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It took Richard Shepard years to get out of “movie jail” after he made “The Linguini Incident,” the nearly-forgotten 1991 crime comedy starring David Bowie and Rosanna Arquette. But now the film is getting a second chance, with a series of screenings and an upcoming Blu-ray release.

Just about everything went wrong with the production that could go wrong, Shepard recalls. “I made this movie when I was 25 — and I was no genius at 25,” admits the director, who went on to helm features including “The Perfection” as well as TV series like Lena Dunham’s HBO comedy “Girls.”

Unlike Dunham, who was “in complete control of her artistic self” at that age, “I was not,” says Shepard.

But when his original co-producer, Sarah Jackson, suggested he try to rerelease a director’s cut of the scrappy indie caper about two restaurant employees who decide to rob their bosses, Shepard jumped at...

From the very beginning of his career, Harrison Ford viewed himself as an actor rather than a movie star –- sometimes to his detriment. He washed out of Columbia Pictures' New Talent Program in the 1960s after failing to impress in a few bit parts, and played against his rakish charm until he broke through as Han Solo in "Star Wars." Even after that, he sought out challenging roles in less commercial films before returning as the charismatic smuggler in "Star Wars: Episode V –- The Empire Strikes Back."

Ford played the matinee idol game pretty much by the book in the early 1980s, which, after the completion of the original "Star Wars" trilogy and his second go-round as Indiana Jones, earned him decidedly more leeway to take risks than he'd had in the past. He wasted no time by jumping into Peter Weir's "Witness," a masterfully rendered fish-out-of-water...

Based on the 1994 A.S. Byatt short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye," George Miller's new film "Three Thousand Years of Longing" -- in theaters on August 26 in the United States -- stars Idris Elba as Byatt's titular djinn who appears to a human scholar named Alithea (Tilda Swinton) to grant her wishes in exchange for his freedom. "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" appeared in a collection of similar short stories that draw heavily from ancient texts and folk tales, linking up themes and characters from works such as the "Epic of Gilgamesh," "One Thousand and One Nights," and "The Canterbury Tales," as well as the works of William Shakespeare, and the myth of Cybele. Miller seemingly matched Byatt's thematic links by including multiple flashback scenes wherein the djinn interacts with figures of the distant past.

The central narrative of Miller's film takes place in a single hotel room in Istanbul,...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "My Dinner with Andre"

Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max, Criterion Channel

The Pitch: Wallace Shawn, playing himself, is a struggling playwright and actor living in New York. He gets roped into joining an old acquaintance, avant-garde theatre director Andre Gregory, for dinner. The two both agree on how performance shapes reality, but aside from that, they could not have more different worldviews. Andre tells stories of flying off to Poland to make...

The post The Daily Stream: Finding The Cinema Of Conversation In My Dinner With Andre appeared first on /Film.

In the first trailer for Apple TV+’s “The Mosquito Coast,” Justin Theroux’s family has more than “a pretty bad problem.” For starters, they have the U.S. government after them and his wife, played by Melissa George, thinks the kids are safer without them.

The streaming release first look at its upcoming thriller on Friday, which is based on the book of the same name by Theroux’s uncle, Paul Theroux. You can watch it in the player above.

The drama will premiere on April 30 with its first two episodes.

“The Mosquito Coast” follows the dangerous journey of a radical idealist and brilliant inventor, Allie Fox (Theroux), who uproots his family for Mexico when they suddenly find themselves on the run from the U.S. government. Along with George, the series stars Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman.

The seven-episode series is executive produced by creator Neil Cross alongside Rupert Wyatt,...

Jonathan Oppenheim, editor of such documentaries as the ball culture classic “Paris Is Burning” and Laura Poitras’ “The Oath,” has died after a battle with brain cancer at the age of 67. Though he passed away on July 16, the news was reported on Monday. He died in New York City, with his wife Josie and daughter Netalia at his side.

“Jonathan began his life in the arts as a painter which informed his sensibility in film. He was a talented and highly original painter but documentary film was his chosen medium,” his wife shared in a statement shared with media. “The collaborative dynamic while not always peaceful was one aspect of the work that Jonathan loved. But he found an outlet for his intellectual and artistic talents in all aspects of documentary film. I can say, as well, that the film community was profoundly important to him, and served as a...

