Tim Blake Nelson first heard about “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” in 2002, when Joel and Ethan Coen handed him a short script about a cheerful, singing cowboy who often finds himself in violent situations. The filmmaking siblings told him it was one of several western stories that “would be written over the years.” But it wasn’t until 2016 that the final five vignettes were completed and assembled into a feature-length script. Watch our exclusive video interview with Nelson above.
See Zoe Kazan on co-writing ‘Wildlife’ and co-starring in ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’: ‘I felt so protective of her’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
As the titular Buster, Nelson gets to sing, dance and kill on his journeys through the Wild West. But he doesn’t see the character as a villain. “As an actor, you learn early on that you’ve got to advocate for your character,” he explains. “Mostly that means figuring...
See Zoe Kazan on co-writing ‘Wildlife’ and co-starring in ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’: ‘I felt so protective of her’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
As the titular Buster, Nelson gets to sing, dance and kill on his journeys through the Wild West. But he doesn’t see the character as a villain. “As an actor, you learn early on that you’ve got to advocate for your character,” he explains. “Mostly that means figuring...
- 11/20/2018
- by Zach Laws
- Gold Derby
Need to catch up? Check out the previous The Handmaid’s Tale recap here.
In The Handmaid’s Tale‘s third installment, we get the Republic of Gilead’s origin story. And forgive me if you think I’m overreacting, but the fictional downfall of American society looks a heck of lot like the real now.
The erosion of rights. A complacent citizenry. Leadership that encourages a culture that makes those with hate in their hearts feel emboldened — heck, entitled — to voice whatever atrocious thought crosses their small minds. All of these factors contributed to a world in which women...
In The Handmaid’s Tale‘s third installment, we get the Republic of Gilead’s origin story. And forgive me if you think I’m overreacting, but the fictional downfall of American society looks a heck of lot like the real now.
The erosion of rights. A complacent citizenry. Leadership that encourages a culture that makes those with hate in their hearts feel emboldened — heck, entitled — to voice whatever atrocious thought crosses their small minds. All of these factors contributed to a world in which women...
- 5/2/2017
- TVLine.com
See Offred.
Offred, and all the women of Hulu’s excellent adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, are royally — and often literally — screwed.
See Offred resist. Resist, Offred, resist!
The new drama, based on Margaret Atwood’s chilling novel, introduces its protagonist and starts to explain out how she went from working wife and mom in a world resembling ours to downtrodden sex slave in a society run by a totalitarian patriarchy. (Spoiler alert: The transformation is quick and chilling.)
But even though life is bleak for Offred and her sistren, there’s a spark of revolution glowing under those white winged veils.
Offred, and all the women of Hulu’s excellent adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, are royally — and often literally — screwed.
See Offred resist. Resist, Offred, resist!
The new drama, based on Margaret Atwood’s chilling novel, introduces its protagonist and starts to explain out how she went from working wife and mom in a world resembling ours to downtrodden sex slave in a society run by a totalitarian patriarchy. (Spoiler alert: The transformation is quick and chilling.)
But even though life is bleak for Offred and her sistren, there’s a spark of revolution glowing under those white winged veils.
- 4/26/2017
- TVLine.com
Causality and Kindness: Nelson’s Latest Look at All the Lonely People
The multifaceted Tim Blake Nelson unveils his latest directorial effort in nearly seven years with Anesthesia, a New York set drama focused on a series of interconnected characters leading up to a brutal crime of the narrative’s central figure. It’s sometimes easy to forget Nelson, perhaps best known as a character actor in an incalculable amount of arresting performances across a variety of films, is also an accomplished writer and director, premiering his own eclectic five features since his first (and best) 1997 debut Eye of God. Since then, he made a contemporized version of Shakespeare’s Othello in 2001 with O, an English language drama centered on a rebellious group of Sonderkomandos attempting to overthrow their Nazi captors in the grueling The Grey Zone (also 2001) and a comedy crime drama Leaves of Grass (2009) with Edward Norton pulling double duty as twins.
The multifaceted Tim Blake Nelson unveils his latest directorial effort in nearly seven years with Anesthesia, a New York set drama focused on a series of interconnected characters leading up to a brutal crime of the narrative’s central figure. It’s sometimes easy to forget Nelson, perhaps best known as a character actor in an incalculable amount of arresting performances across a variety of films, is also an accomplished writer and director, premiering his own eclectic five features since his first (and best) 1997 debut Eye of God. Since then, he made a contemporized version of Shakespeare’s Othello in 2001 with O, an English language drama centered on a rebellious group of Sonderkomandos attempting to overthrow their Nazi captors in the grueling The Grey Zone (also 2001) and a comedy crime drama Leaves of Grass (2009) with Edward Norton pulling double duty as twins.
