Surveillance - Featurette - A Terrible Terrible Crime

Director Jennifer Lynch talks about her latest film. Check out the review.

Director: Jennifer Chambers Lynch

Cast: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Pell James

Release: 26th June 2009

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Bottle Shock - New Quad Poster for Alan Rickman and Chris Pine's latest film

I posted the trailer for this last July. Now the new Quad poster has just come out. It stars Alan Rickman and the soon to be Captain Kirk, Chris Pine.

There are certain unforgettable moments in history when America has triumphed against long odds and proved itself to the world: Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon; the U.S. Men’s Hockey team beating the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics.

But one such moment has never received the recognition it deserves: In 1976, a small American winery sent shock waves through the wine industry by besting the exalted French wines in a blind tasting, putting California wines on the map for good.

Novice vintner Jim Barrett risked everything to realize his dream of creating the perfect hand-crafted California Chardonnay. Meanwhile in Paris, struggling wine seller Steven Spurrier came up with an idea for a publicity stunt to help his floundering shop. Little did Spurrier and Barrett realize they were about to change the history of wine forever.

Directed by Randall Miller it also stars Bill Pullman and Eliza Dushku.

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Phoebe in Wonderland - Trailer

Phoebe in Wonderland is the fantastical tale of Phoebe (Elle Fanning), a young girl who longs to be in the school production of Alice in Wonderland. After her peculiar drama teacher Miss Dodger (Patricia Clarkson) casts her, Phoebe struggles to control her behavior so her Principal (Campbell Scott) won't kick her out. As Phoebe's stress mounts, her behavior grows worse, creating intense pressure on her parents Hillary and Peter (Felicity Huffman and Bill Pullman). Hillary, who already feels a failure in both her personal and professional life, desperately tries to understand and help her daughter. But this connection proves elusive as Phoebe begins retreating to an imaginary fantasy world peopled by characters from Alice in Wonderland, a world which grows increasingly disturbing and treacherous. As Alice observes to the Caterpillar, "It is very confusing being so many different sizes in a day," and in the end both Hillary and Phoebe (under Miss Dodger's tutelage) must try to navigate the strange, painful, exhilarating transformation from chrysalis to butterfly

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The Killer Inside Me - Kate Hudson joins Jessica Alba and Bill Pullman

Kate Hudson, Elias Koteas, Bill Pullman and Ned Beatty have joined the psychological thriller The Killer Inside Me for Wild Bunch says Screen Daily.

Based on the novel by Jim Thompson, the story follows a West Texas sheriff and his downward spiral from a boring small-town cop into a ruthless, sociopathic murderer.

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town, patient and thoughtful. Some people think he's a little slow and boring but that's the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his 'sickness'. It nearly got him put away when he was younger, but his adopted brother took the rap for that. Now the sickness that has been lying dormant for a while is about to surface again - and the consequences are brutal and devastating.

Jim Thompson was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma. After an itinerant childhood during which his sheriff father was driven from office for embezzlement; and as a roughneck in the Texan oil fields of the 1920s, Thompson became successful as a writer with the pulp fiction houses of the 1950s, writing a dozen of his more enduring novels in just 19 months. He also wrote two screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory).

Michael Winterbottom directs the $13 million project which also stars Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba.

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Surveillance - International Trailer

I posted a review for Jennifer Lynch's film, Surveillance, a while back. Now we have another trailer for it and it's looking very good. It's out in June.

Two FBI agents, Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman), arrive at a local police station in the Santa Fe desert to investigate a series of murders. They interrogate three Witness|eyewitnesses: Police officer Jack Bennet, the meth-addict Bobby, and Stephanie, an eight-year-old girl, whose family was murdered by two figures dressed in jumpsuits and latex masks.

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Surveillance - New Photo

Two federal officers have a string of murders to solve and three sets of stories to decipher. With Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond. Directed by Jennifer Lynch.

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Surveillance, 2008 - Review and Trailer for film by Jennifer Lynch (That's David Lynch's daughter don't you know)

Director: Jennifer Lynch
Starring: Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman, Michael Ironside, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins
Running Time: 98 minutes
Score: 7 / 10

This review by Bob Doto over on Quiet Earth. I'm a big fan of all things Lynchian so here is a bit more on his daughter's latest.

Two FBI agents come to town to investigate a handful of gruesome murders by some eerily masked villains, and interview three recent witnesses to their most recent blood fest. Each person has a vastly different version of the story to tell.

Every five minutes while watching Surveillance, my appreciation of the film shifted. My first thought after having seen roughly 15-20 super low-budget shorts over the course of a weekend, was “Oh. This is a ‘real movie’ with a budget.” Then I thought “But, it’s kind of got a low-budget feel to it. I like that.” Then I’m thinking to myself “Why is Bill Pullman acting like he’s got to go to the bathroom all the time?” Then I was like, “This movie is soooooo dramatic.” After which I thought, “Why are they making it so obvious that I’m not supposed to see certain key clues in the story? That’s annoying.” Then of course, “God. Did you have to show me all that violence in such detail?” And finally as the ending started to unfold, “Ooooooh. Now I get it. You got me. Now I like it.” What a frickin’ rollercoaster.

What’s amazing about writer/director Jennifer Chambers Lynch (Boxing Helena, daughter of David and Peggy Lynch) and writer Kent Harper is not that they convinced me to loath every single character in their film (including that practically mute and supposed to be likable pig-tailed wunderkind), but that I actually stayed around to see what became of their fates. Frankly, when you’ve seen as many films as I have at this year’s NYHFF, you just don’t get off that easy. If your story revolves around the lives of absolutely despicable and heinous beat cops, a heartless lying junky and her equally stellar boyfriend, and a family of oblivious yuppies you’ve got to give me something besides beautiful Southwestern desert to keep me from bailing.

How did they do it?

Well, A. I’m a sucker for the way this film is shot: nice and wide, naturalistic, scenically understated. B. The characters were so awful to one another that I almost couldn’t leave without seeing if what I was in fact seeing was true. C. Bill Pullman’s twitchy mouth. Weird! And D. I just wasn’t sure if what I was watching was an example of dramatic genius or totally ignorant as to what makes character relations believable. I THINK it leans closer to dramatic genius, but it is held back by its overt occultation of information.

And what, may you ask, is “overt occultation of information?” That is the annoyance of a movie that doesn’t show you what the little girl in the interrogation room drew with crayons when everyone else in the film sees it and practically craps their pants. It’s also when the same little girl whispers into someone’s ear something really profound, but you don’t get to hear it because we’re obeying the laws of third-person semi-omniscience (but only when it’s convenient). It’s a ten-cent trick suitable only for the worst of television drama.

So, what’s to think about this film? I can’t give it more than seven, because it exemplifies the worst of manipulative dramatic cinema, but I can give it a solid seven because the film is rather stunning to watch and the story will definitely catch you off guard.

How do you like the sound of that? Will you see it when it eventually gets released?

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