Update, with reactions Mark Blum, a veteran New York stage actor whose credits also include roles in the film Desperately Seeking Susan and the Netflix TV series You, has died due to complications from the coronavirus. He was 69.

His death was announced by the Off Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons. SAG-aftra confirmed the news.

“He was a wonderful actor and a very good and kind man,” tweeted Rosanna Arquette, his co-star in 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan. Arquette said she was deeply saddened by “this very very hard news…” (Read her tweet and others here.

Update, with additional reactions Genius, a giant, legendary – those are just some of the words that writers strained to come up with to describe the titanic impact that Buck Henry had on their world.

The Graduate screenwriter and SNL host passed today at age 89. Here are some of the initial reactions from friends, fans and the industry as news of his death reached them.

I am grateful to have worked with and been a friend of Buck Henry. Among his amazing body of work was hosting SNL many times in the first five seasons. Please read the following about his role in defining what the show would become. #RIPBuckHenry @nbcsnl https://t.co/2TmQtBqdPS

— Al Franken (@alfranken) January 9, 2020

Just saw this. Loved working with him. Rest in peace Buck.

Rt @bengreenman: Rip Buck Henry. Of the million things he did and did well, my favorite is...

Justin Theroux is attached to star in a series adaptation of “The Mosquito Coast” at Apple.

Based on the 1981 novel by his uncle, novelist Paul Theroux, “Mosquito Coast” follows an idealist who uproots his family to Latin America.

The project has received a series order at Apple’s upcoming streaming service, Apple TV Plus. “Luther” creator Neil Cross will co-write the first episode with Tom Bissell and serve as showrunner on the series.

Also Read: Charlie Hunnam to Star on Apple's 'Shantaram' TV Series Adaptation

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” helmer Rupert Wyatt will direct the first episode, as well as several more throughout the season, and executive produce. Alan Gasmer, Peter Jaysen and Bob Bookman and Fremantle will serve as the studio.

The novel has been adapted for screen once before. Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Andre Gregory and River Phoenix starred in the Peter Weir...

One of my favorite moments in movies comes midway through “My Dinner with Andre,” when Wallace Shawn explains to his dinner-and-conversation companion, Andre Gregory, why it would be foolish to try and scale Mount Everest as a way of experiencing life anew. If you could truly see everything that’s going on around you, says Shawn, then you’d find just as much mystery and excitement in the cigar store next to this restaurant as you would scaling Everest. Shawn’s point might come off a defense of his own couch-potato nature (why bother going to Everest?), but there’s a tantalizing life-enhancing Buddhist liberation to it. If you really know, at every moment, what life is, then who’s to say that the exact place you’re in is any less magical than any other place? Who’s to say that you’re not, right now, at the center of the universe?...

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of Philadelphia and The Silence of the Lambs and the filmmaker who revolutionized concert movies with his 1984 Talking Heads movie Stop Making Sense, died Wednesday morning from esophegal cancer. He was 73.

"Sadly, I can confirm that Jonathan passed away early this morning in his Manhattan apartment, surrounded by his wife, Joanne Howard, and three children," Demme's rep said in a statement.

"I am heartbroken to lose a friend, a mentor, a guy so singular and dynamic you’d have to design a hurricane to contain him,...

It was the best of Popes, it was the worst of Popes. Tonight's episode contained both individual shots and lengthy segments that are as successful as anything the HBO show has put on screen so far – but it's also the first installment of the series that feels like a substantial failure. It's oddly appropriate: The storyline, in which Pope Pius Xiii exits his comfort zone by leaves the cozy confines of his papal palaces and travels abroad to meet his public, is the one in which co-writer/director Paolo Sorrentino wanders off course himself.

The Barnes & Noble sale is in full effect until December 1st, the Black Friday deals have already begun, and we still haven’t seen the lowest of the low prices yet.

Thanks to everyone for supporting our site by buying through our affiliate links.

A note on Amazon deals, for those curious: sometimes third party sellers will suddenly appear as the main purchasing option on a product page, even though Amazon will sell it directly from themselves for the sale price that we have listed. If the sale price doesn’t show up, click on the “new” options, and look for Amazon’s listing.

I’ll keep this list updated throughout the week, as new deals are found, and others expire. If you find something that’s wrong, a broken link or price difference, feel free to tweet at me.