- 1/6/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
A retiring Philosophy professor (Sam Waterston) buzzes up to a stranger’s apartment one night, screaming for help. The tenant (Cory Stoll) rushes downstairs, and finds two men, bloody and beaten on the doorstep. One is the ailing professor, and the other, we cannot see. The narrative then flashes back several days to show us how these characters came to meet this gruesome fate. Anesthesia offers an intriguing but familiar set up, which splays the story out into numerous sprawling strands. The film is Altmanesque in its conceptualization, as the lives of roughly a dozen strangers crisscross and interlock in unexpected ways.
Writer-director Tim Blake Nelson, best known as Delmar from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, rounded up a stellar and committed cast, including Glenn Close, Michael K. Williams and Kristen Stewart. The filmmaker seems at home collaborating with actors of this caliber, having directed Edward Norton to not one,...
Writer-director Tim Blake Nelson, best known as Delmar from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, rounded up a stellar and committed cast, including Glenn Close, Michael K. Williams and Kristen Stewart. The filmmaker seems at home collaborating with actors of this caliber, having directed Edward Norton to not one,...
- 1/6/2016
- by Tony Hinds
- The Film Stage
Gamechanger Films, a new for-profit film fund exclusively targeting narrative feature-length films directed by women, was announced today. The New York-based company was founded by Julie Parker Benello (Afternoon Delight, Pariah, Brooklyn Castle), Dan Cogan (Hell and Back Again, How to Survive a Plague, The Queen of Versailles), Geralyn Dreyfous (Born Into Brothels, The Invisible War, The Square) and Wendy Ettinger (Semper Fi: Always Faithful, The War Room, Eye of God), and will be led by producer Mynette Louie (Cold Comes the Night, California Solo, Children of Invention). Producer Mary Jane Skalski (Very Good Girls, Win Win, The Visitor) is […]...
- 9/27/2013
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Gamechanger Films, a new for-profit film fund exclusively targeting narrative feature-length films directed by women, was announced today. The New York-based company was founded by Julie Parker Benello (Afternoon Delight, Pariah, Brooklyn Castle), Dan Cogan (Hell and Back Again, How to Survive a Plague, The Queen of Versailles), Geralyn Dreyfous (Born Into Brothels, The Invisible War, The Square) and Wendy Ettinger (Semper Fi: Always Faithful, The War Room, Eye of God), and will be led by producer Mynette Louie (Cold Comes the Night, California Solo, Children of Invention). Producer Mary Jane Skalski (Very Good Girls, Win Win, The Visitor) is […]...
- 9/27/2013
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
With Sdcc 2013 kicking off soon, Preview Night details and the full schedule for Day 1 have arrived. We have some tough decisions to make as The Walking Dead comics take on "The X-Files" reunion and then the "Dexter," "Hannibal," and "Teen Wolf" panels go head-to-head.
Per usual, the abovementioned choices are just the tip of the iceberg for genre fans with panels running all day and evening on July 18th for paranormal novels, sexy steampunkers, horror gaming, horror novels, horror comics, horror journalists (including our own Heather Wixson!), composers, the ever present and popular zombies, The Goon feature film, and - in the last panel of the night - horror sitcom "Holliston." Check out our picks below, and be sure to visit the official San Diego Comic-Con 2013 website for the full lineup.
Preview Night: Wednesday, July 17, 2013
6:00pm - Special Sneak Peek Pilot Screenings
Comic-Con and Warner Bros. Television proudly continue their annual Preview Night tradition,...
Per usual, the abovementioned choices are just the tip of the iceberg for genre fans with panels running all day and evening on July 18th for paranormal novels, sexy steampunkers, horror gaming, horror novels, horror comics, horror journalists (including our own Heather Wixson!), composers, the ever present and popular zombies, The Goon feature film, and - in the last panel of the night - horror sitcom "Holliston." Check out our picks below, and be sure to visit the official San Diego Comic-Con 2013 website for the full lineup.
Preview Night: Wednesday, July 17, 2013
6:00pm - Special Sneak Peek Pilot Screenings
Comic-Con and Warner Bros. Television proudly continue their annual Preview Night tradition,...
- 7/5/2013
- by The Woman In Black
- DreadCentral.com
Small Town Murder Songs is the promising and well crafted feature from emerging filmmaker Ed Gas-Donnelly, filmed with strong visuals of on an Ontario an hour North of greater Toronto.
