Chicago – The Round-Up, HollywoodChicago.com’s famous recurring column about lesser Blu-Ray and DVD titles that may have slipped through your fingers at the store recently, is in clean-up mode this week. With a DVD collection for a famous young actress, an old cartoon, a straight-to-video horror movie, and three movies with the word “Mountain” in the title, the only word that comes to mind to tie these titles together is “random”.
You know those bins of “impulse buy” items you’ll see in stores near the cash register? Stuff that you may not have put on your shopping list and that you may not even know you want until you see them? That’s what this week’s Round-Up column is like. Peek in the bin and take a look at “Jonny Quest,” “The Scarlett Johansson Collection,” “Dead in 3 Days,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Escape to Witch Mountain,” and “Return to...
You know those bins of “impulse buy” items you’ll see in stores near the cash register? Stuff that you may not have put on your shopping list and that you may not even know you want until you see them? That’s what this week’s Round-Up column is like. Peek in the bin and take a look at “Jonny Quest,” “The Scarlett Johansson Collection,” “Dead in 3 Days,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Escape to Witch Mountain,” and “Return to...
- 3/10/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
ComingSoon.net is reporting that Mamma Mia! The Movie lead Amanda Seyfried will star in Myriad Pictures' adaptation of Oscar Wilde's comedy A Woman of No Importance opposite Annette Bening and Sean Bean. Seyfried will play an American who finds herself falling in love with the womanizing Lord Illingworth (Bean) in the English countryside until his mother (Bening) throws a wrench in his plans. Donald Zuckerman will produce and Bruce Beresford will be directing from a script by Howard Himelstein.
- 1/29/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
Amanda Seyfried ( Mamma Mia! ) will topline Myriad Pictures' adaptation of Oscar Wilde's comedy A Woman of No Importance opposite Annette Bening and Sean Bean. Seyfried will play an American who finds herself falling in love with the womanizing Lord Illingworth (Bean) in the English countryside until his mother (Bening) throws a wrench in his plans. Donald Zuckerman's producing and Bruce Beresford's directing from Howard Himelstein's script.
- 1/29/2009
- Comingsoon.net
After doing films like Mean Girls and Alpha Dogs, plus a major role in HBO's Big Love, it was Mamma Mia! that landed Amanda Seyfried in the spotlight. With a few films already in the can for 2009, Amanda Seyfried has been picked up to play lead in Oscar Wilde's comedy A Woman of No Importance.
Amanda Seyfried for A Woman of No Importance
Seyfried will join Annette Bening and Sean Bean in A Woman of No Importance. Written by Howard Himelstein, the film represents only one of Seyfried's major roles for 2009.
Amanda Seyfried for A Woman of No Importance
Seyfried will join Annette Bening and Sean Bean in A Woman of No Importance. Written by Howard Himelstein, the film represents only one of Seyfried's major roles for 2009.
- 1/29/2009
- www.canmag.com
Now we know we promised you, waay back in 2006, that Lindsay Lohan was going to be the unimportant woman - and oh what a self fulfilling prophecy that turned out to be - but now there's another Mean Girl ready to step into her Victorian shoes for A Woman No Importance.Amanda Seyfried will play the love interest to the womanizing Lord Illingworth played by Sean Bean, at an awfully posh upper-class party at the family's pile in the English countryside - until his mother, played by Annette Bening reveals a secret, which threatens to scupper his plans.With Driving Miss Daisy director Bruce Beresford at the helm, this could have promised to be a gentle ride were it not for Wilde's searing and snappy dialogue, which has been adapted by Howard Himelstein.Seyfried, part of the one film assault on the ears of the world last year in Mamma Mia!
- 1/29/2009
- EmpireOnline
First deal is 'Sexiest' at Hamptons
NEW YORK -- In the first pickup from the Hamptons International Film Festival slate, ThinkFilm has nabbed North American rights to Thursday's world premiere My Sexiest Year.
Writer-director Howard Himelstein's autobiographical coming-of-age story follows Jack Stein (Frankie Muniz), a 17-year-old aspiring writer who lives with his mother (Frances Fisher) in Brooklyn. When her health declines, she sends him to live with his horse-racing handicapper father (Harvey Keitel) in Miami.
Jack soon becomes distracted by new friendships with a rich druggie (Dan Levy) and his sister (Haylie Duff) and the famous model (Amber Valletta) Jack falls for. Ryan Cabrera plays Jack's high school nemesis. Christopher McDonald and Karolina Kurkova also star.
The pickup reunites ThinkFilm with producers Michael Cerenzie and Paul Parmar, part of the team behind its upcoming Sidney Lumet thriller Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
Himelstein directed Power of Attorney and scripted Myriad Pictures' upcoming Oscar Wilde adaptation A Woman of No Importance.
Cerenzie and Christine Forsyth-Peters' of CP Prods. will produce Russell Mulcahy's Zen and the Art of Slaying Vampires.
ThinkFilm U.S.