Deals On Amazon

Amazon’s Black Friday Deal Calendar Sign...

Youth Fox Searchlight Pictures Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: B+ Director: Paolo Sorrentino Written by: Paolo Sorrentino Cast: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 11/10/15 Opens: December 4, 2015 What provides the glue that enables two people of diverse personalities to maintain a long-term friendship? Think, for example, of André Gregory and Wallace Shawn in Louis Malle’s movie “My Dinner with André, in which Gregory plays a man with rich, spiritual experiences to Wallace Shawn’s down-home humanism. And now comes another great friendship. Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino, whose 2013 film “The Great Beauty” introduced his audience [ Read More ]

The post Youth Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

The End of the Tour is just the latest in a series of movies that feel tight, contained, and downright theatrical. Much of this has to do with the film’s incredibly basic premise, one where two characters simply sit and talk. These films don’t feel cinematic. They feel inherently small, and lack any obvious sense of grandeur or ambition. So why make a movie like this? These are films that lack any obvious cinematic qualities, especially in terms of scale, stakes, and grandeur. In spite of this, though, these small cast films are often excellent. They prove to be compelling throughout, even if the characters in question are the only things that drive the action forward at all. To understand what makes The End of the Tour a success, it becomes necessary to look back at other films that are similar in scale and ambition. These are just five of those films,...

In today's roundup of news and views: Charles Mudede on John Sayles's The Brother from Another Planet, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn's list of top ten Criterion releases, Terrence Rafferty on Bernhard Wicki’s The Bridge, Mike D'Angelo on John Ford and Native Americans, Philippa Snow on Ana Lily Armirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, Patrick Wang on Lisa Joyce's performance in Jonathan Demme's A Master Builder, Kevin Hatch on Bruce Conner, Ryan Gilbey on Wim Wenders, interviews with Jia Zhangke, Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell—and more. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup of news and views: Charles Mudede on John Sayles's The Brother from Another Planet, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn's list of top ten Criterion releases, Terrence Rafferty on Bernhard Wicki’s The Bridge, Mike D'Angelo on John Ford and Native Americans, Philippa Snow on Ana Lily Armirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, Patrick Wang on Lisa Joyce's performance in Jonathan Demme's A Master Builder, Kevin Hatch on Bruce Conner, Ryan Gilbey on Wim Wenders, interviews with Jia Zhangke, Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell—and more. » - David Hudson...

The third experimental cinematic endeavor from the writing/acting duo of Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, A Master Builder, at last reaches a notable platform of consumption with its inclusion in the Criterion collection. Their previous collaborations, My Dinner with Andre (1981) and Vanya on 42nd Street (1992), both directed by French auteur Louis Malle, have reached a sort of mythical status in the realm of art-house cinema. And so the rather hushed theatrical reception of this latest endeavor, another long-gestating exercise, this time re-working a late period play from Ibsen while Jonathan Demme usurps the directorial seat, perhaps has more to do with the fluctuating cinematic landscape. Existing, tonally, somewhere in-between the previous two ventures, this generally claustrophobic rendering doesn’t contain the same sense of innovative, inspiring energy, oscillating between moments of flaccid, rehearsed dialogue and moments of overwhelming emotional hysteria. As a filmed version of this experimental theater exercise,...

When My Dinner With Andre hit cinemas in 1981, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn were already established figures of the New York theater scene. But the hit film, directed by Louis Malle and consisting almost entirely of a scripted dinner conversation between the two men, turned them into something closer to celebrities: "Few people knew who they were when they entered the theater," wrote Roger Ebert about the film’s premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. "Now they would never be forgotten where films were taken seriously." Over the next several decades, the two men built on that collaboration with more films. Next came 1994’s Vanya on 42nd Street, also directed for the screen by Malle, though the theatrical production itself — essentially a years-long workshopping and exploration of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya with little thought given to a traditional audience — was directed by Gregory himself. Then, in 2014, the...

This week on Off The Shelf, Ryan is joined by Brian Saur to take a look at the new DVD and Blu-ray releases for the week of June 16th, 2015, and chat about some follow-up and home video news.

