I've just learned that Jonathan Weisgal, the former CAA agent who was a titan in the early days of the rise of the indie film business, passed away Sunday in Los Angeles at age 55. Weisgal, who died after a 2 1/2-year fight against pancreatic cancer, was buried in New Jersey. Many of his Hollywood colleagues saluted him today at a memorial held at The Mark in Los Angeles, where testimonials were read from industry colleagues who benefited from Weisgal’s counsel including…...
- 3/24/2017
- Deadline
Producer Johnny Lin has reworked production company Filmula with a mandate to finance two to four movies annually and has greenlighted "Tweakers Delight," a drama directed by Emir Kusturica with a $35 million budget.
Filmula also said that international rights to "Hesher," its Natalie Portman starrer that premiered this year at Sundance, have been acquired by Nu Image in a seven-figure deal. The title will be changed in international markets to "Rebel." Domestic rights already have been sold to Newmarket for a fall release.
Filmula, which recently changed its name from Dreamagine, was founded in 2008 as the producing partner of CatchPlay, a division of Via Technologies and Studio Solutions Group. Filmula has offices in Los Angeles and Taiwan.
CatchPlay is perhaps the biggest movie distributor in Taiwan and other parts of Asia. Last year, it released 45 theatricals and more than 100 direct-to-dvd titles, handling films from Relativity Media and Lionsgate, among others.
Filmula also said that international rights to "Hesher," its Natalie Portman starrer that premiered this year at Sundance, have been acquired by Nu Image in a seven-figure deal. The title will be changed in international markets to "Rebel." Domestic rights already have been sold to Newmarket for a fall release.
Filmula, which recently changed its name from Dreamagine, was founded in 2008 as the producing partner of CatchPlay, a division of Via Technologies and Studio Solutions Group. Filmula has offices in Los Angeles and Taiwan.
CatchPlay is perhaps the biggest movie distributor in Taiwan and other parts of Asia. Last year, it released 45 theatricals and more than 100 direct-to-dvd titles, handling films from Relativity Media and Lionsgate, among others.
- 5/10/2010
- by By Alex Ben Block
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A hoot or hustle, depending on one's reaction, John Waters' "Pecker" is 86 minutes of tastelessness with a whimsical quality arising from the title character, a Baltimore shutterbug who improbably achieves fame for his candid images of working-class people and neighborhoods.
The writer-director's 13th film, "Pecker" was unzipped recently at the Toronto Film Festival and opens in theaters this month.
Starring Edward Furlong and featuring a large cast including Christina Ricci, Martha Plimpton, Lauren Hulsey and Mary Kay Place, the Fine Line release is too much of a lark for strong critical support, and Waters' brand of nastiness seems almost quaint compared with the more profane, graphic movies coming out regularly. Waters' fans and new converts should boost post-theatrical business, but it's ironic that he has become an elder statesman of sleaze as a new generation of envelope-pushing culture-prickers captures more attention.
Waters is in his usual playful mood -- a close-up of rats screwing is an early warmup -- and reverential after a fashion to his native Baltimore. Most of his low-budget movies have been set there, and "Pecker" is more of the same, minus the X-rated sequences and in-your-face filthiness of Waters' early films.
The result is pleasantly entertaining sludge with a goofy soundtrack and herky-jerky rhythm all its own. Furlong is well-cast as the good-natured, affable, 18-year-old hero, whose girlfriend (Ricci) tyrannically runs a laundromat. Light on its feet, the film opens with Pecker doing his thing -- constantly taking pictures of people on the street and in buses as well as embarrassing portraits of friends and family.
His older sister (Plimpton) works at the Fudge Palace, a male-stripper joint, while his food-obsessed younger sis (Hulsey) is the opposite of Pecker, who got his name for fussing at meals. Dad (Mark Joy) runs the Claw Machine, a bar across the street from the recently opened Pelt Room, a lesbian-infested strip club. Place is relatively normal as Pecker's homeless-friendly mom, while the lead's thieving best friend (Brendan Sexton III) is a barometer of how Pecker struggles with excessive good fortune as well as romance.
