Cinematical talked to Debra Granik recently and they have a new article about Winter’s Bone, as well as a few more pictures from the film here.
And this is the preview that was posted on Sundance Institute’s YouTube Channel (Garret briefly appears about a minute into the clip):
Okay, it’s the last day of the year and this blog will be a year old tomorrow, so I am posting a recap of everything that’s happened in 2009.
Hope everyone has a great time tonight and a fantastic year ahead.
See you in 2010!
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The year started with Terminator promo and press tours. The show returned with the last nine episodes in the Friday slot in mid-February.
Later that month, Garret was spotted filming Winter’s Bone in Missouri. The film will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in late January. If anyone plans on going, the Sundance screening schedule is here.
The Last House on the Left opened on March 13. The reviews ranged from excellent to free branding campaign and the film made it to several lists of best horrors of the year. In October, it won a Reaper Award for Best Theatrical Release in 2009.
Toward the end of the month, Garret played his fifth character on T:SCC, the Skynet virus from the future. Previous four were George Laszlo, Cromartie, the Beastwizard and John Henry.
In late March, the first pictures from Burning Bright appeared online. Burning Bright was later renamed to Ravenous and it still awaits theatrical release. In November, it was screened at the AFM. The first reviews were pretty positive.
In early April, Water Pills had its U.S. premiere at the Florida Film Festival. Jasmine Jessica Anthony walked away with a grand jury award for best performance.
Also in April, two series finales aired two days apart. Garret snuffed the TV crew and gave Damian Lewis his final headache in Life on April 8. Life season two was released on DVD on August 25.
The Terminator finale aired on April 10. Despite cancellation, the show made it to #8 on the list of the Top 10 Most Pirated Shows in 2009. Last year, it was the only new show among the top 10, at #4.
In the meantime, Garret joined Delroy Lindo and Roslyn Ruff in Things of Dry Hours, a play by Naomi Wallace about communists in 1930s Alabama. Rehearsals started on April 21.
The first trailer for The Road hit the web on May 15.
On May 18, Fox announced that they would not be picking up Terminator for a third season. Even though there has been talk of a possible TV/DVD movie, Terminator rights are currently up for grabs and in limbo until February 2010.
On May 20, Garret appeared in the season finale of Criminal Minds.
Two days later, Things of Dry Hours went into previews at the New York Theatre Workshop. The show premiered on June 8 and ran through June 28. Critics liked the cast, but were divided on the writing.
At some point over the spring/summer, Garret was cast in Madeleine Stowe’s Unbound Captives, an independent western epic with Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Robert Pattinson. If they get financing in time, the film will go into production in March (at the earliest).
In late July and early August, Garret filmed two TV guest appearances, on CSI and Lie to Me, and a short film, One Night Only.
The Last House on the Left was released on DVD in mid-August.
Later that month, Garret was spotted filming the season three finale of Burn Notice. The episode will air in March 2010.
The trailer for One Night Only was released on September 2.
On September 3, The Road had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Ten days later, it was screened in Toronto.
Terminator: The Complete Season Two was released on DVD on September 22.
On September 24, the CSI season 10 premiere aired. “Family Affair” is one of the five hours of television nominated for an ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) Award this year.
Speaking of CSI, in a fine display of Terminator fanboyism, the last episode before the break, Better off Dead, had a bunch of people stealing Cromartie’s music and killing each other. Also, a killer described as a Terminator.
On October 13, Oliver Sherman, an independent drama with Molly Parker and Donal Logue, went into production in North Bay. The film will most likely premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2010, but Canadians might get an early screening in the spring.
On October 21st, Garret appeared on Lie to Me.
And two days later, on Law & Order: SVU.
The Road finally saw its U.S. premiere at AFI fest in early November. On Thanksgiving, it got a limited release. Even though the film has been vastly overlooked in the early awards season, the reviews were mostly positive and it scored a few acting nods (Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Kodi Smit-McPhee) from several critics’ societies (Broadcast Film Critics, Utah Film Critics, St. Louis Film Critics).
On November 13, Garret appeared on White Collar.
And the next day, One Night Only had its premiere in New York.
In November, Garret was cast in two new projects. The comedy pilot Keep Hope Alive, with Martha Plimpton, Cloris Leachman and Lucas Neff, was filmed earlier this month. If it gets picked up, it will be aired in the 2010/11 season.