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Episode Links & Notes Follow-up Unopened movies Christopher Lee News Thunderbean: Willie Whopper Blu-ray Pre-order Criterion September Line-up Scream Factory to release Army Of Darkness, Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood Arrow Video: Zardoz, The Mutilator, Requiescant, The Firemen’s Ball, Closely Watched Trains, Hard To Be A God, Society Masters Of Cinema / Eureka: The Skull Warner Bros. Hammer Horror Blu-ray Box Set Warner Bros Special Effects Boxset (Them!, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Son of Kong, Mighty Joe Young) Sony to release The Last Dragon on Blu-ray Scorpion: Burn Witch Burn Kino Cartoon Classics Announced Kl Studio Classics F/X 2 and The Challenge Universal to put out...

Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Above: Bound to get taken offline by the time you read this, hurry up and watch Star War Wars: All 6 Films At Once (Full Length)Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory visit the famed closet of the Criterion Collection and recount their experiences encountering Godard's Weekend and films by Antonioni.At the invaluable chrismarker.org, Chris Marker's short film 2084 (1984) has been remixed.At its premiere at the Berlinale, Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog's long-awaited return to epic filmmaking, garnered an unfortunate, uneven response. Now the full trailer for the film is out, and we hope it grows in our estimation upon re-viewing. As a recap, read impressions from Daniel Kasman and Adam Cook, as well as our interview with long-time Herzog cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger about working on the film.

"I like the work of Cristi Puiu, I like the work of Cristian Mungiu, but, at the same time, I also love Eric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard," Corneliu Porumboiu (The Treasure) tells Tara Karajica. More interviews in today's roundup: Tsai Ming-liang, Joe Dante (Burying the Ex), Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden), Sebastián Silva (Nasty Baby), Mia Wasikowska, Brigitta Wagner (Rosehill), Pieter Van Hees, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, John Berger, Crystal Moselle, Michael Winterbottom, Jim Broadbent, Frederick Wiseman and Chloë Sevigny. » - David Hudson...

"I like the work of Cristi Puiu, I like the work of Cristian Mungiu, but, at the same time, I also love Eric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard," Corneliu Porumboiu (The Treasure) tells Tara Karajica. More interviews in today's roundup: Tsai Ming-liang, Joe Dante (Burying the Ex), Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden), Sebastián Silva (Nasty Baby), Mia Wasikowska, Brigitta Wagner (Rosehill), Pieter Van Hees, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, John Berger, Crystal Moselle, Michael Winterbottom, Jim Broadbent, Frederick Wiseman and Chloë Sevigny. » - David Hudson...

Wild Tales Because it's in a foreign language Wild Tales was never going to be a massive hit stateside, but trust me, this is a movie you're going to want to give a shot as six short stories come together for a wildly hysterical anthology of revenge gone wrong. You can read my theatrical review right here.

Run All Night Sean's review of this one was just posted this morning (read it here) and he seems to have had mostly the same impression I had when seeing it in theaters (read my review here), which is to say it's something of a ho hum actioner, but does sport some solid performances.

Spirited Away (Blu-ray) This is probably my favorite Hayao Miyazaki film and it might have actually been the first of his I saw, I can't quite remember. However, if you're looking to get into the master animated filmmaker's work...

We've gathered in one entry links to interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky, Peter Bogdanovich, Jean-Claude Carrière, Claire Denis, Gaspar Noé, Roy Andersson, Catherine Breillat, Isaach de Bankolé, Hu Jie, Jason Segel, Samantha Fuller, Joshua Safdie and Ben Safdie and their Heaven Knows What star, Arielle Holmes, Bill Plympton, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Caveh Zahedi, Desiree Akhavan, Judd Apatow, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Bob Byington, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn and the team behind Results, Andrew Bujalski, Guy Pearce and Kevin Corrigan. » - David Hudson...

We've gathered in one entry links to interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky, Peter Bogdanovich, Jean-Claude Carrière, Claire Denis, Gaspar Noé, Roy Andersson, Catherine Breillat, Isaach de Bankolé, Hu Jie, Jason Segel, Samantha Fuller, Joshua Safdie and Ben Safdie and their Heaven Knows What star, Arielle Holmes, Bill Plympton, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Caveh Zahedi, Desiree Akhavan, Judd Apatow, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Bob Byington, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn and the team behind Results, Andrew Bujalski, Guy Pearce and Kevin Corrigan. » - David Hudson...

