Carl Franklin is in discussions to direct Warner Bros. Pictures' legal thriller Emperor of Ocean Park, based on Stephen Carter's novel of the same name. Studio-based John Wells Prods. and Gaylord Films are producing. Negotiations are expected to begin this week. Emperor would be Franklin's fourth feature film based on a novel after previous efforts with High Crimes, One True Thing and Devil in a Blue Dress, the latter of which he also adapted for the big screen. Stephen Schiff (True Crime) adapted Emperor, which is about a black law professor who gets caught up in a deadly game while investigating the mysterious death of his father, a legendary conservative judge. John Wells and Hunt Lowry are producing the project. Kristin Harms and Stacy Cohen are executive producing. Warners exec Kevin McCormick is overseeing the project. Franklin, repped by WMA, recently wrapped shooting the MGM thriller Out of Time, starring Denzel Washington.
- 7/16/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Carroll Ballard, who most recently directed the 1996 feature Fly Away Home, has come aboard to helm How It Was With Dooms for Warner Bros. Pictures' Gaylord Films/Pandora and John Wells Prods. A spring start in Africa is being planned. The project is based on the book How It Was With Dooms: A True Story From Africa, by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and Xan Hopcraft. It follows a young boy living in Nairobi, Kenya, and the special relationship he enjoys with an orphaned cheetah named Dooms, who becomes the family pet. The story is told through the boy's eyes. Carol Flint adapted the screenplay, with a rewrite by Karen Janszen and a production polish to be done by Mark St. Germain. Producing the project are John Wells and Hunt Lowry. Stacy Cohen and Kristin Harms are executive producing.
- 11/19/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Carroll Ballard, who most recently directed the 1996 feature Fly Away Home, has come aboard to helm How It Was With Dooms for Warner Bros. Pictures' Gaylord Films/Pandora and John Wells Prods. A spring start in Africa is being planned. The project is based on the book How It Was With Dooms: A True Story From Africa, by Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and Xan Hopcraft. It follows a young boy living in Nairobi, Kenya, and the special relationship he enjoys with an orphaned cheetah named Dooms, who becomes the family pet. The story is told through the boy's eyes. Carol Flint adapted the screenplay, with a rewrite by Karen Janszen and a production polish to be done by Mark St. Germain. Producing the project are John Wells and Hunt Lowry. Stacy Cohen and Kristin Harms are executive producing.
- 11/19/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
As Oprah Book Club selections-turned-movies go, Jane Fitch's "White Oleander" makes a more intact transition than, say, "The Deep End of the Ocean" or "A Map of the World" (and definitely more than "Where the Heart Is")
The portrait of a teenage girl who's turfed from foster home to foster home after her artist mother is jailed for poisoning her lover is graced by several splendid performances and clean direction by Peter Kosminsky that shrewdly chooses to ignore most melodramatic impulses.
Even so, there's an inescapably episodic quality to the film that prevents it from yielding the kind of emotional connection that makes for lasting impressions and flourishing boxoffice.
Provided the book's many fans pick up the scent, this serious-minded chick flick could still do decent business thanks to a budget-minded outlay that belies its big studio production values.
As if mother-daughter relationships aren't tricky things to begin with, it certainly complicates matters when the parent in question is a strong-willed, highly opinionated, rather cold-blooded artist who deals with her unfaithful boyfriend (Billy Connolly) by apparently slipping a fatal dose of brewed white oleanders into his glass of milk.
And so, 15-year-old Astrid Magnusson (wonderfully played by relative newcomer Alison Lohman), finds herself being placed in a succession of foster homes -- each more surreal than the previous one -- while mom Ingrid (a feisty Michelle Pfeiffer) still manages to exert her influence from her prison perch.
Foster mom number one is Starr, a born-again trailer park vision in pink spandex (played with go-for-it zest by Robin Wright Penn) whose hard-drinking past makes a serious comeback when she (rightly) suspects that Astrid is making a play for her man (a sympathetic Cole Hauser).
Barely escaping with her life, Astrid is temporarily placed in an institution for troubled teens where she meets a gawky, attentive aspiring comic book artist (another fine performance by "Almost Famous'" Patrick Fugit).
But their friendship is cut short when she's taken in by foster mom number two, a too-sensitive actress (the melancholy Renee Zellweger), who's clinging to the hope that Astrid's presence will help save her foundering marriage to her frequently on-location filmmaker husband (Noah Wyle).