Writer-director Howard Himelstein's autobiographical coming-of-age story follows Jack Stein (Frankie Muniz), a 17-year-old aspiring writer who lives with his mother (Frances Fisher) in Brooklyn. When her health declines, she sends him to live with his horse-racing handicapper father (Harvey Keitel) in Miami.
Jack soon becomes distracted by new friendships with a rich druggie (Dan Levy) and his sister (Haylie Duff) and the famous model (Amber Valletta) Jack falls for. Ryan Cabrera plays Jack's high school nemesis. Christopher McDonald and Karolina Kurkova also star.
The pickup reunites ThinkFilm with producers Michael Cerenzie and Paul Parmar, part of the team behind its upcoming Sidney Lumet thriller Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.
Himelstein directed Power of Attorney and scripted Myriad Pictures' upcoming Oscar Wilde adaptation A Woman of No Importance.
Cerenzie and Christine Forsyth-Peters' of CP Prods. will produce Russell Mulcahy's Zen and the Art of Slaying Vampires.
ThinkFilm U.S.
- 10/18/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
At Myriad, Miller, more on the menu
CANNES -- Sienna Miller is set to star in A Woman of No Importance, Sarah Polley, Paddy Considine, Debra Messing and Scott Speedman will star in Cry of the Owl, and Lena Headey will star in Six Bullets From Now, all part of Myriad Films' Festival de Cannes presales lineup.
In the Oscar Wilde adaptation Importance, Miller plays a 19-year-old American who finds herself falling in love with the womanizing Lord Illingworth (Sean Bean) in the English countryside until his mother (Annette Bening) throws a wrench in his plans. Bruce Beresford is directing Howard Himelstein's screen version of Wilde's comedy, set to begin shooting in September.
In Owl, an adaptation of the novel by Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Polley plays a woman who falls for her stalker (Considine). Things take an ugly turn when her jilted ex (Speedman) plans revenge. Messing plays the ex-wife of Speedman's character in Jamie Thraves' upcoming thriller.
Bullets, loosely based on a true story, features Headey as the good-hearted girlfriend of a thief (Josh Lucas) who plans a heist at New York's Pierre Hotel in 1971.
In the Oscar Wilde adaptation Importance, Miller plays a 19-year-old American who finds herself falling in love with the womanizing Lord Illingworth (Sean Bean) in the English countryside until his mother (Annette Bening) throws a wrench in his plans. Bruce Beresford is directing Howard Himelstein's screen version of Wilde's comedy, set to begin shooting in September.
In Owl, an adaptation of the novel by Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Polley plays a woman who falls for her stalker (Considine). Things take an ugly turn when her jilted ex (Speedman) plans revenge. Messing plays the ex-wife of Speedman's character in Jamie Thraves' upcoming thriller.
Bullets, loosely based on a true story, features Headey as the good-hearted girlfriend of a thief (Josh Lucas) who plans a heist at New York's Pierre Hotel in 1971.
- 5/17/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Threesome hook up for 'Sexiest Year'
Frankie Muniz, Harvey Keitel and Amber Valletta are starring in writer-director Howard Himelstein's coming-of-age dramedy, My Sexiest Year. The story centers on a young man (Muniz) and his never-to-be-forgotten romantic encounter with a top international model, played by Valletta. Keitel plays his estranged father. Also cast are Christopher McDonald (Broken Flowers) Frances Fisher (Mrs. Harris) and Haylie Duff (7th Heaven). Pop star Ryan Cabrera and Victoria Secret model Karolina Kurkova are making their acting debuts in the film.
- 5/22/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A Good Woman
TORONTO -- The bon mots fly fast and furious in A Good Woman, which transplants Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan to a new place and time.
But while screenwriter Howard Himelstein and director Mike Barker have done a workable job of drawing the Wilde social satire out of the drawing room, the film never quite manages to travel at the same buoyant velocity as the acerbic wit.
The tone trouble and problematic casting (more about that later) prevent the adaptation from being considered truly Oscar-worthy -- that's referring both to the statuette and Mr. Wilde -- though the delicious dialogue and opulent backdrops still make for a reasonably pleasant viewing experience.
Reverting to Wilde's original title for his play, A Good Woman has been moved up to the 1930s and relocated to the decidedly airier Amalfi coast in Italy.
Several of the characters, meanwhile, now have become Americans.
That would include Robert (Mark Umbers) and Meg (Scarlett Johansson) Windermere, a young newlywed couple in good standing who have left New York's sticky summer behind for some sensible vacationing on the Italian Riviera.
Having the same idea is Mrs. Stella Erlynne (Helen Hunt), a woman of a certain age with a certain reputation to match, who has seemingly exhausted her supply of the wealthy, married New York men who served as her meal ticket.
It doesn't take long before the penniless vamp appears to have landed Robert as her latest conquest, and their frequent sightings together have set the tongues of the sunbathing aristocracy a-flapping.
Meg's discovery that Robert has been issuing a number of checks to Mrs. Erlynne would seem to confirm those rampant rumors, and she receives little solace in the enamored attention paid to her by eligible Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore).
Of course, things, as it turns out, aren't quite as they appear.
