficking drama 600 Miles, starring Tim as an Atf agent who is kidnapped by a Mexican gun runner, won best Mexican film in Guadalajara. It also picked up a prize at Berlin in February, winning best first feature for Ripstein.
Mexican debutant Celso Garcia’s drama-comedy road movie The Yellow Thin Line (La delgada linea amarilla) won the special jury prize, screenplay and audience awards). The film was executive produced by Guillermo del Toro.
Competing...
- 3/16/2015
- by alexisgrivas@yahoo.com (Alexis Grivas)
- ScreenDaily
Madrid -- Meryl Streep and Antonio Banderas will receive Donostia lifetime achievement awards at this year's San Sebastian International Film Festival, organizers said Friday.
Local hero Banderas will pick up his award Sept. 19, one night after presenting the European premiere of Richard Eyre's "The Other Man" at the opening night ceremony. The festival will honor Streep on Sept. 26.
Jonathan Demme will chair the official jury, which awards the non-cash Gold Shell along with the other prizes in the festival's main competition. Demme is joined by German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, Argentine producer Martina Gusman Urruti, Japanese actor-director Masato Harada, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, English-Italian director Clare Peploe and Spanish actress Leonor Watling.
Chinese multihyphenate Joan Chen will head the Altadis New Directors Jury, which awards the coveted 90,000 euros ($128,000) award to be split between the director and the Spanish distributor of the film.
Cuban actress Mirtha Ibarra will head the Horizontes Jury,...
Local hero Banderas will pick up his award Sept. 19, one night after presenting the European premiere of Richard Eyre's "The Other Man" at the opening night ceremony. The festival will honor Streep on Sept. 26.
Jonathan Demme will chair the official jury, which awards the non-cash Gold Shell along with the other prizes in the festival's main competition. Demme is joined by German cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, Argentine producer Martina Gusman Urruti, Japanese actor-director Masato Harada, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki, English-Italian director Clare Peploe and Spanish actress Leonor Watling.
Chinese multihyphenate Joan Chen will head the Altadis New Directors Jury, which awards the coveted 90,000 euros ($128,000) award to be split between the director and the Spanish distributor of the film.
Cuban actress Mirtha Ibarra will head the Horizontes Jury,...
- 9/5/2008
- by By Pamela Rolfe
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
While it doesn't quite reach the artistic heights of his best work, "Besieged" marks a return to the kind of intimate, fundamental filmmaking that Bernardo Bertolucci had abandoned for his more elaborate and not always successful epics.
The payoff is an intriguing if somewhat plot-deprived, lyrical pas de deux between a reclusive English pianist and a female African refugee who meet in Italy after crossing very different paths.
Accomplished performances by leads David Thewlis and Thandie Newton, combined with its will-they-or-won't-they percolating tease, could help this Fine Line Features release find an appreciative art house audience.
Collaborating on the screenplay with his wife, filmmaker Clare Peploe -- which was based on the James Lasdun short story, "The Siege" -- Bertolucci has created a vivid emotional landscape in a daunting Roman villa where the eccentric Mr. Kinsky (Thewlis) takes refuge behind his grand piano.
Enter Shandurai, a young woman who fled her politically oppressive African homeland to study medicine at night school while earning room and board by cleaning Mr. Kinsky's dusty, inherited home.
Gradually, he is smitten by the smart, beguiling Shandurai and one day blurts out his feelings for her. Not taking the revelation too well, she informs him that if he truly cares for her, he'll help free her incarcerated husband.
Reluctantly deciding to stay on despite the potentially awkward conditions, Shandurai soon finds herself becoming attracted to her rather odd employer and his haunting musical compositions. But as those feelings begin to crystallize, Mr. Kinsky's villa is steadily being depleted of its antique heirlooms as he quietly makes some considerable sacrifices to prove his unconditional love for her.
In some ways reminiscent of Bertolucci's notorious "Last Tango in Paris" minus the explicit carnal element, "Besieged" again finds a man and a woman alone together (and apart) in an imposing, ultimately empty house. Here, however, they're symbolically kept at a distance by a dramatic winding staircase that neatly reflects their own labyrinthian emotional states.
The film works best when it stays within the boundaries of those compelling interiors. Less successful are a series of flashbacks and/or dream sequences set in Shandurai's homeland accompanied by the constant presence of a shaman-like, wizened African storyteller. While undeniably exotic, the scenes ultimately distract from rather than adding anything significant to the proceedings.
Certainly little additional set dressing is required when you have two performances as delicately and intricately rendered as those of Newton and Thewlis, who excel at conveying intellectually contained vulnerability. They manage to keep things involving despite the occasional dips in dramatic tension.
Also putting in virtuoso performances are cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti, and frequent Bertolucci collaborators, production designer Gianni Silvestri and costume designer Metka Kosak, whose visual contributions are important characters in their own right.
Composer Jacopo Quadri does a nimble job reconciling the seemingly opposing strains of classical piano and African rhythms.
