Have you guys heard about cameron crowes new project, it`s supposed to be a return to the style of `say anything`.
That`s all i`ve heard, do any of you know anything else?
When you say style of Say Anything, what do you mean?
crowe's new project is a big ensemble piece which might have tom cruise in it (running). he's currently writing it as we speak.
"It's a little bit like the style of Jerry Maguire but it's an ensemble character comedy-drama. It's actually more like ...Say Anything."
i think he was joking around a bit there
From Greg's Uncool site:
http://www.theuncool.com/films/untitled/main.htm
anyone have something else? :(
Although if its not in Greg's site, its probably nowhere else :) 8)
Quote from: tremoloslothWhen you say style of Say Anything, what do you mean?
I mean less surreal (then vanilla sky) and more about a load of characters just interacting and stuff
That`s what i heard
i would think by its description that is more in the vein of singles... (ensemble comedy about real people)
Crowe actually told me over the holidays that he finished two scripts and is deciding which to do next. He should be ready to go soon (and I should have more info soon)......
thanks
Greg
www.theuncool.com
sweet news !! :-D
green with envy here also 8)
uncool said its called "elizabethtown"
Dreamworks, Paramount & Crowe Creating Elizabethtown
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures are in final talks to jointly finance and co-produce filmmaker Cameron Crowe's next project, Elizabethtown, with Kirsten Dunst and Ashton Kutcher attached to star. Production is slated to begin in first-quarter 2004 in Oregon and Kentucky with C/W Prods. producing alongside Crowe's Vinyl Films. A portion of the filming will also occur in October before resuming in the new year.
The film, which Crowe also wrote, is described as a rich ensemble comedy with two central leads. The project is intended to be a love letter to the resilience of the life force and is a story of an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of a Southern patriarch's hilariously elaborate memorial.
Like Crowe's previous works, music will figure prominently in the film.
Elizabethtown: Jane Fonda has joined the cast of the Cameron Crowe comedy according to Variety.
I'm excited about everything but Kuchner. Does he have any range at all, or is Crowe just gonna tailor his character to the usual dumb-ass stuff he does, so it will fit?
Elizabethtown Plays the Casting Game: Supporting Roles Now Revealed For Film
With the lead roles of Drew Baylor (Ashton Kutcher) and Claire Colborn (Kirsten Dunst) cast, Cameron Crowe and his team continue to search for the best possible cast for his latest film, "Elizabethtown." And it looks like Jane Fonda, once flirting with a role, has decided against becoming involved with the project.
It has been said in previous news report that the film is intended to be a love letter to the resilience of the life force, and is a story of an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of a Southern patriarch's elaborate memorial. While little is known about the storyline, casting breakdowns received at FilmJerk last week hint at how large this ensemble plans to be.
The major supporting roles are:
Hollie Baylor: 57 years old, Hollie is Drew's mother. An earthy woman originally from Santa Barbara, she has a restless intellectualism, a brainy "seeker" of truth and knowledge. In many ways, she's an overgrown college girl, a student of life. (This is the role which Jane Fonda was once believed to be playing, according to news reports, so it looks like she has officially stopped abandoned the project.)
Jessie Baylor: Jessie is Drew's 31-year-old cousin, and a Kentucky native. A noble almost-success, Jessie is a musician who has not been able to make his dreams pay the rent. Barely making ends meet as a single father, he retains the look and spirit of a musician, though he is now in data processing. Drew loves Southern rock.
Heather: In her late twenties, Heather is Drew's sister. A young suburban mother in a two-income marriage, Heather carries the burden of responsibility. She complains about her misery, though secretly loves it. She is not Southern.
Charles Dean: At 62 years old, Dean is the funeral home proprietor who has become a local institution in Kentucky. A man of great manners and elegant southern diplomacy, his face resembles a natural rock formation. Subtext being his main form of communication, Charles never openly confronts any issue, though his anguished expression shows his true feelings.
Uncle Dale: This Kentucky native is Drew's uncle and Jessie's father, who often finds himself caught between his elder "country" relatives and the energized globalism of the upcoming generation. At 56 years old, Dale Baylor would like to branch out of the south, but it's a bit late for him. He's a noncommittal person, trying to stay current while making the best of his often traditional life and numerous family burdens. His dress of khaki pants and golf-shirt with short hair stands in great contrast to his musician son.