The other project, John Sayles’ film Baryo, starts shooting in February in the Philippines. The crew is already there, building the set and preparing for the shoot. You can follow the updates on the new production blog, at johnsaylesbaryo.blogspot.com.
And that about wraps it up. If 2010 is even half as eventful, it will be another excellent year.
Since there haven’t been any major updates this month, I figured this would be as good a time as any to post some old theatre pics. Hope everyone is enjoying the season.
Happy holidays! :)
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Mad Forest, 1991-92
Therese Raquin, 1993
Angels in America, 1994
Sweet Bird of Youth, 1995
Present Laughter, 1995
Inherit the Wind, 1996
The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, 1996
Heartbreak House, 2004
The Night of the Iguana, 2006
Paul Gaita at LA Times has a new Q & A with Garret. A part of it is below, for the rest go here.
The Road should get an expanded release in the U.S. tomorrow, so check your local listings if you haven’t had the chance to see it yet.
Is it true that villains get the best lines?
I guess they get a lot of good lines, huh? I like them — they’re complex, and I like complex characters. Sometimes the villains are the only ones that are completely drawn.
It’s funny, because I’ve actually played a ton of good guys, funny guys — I played Jesus Christ (in the short-lived and controversial series “The Book of Daniel“). But people remember the bad guys (laughs).
Your character in “The Road” is particularly unsavory. What is the challenge to playing such a role?
There have been a lot of discussions about it online — people wondering what would they do to survive. To what level would they stoop if there was no food, no vegetation, no animal life. What would you do? Would you just forage for canned goods? And when they ran out, then what? How bad would you want to feed your child?
He’s just a guy with a little bit weaker moral fiber than Viggo [Mortensen]’s character. He didn’t choose the noble route, like a lot of people in that world. And the result of him ignoring his soul is what you see on screen.
So is that what moves you from medium to medium? Because you’ve found some great projects in both television and film.
Yeah, I like to have fun — I think that’s a good way to live. I think you’re better at your job if you like it. And I’m a bit of a frustrated writer — I’m not very skilled at that, and I thought that was what I was going to be. So it doesn’t seem like such a big coincidence that a lot of stuff I’ve done has been adaptation of [books by] my favorite authors. I was planning to make Ron Hansen’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” for about 15 years. I thought I was the only one to know about it. I was going to play Jesse James, of course. (Dillahunt played the outlaw Ed Miller in the 2007 film version with Brad Pitt).
But you just find these stories, and I don’t care about the size of the part, you know? In the end, it’s got to be about the story. I can’t speak for every actor, but I imagine that’s what everyone wants when they sign on to do a role.
You’ve said in interviews that you are a fan of Cormac McCarthy’s work. What is the appeal for you?
The first one I read was “Blood Meridian,” like a lot of college guys. I was just blown away by that one-sentence paragraph where the Comanches come upon the scalphunters. It’s just stunning — the image of the guy wearing the blood-stained wedding veil — the way he would describe things was so evocative to me. Each line was somehow laden with emotion and history. I think my favorite of his books might be “Suttree.” If you read it, you can tell me why that guy doesn’t die (laughs). There’s something larger and thematic [in his work] than what’s going on, and that’s appealing to me.
“The Road” might be a challenging film for a lot of viewers, who could see it as having very little light in it. What do you hope that audiences take away from it?
I’m kind of sad that people might have that sort of knock on it — that it’s a bleak film. I think it’s actually more hopeful than “No Country for Old Men.” That felt like it was saying, “This is how it is, and there’s no change.” At the end of this, as it is in the book, it seems to be about the unquenchable spirit of man. [Viggo’s character] finds another home and more good guys. Maybe they have a little garden.
What’s your general response to critical praise and talk of nominations and awards?
I’m an ensemble guy, I guess — that comes from the theater. If I ever won some kind of award someday, I imagine I’d try to be very gracious, but in the end, I just want to keep working. I don’t see why that, if you just put your mind to it and keep sowing the right seeds, you can’t keep doing the things you want to do. When we won the SAG Award for “Old Men,” that was the perfect award, because it takes so many people to make a movie. Someone’s always going to argue with the individual awards. [LA Times]
CTV has a clip from the set of Oliver Sherman here:
http://video.aol.ca/video-detail/etalk-friday-dec-4-2009-filming-oliver-sherman/3692096029
I’m not sure what’s in it or if the clip is available anywhere outside Canada, so if anyone finds a way to see it, please don’t be too shy to share how. :)