Suffice it to say, her idyllic Malibu stay proves equally short-lived, just as the incarcerated Ingrid has predicted.
While screenwriter Mary Agnes Donoghue ("Beaches") has left out a couple of other similarly dramatic foster home experiences, Astrid's many traumatic adventures on the road to independence still feel a bit far-fetched on the big screen, despite British director Kosminsky's attempts to lend the proceedings a grittier, hand-held reality.
Providing the much-needed backbone is Lohman (she's actually in her early 20's but photographs significantly younger), who desperately tries to fit in with each of her foster home environments, with a particular wardrobe to match, until she learns how to be her own person.
Her confrontational prison visits to Pfeiffer are particularly dynamic, with each actress pushing the other to do stronger work.
Behind the scenes, frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Elliot Davis gets the DP job done with a minimum of fuss, as does Thomas Newman with the score.
Speaking of efficiency, Sheryl Crow gets a two-for-one deal out of her introspective end-credits song, "Safe and Sound", given that it's a slightly remixed version of the same tune she performed at the end of last year's "K-Pax".
WHITE OLEANDER
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Pandora, a John Wells production
Credits:
Director: Peter Kosminsky
Screenwriter: Mary Agnes Donoghue
Based on the novel by: Janet Fitch
Producers: John Wells, Hunt Lowry
Executive producers: Patrick Markey, Kristin Harms, Stacy Cohen, E.K. Gaylord II
Director of photography: Elliot Davis
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt
Editor: Chris Ridsdale
Costume designer: Susie De Santo
Music: Thomas Newman
Cast:
Astrid Magnusson: Alison Lohman
Starr: Robin Wright Penn
Ingrid Magnusson: Michelle Pfeiffer
Claire Richards: Renee Zellweger
Barry: Billy Connolly
Rena Grushenka: Svetlana Efremova
Paul Trout: Patrick Fugit
Ray: Cole Hauser
Mark Richards: Noah Wyle
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
The portrait of a teenage girl who's turfed from foster home to foster home after her artist mother is jailed for poisoning her lover is graced by several splendid performances and clean direction by Peter Kosminsky that shrewdly chooses to ignore most melodramatic impulses.
Even so, there's an inescapably episodic quality to the film that prevents it from yielding the kind of emotional connection that makes for lasting impressions and flourishing boxoffice.
Provided the book's many fans pick up the scent, this serious-minded chick flick could still do decent business thanks to a budget-minded outlay that belies its big studio production values.
As if mother-daughter relationships aren't tricky things to begin with, it certainly complicates matters when the parent in question is a strong-willed, highly opinionated, rather cold-blooded artist who deals with her unfaithful boyfriend (Billy Connolly) by apparently slipping a fatal dose of brewed white oleanders into his glass of milk.
And so, 15-year-old Astrid Magnusson (wonderfully played by relative newcomer Alison Lohman), finds herself being placed in a succession of foster homes -- each more surreal than the previous one -- while mom Ingrid (a feisty Michelle Pfeiffer) still manages to exert her influence from her prison perch.
Foster mom number one is Starr, a born-again trailer park vision in pink spandex (played with go-for-it zest by Robin Wright Penn) whose hard-drinking past makes a serious comeback when she (rightly) suspects that Astrid is making a play for her man (a sympathetic Cole Hauser).
Barely escaping with her life, Astrid is temporarily placed in an institution for troubled teens where she meets a gawky, attentive aspiring comic book artist (another fine performance by "Almost Famous'" Patrick Fugit).
But their friendship is cut short when she's taken in by foster mom number two, a too-sensitive actress (the melancholy Renee Zellweger), who's clinging to the hope that Astrid's presence will help save her foundering marriage to her frequently on-location filmmaker husband (Noah Wyle).
Suffice it to say, her idyllic Malibu stay proves equally short-lived, just as the incarcerated Ingrid has predicted.
While screenwriter Mary Agnes Donoghue ("Beaches") has left out a couple of other similarly dramatic foster home experiences, Astrid's many traumatic adventures on the road to independence still feel a bit far-fetched on the big screen, despite British director Kosminsky's attempts to lend the proceedings a grittier, hand-held reality.
Providing the much-needed backbone is Lohman (she's actually in her early 20's but photographs significantly younger), who desperately tries to fit in with each of her foster home environments, with a particular wardrobe to match, until she learns how to be her own person.