A New York art dealer (Lili Taylor) discovers Pecker's work at his homey opening at the Claw Machine. In short order, he and half the town are off to Manhattan, and Waters generates a few good laughs at the expense of snooty rivals and snotty sophisticates before the story veers into serious complications underscoring the class differences he is having fun with.
Pecker tries to reject fame because it upsets the fragile balance of decay and growth that makes his blue-collar world interesting material for art. But above all, he loves these people and their flaws.
Waters regulars Mink Stole, Vivian Pearce and Patricia Hearst appear in small roles. The film is visually polished and well-paced, with occasionally hilarious production design and costumes.
PECKER
Fine Line Features
Writer-director: John Waters
Producers: John Fiedler, Mark Tarlov
Executive producers: Mark Ordesky,
Joe Revitte, Jonathan Weisgal, Joe Caracciolo Jr.
Director of photography: Robert Stevens
Production designer: Vincent Peranio
Editor: Janice Hampton
Costume designer: Van Smith
Music: Stewart Copeland
Casting: Van Smith, Pat Moran
Color/stereo
Cast:
Pecker: Edward Furlong
Shelley: Christina Ricci
Tina: Martha Plimpton
Matt: Brendan Sexton III
Little Chrissy: Lauren Hulsey
Joyce: Mary Kay Place
Jimmy: Mark Joy
Rorey Wheeler: Lili Taylor
Running time -- 86 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
The writer-director's 13th film, "Pecker" was unzipped recently at the Toronto Film Festival and opens in theaters this month.
Starring Edward Furlong and featuring a large cast including Christina Ricci, Martha Plimpton, Lauren Hulsey and Mary Kay Place, the Fine Line release is too much of a lark for strong critical support, and Waters' brand of nastiness seems almost quaint compared with the more profane, graphic movies coming out regularly. Waters' fans and new converts should boost post-theatrical business, but it's ironic that he has become an elder statesman of sleaze as a new generation of envelope-pushing culture-prickers captures more attention.
Waters is in his usual playful mood -- a close-up of rats screwing is an early warmup -- and reverential after a fashion to his native Baltimore. Most of his low-budget movies have been set there, and "Pecker" is more of the same, minus the X-rated sequences and in-your-face filthiness of Waters' early films.
The result is pleasantly entertaining sludge with a goofy soundtrack and herky-jerky rhythm all its own. Furlong is well-cast as the good-natured, affable, 18-year-old hero, whose girlfriend (Ricci) tyrannically runs a laundromat. Light on its feet, the film opens with Pecker doing his thing -- constantly taking pictures of people on the street and in buses as well as embarrassing portraits of friends and family.
His older sister (Plimpton) works at the Fudge Palace, a male-stripper joint, while his food-obsessed younger sis (Hulsey) is the opposite of Pecker, who got his name for fussing at meals. Dad (Mark Joy) runs the Claw Machine, a bar across the street from the recently opened Pelt Room, a lesbian-infested strip club. Place is relatively normal as Pecker's homeless-friendly mom, while the lead's thieving best friend (Brendan Sexton III) is a barometer of how Pecker struggles with excessive good fortune as well as romance.
A New York art dealer (Lili Taylor) discovers Pecker's work at his homey opening at the Claw Machine. In short order, he and half the town are off to Manhattan, and Waters generates a few good laughs at the expense of snooty rivals and snotty sophisticates before the story veers into serious complications underscoring the class differences he is having fun with.
Pecker tries to reject fame because it upsets the fragile balance of decay and growth that makes his blue-collar world interesting material for art. But above all, he loves these people and their flaws.
Waters regulars Mink Stole, Vivian Pearce and Patricia Hearst appear in small roles. The film is visually polished and well-paced, with occasionally hilarious production design and costumes.
PECKER
Fine Line Features
Writer-director: John Waters
Producers: John Fiedler, Mark Tarlov
Executive producers: Mark Ordesky,
Joe Revitte, Jonathan Weisgal, Joe Caracciolo Jr.
