Eleven years ago, with the release of Richard Kelly’s seminal cult classic Donnie Darko, the thought that I might be one day vying to defend this once prolific director to a dismissive general public and disenfranchised fanbase would have been as counter-intuitive as thoughts come.

Following the theatrical release of Kelly’s freshman effort – which introduced the world to not only one, but two Gyllenhaals – it was widely accepted that the director could in fact do no wrong, and that a long and illustrious career lay ahead as he continued to baffle audiences with his trans-dimensional tales of suburban apocalypse.

Since then, however, everything has changed: a divisive director’s cut, and unofficial sequel and a two poorly received releases later, Kelly is no longer held in such high esteem. He has been derided, his storytelling abilities questioned and his imagination mocked. Nonetheless, with the benefit of hindsight, I cannot help but challenge this new opinion of Kelly as a self-indulgent and impenetrable pulp-existentialist.

Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut

When Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko made its début back in 2001, the cinemagoing public was almost unanimous in its indifference. Well, it would have been if anyone had actually gone to see it. It wasn’t long, however, until overwhelming critical acclaim and persistent word of mouth spread and the film developed a dedicated cult following. With the film’s fans showing an insatiable thirst for more information, eager to make some sense of the film’s most enigmatic complexities, Kelly released a director’s cut in an attempt to maximise his audience’s enjoyment and understanding of the story.

For many, however, the release of the new cut of the movie had the opposite effect, with many viewer’s enjoyment of the film apparently mired by the new and extended scenes. In a somewhat predictable backlash on a film many hadn’t seen coming, stars were hastily deducted and Kelly’s abilities questioned due to a slightly altered pace and an additional 20 minutes of running time. As Kelly delved deeper into his film’s mythology and began to compromise the human element of his story in favour of a greater sense of narrative coherence, the director’s winning streak came to an almost immediate end, and he fell into an underserved disrepute that would haunt his next two features.

But Donnie Darko isn’t a lesser movie simply because Kelly has attempted to elaborate on his initial premise and endeavoured to find a clearer way of telling his story; if anything, it’s gained greater immersive value. The original film was ambitious enough, and while there might be those who miss the margin for interpretation provided by the missing pieces of the puzzle, they underestimate a version of the movie steeped in just as much ambiguity. It’s the same masterpiece, just with a different arrangement.

Southland Tales

The story of Southland Tales‘ troubled production is infamous: lambasted following its début at Cannes, Richard Kelly’s follow-up to cult favourite Donnie Darko re-entered post production for a much needed emergency overhaul – in which the director hacked furiously at a movie rejected by critics as calamitous, self-indulgent and unsalvageable. Even in its heavily edited form, released theatrically eighteen months later, Kelly’s film failed to redeem itself in the eyes of most.

Southland Tales is the sort of movie that features two cars having sex, an unlimited fuel source that can also get you high, and which casts Justin Timberlake only to have him lip-sinc to The Killers’ All These Things That I’ve Done. It is a film of criss-crossing narratives, conflicting genres and one which has an opinion on just about everything. A post-apocalyptic satire with a dream sequence musical interlude, Kelly has constructed a sprawling narrative which encompasses everything from reality television and celebrity culture to terrorism, cyber-censorship and surveillance. Not to mention the important topic of teen horniness.

But while it might flirt with pretension and occasionally border on the obtuse, Southland Tales is better for its eccentricities than it is worse off. Kelly has crafted an intricate and rewarding tale that – while initially confounding – has more and more to give with every viewing. Casting actors otherwise pigeonholed, Kelly has wrung interesting – if hardly naturalistic – performances from Dwayne Johnson and Sarah Michelle Gellar, while finding an unexpected emotional centre with an uncharacteristically toned-down and heartfelt double-performance from professional idiot Seann William Scott.

The Box

Kelly’s most recent offering is a comparably personal tale of familial and philosophical conflict. Starring James Marsden and Cameron Diaz as partial representations of his parents, the film asks what you might do if offered extraordinary riches at the expense of the life of a stranger. With the couple’s decision leading them to discover a society rife with conspiracy and their deal with the devil having unforeseen implications for their only child, the two actors wring almost unbearable tension out of a relatively simple concept.