Her confrontational prison visits to Pfeiffer are particularly dynamic, with each actress pushing the other to do stronger work.
Behind the scenes, frequent Steven Soderbergh collaborator Elliot Davis gets the DP job done with a minimum of fuss, as does Thomas Newman with the score.
Speaking of efficiency, Sheryl Crow gets a two-for-one deal out of her introspective end-credits song, "Safe and Sound", given that it's a slightly remixed version of the same tune she performed at the end of last year's "K-Pax".
WHITE OLEANDER
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Pandora, a John Wells production
Credits:
Director: Peter Kosminsky
Screenwriter: Mary Agnes Donoghue
Based on the novel by: Janet Fitch
Producers: John Wells, Hunt Lowry
Executive producers: Patrick Markey, Kristin Harms, Stacy Cohen, E.K. Gaylord II
Director of photography: Elliot Davis
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt
Editor: Chris Ridsdale
Costume designer: Susie De Santo
Music: Thomas Newman
Cast:
Astrid Magnusson: Alison Lohman
Starr: Robin Wright Penn
Ingrid Magnusson: Michelle Pfeiffer
Claire Richards: Renee Zellweger
Barry: Billy Connolly
Rena Grushenka: Svetlana Efremova
Paul Trout: Patrick Fugit
Ray: Cole Hauser
Mark Richards: Noah Wyle
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
"The Good Thief" takes place in the twisted, twilight world of a French Riviera populated by junkie gamblers, East European prostitutes, slippery North African criminals, shady Spaniards, Russian mafiosi, overwhelmed French cops, desperate thieves, sleazy nightclubs and a casino ripe for robbing. So what's not to like? By inventing a milieu that duplicates and expands on the 1955 French caper film "Bob le flambeur", writer-director Neil Jordan creates a dark fantasy certain to seduce lovers of the cinema of excess.
While perhaps not to everyone's taste, "The Good Thief" is a striking entertainment that may prove highly commercial. Think of it as the dark underbelly of "Ocean's Eleven", where freshly scrubbed American stars cavort in a pastiche of heist comedy-dramas. This one contains a scruffy international cast all playing deformed versions of their sleek Yank counterparts, characters ranging from a transsexual bodybuilder to a strangely innocent hooker.
Inspired by Jean Pierre Melville's black-and-white "Bob le flambeur", itself a kind of precursor to the French New Wave, Jordan has relegated its gambler-thief to an imaginary Nice where Bob, a witty, cynical ex-thief, has reinvented himself as a drug addict and hopeless gambler on a long losing streak.
Nick Nolte convinces you no one else could have wrung so much from this role. Bob never stops talking, and Jordan has given him some of the best dialogue he's ever written, about gambling, mathematical theory, art criticism, pop music and tall tales about his family background. Nolte's rumpled charm and white-knight-in-rogue's-clothes recalls the best of Bogie, Mitchum and Belmondo.
No one hits bottom as flamboyantly and nonchalantly as Bob. The ladies of his life are horses and heroin, someone notes, and when one runs out, he turns to the other. Bob chooses the moment when he has lost everything to pick a fight with vicious nightclub owner Remi (Marc Lavoine) and attract the attention of his old nemesis Roger (Tcheky Karyo), a cop who needs a crook like Bob to exist.
Two things pull him out of this spiral: Anne (Georgia-born actress Nutsa Kukhianidze in a stunning performance), a weary, amoral teen prostitute whose beauty captivates Bob, and his pals, the practical Raoul (Gerard Darmon) and hero-worshipping Paulo (Said Taghmaoui), who draft him into a scheme to rob a Monte Carlo casino.
Only it's a fake heist. The first heist, certain to get tipped off to the police, is a cover for the real one, the theft of a collection of Impressionist paintings housed by the casino. Their accomplice is a stocky, music-loving genius named Vladimir (director Emir Kusturica), who installed the security system. Bob simply has to finance the operation by selling a beloved Picasso to a shady art dealer (Ralph Fiennes). But is it a fake, too?
Events keep throwing things off course. Bob has factored in a betrayal -- indeed, the plans call for it -- but he gets more than he bargains for. Then a casino security guard, who has an unknown twin, comes to Bob with his own plan to rob the joint. (The filmmaking twins Mark and Michael Polish deftly play these roles).
Gifted cinematographer Chris Menges conspires with Jordan to fabricate a dreamy landscape where the camera is always in motion yet the frame can slow down or even freeze. Editor Tony Lawson's jump-cuts add to the impressionism.