Bill Banyon: Banyon is a mid-level charlatan who left Kentucky for the big city. Bill, 54 years old, is said to be under investigation for tax evasions, though he carries himself like a humanitarian and philanthropist. After running for mayor in three different cities, and losing each time, failure rolls right off him. Bill would be obnoxious if he didn't have such a murky past and wasn't so damn entertaining to watch, the type of guy who would shake your hand and look you in the eye like a brother even when he has just met you and has no idea of who you are.
Ellen Kishmore: Kishmore was once the love of Drew's life. A great-looking high-level assistant with great style, poise and memorable green eyes, Ellen's success in business is inexorable. The character is listed as being 24 years old.
Phil: In his forties, he is Drew's boss, a thoughtful billionaire able to speak in long and complex sentences, mesmerizing as he does so. Phil is a father figure to those who work under him.
Chuck: In his early twenties, Chuck is an Asian from Kentucky, about to marry Cindy. He comes across as extremely sweet, with his emotions very close to the surface. Chuck can't help crying when something strikes him as touching, from a beer commercial to the rigors of global warming, or a perfectly folded T-shirt.
Other supporting roles include:
Mitch Baylor: In his mid 50s, he is Drew's father, a fun, likable guy with an open, accessible look, an air of whimsy about him and a Mona Lisa-type smile. Originally came from Kentucky, Mitch later moved West.
David Tan: In his early 30s, he is Taiwan born and speaks English with an accent. David is a computer-geek who speaks with full gesturing of his hands. (It should be noted we will only see the top of his head, never his face.)
Samson Baylor: The 4 years old is Jessie's son and Drew's first cousin, once removed. He is VERY LOUD, with a distinctive howl. When he cries, people in neighboring communities can almost hear it.
There are also calls out for ten other minor roles: Herbie Gonsalves, a professional reporter for a business journal; Debbie, Jessie's girlfriend, who works at a drug store; Charlotte, a type-A personality, memorable for her ability to type expertly at her computer, always dutifully sending information to a database that only she sees; Rusty, a rugged, rustic construction foreman; Cindy an up-scale, athletic blonde, stressed but completely in control of the planning and hosting of her wedding; Ben, who grew up in the South, but now lives in Colorado; Aunt Dora Connelly, Drew's aunt from Kentucky, with a glowing life force of trust and wisdom; Mona, noteworthy for her compelling and poetic stare; Des, an African-American who attended West Point with Drew's father; and Connie, once a girlfriend of Drew's father many years ago.
It should be noted that, despite the serious undertones of the story, the film is a comedy first and foremost. Crowe and his team are searching for comedic actors, stand-up comics and sketch performers to fill out these roles. Production is said to begin this January, with some second unit pickups beginning in October.
Script Review:
http://www.tnmc.org/dp/1003031.shtml
Okay, now I'm sold
I am a resident of Elizabethtown, Kentucky...looking forward to the movie, and hopefully just a taste of movie production as well.
;o)
Quote from: tremoloslothOkay, now I'm sold
tremolo : i (https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fforums.offtopic.com%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2Fbowdown.gif&hash=97b28c36a8c1551dd09e409f043ae62067b0584b) to your avatar
The Weather in Elizabethtown Isn't Working
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
The start date of Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown is now up in the air because the director wants to shoot the ensemble comedy during a specific time of year. The film's original January start date has been pushed to an unspecified spring start.
The delay now means that the availability of Ashton Kutcher, who is to topline the movie with Kirsten Dunst, is now up in question. Kutcher's commitments to Fox's That '70s Show and MTV's Punk'd could affect his role in the film. However, his reps are working on the situation to see if his schedule can accommodate the change in the film's shooting schedule.
Crowe is reportedly eyeballing Oregon and Kentucky as possible locations for the Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks co-production.
The film revolves around a disgraced employee who returns to the titular hometown to ensure that his dead father's wishes are met.
Hmmm, M. Night Shyamalan was recently having some issue with the weather, etc., for his latest shoot, too. Gotta love perfectionists.