While the hallmarks of a Kelly production are indeed present and accounted for – from the inexplicable water coffins to the mind-bendingly poignant final reveal – The Box makes a conscious attempt to dial down the crazy in order to appeal to a wider audience. Although decidedly more commercial than Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, however, this is no Hollywood sell-out, the film proving characteristically rife with intrigue and underscored by a welcome intelligence.

With one character’s face blown off and another’s toes missing, this is a movie that spends as much time outside the box as it does within. Packing zombies, aliens and a twist that isn’t so much unpredictable as hauntingly inevitable, Kelly has produced another winning blend of genres that successfully transcends its constituent influences to become more than the sum of its parts. When such parts include an ex X-Man and Cameron “The Holiday” Diaz, that’s all the more surprising.

All in all, then, Richard Kelly isn’t some one-hit-wonder turned laughing stock. To write his movies off simply because they fail to live up to the standards set by his original cut of Donnie Darko would be to do his subsequent works a great disservice. He is an auteur, a filmmaker unwilling to compromise his own vision, however impenetrable and non-commercial it may prove. A Richard Kelly film is one that straddles genres, as well as time and space; one which casts actors against type and juxtaposes music with striking visuals; a movie which strains under the very weight of its filmmaker’s limitless ambition, with a bullet in its eye and a paradox at its heart.

With only three such films to his name, I can only hope that there are many more to come. And so should you.

The adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s critically acclaimed 2001 novel, The Corrections, has long been in the making, and has recently transitioned from its initial expected film adaptation to be turned into a series for HBO.

We heard late last year that the brilliant Ewan McGregor had signed on to join Chris Cooper and Dianne Wiest for the project, which is being co-written by Franzen and the Oscar-nominated writer-director Noah Baumbach.

Now comes the excellent news, via The Playlist, Deadline, and the Daily Mail, that the already terrific casting continues with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans, Greta Gerwig, and Bruce Norris all in talks to join the project too.

Courtesy of Waterstones, the original novel’s plot looks a little like this:

“From the author of ‘Freedom’, a panoramic vision of America at the beginning of the 21st century, seen through the turbulent lives of the Lambert family. The Corrections is now seen by many as one of the greatest American novels of the last decade. The Lamberts — Enid and Alfred and their three grown-up children — are a troubled family living in a troubled age. Alfred is ill and as his condition worsens the whole family must face the failures, secrets and long-buried hurts that haunt them if they are to make the corrections that each desperately needs. Stretching from the Midwest in the mid-century to Wall Street and Eastern Europe in the age of globalised greed, ‘The Corrections’ brings an old-time America of freight trains and civic duty into wild collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and New Economy millionaires. It announces Jonathan Franzen as one of the most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.”

Cooper and Wiest are set to play the parents of the Lambert family; McGregor is to play Chip, the middle son; and Gyllenhall is in talks for the role of Denise, the youngest child, a bisexual Philadelphia chef. Ifans would be taking a cameo as a Lithuanian gangster drawing Chip into his world; Norris would play the eldest son, Gary; and Gerwig would play Chip’s film producer girlfriend.

The exact nature of the project until now has been kept under wraps, but it seems that the intentions are now becoming clear, with a two-hour pilot planned under Baumbach’s direction, and then if all goes well and everyone is impressed, a further four seasons each made up of ten hour-long episodes, which is certainly a significant adaptation. Franzen’s original novel is quite a long book at more than five hundred pages, but a four season-long adaptation suggests that the intention is to add more to the characters’ stories than is in the Franzen’s original, which I’m really excited about.

I’m a really big fan of Gyllenhaal’s, so the news that she’s in talks to join the already brilliant cast is definitely exciting. Getting to see her, McGregor, and the whole cast for four full-length seasons of HBO quality (you can’t deny HBO’s impeccable programming) is a prospect almost too good to be true. More news as we get it.

Chris Evans (Captain America: The First Avenger) has signed on to topline Millenium Films’ The Iceman, replacing James Franco (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), who exited the project last month.