Director of photography: Robert Stevens
Production designer: Vincent Peranio
Editor: Janice Hampton
Costume designer: Van Smith
Music: Stewart Copeland
Casting: Van Smith, Pat Moran
Color/stereo
Cast:
Pecker: Edward Furlong
Shelley: Christina Ricci
Tina: Martha Plimpton
Matt: Brendan Sexton III
Little Chrissy: Lauren Hulsey
Joyce: Mary Kay Place
Jimmy: Mark Joy
Rorey Wheeler: Lili Taylor
Running time -- 86 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/14/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Anything but grave until its emotional finale, director Paul Weiland's "For Roseanna" is a lighthearted farce about a man who goes to absurd lengths to fulfill his wife's dying wish.
The upcoming Fine Line Features release, whose title was changed last week from "Roseanna's Grave", was warmly received Thursday by the opening-night audience at the 12th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival, with co-producer Paul Trijbits in attendance. Starring Jean Reno and Mercedes Ruehl, "For Roseanna" is an English-language hybrid -- the characters are Italian, many of the actors are not. Commercial prospects are modest at best.
Written by veteran TV writer and producer Saul Turteltaub, the comedy is set in an Italian village with a nearly full graveyard. Only three plots remain, and it is the desire of Roseanna (Ruehl) to be buried beside her daughter, who died many years before.
Her husband Marcello (Reno) is a big, energetic trattoria proprietor who monitors the progress of other mortally ill locals in the hospital. His single-mindedness is both endearing and mildly off-putting.
Resigned to her fate but still very much alive, Roseanna tries to set up Marcello with her younger sister Cecilia (Polly Walker), so he won't be alone after she's gone. Although he's not immune to Cecilia's attractiveness, Marcello does not take this wish seriously.
Cecilia, however, is ardently pursued by Antonio (Mark Frankel), the nephew of a bitter former lover of Roseanna. His uncle (Luigi Diberti) just happens to own vacant land next to the cemetery but refuses to sell it to the church because of his seriously broken heart and jealousy of Marcello.
Enter a recently freed convict (Trevor Peacock) who left a small fortune with the village banker Roberto Della Casa) 20 years earlier. The latter spent most of the loot on a young mistress in Rome and fears for his life. A mishap one night results in the banker's death, with Marcello hiding the corpse in a freezer to delay his burial.
More bodies are hidden, and the long-simmering problems with Diberti's character lead to a shouting match in church. The finale involves another elaborate, crowd-pleasing ruse.
Ruehl is strong and elegantly earthy, and Reno can be quite amusing with his facial expressions. The supporting cast is first-rate, with Walker ("Emma") making the most of her role.
Filmed in wide screen, the film revels in the beautiful countryside and the power of love and faithfulness.
FOR ROSEANNA
Fine Line Features
in association with Spelling Films
Director Paul Weiland
Writer Saul Turteltaub
Producers Paul Trijbits,
Alison Owen, Dario Poloni
Executive producers Ruth Vitale,
Mark Ordesky, Jonathan Weisgal, Miles Donnelly
Director of photography Henry Braham
Editor Martin Walsh
Production designer Rod McLean
Music Trevor Jones
Costume designer Annie Hardinge
Casting Nina Gold
Color/stereo
Cast:
Marcello Jean Reno
Roseanna Mercedes Ruehl
Cecilia Polly Walker
Antonio Mark Frankel
Father Bramilla Giuseppe Cederna
Dr. Benvenuto Renato Scarpa
Running time -- 99 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
The upcoming Fine Line Features release, whose title was changed last week from "Roseanna's Grave", was warmly received Thursday by the opening-night audience at the 12th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival, with co-producer Paul Trijbits in attendance. Starring Jean Reno and Mercedes Ruehl, "For Roseanna" is an English-language hybrid -- the characters are Italian, many of the actors are not. Commercial prospects are modest at best.
Written by veteran TV writer and producer Saul Turteltaub, the comedy is set in an Italian village with a nearly full graveyard. Only three plots remain, and it is the desire of Roseanna (Ruehl) to be buried beside her daughter, who died many years before.
Her husband Marcello (Reno) is a big, energetic trattoria proprietor who monitors the progress of other mortally ill locals in the hospital. His single-mindedness is both endearing and mildly off-putting.
Resigned to her fate but still very much alive, Roseanna tries to set up Marcello with her younger sister Cecilia (Polly Walker), so he won't be alone after she's gone. Although he's not immune to Cecilia's attractiveness, Marcello does not take this wish seriously.