Read More: Abramorama Picks Up Jonathan Demme's 'A Master Builder' From one of Julianne Moore's most underrated performances to the form-bending collaborations between Wallace Shawn and André Gregory, the June 2015 Criterion Collection slate promises a little something for everyone. Featuring the release of six classic films, along with a special trilogy package that includes the exemplary cinema of Shawn and Gregory, this upcoming month's Criterion Collection should easily whet the appetite of any cinephile. Check out synopses of the films set to be released below, courtesy of Criterion.  "A Master Builder" (2014) Twenty years after their brilliant cinema-theater experiment "Vanya on 42nd Street," Wallace Shawn and André Gregory reunited to produce another idiosyncratic big-screen version of a classic play, this time Henrik Ibsen's "Bygmester Solness" ("Master Builder Solness"). Brought pristinely to the screen...

You'd have to go a long way to find a career that touches as many far-flung bases as that of write-director-actor Wallace Shawn. One can know Shawn's voice from the "Toy Story" movies, but not recognize him from "The Princess Bride." You could, I suppose, know him as Blair's eventual stepfather on "Gossip Girl" and not know him as Rex or Vizzini. You could think yourself an intellectual and know "My Dinner with Andre" or "Vanya on 42nd Street," without knowing any of Shawn's acclaimed, often outspokenly political plays or his myriad essays. Shawn is so multi-faceted an artist that it's entirely unsurprising that a very brief conversation tied to ABC's very enjoyable "Toy Story That Time Forgot," airing on Tuesday, December 2, begins with simple questions about Rex's endearing short-armed innocence and progresses to the lure of acting to help him maintain a bourgeois lifestyle, delves into the anti-decadence message...

A Master Builder screens as part of the 23rd Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival on Saturday, November 22 at 2:30 Pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theatre. Get ticket information here.

It’s the reunion over thirty years in the making. Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, the stars of Louis Malle’s 1981 cult hit My Dinner With Andre, are together again (briefly) in Jonathan Demme’s version of Henrik’s Ibsen stage classic, that’s been adapted for the screen by Shawn. Oh, and he’s the title character, celebrated architect Havald Solness, who, as the film begins, appears to be on his deathbed. He’s hooked up to machines as sister/nurses scurry about in his opulent estate. As he drifts in and out of sleep, his aging mentor Knut (Gregory) pleads with him to give his work requests to Havald’s eager young intern Ragnar (Jeff Biehl), in...

The Last Impresario director Gracie Otto on Michael White: "And everyone loved him. It was amazing." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Gracie Otto, in town for her Doc NYC screening of The Last Impresario, spoke about connecting with Naomi Watts and Yoko Ono, Robert Fox's Anna Wintour persuader, searching for John Cleese, editing with Karen Johnson and Susan Hill's suggestion of Greta Scacchi (White Mischief). She went on to dialing Lorne Michaels in, meeting Kate Moss, talking to Jack Nicholson off camera, watching John Waters' Polyester on a bus, a Gillian Armstrong idea and starting with Mick Jagger, all for the one-of-a-kind London artistic power player Michael White.

In Otto's captivatingly energetic debut feature, we see Rachel Ward, Barry Humphries, Wallace Shawn, Julian Sands, André Gregory, Richard O'Brien, Bill Oddie, Meryl Tankard, Nell Campbell, Jim Sharman, Robert Shaye, Nigel Planer, Miranda Darling, Michael Billington, Joshua White, Michael Morris,...

The Post-1960S, Pre-Digital Age: Real-time One-offs, 1975-1998

British filmmaker John Byrum is responsible for the first (and in some ways only) real-time period film. Inserts (1975), set in the early 1930s, is about a Boy Wonder movie director (called Boy Wonder, played by Richard Dreyfuss fresh from American Graffiti (1973) and Jaws (1975)) now washed up before the age of 30, resigned to making porn because of Hollywood’s conversion to sound. Not only is Inserts scrupulously real-time (with the exception of the opening credits sequence, which offers glimpses of the stag film we’re about to see made) and period, but it’s rather long for such a film, just shy of two hours. To tell the entire story would be spoiling the fun, but the Boy Wonder deals with recalcitrant actresses, the problem of his own potency, career problems, death, sex, after-death and after-sex…and in the end, as...