If I'm Kutcher, I cancel every obligation I have and bend over backwards to stay in this movie. You don't get too many chances for a starring role in a Cameron Crowe vehicle.
exactly
Quote from: Find Your MagaliHmmm, M. Night Shyamalan was recently having some issue with the weather, etc., for his latest shoot, too. Gotta love perfectionists.
If I'm Kutcher, I cancel every obligation I have and bend over backwards to stay in this movie. You don't get too many chances for a starring role in a Cameron Crowe vehicle.
Actually, if you were Ashton Kutcher, you'd be coked out of your mind right now, fucking two hot groupie chicks in your mansion, going "Cameron who?".
Quote from: SoNowThenQuote from: Find Your MagaliHmmm, M. Night Shyamalan was recently having some issue with the weather, etc., for his latest shoot, too. Gotta love perfectionists.
If I'm Kutcher, I cancel every obligation I have and bend over backwards to stay in this movie. You don't get too many chances for a starring role in a Cameron Crowe vehicle.
Actually, if you were Ashton Kutcher, you'd be coked out of your mind right now, fucking two hot groupie chicks in your mansion, going "Cameron who?".
Well, other than the coke (I prefer whiskey), I can't say that I wouldn't at least
consider that as a possible alternative to starring in a Cameron Crowe film. :wink:
Man, now I'm not going to get any work done tonight...
plus i saw his place in MTV Cribs...i was surprised about its simpleness.. i was expecting tons of bling
Quote from: ProgWRXplus i saw his place in MTV Cribs...i was surprised about its simpleness.. i was expecting tons of bling
was that show pre or post being buddies with Puffy, cause since he's been friends with him he's now Mr. Fedora wearing pimp.
true...
dont forget the redneck trucker hats :shock:
Quote from: Find Your MagaliHmmm, I wonder if Crowe will dump Kutcher, too....
HOLY SHIT> you are an amazing psychic!
Ashton Kutcher Not Moving to Elizabethtown Source: People Wednesday, November 5, 2003
Looks like Ashton Kutcher won't be moving to Elizabethtown, from writer/director Cameron Crowe, after all.
The star of That '70s Show star has just dropped out of the lead opposite Kirsten Dunst in the DreamWorks Pictures film. Kutcher's rep says the actor left because of a scheduling conflict after Crowe pushed the production from January to the spring.
The project is intended to be a love letter to the resilience of the life force and is a story of an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of a Southern patriarch's hilariously elaborate memorial. Jane Fonda is also expected to star.
im happy with this. Although i dont dislike Kutcher i feel somone else will help make this movie better
Bring on Jake Gyllenhaal!
Quote from: SlobhBring on Jake Gyllenhaal!
:yabbse-thumbup:
seems like a natural fit. i wonder if he's under consideration?
as much as i was intimidated by Kutcher being in the film, im kind of dissapointed, i honestly wanted to believe that Crowe would mold him into a real actor and that this role would change our minds about him :oops:
and yes Gyllenhaal would be awesome..
do you only come to this sit to post in the Cameron Crowe Section?
no. why?
Wow. I wonder if there's a time when Kutcher will look back and realize he could have starred in Soderbergh and Crowe films. Unbelievable.
How about Tobey Maguire?
he turned down a soderbergh film as well?!
:lol:
poor asshole, the kid just missed out on becoming a legitimate actor. Tough luck, Kutcher.
as for Jake taking Kutcher's place, I dunno. He might be playing the same kinda character in Moonlight Mile, which was a pretty mediocre film.
Quote from: ProgWRXas much as i was intimidated by Kutcher being in the film, im kind of dissapointed, i honestly wanted to believe that Crowe would mold him into a real actor and that this role would change our minds about him :oops:
and yes Gyllenhaal would be awesome..
I felt the same. Oh well, he doesn't know what he's doing.
i trust Crowes choice for a replacement
I never wanted Kutcher to be in the film because there's no way he could be a legitimate actor...not in my eyes anyway. Anyone who'd stoop to Dude, Where My Car has NO chance whatsoever.
And the fact that he turned down Soderberg merely cements my position on this pathetic topic..... :-D
what part did Sodeburg offer?