Cecilia, however, is ardently pursued by Antonio (Mark Frankel), the nephew of a bitter former lover of Roseanna. His uncle (Luigi Diberti) just happens to own vacant land next to the cemetery but refuses to sell it to the church because of his seriously broken heart and jealousy of Marcello.
Enter a recently freed convict (Trevor Peacock) who left a small fortune with the village banker Roberto Della Casa) 20 years earlier. The latter spent most of the loot on a young mistress in Rome and fears for his life. A mishap one night results in the banker's death, with Marcello hiding the corpse in a freezer to delay his burial.
More bodies are hidden, and the long-simmering problems with Diberti's character lead to a shouting match in church. The finale involves another elaborate, crowd-pleasing ruse.
Ruehl is strong and elegantly earthy, and Reno can be quite amusing with his facial expressions. The supporting cast is first-rate, with Walker ("Emma") making the most of her role.
Filmed in wide screen, the film revels in the beautiful countryside and the power of love and faithfulness.
FOR ROSEANNA
Fine Line Features
in association with Spelling Films
Director Paul Weiland
Writer Saul Turteltaub
Producers Paul Trijbits,
Alison Owen, Dario Poloni
Executive producers Ruth Vitale,
Mark Ordesky, Jonathan Weisgal, Miles Donnelly
Director of photography Henry Braham
Editor Martin Walsh
Production designer Rod McLean
Music Trevor Jones
Costume designer Annie Hardinge
Casting Nina Gold
Color/stereo
Cast:
Marcello Jean Reno
Roseanna Mercedes Ruehl
Cecilia Polly Walker
Antonio Mark Frankel
Father Bramilla Giuseppe Cederna
Dr. Benvenuto Renato Scarpa
Running time -- 99 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 3/10/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARK CITY, Utah -- Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play, "Love! Valour! Compassion!," depicting the gay middle-class, has opened on the screen. Unfortunately, it has not been opened up for the screen but seems framed solidly beneath the proscenium arch. Nevertheless, this Fine Line release boasts a talented cast and will perhaps reach new fans who have not caught its big-city runs.
As New York audiences know, and Los Angeles audiences are currently learning, the story focuses on a circle of eight gay male friends and their weekend in the country. Actually, it's three weekends in the country here as the scenario runs the summer-holiday weekend season of Memorial Day/Fourth of July/Labor Day. In McNally's brainy and witty story line, the friends congregate at Gregory's (Stephen Bogardus) lakefront home, an inviting Victorian that, although fussily outfitted, is a warm cocoon for the guys. For those not familiar with the play, the menfolk are a diverse lot, temperamentally as well as professionally.
As in any gathering, it's usually the most flamboyant members who, as we get to learn more about them, are the most vulnerable. In this case, the eye-catchers are Buzz (Jason Alexander), a Broadway musical buff whose constant witticisms and pronouncements lead us to suspect that his happy hysterics mask far less happier truths. On the dispositional opposite end from Buzz, way down the grouch meter, is John (John Glover), a haughty and pompous composer whose sour asides and judgmental glower dampen everyone's spirit.
Without further delineating the plot, suffice it to say that what the plot does not necessarily thicken, it spreads, genuflects, saddens, alights, pouts, reconciles and curls around.
Perhaps the most striking addition that this filmic visualization makes to the stage play is the stunningly sunny lakeside setting. The natural beauty of the setting is a fitting corollary for the men's friendship and, alas, also a sobering counterpoint for the unspoken thoughts on everyone's mind -- AIDS. Director Joe Mantello sensitively swathes the storyline with images of the pristine beauty of nature, and this truly does "open" it from the play. However, discussions are statically shot and visualizations are medium-shot -- boring.
Mantello never fully uses the power of the camera to add perspective or provide insight, nor does he utilize the rhythm of the cut to propel the production beyond a standard, dramatic two-step.
The highlights of "Love! Valour! Compassion!" are the layered, revealing performances. As the bawdy but brittle Buzz, Alexander is a treat. He's the life of the party and, ultimately, the character who most touches our hearts. Glover is marvelously formidable as the towering composer and does double duty by limning the musician's dying brother from England. John Benjamin Hickey and Stephen Spinella are aptly solid as the dull, gray suits of the group.