Variety's Scott Foundas grants that Barry Levinson's The Humbling "may be doomed to dwell" in the "deservedly large shadow" of Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman. "But where Inarritu’s exuberant style piece calls to mind the likes of Fosse and Fellini, The Humbling feels closer to the intimate theater/film hybrid works of Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street) in its lo-fi aesthetics and gently playful sense of art imitating life imitating art. Fronted by a vibrant, deeply committed Al Pacino performance and very fine support from Greta Gerwig, this uneven but captivating film deserves to find its own audience." This is one of the more positive reviews; we're collecting others. » - David Hudson...

Variety's Scott Foundas grants that Barry Levinson's The Humbling "may be doomed to dwell" in the "deservedly large shadow" of Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman. "But where Inarritu’s exuberant style piece calls to mind the likes of Fosse and Fellini, The Humbling feels closer to the intimate theater/film hybrid works of Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street) in its lo-fi aesthetics and gently playful sense of art imitating life imitating art. Fronted by a vibrant, deeply committed Al Pacino performance and very fine support from Greta Gerwig, this uneven but captivating film deserves to find its own audience." This is one of the more positive reviews; we're collecting others. » - David Hudson...

The following article accompanies the audiovisual essay Paratheatre - Plays Without Stages (From I to IV) by Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López and commissioned by Chris Luscri for the 2014 Melbourne International Film Festival premiere of Jacques Rivette's 1971 magnum opus Out 1 - Noli me tangere.

In Jacques Rivette’s monumental Out 1 (1971), we see two theatrical works perpetually in progress — until, due to the force of many factors both internal and external, both projects collapse. Yet what we witness are not, in any conventional or normative sense, rehearsals. They are more like what Jerzy Grotwoski called paratheatre: playing without a stage, without an audience ever in mind or in attendance, playing for the sake of playing itself, for the process of working it out and working it through.

Every critical commentary on Out 1 (and its double, Out 1: Spectre from 1974) refers to the prominent place in it of theatre — a prominent place it enjoys,...

The Criterion Collection has sprung for Jonathan Demme‘s A Master Builder, which the prestigious home vid label will add to its library. André Gregory and Wallace Shawn star in the film, shot over seven days tracking Gregory’s stage production of Shawn’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play Master Builder Solness. Shawn leads the cast as a successful architect whose relationships with his wife, employees, and lover become even more complicated when a mysterious young woman comes to visit. Shawn and Gregory are familiar faces in the Criterion vaults, which has released the pair’s previous collaborations My Dinner With Andre and Vanya […]...

On Wednesday, July 22, I had the privilege of hosting a talk with Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, and Jonathan Demme, under the auspices of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, after a screening of the trio’s impressive collaboration A Master Builder (now playing at New York’s Film Forum). Much as they did with Uncle Vanya (filmed by Louis Malle as Vanya on 42nd Street), Gregory, Shawn, and the cast rehearsed Ibsen’s play for many years, ultimately performing it for small, invited audiences. Malle being dead, Demme stepped into the breach and filmed the production quickly and well.A Master Builder centers on acclaimed architect Halvard Solness (played onscreen by Shawn), who fears being dislodged by the next generation. He feels especially vulnerable because he has, over the last decade, gone from making towering structures to smaller buildings in which real people can live. He has lost some stature and...

Andre Gregory spent 14 years rehearsing the play. Jonathan Demme took one week to film it. The extraordinarily engaging result is A Master Builder, which went into limited release today at New York’s Film Forum. It’s a movie that benefits from one director’s obsession with allowing his actors to live in their roles over time with another’s burst of creative energy. You can sense both up on the screen in this film of a story that might easily have seemed dated but instead comes across as a chilling tale — a “haunted house story” as Demme describes it. And perhaps […]...

You might say that actor and theater director André Gregory creates theater Boyhood-style: He and his compatriots, chief among them actor and playwright Wallace Shawn, have been known to rehearse certain plays for a decade and more, gradually building on them, revisiting them, allowing them to change shape and texture as the participants age. That's how Gregory approached Henrik Ibsen's 1892 chestnut The Master Builder. Over the years he and Shawn — who had retranslated the play himself, despite the fact that he knows no Norwegian — would perform the play for friends. Now, even those of us who aren't a Foa or a Fow (Friend of André or Friend of Wallace, that is) can see what these two have been cooking up all these years: Jonathan De...

