Film Fatale

When will we get to see Brad Pitt as JESSE JAMES?

And when we do, will the adaptation of novelist Ron Hansen's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" be as long as the book that spawned it? In today's Los Angeles Times, writer John Horn reports that the current version -- which clocks in at more than three hours -- has "tested poorly" with preview audiences. (Please Warner Bros, let the running time be shorter by the planned Sept. 21 release.)

I'm not surprised that JESSE JAMES tests poorly. Many good-to-great and ultimately popular films flop with test audiences. One of the most common questions in test screenings is about audience expectations -- and once an audience realizes that the subject is American outlaw/bank robber Jesse James, they think they know his story.

After all, it's been told before, in ballad, book, film (THE NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID, with Robert Duvall as Jesse, and THE LONG RIDERS, with James Keach and AMERICAN OUTLAWS, with Colin Farrell in the lead. A very good TV movie, FRANK & JESSE, with Rob Lowe and Bill Paxton as the outlaw brothers, suggested that the elder, Frank, was the brains of the gang (Indeed he may have been: he made a deal to retire from crime, saving his life.)

Continue reading "Jesse James: Revisionist Western Undergoes Revision" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike D'Angelo of Esquire had the pleasure of watching writer-director Craig Brewer's follow up to HUSTLE & FLOW, and he's written an account of his queasy, fascinated reaction ("You Just Can't Look Away") in the Sept. 2006 of Esquire.

Ah, BLACK SNAKE MOAN -- the "button pushing" swamp-tastic love story that Brewer was thrilling over when HUSTLE & FLOW got picked up at Sundance last year. When he described it then, it sounded like BABY DOLL remade with a little more beatin' on the brat and a little less clothing. And not in black and white, but with black and white as, like, an issue.

Christina Ricci plays a hot-pants gal who, when we meet her, Angelo says, "is writhing around on the ground in what appears to be pain but turns out to be--I kid you not--to be heat."

Samuel L. Jackson is the guy who attempts to cure her affliction by chaining her to a radiator. Because he cares.

But wait! The movie was to have been released shortly after the can't-miss SNAKES ON A PLANE, but now it won't be in theatres till February 2007. Can't have two SNAKE movies competing for the same dollar.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 01:05 PM | Permalink