Quote from: coffeebeetleAnyone who'd stoop to Dude, Where My Car has NO chance whatsoever.
...Jennifer Garner "stooped" to
Dude, Where's My Car? and look at her now.
...
Never mind.
(Not that I don't like her; she just hasn't done anything great yet. Everyone has to start somewhere, though.)
hah dude where's my car was funny as hell in the too stupid and bad its funny kinda way...
even Punch Drunk Love and Magnolia alumni Mary-Lynn Rajskub was in Dude [...]
:lol:
Kutcher Dropped Because of Poor Acting?
Ashton Kutcher was reportedly dropped from Cameron Crowe's new movie because the director was dissatisfied with his acting skills. The hunky That 70's Show star explained earlier this month he had been forced to leave the cast of Elizabethtown when its filming schedule changed, and clashed with his TV commitments. However, according to a source quoted on the Pagesix website, Crowe was actually dissatisfied with Kutcher's rehearsals - and even suggested the 25-year- old consider taking acting lessons. The source claims, "Cameron was unhappy with his read-throughs. Ashton did several and each one was worse and worse. Cameron even postponed production because he thought the readings would get better but they didn't. At one point, Cameron suggested that Ashton take acting lessons. Soon after that, they both decided it would be best if Ashton was not in the movie." But Crowe's representative claimed ignorance of the causes behind Kutcher's departure, saying, "I am not aware of any of this. Schedules changed but I don't know what transpired between (them)." Kutcher was also recently dropped from consideration for an upcoming Steven Soderbergh project because the Oscar-winning director was unsure whether he "was up to par professionally" due to his public profile, fueled by his relationship with actress Demi Moore.
~IMDb.com
I realize this has already been reported on somewhat, but a little extra info (just posted at IMDb today) never hurt anyone.
Quote from: coffeebeetleAnd the fact that he turned down Soderberg
Quote from: Bankywhat part did Sodeburg offer?
..handing out cups of coffee.....
I really don't see Crowe telling a guy to goand take acting lessons. He just seems like a really nice guy to say such a thing to whoever. That's what I think...
Considering the "source" it just seems like gossip to me...
not to defend either of them, its just that the whole "However, according to a source quoted on the Pagesix website" sounds kinda shady to me...
I can just picture Ashton Kutcher at the read-through, delivering all his lines in the style of Kelso from That 70s Show, peppering the brilliant dialogue with 'dudes' and 'awesomes' while Cameron Crowe sweats bullets in the corner.
Quote from: ProgWRXConsidering the "source" it just seems like gossip to me...
not to defend either of them, its just that the whole "However, according to a source quoted on the Pagesix website" sounds kinda shady to me...
Agreed. IMDb does get a lot of their info from pagesix.com, and they are a gossipy type tabloidal site, so yeah, you gotta take all that with a grain of salt. Some of the time the stuff they report does turn out to be true, so you do have to give them that.
If its true, i kinda feel sorry for Kutcher, as rich and succesful as he might be, and even thought he is nailing Demi Moore, I still wanted the guy to turn a serious performance on this movie... :?
from cameroncroweonline.com
E-Town Casting Rumors?!
Many names are floating around the Internet as a possible replacement for Ashton Kutcher. As always, I don't put much stock into this, but it's fun to speculate. I'm sure Cameron will share casting tidbits down the road (like he has with past films). Here's the names that have been mentioned according to Variety: Chris Evans (Not Another Teen Movie), Seann William Scott (American Pie), Colin Hanks (Orange County) and James Franco (Spider-Man). Stay tuned...
I almost threw up at the though of seann william scott in this role. James Franco would be my first choice out of the group. Colin Hanks second, although i do not know anything else Chris Evans was in, and i never saw Not Another Teen Movie.
Quote from: MeatwadI almost threw up at the though of seann william scott in this role. James Franco would be my first choice out of the group. Colin Hanks second, although i do not know anything else Chris Evans was in, and i never saw Not Another Teen Movie.
I'd go with James Franco without too much thinking. Colin Hanks
could be good as well. As for Sean William Scott, I don't mind saying (even if I'm the only one who actually thinks this) that I'd like to see him in a film like this one, directed by a guy like Crowe. I also don't think I know who the hell Chris Evans is...