Peter Stormare plays Walter, an aging police officer in a small rural Mennonite community investigating the murder of a pretty young woman from out of town. The rural police are empowered, often to the parallel to investigate the matter when the provincial police retreat and focus their efforts elsewhere.
In this respect the film, as a document of Rural Canada is fascinating: exploring conflicts between religion, separatism, and provincial power pitted against regional municipal governments. Those seemingly on the inside are treated as outsiders, documenting and mapping a power structure – both internal and external within a narrative with a strong emotional core is remarkable. One must have imagined Gass-Donnelly and his team studying Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter.
In addition to Stromare,...
Peter Stormare plays Walter, an aging police officer in a small rural Mennonite community investigating the murder of a pretty young woman from out of town. The rural police are empowered, often to the parallel to investigate the matter when the provincial police retreat and focus their efforts elsewhere.
In this respect the film, as a document of Rural Canada is fascinating: exploring conflicts between religion, separatism, and provincial power pitted against regional municipal governments. Those seemingly on the inside are treated as outsiders, documenting and mapping a power structure – both internal and external within a narrative with a strong emotional core is remarkable. One must have imagined Gass-Donnelly and his team studying Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter.
In addition to Stromare,...
- 9/23/2010
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
Director: Tim Blake Nelson Writer: Tim Blake Nelson Starring: Edward Norton, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, Melanie Lynskey, Keri Russell, Tim Blake Nelson Bill Kincaid (Edward Norton) escaped Little Dixie, Oklahoma several years ago and has never looked back. Having completely shed the accent of his roots, Bill currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island where he is a published author and Classics professor at Brown University (Harvard is primed to offer him a chance to open his own law and philosophy hybrid department). Leaves of Grass opens as Bill lectures to his class on the Socratic ideals of self-discipline and control (and the dangerous illusion of thinking you have succeeded in abiding by this philosophy).This scene is not merely to show the audience that Bill is a professor, but to establish the philosophical tone. (Later, a young female student throws herself at Bill – his self-restraint would make Socrates proud.) Meanwhile,...
- 9/21/2010
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
Apple has debuted a new official Edward Norton’s “Leaves of Grass” trailer.
Leaves of Grass
Tim Blake Nelson (Eye of God, The Grey Zone) directed and wrote the script with Edward Norton in mind to play twin brothers.
The comedy also stars Tim Blake Nelson, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss, Keri Russell, country singer – Steve Earle and Lucy DeVito – the daughter of Danny DeVito.
In “Leaves of Grass,” Bill Kincaid (Norton) is a buttoned-up Ivy League philosophy professor; his pot-growing identical twin brother (also Norton) lures him back to his hometown in rural Oklahoma for an ill-conceived deal to bilk a local drug-lord (Dreyfuss).
Bill gets entangled in his brother’s schemes and implicated in a murder, and his ordered philosophical life starts to fall apart.
Susan Sarandon stars as Bill’s estranged mother and Keri Russell as a love interest for one of the brothers.
Nelson plays the friend of one of the brothers.
Leaves of Grass
Tim Blake Nelson (Eye of God, The Grey Zone) directed and wrote the script with Edward Norton in mind to play twin brothers.
The comedy also stars Tim Blake Nelson, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss, Keri Russell, country singer – Steve Earle and Lucy DeVito – the daughter of Danny DeVito.
In “Leaves of Grass,” Bill Kincaid (Norton) is a buttoned-up Ivy League philosophy professor; his pot-growing identical twin brother (also Norton) lures him back to his hometown in rural Oklahoma for an ill-conceived deal to bilk a local drug-lord (Dreyfuss).
Bill gets entangled in his brother’s schemes and implicated in a murder, and his ordered philosophical life starts to fall apart.
Susan Sarandon stars as Bill’s estranged mother and Keri Russell as a love interest for one of the brothers.
Nelson plays the friend of one of the brothers.
- 2/12/2010
- by Fiona
- Filmofilia
AICN has debuted brand new poster for “Leaves of Grass” starring Edward Norton (twice) as two brothers.
Norton #1 stars as Bill Kincaid, a college classics professor who is lured home from the Ivy League to the backwoods of Southeastern Oklahoma by his identical twin (Norton #2), a hedonistic, pot-smoking career criminal.
The comedy also stars Tim Blake Nelson, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss, Keri Russell, Lucy DeVito, Steve Earle and Josh Pais.
Check out the full poster after the jump
“Leaves of Grass” is both written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson (Eye of God, Othello, The Grey Zone). The film was produced independently by Nelson and Norton and first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2009. It does not have a Us distributor yet, as far as we know, but will probably pick up one and hit theaters sometime in 2010.
