Editorials > Filmwad Breaks it Down: Thursday October 25

Robert De Niro and Michael Mann are teaming up again for a film called Frankie Machine. De Niro will play a retired mob hitman who gets brought back into the game only to be double-crossed. De Niro looks into the camera and groans, "I'm gettin' too old for this shit."

Woody Harrelson has been cast in Oliver Stone's Vietnam-drama (Vietnama?) Pinkville. Harrelson will play the commanding officer of the unit that perpetrated the My Lai massacre.

Joe Carnahan has put the scripts for Killing Pablo and White Jazz online to let the fans choose which film he should do next. All filmmakers should do this. Rather than desperately protecting their precious spoilers, they should just give us the screenplays in advance and let us decide what's good for them. They can change things around in production, but the audience should be able to let them know in advance whether their movie is worthwhile or not. Think of all of the Mr. Woodcocks that could be avoided.

And Michel Gondry is working on a documentary about his "Auntie," an 80 year old school teacher. Newsflash from the future: It's official, Michel Gondry can make any subject sound interesting and hip.

The first trailer of the day is for Black Irish, another film that seems to subscribe to the theory that if you set your film in South Boston, you've got a big hit on your hands. The trailer confuses me, frankly. It's tone is all over the place. One minute it's a gritty family drama, next minute it's the inspirational American story of how baseball fixes lives. It's got a decent cast, but it's far from a safe bet.

I'm much more excited for the second trailer. Sidney Lumet has long been one of my favorite directors. From his debut with 12 Angry Men, through his best works in the 70s (Dog Day Afternoon and especially Network) he's proven himself one of the better non-household name directors out there. The trailer calls him "Academy Award Winning Director" but I don't know if it should count considering it was an honorary award given to him because they thought he was going to die before he made any more good movies. Anyway, the trailer looks great. The cast is phenomenal and I love the emotionally complex storyline of two brothers robbing their parents' store. It's like Bottle Rocket mixed with Dog Day Afternoon. Also, and I'm sure this has been said about him many times before, Philip Seymour Hoffman is an unstoppable acting force. This is a must-see, come Christmas.

Written by David Morgan