Evans will star opposite Ray Liotta (Identity), Michael Shannon (Take Shelter), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherrybaby), David Schwimmer and Ryan O’Nan (The Dry Land) in the gritty indie drama.

The Iceman will tell the true story of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer and family man.

Ariel Vromen will direct from a screenplay he wrote with Morgan Land.

Production is due to start next month.

Source: Deadline

This sounds like a film to look out for. We got a promo poster for The Iceman back in the summer, when Michael Shannon, James Franco, and Benicio del Toro were attached in the leads.

Unfortunately, Franco and del Toro have since had to exit the project, but word now comes via Variety that David Schwimmer is entering the foray in an unusually dark dramatic role for him.

The Iceman is based on a true story, adapted from Anthony Bruno’s book, The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer. Shannon is joined by the likes of the brilliant Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ray Liotta, and now Schwimmer too. Most recently seen in Machine Gun Preacher alongside Gerard Butler and Michelle Monaghan, and next leading Take Shelter (due out on 25^th November), Shannon will star as,

“Richard Kuklinski, a family man by day and contract killer by night.

Schwimmer is in talks to play Josh Rosenthal, a killer who works for mob boss Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta). Rosenthal looks at Demeo as a father figure and will do almost anything to impress him.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is attached to play Kuklinski’s unknowing wife, while Ryan O’Nan is set to co-star as a young hustler who gets caught up in the protag’s web of murder and deception.”

Ariel Vromen will be helming the project, having co-written the script with his Simple Lies co-writer Morgan Land.

Having spent a decade starring as Ross Geller in Friends, for which he is of course best known, Schwimmer has largely been focusing on his directing career in the years since then, making his feature debut with Run Fatboy Run, led by Simon Pegg, having worked with Pegg on the awesome and undeservedly relatively unknown Big Nothing (if you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend checking it out, it’s a lot of fun).

His role in The Iceman sounds like nothing I’ve seen him do before, and I’m really looking forward to it; I have a feeling he’s going to be brilliant. He’ll next be heard reprising his role of Melman in Madagascar 3 next year, and hopefully it won’t be that much longer after that until we see him in The Iceman. Production is scheduled to start in January, and it couldn’t come sooner. More news on this as we get it; it’s definitely one to keep an eye on.

Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherrybaby) has signed on to topline K5 International’s supernatural thriller Voice from the Stone, an adaptation of the Italian novel Le Voce Della Pietra by Silvio Raffo.

Voice from the Stone centers on a nurse (Gyllenhaal) drawn to the aid of a young boy who is haunted by malevolent forces within the walls of an old house in the Italian countryside. As she develops a relationship with the father of the boy, she also becomes haunted by the same evil presence and must fight to save herself and the boy.

Eric Howell is attached to direct the film, which is currently being sold at the 64th annual Cannes Film Festival.

Source: Variety

**Read all the posts in our ‘Love Theatrically’ series here**

#8 – “SECRETARY” (2002)

Directed by Steven Shainberg

Dispensing with the customary flowers, chocolates and warm sentiments so prevalent in modern romances in favour of earthworms, red marker pens, harnesses and plenty of healthy spankings “Secretary” is certainly not your average romantic comedy. But though the pre-publicity veered towards the more salacious aspects of the narrative (especially with the iconically memorable “teaser” poster) the film ultimately delights with its quirky screenplay, stunning cast and, above all, the warmth and heart that beats beneath its sadomasochistically sexy exterior.

This was the film that not only allowed the divine Maggie Gyllenhaal to step out from the shadow of her younger sibling Jake but, perhaps more importantly, instigated my current love, admiration and part time obsession for her. In the role of Lee Holloway she delivers a truly outstanding performance that is in equal parts brave, fragile, sexy, sassy, intelligent, moving and quite simply adorable.