You know what, Colin Hanks would be my first choice out of that group. I was impressed with his performance in Orange County, although it definitely wasn't that year's American Beauty, but it seems that his dad's magic might have brushed off on him. As for Franco, eh... nah... I'm kinda getting sick of his shtick. I'm starting to see to much of him.
yes, from those noted I really would like to see Colin Hanks get it...
after reading the script, there's really only one choice........jake gyllenhaal..........
Quote from: depooterafter reading the script, there's really only one choice........jake gyllenhaal..........
thats what i'm thinking. i dont want to see ANY of those choices in the movie.
james franco..is the lesser of the evils......
but i'm sure that crowe is gonna end up casting the jasom mewes look-a-like from freddy vs. jason.......... :wink:
Quote from: depooterafter reading the script, there's really only one choice........jake gyllenhaal..........
where did you get the script?
Quote from: MEAT wadwhere did you get the script?
depooter (Greg) runs Cameron Crowe's (along with PTA's) site:
http://www.cameroncroweonline.com/films/elizabethtown/main.htm
thank you Guffin
Quote from: NEON MERCURYjames franco..is the lesser of the evils......
but i'm sure that crowe is gonna end up casting the jasom mewes look-a-like from freddy vs. jason.......... :wink:
Why is Franco an evil?
Quote from: SlobhQuote from: NEON MERCURYjames franco..is the lesser of the evils......
but i'm sure that crowe is gonna end up casting the jasom mewes look-a-like from freddy vs. jason.......... :wink:
Why is Franco an evil?
...i 'm nnot saying he's
that bad or anything its just crowe(..who i think is afine director)...should get more"upper tier" type talent and nnot have to "settle" ffor replacements mentoined above......nnnone of thodse names strike out for me really......most poeple should lobby themselvees to work for crowe......
but i've lost hope in this since dunst was cast.... :roll:
A SECRET: when watching spider--man ..i was so scared that dunst would ruin it for me....she had the same efffect on me as i was watching ganngs of ny and i wsas scareed that diaz would ruin the film ...but both of them didnn't but thats nnot that big of a deal as for the case w/spider-mann since the film itself is pure "orvilliann" it can suffffer from bad actinbg and onnscreen cheessynness....
Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Ashton Kutcher was reportedly dropped from Cameron Crowe's new movie because the director was dissatisfied with his acting skills.
He was dropped, this is completely true.
Orlando Bloom Moving to Elizabethtown
Source: Variety
According to Variety, Orlando Bloom has emerged as the leading candidate to replace Ashton Kutcher in director Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown.
Bloom is in talks to star opposite Kirsten Dunst in the drama, portraying a suicidal young man who returns to his small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown following the death of his father.
The "Lord of the Rings" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" star would not be able to start on the film until he completes work toplining on director Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, a Crusades-era epic that begins lensing this month in Morocco for 20th Century Fox.
Quote from: MacGuffin The Wombat...on director Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, a Crusades-era epic that begins lensing this month in Morocco for 20th Century Fox.
begins lensing? am i the only one who's never heard that before?
after big fish and cold mountain i am worried about foreigners playing southerners convincingly. the accent is such a tough thing to get right without overdoing it, or having your real voice slip out.
i want made mention in macs changing names
I was just thinking about something I first thought about when I read bits and pieces of the script review. Not sure if it's anything really significant, but it could be. Is it just me, or does anyone else see the resemblance to Godard's Breathless in this long phone conversation scene and the bedroom scene that takes up about a third of Godard's film? I don't know, it's 3 AM and I'm resisting sleep, and that's just something to think about. I don't really think too highly of Crowe in general, but this film does seem to have promise. Of course, I thought Vanilla Sky had promise before I realized it was Abre los ojos, and looked what happened there. But we'll see.
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaOf course, I thought Vanilla Sky had promise before I realized it was Abre los ojos, and looked what happened there.
he made a flawed, but still better than the original, film with a lot of interesting ideas?
i think VS is nearly perfect
Quote from: themodernage02Quote from: OnomatopoeiaOf course, I thought Vanilla Sky had promise before I realized it was Abre los ojos, and looked what happened there.
he made a flawed, but still better than the original, film with a lot of interesting ideas?
