Several updates for Raising Hope today, since the show premieres in less than a week (Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 9 on Fox):
First, here is an interview from the Fox All-Star Party back in August (Fancast uploaded it a couple of weeks ago):
Some posters (click to enlarge):
Getty Images has a few pics from the premiere of Oliver Sherman at the Toronto Film Festival yesterday. You can find them here.
Also, a couple of new interviews showed up yesterday and today. Tribute.ca has a video interview with Garret in which he talks about Amigo and Oliver Sherman. You can check it out at this link.
And there is a short article about Oliver Sherman at The Globe and Mail.
Dillahunt’s character is a man who’s stuck in his past, awkwardly watching the world move forward without him. He’s angry and awkward, with violent instincts, though perhaps not entirely to blame for his worst qualities. But what attracted Dillahunt was that he’s a man no one can quite figure out.
“I believe, inherently, the audience is intelligent. It’s like going to a museum: You look at a great painting, and some people like to come up close, some people stand far away, some people like it, some people are disturbed by it — it’s open to interpretation,” he says.
Last but not least, another positive review for the film:
Adapted by Redford from the Rachel Ingalls short story “Veterans”, the real marvel of the film is its ability to steadily increase the tension for pretty much the entire length of the film, offering only enough relief for a quick breath now and again before stoking the fires. It does so on the basis of exemplary discipline: a script that delicately balances competing yet legitimate viewpoints; meticulous acting that never tips its hand too far; gracefully effective shooting; and an edit that steadfastly refuses every gratuitous impulse. This is independent filmmaking that punches way above its weight, and it earns every ounce of its very considerable suspense. Though we know that the troubled drifter with the scarred head can only bring discord, Redford constructs the film’s exceptional tension with surgical precision. We cannot help but feel compassion for Sherman, but Redford’s ability to counterbalance this with the particulars of how and when things go wrong, and from Sherman’s very peculiar logic, is delightful. If you’re looking for a festival taste of splatter-spiced adrenaline, 13 Assassins offers a feast of samurai bloodletting that will soak your popcorn bright red, but for tender, juicy, slow-cooked adrenaline, Oliver Sherman is a high point of TIFF’s 2010 menu. [TwitchFilm]
Oliver Sherman premieres tonight at the Toronto Film Festival. The first couple of reviews – both pretty positive – are already online.
“There’s little doubt, however, that the film boasts an impressive undercurrent of suspense, as one is never entirely sure if the whole thing is meant to come off as a subtle character study or as something just a little more sinister (ie what is Sherman up to, exactly?)
Dillahunt’s remarkably subtle performance certainly goes a long way towards holding the viewer’s interest, yet it’s worth nothing that the narrative is occasionally just a little bit more predictable than one might’ve liked (ie when Sherman offers to carry two plates of hot dogs, you just know something is going to go horribly wrong).
And while this does ensure that the movie is often more effective as an actor’s showcase than as a fully realized cinematic experience, Oliver Sherman is certainly never dull and it’s also worth noting that the expectedly low-key finale does pack far more of an emotional punch than one might’ve anticipated.” [Reelfilm]
“These sorts of domestic thrillers were quite popular in American cinema back in the early ’90s, with movies like Unlawful Entry and Pacific Heights ushering in Christian anxieties about cultural change negatively affecting the traditional family unit. But this particular film is Canadian, and first-time feature writer/director Ryan Redford isn’t interested in employing cheap thrills to sell his narrative. He takes his time with the characters, building conflict organically and allowing the tension to come from quiet, passive-aggressive remarks and escalating pseudo-threats.
Resultantly, while occasionally awkward in editing and scene composition, this xenophobic parable shows a maturity and acuity beyond most character-based psychological thrillers, taking a highbrow approach to the subject. What’s more, it shows a new talent in the Canadian filmmaking scene, being one of the more assured debuts to come from English-speaking Canada in quite some time.” [Exclaim]
Burning Bright was released on DVD in the UK on September 6 and a few interviews showed up in the past month that I never got around to posting. Here they are, finally (hit the links to read the rest):
Good Film Guide: What first attracted you to Burning Bright?
Garret: They just approached me, and I thought it was a cool concept. It’s very bizarre, and I thought I’d like to see if I could help make it work.
Good Film Guide: And getting to work with Meat Loaf must have been a bonus?
Garret: That was really cool, but it was actually a reshoot done later in L.A., something that we added to help clarify the story. It was only a one day shoot, one very long day. He’s very down to earth though, and it was great hearing all his stories about musical theatre, because he started there first and then went on to rock music, I always thought he’d done it the other way round.
Good Film Guide: So how long was the shoot altogether?
Garret: Five weeks in total I think, but for me it was only three or four days… I was working on another project at the same time and this fit in nicely, it was five days at most for me.
Good Film Guide: And what was it like working with a real tiger?
Garret: I wish we did more more of that; and I liked the fact that they used real ones; there’s real old school special effects on this movie; they’d have the tiger in the house and have it chase around a green chicken which they could edit out later, then we’d go in on an empty set, film our pieces, and they would meld the two together, seamlessly I think. [Good Film Guide]
The poster for Oliver Sherman has finally showed up at the Movie Poster database. If it looks a bit like the thumbnail in the sidebar, it’s because I nabbed that one from the future.
The Cinéfest site says that the film will be screened there on Sept. 25. They have a nice new pic from the film too.
Here is the poster (click twice for full size):