It’s a tragic disservice to such a wonderful performance, therefore, that the 2003 Academy Awards entirely failed to award even a nomination to the supremely talented Ms. Gyllenhaal undoubtedly shying away from such lascivious subject matter and instead focussing all their annual accolades on the perpetually gawky grin of Renée Zellwegger in “Chicago” and Nicole Kidman’s dodgy prosthetic nose in “The Hours”. Not that her performance went totally unnoticed however as it still won her a number of awards including Best Actress at the Central Ohio Film Critics Awards and Best Breakthrough Actress at the Gotham Awards, the National Board of Review Awards and the Online Film Critics Awards.

We first meet Lee following a stint in a mental hospital and soon discover that she has a history of cutting and burning herself that has left telltale blemishes over much of her body whilst fits of anxious self-loathing trigger episodes of self-harm. As she takes her first shaky steps back into the workaday world, her overprotective mother, Joan (Lesley Ann Warren) drives her back and forth to the office and keeps a suffocatingly vigilant watch over her. Those initially shaky steps are also accompanied by a tentative romance with Peter (Jeremy Davies), a former high school classmate who is almost as fragile as she is and whose parents try to rush them into marriage.

Into all of this comes one E. Edward Grey, played with consummate skill and expertise by the mighty James Spader. At times echoing Spader’s own performances in Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and Cronenberg’s “Crash” Grey is an overbearing perfectionist who claims to be shy yet harbours deep sexual urges alongside the requisite demons.

And it’s at this point in the movie that the most peculiar of romances begins to blossom as Grey finds himself slowly drawn to the mysterious Lee. Watching said relationship unfold is quite simply an unalloyed delight as the stiff and starchy Grey slowly gives in to his pent up desires and Lee forever pursues his affections in the most delightfully twisted and perverse ways. It’s a perversity that is further heightened by the inclusion of the seductively stupendous Leonard Cohen track “I’m Your Man”, with Cohen’s sensuous vocals and the lyrics “If you want another kind of lover/I’ll wear a mask for you” acting as the perfect accompaniment to Lee and Edward’s burgeoning romance.

That the film can introduce such offbeat elements into the narrative yet never lose sight of the characters humanity is what gives “Secretary” a great deal of its heart and by the time Grey combines his inimitable red marker pens with a somewhat unfortunate earthworm you’ll surely be as moved as if he’d chosen a bunch of red roses instead.

“Secretary” is a film that ultimately teaches us that every single human upon this Earth is as exquisitely beautiful as the next and that sometimes it just takes the right kind of connection to fully unleash our true beauty upon the world and for that reason alone the film is an absolute delight. It’s a film that is simultaneously sexy, witty, uplifting, hopeful, dark, dirty and delectable and one that is guaranteed to surprise and delight in equal measure.

“Each cut, each scar, each burn, a different mood or time. I told him what the first one was, told him where the second one came from. I remembered them all. And for the first time in my life I felt beautiful. Finally part of the earth. I touched the soil and he loved me back.”

Track #7 – “I’M YOUR MAN”

Written and Performed by Leonard Cohen

Felicity Jones, Ashley Jensen, Sheridan Smith, Gemma Jones and Anna Chancellor have joined the cast of Hysteria, according to ThePlaylist.

They will star opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce and Rupert Everett in Tanya Wexler’s upcoming period sex comedy.

Hyteria will center on two doctors (Dancy and Pryce) treating cases of hysteria, a condition said to be characterized at the time by a woman’s irritability, anger or unexplained tears.

Filming is expected to commence on Monday in London, before moving to Luxembourg.

Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang opened in the UK earlier this year and this coming Friday it’s being released in the US, now with the slight change in title: Nanny McPhee Returns.

During press interviews for the film, Maggie Gyllenhaal updated the status of two upcoming film projects: Hysteria, and an untitled Bill Monroe biopic.

The first, Hysteria, is  a rom-com centered on the invention of the vibrator. Hysteria is set to be directed by Tanya Wexler from a script by Jonah Lisa Dyer and Stephen Dyer. The second film, an untitled biopic of music legend Bill Monroe, will see her acting alongside her husband Peter Sarsgaard. Finn Taylor is currently attached to direct.

Here’s what Maggie Gyllenhaal had to say of her involvement in Hysteria:

In Hysteria I play a firecracker whose father is a doctor who is in the business of curing hysterical women. He cures them basically by getting them off and that actually happened. I end up having a sort of unexpected love affair with this guy who works for him, and who by mistake invents the vibrator [laughs].