Twenty years ago, André Gregory gathered a group of great actors to rehearse Uncle Vanya; Louis Malle came in to film their work, almost as if he were shooting a documentary; and the result, Vanya on 42nd Street, was an astonishing fusion of theater and film—superb Chekhov, superb moviemaking. Gregory, Wallace Shawn, and Larry Pine have reunited for Henrik Ibsen’s A Master Builder, and, Malle being dead, Jonathan Demme has stepped into the breach. (The film is dedicated to Malle.) Demme doesn’t take a documentary approach, which I don’t think would work for this strange masterpiece—a play that marked the moment that Ibsen began to turn away from the naturalism of A Doll’s House and Ghosts and head back to the mythic, poetic realm of earlier epics like Brand and Peer Gynt. Gregory and Demme have turned A Master Builder into (pardon my invoking...

When Community first strolled onto television, there was only a hint of the kind of show it would ultimately become. There was a smooth-talking ex-lawyer trying hard to romance a woman who looked like Elisabeth Shue, a ragtag bunch of people who argued like they were on a sitcom, and in any other show, Abed’s insistence of injecting pop culture ephemera and contextualization would have melted into general Wacky Neighbor behavior. But it didn’t melt, and Abed eventually became the watchword for the show. Throughout the first season, he was indulged in all sorts of movie and TV tropes, but there were also many standard sitcom signposts along the way. Read any of the first season’s episode descriptions, and it could be talking about almost any recent comedy, but then “Modern Warfare” introduced us to how Greendale plays paintball. It was the kind of television moment that was difficult to understand. The...

Jonathan Demme's film adaption of Henrik Ibsen's play "Master Builder Solness" has just been acquired. Abramorama will theatrically release "A Master Builder," created for the stage by Andre Gregory and written by Wallace Shawn, the collaborative duo of "My Dinner With Andre" and "Vanya On 42nd Street." Both also star in the film.  Halvard Solness (Shawn), is a very successful architect in his sixties, who exercises tight control over his wife, his employees, and his mistress. When Hilde (Lisa Joyce), a mysterious young woman comes to visit, the once dominating, controlling and narcissistic Solness finds himself apparently revived in every possible way. "Into my life comes this wonderfully bizarre Ibsen drama as re-imagined through their profound, funny and spookily original production, and with Wally the actor way up front, and I get the singular opportunity to join the Gregory-Shawn Cinema Gang! It's been a dream come true, as...

The Public Theater and Theatre for a New Audience have announced an additional one-week extension for the American premiere of Grasses Of A Thousand Colors, part of The Wallace Shawn-Andre Gregory Project, written by Wallace Shawn. Directed by Andre Gregory, Grasses Of A Thousand Colors opened on Monday, October 28 and will now run an additional week through Sunday, December 1.

Director Jonathan Demme captures the team of Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory staging a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder.”

The dynamic duo behind My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street take on another classic of the stage in their big-screen Henrik Ibsen adaptation, Fear of Falling.

With Jonathan Demme replacing the late Louis Malle at the helm, this terrifically performed version of The Master Builder -- based on a screenplay by Wallace Shawn, from his own translation of the Norwegian text -- channels the rage, joy and delusions of an aging architect’s final days, where a ghost from his past (played by the exuberant Lisa Joyce) guides him to the great beyond. Premiering in the Rome Film Festival’s experimental CinemaXXI section, this dense and occasionally poetic chamber piece should appeal to very upscale audiences both at fests and -- despite production values...

The Public Theater and Theatre for a New Audience have announced an additional one-week extension for the American premiere of Grasses Of A Thousand Colors, part of The Wallace Shawn-Andre Gregory Project, written by Wallace Shawn. Directed by Andre Gregory, Grasses Of A Thousand Colors opened on Monday, October 28 and will now run an additional week through Sunday, December 1.

Jonathan Demme’s ‘Fear Of Falling’ To Premiere At Rome Fest Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme‘s Fear Of Falling will have its world premiere at the eighth annual Rome Film Festival in November. The film is based on a theater production — performed only a few times to friends — created for the stage by the actor-filmaker André Gregory, based on Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, translated and adapted by actor-playwright Wallace Shawn. Gregory and Shawn also star in the film. Fear of Falling is produced by Rocco Caruso. The Rome fest runs November 8-17. TrustNordisk Sells ‘We Are The Best!’ In Australia, Italy, Taiwan TrustNordisk has closed multiple deals on Lukas Moodysson’s We Are The Best!, which premiered at Venice premiere and screened at Toronto. The Swedish teen punk film has sold to Australia (NewVision Films), Italy (Bim Distribuzione) and Taiwan (Maison Motion), with talks ongoing for other territories.