BESIEGED
Fine Line Features
A Fiction Films & Navert Film Production in association with Mediaset
Director:Bernardo Bertolucci
Screenwriters:Bernardo Bertolucci, Clare Peploe
Based on a story by:James Lasdun
Producer:Massimo Cortesi
Director of photography:Fabio Cianchetti
Production designer:Gianni Silvestri
Editor:Jacopo Quadri
Costume designer:Metka Kosak
Music:Alessio Vlad
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shandurai:Thandie Newton
Mr. Kinsky:David Thewlis
Agostino:Claudio Santamaria
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
The payoff is an intriguing if somewhat plot-deprived, lyrical pas de deux between a reclusive English pianist and a female African refugee who meet in Italy after crossing very different paths.
Accomplished performances by leads David Thewlis and Thandie Newton, combined with its will-they-or-won't-they percolating tease, could help this Fine Line Features release find an appreciative art house audience.
Collaborating on the screenplay with his wife, filmmaker Clare Peploe -- which was based on the James Lasdun short story, "The Siege" -- Bertolucci has created a vivid emotional landscape in a daunting Roman villa where the eccentric Mr. Kinsky (Thewlis) takes refuge behind his grand piano.
Enter Shandurai, a young woman who fled her politically oppressive African homeland to study medicine at night school while earning room and board by cleaning Mr. Kinsky's dusty, inherited home.
Gradually, he is smitten by the smart, beguiling Shandurai and one day blurts out his feelings for her. Not taking the revelation too well, she informs him that if he truly cares for her, he'll help free her incarcerated husband.
Reluctantly deciding to stay on despite the potentially awkward conditions, Shandurai soon finds herself becoming attracted to her rather odd employer and his haunting musical compositions. But as those feelings begin to crystallize, Mr. Kinsky's villa is steadily being depleted of its antique heirlooms as he quietly makes some considerable sacrifices to prove his unconditional love for her.
In some ways reminiscent of Bertolucci's notorious "Last Tango in Paris" minus the explicit carnal element, "Besieged" again finds a man and a woman alone together (and apart) in an imposing, ultimately empty house. Here, however, they're symbolically kept at a distance by a dramatic winding staircase that neatly reflects their own labyrinthian emotional states.
The film works best when it stays within the boundaries of those compelling interiors. Less successful are a series of flashbacks and/or dream sequences set in Shandurai's homeland accompanied by the constant presence of a shaman-like, wizened African storyteller. While undeniably exotic, the scenes ultimately distract from rather than adding anything significant to the proceedings.
Certainly little additional set dressing is required when you have two performances as delicately and intricately rendered as those of Newton and Thewlis, who excel at conveying intellectually contained vulnerability. They manage to keep things involving despite the occasional dips in dramatic tension.
Also putting in virtuoso performances are cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti, and frequent Bertolucci collaborators, production designer Gianni Silvestri and costume designer Metka Kosak, whose visual contributions are important characters in their own right.
Composer Jacopo Quadri does a nimble job reconciling the seemingly opposing strains of classical piano and African rhythms.
BESIEGED
Fine Line Features
A Fiction Films & Navert Film Production in association with Mediaset
Director:Bernardo Bertolucci
Screenwriters:Bernardo Bertolucci, Clare Peploe
Based on a story by:James Lasdun
Producer:Massimo Cortesi
Director of photography:Fabio Cianchetti
Production designer:Gianni Silvestri
Editor:Jacopo Quadri
Costume designer:Metka Kosak
Music:Alessio Vlad
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shandurai:Thandie Newton
Mr. Kinsky:David Thewlis
Agostino:Claudio Santamaria
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 5/20/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It's not exactly a great mystery to see why Clare Peploe's "Rough Magic" has been floating around in release limbo for the past couple of years.
One of those steeped-in-magic-and-mysticism pictures, this deliberate confusion of screen conventions quickly wears out its overly perky welcome.
Like "Wilder Napalm" and "The Linguini Incident" before it, "Rough Magic" should serve as a handy example of "now you see it, now you don't" at the boxoffice.
Bridget Fonda is Myra Shumway, a magician's assistant in 1950s Los Angeles. She hightails it to Mexico in her shiny Buick convertible when her aspiring politician fiance, Cliff (D.W. Moffett), inadvertently shoots and kills the fatherly illusionist, played by Kenneth Mars.
There she meets up with Doc Ansell (Jim Broadbent), a street huckster who sells Miracle Elixir to the townsfolk; as well as Alex Ross Russell Crowe), a world-weary newspaperman who has been dispatched by Cliff to retrieve a roll of film from Myra that implicates him in the murder.
Of course, Alex ends up falling for the unwitting Myra, but not before she encounters a powerful Mayan sorceress (Euva Anderson), who endows her with the ability to lay giant tarantula eggs, turn annoying men into sausages and bestow on dogs the gift of speech, among other talents.