And, here’s what Maggie Gyllenhaal said of the Bill Monroe biopic:

Bill Monroe, who invented Blue Grass music had a kind of Sid and Nancy style affair with this woman Bessie Lee Mauldin throughout his life and T-Bone Burnett’s going to do the music and Callie Khouri who wrote Thelma & Louise wrote the script so we’re going to do that together.

Hysteria will be her next project after Nanny McPhee Returns and sounds like a potentially unique, intriguing idea for a rom-com. The Bill Monroe biopic will follow and, with the names currently attached, sounds perfect Award season fodder.

ScreenCrave reported this one first.

Here’s the new, moving,  international trailer for Crazy Heart which won 2 Golden Globes over the weekend including Best Song in a Motion Picture for The Weary Kind and Best Actor for Jeff Bridges. As well as Bridges, The movie stars Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s and is directed by Scott Cooper. All signs are pointing to Bridges being nominated for an Oscar and we’ll find out pretty soon if those signs are right.

We’ve got both the new international trailer and the music video for The Weary Kind written and performed by Ryan Bingham (and written by both Bingham and T-Bone Burnett) which you can see embedded below. Crazy Heart is released in cinemas 19th February.

Synopsis: Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean, a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. Bad also becomes the mentor to a contemporary country star, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), while simultaneously struggling in the rising young crooner’s shadow.

International Trailer

Music Video

Universal Studios have just sent us the brand new, full length trailer for Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (That is Nanny McPhee 2 for those not in the know). I’m afraid I cant get massively excited about this movie but I know a lot of people out there who loved the first one. The cast is impressive and as well as Emma Thompson reprising her original role, she’s joined by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Smith, Rhys Ifans and Bill Bailey. It’s out March 26th so if you’re desperate to see this movie, you’ve not got too long to wait.

Synopsis: In Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Oscar®-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson returns to the role of the magical nanny who appears when she’s needed the most and wanted the least in the next chapter of the hilarious and heart-warming fable that has enchanted children around the world.

In the latest instalment, Nanny McPhee appears at the door of a harried young mother, Mrs. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. But once she’s arrived, Nanny McPhee discovers that Mrs. Green’s children are fighting a war of their own against two spoiled city cousins who have just moved in and refuse to leave.

Relying on everything from a flying motorcycle and a statue that comes to life to a tree-climbing piglet and a baby elephant who turns up in the oddest places, Nanny McPhee uses her magic to teach her mischievous charges five new lessons.

Check out the new trailer below.

Universal Pictures seem to be bringing out trailers for their entire 2010 slate and here’s the latest in the form of the new International trailer for Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, the 2nd movie to bear the McPhee name played by the wonderful Emma Thompson.

The sequel also stars Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maggie Smith and Rhys Ifans. Not a bad cast eh! It’s scheduled for release 26th March so not too long to wait! Have a watch of the trailer below and let us know what you think.

Synopsis:  In Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Oscar®-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson returns to the role of the magical nanny who appears when she’s needed the most and wanted the least in the next chapter of the hilarious and heartwarming fable that has enchanted children around the world.

In the latest installment, Nanny McPhee appears at the door of a harried young mother, Mrs. Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal), who is trying to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. But once she’s arrived, Nanny McPhee discovers that Mrs. Green’s children are fighting a war of their own against two spoiled city cousins who have just moved in and refuse to leave.

Relying on everything from a flying motorcycle and a statue that comes to life to a tree-climbing piglet and a baby elephant who turns up in the oddest places, Nanny McPhee uses her magic to teach her mischievous charges five new lessons.

Here’s the new poster and trailer for Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s latest movie, ‘Crazy Heart’. It’s directed by Scott Cooper and also stars Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell. All signs are pointing to Bridges being nominated for an Oscar. Check out the trailer below or click the poster to enlarge and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. You can view the trailer in HD on Apple.

Synopsis: Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean, a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. Bad also becomes the mentor to a contemporary country star, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), while simultaneously struggling in the rising young crooner’s shadow.