If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you can check it out here.
Norton #1 stars as Bill Kincaid, a college classics professor who is lured home from the Ivy League to the backwoods of Southeastern Oklahoma by his identical twin (Norton #2), a hedonistic, pot-smoking career criminal.
The comedy also stars Tim Blake Nelson, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss, Keri Russell, Lucy DeVito, Steve Earle and Josh Pais.
Check out the full poster after the jump
“Leaves of Grass” is both written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson (Eye of God, Othello, The Grey Zone). The film was produced independently by Nelson and Norton and first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2009. It does not have a Us distributor yet, as far as we know, but will probably pick up one and hit theaters sometime in 2010.
If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you can check it out here.
- 1/30/2010
- by Allan Ford
- Filmofilia
link: http://makingof.com/posts/watch/1031/tim-blake-nelson-on-his-path-into-the-industry
Tim Blake Nelson sat down with MakingOf to discuss his path to filmmaking and how his background influences the creative choices he makes. In the interview, Nelson describes growing up in an "intellectual boot camp" and his choice to pursue a Classics major in college. It was while attending acting school at Juliard however that he realized he missed literature. This realization led him to start writing for his classmates. His play "Eye of God" went on to become both his first screenplay and film.
Tim Blake Nelson sat down with MakingOf to discuss his path to filmmaking and how his background influences the creative choices he makes. In the interview, Nelson describes growing up in an "intellectual boot camp" and his choice to pursue a Classics major in college. It was while attending acting school at Juliard however that he realized he missed literature. This realization led him to start writing for his classmates. His play "Eye of God" went on to become both his first screenplay and film.
- 1/13/2010
- Makingof.com
It seems oddly appropriate that the trailer for Tim Blake Nelson's currently unsold comedy Leaves of Grass would drop a day before the release of Fight Club on Blu-ray, as it once again gives us the opportunity to see Edward Norton kick his own ass. In this weed-filled comedy, Norton plays an Ivy League professor who is lured back to his Oklahoma hometown, where his twin brother, a small-time pot grower, has concocted a simple scheme to take down a local drug lord. As you can see from the trailer below, the film is still pretty rough around the edges. In the past, Tim Blake Nelson (who you will also see in the trailer) has proven himself to be a more than capable director, delivering films such as Eye of God and The Grey Zone. And Edward Norton is as he always is, a solid actor. The supporting cast is there -- including Richard Dreyfus acting...
- 11/16/2009
- by Neil Miller
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
It was my last film of the festival, on the morning of the day I was flying home, and it turns out to have been my favorite one. Tim Blake Nelson's "Leaves of Grass" is some kind of sweet, wacky masterpiece. It takes all sorts of risks, including a dual role with Edward Norton playing twin brothers, and it pulls them off. It is certainly the most intelligent, philosophical and poetic film I can imagine that involves five murders in the marijuana-dealing community of Oklahoma and includes John Prine singing "Illegal Smile."
Tim Blake Nelson
Sometimes you cannot believe your luck as a movie unfolds. There is a mind behind it, joyful invention, obvious ambition. As is often the case, I had studiously avoiding reading anything at all about "Leaves of Grass" before going to see the movie, although I rather doubted it would be about Walt Whitman. What...
Tim Blake Nelson
Sometimes you cannot believe your luck as a movie unfolds. There is a mind behind it, joyful invention, obvious ambition. As is often the case, I had studiously avoiding reading anything at all about "Leaves of Grass" before going to see the movie, although I rather doubted it would be about Walt Whitman. What...
- 9/17/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
"I walk around talking to myself anyway," Edward Norton told the packed Ryerson Theater after Monday's premiere of "Leaves of Grass" at the Toronto Film Festival. "Maybe this was just the way to get paid for it." Although the "Fight Club" star's played a few characters with dual personalities, this new comedy from Tim Blake Nelson marks the first time Norton has played two distinct characters. The Kincaid twins have gone their separate ways in life -- Bill is a well-liked philosophy professor at Brown, while Brady is a deceptively smart hydroponic weed dealer. The brothers reunite when the straitlaced Bill returns home under the pretense Brad has died, only to discover that he's been unwittingly enlisted in one of his sibling's elaborate criminal schemes.
For Nelson, whose previous work behind the camera has dealt with heavy themes of small-town violence ("Eye of God") and the Holocaust ("The Grey Zone...
For Nelson, whose previous work behind the camera has dealt with heavy themes of small-town violence ("Eye of God") and the Holocaust ("The Grey Zone...
- 9/16/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
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