Peploe, who based her fractured fable on James Hadley Chase's "Miss Shumway Waves a Wand" (with an assist from William Brookfield and Robert Mundy), is obviously a big fan of the novel, but it would have been better left unfilmed. The story's flights of fancy work more effectively on the printed page, where the reader's imagination can take over. On the screen, they're self-consciously precious and grow rapidly tiresome.
The leads are similarly out of kilter. Dressed and coiffed to resemble, say, Veronica Lake and Joseph Cotten, Fonda and Crowe have the looks down but little of the substance or pulp. Old pro Jim Broadbent fares better as the Sydney Greenstreet-esque quack, while funnyman Paul Rodriguez scores some character points as a slimy thug who gets his just deserts.
Visually, the picture hits its requisite marks with some strong period production design from Waldemar Kalinowski and costume design from Richard
Hornung. DP John J. Campbell does some nice things with bright light that help conjure the magical realism.
ROUGH MAGIC
Goldwyn distributed through Metromedia Entertainment Group
UGC Images and Recorded Picture Company
present
in association with Martin Scorsese
A UGC Images production
A Clare Peploe film
Director:Clare Peploe
Producers:Laurie Parker and Declan Baldwin
Screenwriters:Robert Mundy and William Brookfield & Clare Peploe
Based on the novel "Miss Shumway Waves a Wand" by: James Hadley Chase
Executive producers:Yves Attal, Jonathan Taplin, Andrew Karsch
Director of photography:John J. Campbell
Production designer:Waldemar Kalinowski
Editor:Suzanne Fenn
Music:Richard Hartley
Costume designer:Richard Hornung
Color/stereo
Cast:
Myra Shumway:Bridget Fonda
Alex Ross:Russell Crowe
Doc Ansell:Jim Broadbent
Cliff Wyatt:D.W. Moffett
Magician:Kenneth Mars
Diego:Paul Rodriguez
Diego's Wife/Tojola:Euva Anderson
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13...
One of those steeped-in-magic-and-mysticism pictures, this deliberate confusion of screen conventions quickly wears out its overly perky welcome.
Like "Wilder Napalm" and "The Linguini Incident" before it, "Rough Magic" should serve as a handy example of "now you see it, now you don't" at the boxoffice.
Bridget Fonda is Myra Shumway, a magician's assistant in 1950s Los Angeles. She hightails it to Mexico in her shiny Buick convertible when her aspiring politician fiance, Cliff (D.W. Moffett), inadvertently shoots and kills the fatherly illusionist, played by Kenneth Mars.
There she meets up with Doc Ansell (Jim Broadbent), a street huckster who sells Miracle Elixir to the townsfolk; as well as Alex Ross Russell Crowe), a world-weary newspaperman who has been dispatched by Cliff to retrieve a roll of film from Myra that implicates him in the murder.
Of course, Alex ends up falling for the unwitting Myra, but not before she encounters a powerful Mayan sorceress (Euva Anderson), who endows her with the ability to lay giant tarantula eggs, turn annoying men into sausages and bestow on dogs the gift of speech, among other talents.
Peploe, who based her fractured fable on James Hadley Chase's "Miss Shumway Waves a Wand" (with an assist from William Brookfield and Robert Mundy), is obviously a big fan of the novel, but it would have been better left unfilmed. The story's flights of fancy work more effectively on the printed page, where the reader's imagination can take over. On the screen, they're self-consciously precious and grow rapidly tiresome.
The leads are similarly out of kilter. Dressed and coiffed to resemble, say, Veronica Lake and Joseph Cotten, Fonda and Crowe have the looks down but little of the substance or pulp. Old pro Jim Broadbent fares better as the Sydney Greenstreet-esque quack, while funnyman Paul Rodriguez scores some character points as a slimy thug who gets his just deserts.
Visually, the picture hits its requisite marks with some strong period production design from Waldemar Kalinowski and costume design from Richard
Hornung. DP John J. Campbell does some nice things with bright light that help conjure the magical realism.
ROUGH MAGIC
Goldwyn distributed through Metromedia Entertainment Group
UGC Images and Recorded Picture Company
present
in association with Martin Scorsese
A UGC Images production
A Clare Peploe film
Director:Clare Peploe
Producers:Laurie Parker and Declan Baldwin
Screenwriters:Robert Mundy and William Brookfield & Clare Peploe
Based on the novel "Miss Shumway Waves a Wand" by: James Hadley Chase
Executive producers:Yves Attal, Jonathan Taplin, Andrew Karsch
Director of photography:John J. Campbell
Production designer:Waldemar Kalinowski
Editor:Suzanne Fenn
Music:Richard Hartley
Costume designer:Richard Hornung
Color/stereo
Cast:
Myra Shumway:Bridget Fonda
Alex Ross:Russell Crowe
Doc Ansell:Jim Broadbent
Cliff Wyatt:D.W. Moffett
Magician:Kenneth Mars
Diego:Paul Rodriguez
Diego's Wife/Tojola:Euva Anderson
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13...
- 5/30/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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