Director Barker (1999's Best Laid Plans), along with cinematographer Ben Seresin, production designer Ben Scott and costume designer John Bloomfield, get the look and feel of the picture up to Merchant Ivory snuff, but there's a prevailing wistfulness hanging over the entire enterprise that has the effect of signaling that weightier third-act twist earlier than necessary.
As for the cast, while Johansson seems to have a natural affinity for period dress, Hunt fares less successfully in the role of the calculating seductress.
She effectively conveys Mrs. Erlynne's vulnerability and pain later on, but Hunt never seems entirely comfortable in her character's skin when she's required to play the shameless vamp with a knack for insinuating herself into the beds and checkbook registers of men who should know better.
As her quite willing next victim, the very wealthy but lonely Tuppy (Tom Wilkinson) nails the required tragicomic pitch with a great deal of self-effacing charm.
A Good Woman
Beyond Films
Credits:
Director: Mike Barker
Screenwriter: Howard Himelstein
Based on the play Lady Windermere's Fan by: Oscar Wilde
Producers: Alan Greenspan, Jonathan English, Steven Siebert, Howard Himelstein
Executive producers: John Evangelides, Mikael Borglund, Hilary Davis, Jimmy De Brabant, Michael Dounaev, Liam Badger, Duncan Hopper, Rupert Preston
Director of photography: Ben Seresin
Production designer: Ben Scott
Editor: Neil Farrell
Costume designer: John Bloomfield
Music: Richard G. Mitchell
Cast:
Mrs. Erlynne: Helen Hunt
Meg Windermere: Scarlett Johansson
Tuppy: Tom Wilkinson
Lord Darlington: Stephen Campbell Moore
Robert Windermere: Mark Umbers
Contessa Lucchino: Milena Vukotic
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 93 minutes...
But while screenwriter Howard Himelstein and director Mike Barker have done a workable job of drawing the Wilde social satire out of the drawing room, the film never quite manages to travel at the same buoyant velocity as the acerbic wit.
The tone trouble and problematic casting (more about that later) prevent the adaptation from being considered truly Oscar-worthy -- that's referring both to the statuette and Mr. Wilde -- though the delicious dialogue and opulent backdrops still make for a reasonably pleasant viewing experience.
Reverting to Wilde's original title for his play, A Good Woman has been moved up to the 1930s and relocated to the decidedly airier Amalfi coast in Italy.
Several of the characters, meanwhile, now have become Americans.
That would include Robert (Mark Umbers) and Meg (Scarlett Johansson) Windermere, a young newlywed couple in good standing who have left New York's sticky summer behind for some sensible vacationing on the Italian Riviera.
Having the same idea is Mrs. Stella Erlynne (Helen Hunt), a woman of a certain age with a certain reputation to match, who has seemingly exhausted her supply of the wealthy, married New York men who served as her meal ticket.
It doesn't take long before the penniless vamp appears to have landed Robert as her latest conquest, and their frequent sightings together have set the tongues of the sunbathing aristocracy a-flapping.
Meg's discovery that Robert has been issuing a number of checks to Mrs. Erlynne would seem to confirm those rampant rumors, and she receives little solace in the enamored attention paid to her by eligible Lord Darlington (Stephen Campbell Moore).
Of course, things, as it turns out, aren't quite as they appear.
Director Barker (1999's Best Laid Plans), along with cinematographer Ben Seresin, production designer Ben Scott and costume designer John Bloomfield, get the look and feel of the picture up to Merchant Ivory snuff, but there's a prevailing wistfulness hanging over the entire enterprise that has the effect of signaling that weightier third-act twist earlier than necessary.
As for the cast, while Johansson seems to have a natural affinity for period dress, Hunt fares less successfully in the role of the calculating seductress.
She effectively conveys Mrs. Erlynne's vulnerability and pain later on, but Hunt never seems entirely comfortable in her character's skin when she's required to play the shameless vamp with a knack for insinuating herself into the beds and checkbook registers of men who should know better.
As her quite willing next victim, the very wealthy but lonely Tuppy (Tom Wilkinson) nails the required tragicomic pitch with a great deal of self-effacing charm.
A Good Woman
Beyond Films
Credits:
Director: Mike Barker
Screenwriter: Howard Himelstein
Based on the play Lady Windermere's Fan by: Oscar Wilde
Producers: Alan Greenspan, Jonathan English, Steven Siebert, Howard Himelstein
Executive producers: John Evangelides, Mikael Borglund, Hilary Davis, Jimmy De Brabant, Michael Dounaev, Liam Badger, Duncan Hopper, Rupert Preston
Director of photography: Ben Seresin
Production designer: Ben Scott
Editor: Neil Farrell
Costume designer: John Bloomfield
Music: Richard G. Mitchell
Cast:
Mrs. Erlynne: Helen Hunt
Meg Windermere: Scarlett Johansson
Tuppy: Tom Wilkinson
Lord Darlington: Stephen Campbell Moore
Robert Windermere: Mark Umbers
Contessa Lucchino: Milena Vukotic
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 93 minutes...
- 9/27/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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