Sundance Summary, part 2

By Saturday morning, I was wondering where the celebrities were at Sundance. It had been a much lower wattage festival compared to the previous year, and we had heard of sponsors canceling or scaling back.

My husband and I saw three movies on Saturday, starting with Brooklyn's Finest, which I'll tell you right out was not the finest movie I saw at the festival. What a big disappointment. The film is directed by Antoine Fuqua who directed the excellent Training Day, and the not so excellent King Arthur. Brooklyn's Finest has three different barely intersecting stories of three cops: Richard Gere is a suicidal beat cop about to retire, Ethan Hawke is a cop desperate to move out of his mold ridden house to save his sick pregnant wife, and Don Cheadle plays an undercover cop conflicted about his gangster friend played by Wesley Snipes. The script was written by a first time screenwriter, who entered a screenwriting contest to win a car. He didn't win, but somehow came to the attention of Fuqua. The film was shot right in the projects in Brooklyn, and evidently was the first film to do so.

I had lots of problems with this film. It is relentlessly dark, and I remember laughing at least a few times during Training Day. I didn't like Ethan Hawke's character, and thought he was stupid. His choices didn't make sense once his friend found out what he was planning to do. We're supposed to suspend disbelief and accept that Richard Gere's character can only get a Latina prostitute to have sex with him, even though he looks like Richard Gere with no paunch. (For the record, I respect Richard Gere for trying to stretch a bit beyond Nights at Rodanthe, but it was a stretch.) Don Cheadle's character I liked the most, and he and Ellen Barkin had a few explosive scenes. The ending of the movie was just awful, and I was left very disappointed.

Only Antoine Fuqua and the screenwriter attended our screening as it was in the morning. They got complaints from the audience over the violence and dark portrayal of the police, but they just replied that that would be a different film, and not the one they made. We heard that the film was picked up but, as a "work in progress." The first thing they can do is change the ending.

After walking around Main Street for a bit, we saw the awesome documentary It Might Get Loud, directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth). Before the screening, we heard rumblings from the back of the theater. Jack White of The White Stripes had come to the screening! Davis Guggenheim was greeted as somewhat of a rock star director himself.



Davis Guggenheim introduced the film saying that it is a documentary about the electric guitar with three of the best artists of the electric guitar: Jimmy Page, The Edge of U2 and Jack White. Why these three? "Jimmy Hendrix wasn't available." Instead of the usual rock documentary about the rise of the band and the descent into drugs and so on, this film takes a different approach. He brought all three guitarists together in Nashville where they jammed and talked together for two days. He also interviewed each separately and they described how they got their first guitar, their start in music and how they write songs. It was fascinating, totally fun, and one of the best films we saw at the festival.

Jack White was convinced to come up for the Q&A, but unfortunately, he didn't bring his guitar. The film was just awesome, and I really learned a lot. I did not know Jimmy Page's history as a studio musician, and how he just couldn't take playing Muzak one more day! It Might Get Loud will be out in theaters probably in August of this year. Watch for it as it's not to be missed!














The last film we saw on Saturday, was Taking Chance starring Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon came for the Q&A at our screening, and I was able to tell the director Ross Katz how glad I was that I saw his excellent film. I didn't want to see another movie about Iraq, but I'm so glad I saw this one. Read my review here.

You can see all my pictures from Sundance 2009 here on Flickr.

Why was Terrance Howard dumped for Iron Man 2?

The Movie Blog has some insight on what happened with the casting change for War Machine in Iron Man 2. I like both Terrance Howard and Don Cheadle, but it was one of those WTF? moments as to why the change. Word is leaking out:

According to Entertainment Weekly some new information is surfacing regarding WHY Howard was dumped.

Turns out it was for 2 reasons.

#1 - He was the highest paid actor on the movie
Yes, according to Entertainment Weekly, Terrance Howard was signed for MORE than Robert Downey Jr and everyone else on the movie. This isn’t too surprising because the studio wasn’t sure how the public would react to Downy at the time and Howard was, quite frankly, the bigger name. Still… a minor character getting more than the leads?

#2 - Howard was difficult on set and bad in the film
It’s being reported now that the studio, and director Jon Favreau himself did not like the performance Terrance Howard gave nor liked working with him that much. According to the story, Favreau spent a lot of time cutting and re-editing Howard’s scenes to make them work. It was so bad, that even though the original plan was to have a BIGGER role for Howard in the second film, Favreau had been working to make Howard’s role SMALLER. This was the final straw that made the studio pull the trigger and make the change.

Damn. Terrance Howard was the highest paid on that movie for minimal screen time? That is a WTF. At the time of casting, it was a very different story than it is today. Now, Robert Downey Jr. is on top of the heap, but back then he was a real risk. But let's review, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges were also in Iron Man and Howard was the highest paid? WTF?!

Don Cheadle In, Terrence Howard Out in Iron Man 2

WTF??

Don Cheadle is stepping in to replace Terrence Howard in "Iron Man 2," Marvel Studios' sequel to its summer blockbuster.

In the movie, Howard played Jim Rhodes, Tony Stark/Iron Man's best friend and future armor-clad hero War Machine. One scene featured Howard looking at a silver suit of armor and saying "Next time," a line that caused great delight for fans.

But there will be no next time for Howard.

Marvel had no comment, but sources close to the deal said negotiations with Howard fell through over financial differences, among other reasons. Marvel, which had wanted to work with Cheadle, then decided to take the role in another direction and approached the actor, who is shooting Antoine Fuqua's "Brooklyn's Finest" with Richard Gere and Ethan Hawke.

Rhodes is expected to play a larger part in the sequel, which is rumored to go beyond high-tech villains.

It's not that I don't like Don Cheadle, because I do. Just how much was Terrence asking for anyway? Well, kudos to Don Cheadle to bringing on the War Machine. Bottom line is that Jon Favreau is still directing!