Technically, the film is at its best in its design. Praise to production designer Francois Seguin for the neo-Victorian look and to costume designer Jess Goldstein for the array of personal colors that catch one's eye in the characters' outfittings.
LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!
Fine Line Features
Producers Doug Chapin, Barry Krost
Director Joe Mantello
Executive producers Ruth Vitale,
Jonathan Weisgal, Amy Labowitz
Line producer Diane Conn
Screenwriter-playwright Terrence McNally
Director of photography Alik Sakharov
Editor Colleen Sharp
Production designer Francois Seguin
Music supervisor Jackie Krost
Music Harold Wheeler
Costume designer Jess Goldstein
Choreographer John Carrafa
Color/stereo
Cast:
Buzz Hauser Jason Alexander
Ramon Fornos Randy Becker
Gregory Mitchell Stephen Bogardus
John & James Jeckyll John Glover
Arthur Paper John Benjamin Hickey
Bobby Brahams Justin Kirk
Perry Sellars Stephen Spinella
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
As New York audiences know, and Los Angeles audiences are currently learning, the story focuses on a circle of eight gay male friends and their weekend in the country. Actually, it's three weekends in the country here as the scenario runs the summer-holiday weekend season of Memorial Day/Fourth of July/Labor Day. In McNally's brainy and witty story line, the friends congregate at Gregory's (Stephen Bogardus) lakefront home, an inviting Victorian that, although fussily outfitted, is a warm cocoon for the guys. For those not familiar with the play, the menfolk are a diverse lot, temperamentally as well as professionally.
As in any gathering, it's usually the most flamboyant members who, as we get to learn more about them, are the most vulnerable. In this case, the eye-catchers are Buzz (Jason Alexander), a Broadway musical buff whose constant witticisms and pronouncements lead us to suspect that his happy hysterics mask far less happier truths. On the dispositional opposite end from Buzz, way down the grouch meter, is John (John Glover), a haughty and pompous composer whose sour asides and judgmental glower dampen everyone's spirit.
Without further delineating the plot, suffice it to say that what the plot does not necessarily thicken, it spreads, genuflects, saddens, alights, pouts, reconciles and curls around.
Perhaps the most striking addition that this filmic visualization makes to the stage play is the stunningly sunny lakeside setting. The natural beauty of the setting is a fitting corollary for the men's friendship and, alas, also a sobering counterpoint for the unspoken thoughts on everyone's mind -- AIDS. Director Joe Mantello sensitively swathes the storyline with images of the pristine beauty of nature, and this truly does "open" it from the play. However, discussions are statically shot and visualizations are medium-shot -- boring.
Mantello never fully uses the power of the camera to add perspective or provide insight, nor does he utilize the rhythm of the cut to propel the production beyond a standard, dramatic two-step.
The highlights of "Love! Valour! Compassion!" are the layered, revealing performances. As the bawdy but brittle Buzz, Alexander is a treat. He's the life of the party and, ultimately, the character who most touches our hearts. Glover is marvelously formidable as the towering composer and does double duty by limning the musician's dying brother from England. John Benjamin Hickey and Stephen Spinella are aptly solid as the dull, gray suits of the group.
Technically, the film is at its best in its design. Praise to production designer Francois Seguin for the neo-Victorian look and to costume designer Jess Goldstein for the array of personal colors that catch one's eye in the characters' outfittings.
LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION!
Fine Line Features
Producers Doug Chapin, Barry Krost
Director Joe Mantello
Executive producers Ruth Vitale,
Jonathan Weisgal, Amy Labowitz
Line producer Diane Conn
Screenwriter-playwright Terrence McNally
Director of photography Alik Sakharov
Editor Colleen Sharp
Production designer Francois Seguin
Music supervisor Jackie Krost
Music Harold Wheeler
Costume designer Jess Goldstein
Choreographer John Carrafa
Color/stereo
Cast:
Buzz Hauser Jason Alexander
Ramon Fornos Randy Becker
Gregory Mitchell Stephen Bogardus
John & James Jeckyll John Glover
Arthur Paper John Benjamin Hickey
Bobby Brahams Justin Kirk
Perry Sellars Stephen Spinella
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 1/27/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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