Oscar-winning director behind Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia to premiere new film at the Rome Film Festival and host a masterclass.

The8th Rome Film Festival (Nov 8-17) will play host to the world premiere of Jonathan Demme’s Fear of Falling.

The film will feature in in the CinemaXXI section, dedicated to new trends in international cinema.

In an accompanying masterclass, Demme will talk about his relationship with cinema, commenting on the most significant film scenes in his career and answering questions from the audience.

Demme, who won the Best Director Oscar for Silence of the Lambs (1991), has also directed award-winning features including Philadelphia (1993) and Rachel Getting Married (2008) - the last time he made a fiction feature.

Fear of Falling is based on a theatre production that was an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “Master Builder Solness” (“Bygmester Solness”) and follows a renowned architect increasingly caught up in his own fantasies.

Created for the...

"Fear of Falling," the latest by Jonathan Demme, will make its world premiere this fall at the 8th annual Rome Film Festival (November 8-17). Adapted from 19th-century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's "The Master Builder," the film is written by stage scribe and actor Wallace Shawn, who plays the leading role. "Fear of Falling" costars Andre Gregory, with whom Shawn has been an artistic partner for over 40 years (see them together as co-writers and onscreen in Louis Malle's wonderful 1981 "My Dinner with Andre"). Julie Hagerty, Larry Pine and Lisa Joyce also star in "Fear of Falling," Demme's first theatrical film since 2008's "Rachel Getting Married." That film nabbed lead actress Anne Hathaway an Oscar nom.  Since then, Demme has directed TV episodes for such series as HBO's "Enlightened" and AMC's "The Killing," among other projects. He won the Best Director Oscar in 1992 for "The Silence of the Lambs." "Fear of Falling...

“I think staying awake rather than falling asleep when people are talking to you is an important component of the definition of clarity,” wrote Wallace Shawn in “Notes in Justification of Putting the Audience Through a Difficult Evening,” an essay appended to his ‘85 play Aunt Dan and Lemon. “And I think theatre can give people a certain training or practice in this type of vigilance.” Andre Gregory’s new production of Shawn’s The Designated Mourner isn’t what I’d call a “difficult evening” — this isn’t some Abramovic endurance experiment after all, and much of it is broadly funny. (Here’s a gem of a line, if you’re in the Wally Shawn novelty-t-shirt business, a business someone should be in: “My dick lay limply inside my trousers, like a little lunch packed by Mother.”) The moral content is richer than just about anything you’re likely to find elsewhere; Shawn,...

"Privacy is an outdated concept," Wallace Shawn quips in Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner. If he only knew! Shawn's comment comes after realizing he's being filmed, but it could serve as a rejoinder to this documentary itself, an often too-intimate portrait of theater director Andre Gregory by his wife, Cindy Kleine. While watching scenes as mundane as Gregory applying a Spider-Man bandage to his cut finger or being recognized by a cashier in a grocery store, you may wonder: Would this film exist in a pre-Kardashian universe? Rooted in restlessness, the doc cycles through a myriad of subjects with a desultory air. It's alternately a love letter from Kleine to Gregory about their May-December romance; a behind-the-scenes look at Gregory's production of Ibsen's The Master...

Family Portrait: Kleine’ Uses Husband as Subject for Light Documentary

Fans of director and actor Andre Gregory should be excited, and, overall, pleased with director Cindy Kleine’s documentary about her husband, Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner, which gives us a rare glimpse of the artist in his personal environment. While he’s perhaps best known to the general movie going public for odd supporting turns in several main stream motion pictures, Gregory is first and foremost an accomplished theater director, and he infamously rehearses one piece for years at a time. Those familiar with the film Vanya on 42nd Street should know exactly what his process entails. Unfortunately, those unfamiliar with Gregory and his work will most likely find Kleine’s documentary aggravating and without any type of thrust beyond a compilation of shared familial memories.

Introduced to the cinema in Louis Malle’s 1981 adaptation of his work,...