THE GOOD THIEF
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Searchlight Pictures and Alliance Atlantis present a Stephen Woolley/John Wells/Alliance Atlantis production
Credits:
Writer-director: Neil Jordan
Producers: Stephen Woolley, John Wells, Seaton McLean
Executive producers: Kristin Harms, Neil Jordan, Thierry De Navacelle
Director of photography: Chris Menges
Production designer: Anthony Pratt
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Penny Rose
Editor: Tony Lawson
Cast:
Bob: Nick Nolte
Roger: Tcheky Karyo
Paulo: Said Taghmaoui
Anne: Nutsa Kukhianidze
Raoul: Gerard Darmon
Remi: Marc Lavoine
Tony Angel: Ralph Fiennes
Vladimir: Emir Kusturica
Running time -- 109 minutes
No MPAA rating...
While perhaps not to everyone's taste, "The Good Thief" is a striking entertainment that may prove highly commercial. Think of it as the dark underbelly of "Ocean's Eleven", where freshly scrubbed American stars cavort in a pastiche of heist comedy-dramas. This one contains a scruffy international cast all playing deformed versions of their sleek Yank counterparts, characters ranging from a transsexual bodybuilder to a strangely innocent hooker.
Inspired by Jean Pierre Melville's black-and-white "Bob le flambeur", itself a kind of precursor to the French New Wave, Jordan has relegated its gambler-thief to an imaginary Nice where Bob, a witty, cynical ex-thief, has reinvented himself as a drug addict and hopeless gambler on a long losing streak.
Nick Nolte convinces you no one else could have wrung so much from this role. Bob never stops talking, and Jordan has given him some of the best dialogue he's ever written, about gambling, mathematical theory, art criticism, pop music and tall tales about his family background. Nolte's rumpled charm and white-knight-in-rogue's-clothes recalls the best of Bogie, Mitchum and Belmondo.
No one hits bottom as flamboyantly and nonchalantly as Bob. The ladies of his life are horses and heroin, someone notes, and when one runs out, he turns to the other. Bob chooses the moment when he has lost everything to pick a fight with vicious nightclub owner Remi (Marc Lavoine) and attract the attention of his old nemesis Roger (Tcheky Karyo), a cop who needs a crook like Bob to exist.
Two things pull him out of this spiral: Anne (Georgia-born actress Nutsa Kukhianidze in a stunning performance), a weary, amoral teen prostitute whose beauty captivates Bob, and his pals, the practical Raoul (Gerard Darmon) and hero-worshipping Paulo (Said Taghmaoui), who draft him into a scheme to rob a Monte Carlo casino.
Only it's a fake heist. The first heist, certain to get tipped off to the police, is a cover for the real one, the theft of a collection of Impressionist paintings housed by the casino. Their accomplice is a stocky, music-loving genius named Vladimir (director Emir Kusturica), who installed the security system. Bob simply has to finance the operation by selling a beloved Picasso to a shady art dealer (Ralph Fiennes). But is it a fake, too?
Events keep throwing things off course. Bob has factored in a betrayal -- indeed, the plans call for it -- but he gets more than he bargains for. Then a casino security guard, who has an unknown twin, comes to Bob with his own plan to rob the joint. (The filmmaking twins Mark and Michael Polish deftly play these roles).
Gifted cinematographer Chris Menges conspires with Jordan to fabricate a dreamy landscape where the camera is always in motion yet the frame can slow down or even freeze. Editor Tony Lawson's jump-cuts add to the impressionism.
THE GOOD THIEF
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Searchlight Pictures and Alliance Atlantis present a Stephen Woolley/John Wells/Alliance Atlantis production
Credits:
Writer-director: Neil Jordan
Producers: Stephen Woolley, John Wells, Seaton McLean
Executive producers: Kristin Harms, Neil Jordan, Thierry De Navacelle
Director of photography: Chris Menges
Production designer: Anthony Pratt
Music: Elliot Goldenthal
Costume designer: Penny Rose
Editor: Tony Lawson
Cast:
Bob: Nick Nolte
Roger: Tcheky Karyo
Paulo: Said Taghmaoui
Anne: Nutsa Kukhianidze
Raoul: Gerard Darmon
Remi: Marc Lavoine
Tony Angel: Ralph Fiennes
Vladimir: Emir Kusturica
Running time -- 109 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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