Pretty much. Vanilla Sky and Abre los ojos were pretty much decent films that could've been amazing ones. But some parts of Vanilla Sky, remember, were vastly inferior to Abre los ojos. The Americanization (bastardization), and the ending in general, especially. It really rubbed me the wrong way, especially after finally seeing Abre los ojos. But that's beside the point.
Yes, Crowe referencing Godard. Anyone?
Quote from: SydneyI think that Richard Roeper described it best by saying that Open Your Eyes is more like the acoustic version and Vanilla Sky is the full orchestrated version.
i agree with this
Source: Dark Horizons
Elizabethtown
Jane Fonda is apparently back in talks to play Orlando's mother who has a mid-life crisis of sorts upon the death of her husband. She had the offer early on and passed because she wanted something meatier. Looks like this is serious.
Sarandon, Biel & Greer in Crowe's Elizabethtown
Source: Variety
Paramount has tapped Susan Sarandon for Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy Elizabethtown, starring along with Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom, reports Variety. Also in talks are Judy Greer for the role of Heather, Jessica Biel for Ellen and Loudon Wainwright III for Uncle Dale. Paula Dean is also in negotiations for a role.
Sarandon is in talks to portray the role of the mother of Bloom's character for the project, produced by Crowe and Paramount-based Cruise/Wagner with filming expected to start this summer.
Described as a love letter to the resilience of the life force, the project centers on an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of the elaborate memorial for a Kentucky patriarch.
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no noooooooooooooo....
Quote from: SoNowThenno no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no noooooooooooooo....
What?!...
Susan "my presence ruins movies for SoNowThen" Sarandon
Oh... I like her. I like her better than Jane Fonda...
she's the best and kong will rock ur world.
Yes... Kong... will... rock... my... world... in... Elizabeth...Town...
from cameroncroweonline.com
Westerberg Returns!
Exciting news today as Cameron has asked Paul Westerberg to contribute a new song to E-Town and he has agreed! It's the first news we've heard regarding the soundtrack (other than that Nancy Wilson will be scoring it) and I'm sure the movie will include a great mix of old and new songs. Stay tuned for more....
Greer & Schneider Join Crowe's Elizabethtown
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Judy Greer and Paul Schneider will star in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown for Paramount Pictures, says The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is described as a love letter to the resilience of the life force and the story of an unexpected romance. Shooting on the project starts this month.
Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Biel star, with Greer (13 Going on 30) playing the daughter of Susan Sarandon's character and Schneider playing the cousin of Bloom's character.
IMDB has an extended cast list for Elizabethtown... one of the most notable additions is Alec Baldwin in the role of Phil... I never pictured him in a Cameron Crowe film.... hmmm....
Quote from: WesabeckIMDB has an extended cast list for Elizabethtown... one of the most notable additions is Alec Baldwin in the role of Phil... I never pictured him in a Cameron Crowe film.... hmmm....
Baldwin, McGill & Sartain Move to Elizabethtown Source: Variety Sunday, July 11, 2004
Alec Baldwin, Bruce McGill and Gaillard Sartain have joined the cast of Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy Elizabethtown, starring Kirsten Dunst, Orlando Bloom and Susan Sarandon.
The Paramount film centers on an unexpected romance that develops against the backdrop of the elaborate memorial for a Kentucky patriarch. Baldwin will portray the boss of Bloom's character.
Judy Greer, Jessica Biel, Loudon Wainwright III, Paul Schneider and Paula Dean round out the cast. The project, written and directed by Crowe, is targeted for a 2005 release.
ELIZABETHTOWN SET PICS:
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=4847
they're all of Kirsten Dunst
The world loves blondes :wink:
Quote from: InsomniacThe world loves blondes :wink:
*Starts planning a move to Mars*
Quote from: themodernage02ELIZABETHTOWN SET PICS:
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=4847
damn, i know crowe likes to make sappy romance films sometimes...but those pictures of dunst [and the casting of her] cements this films fate............Prog Wrx, sorry man, but you might want to keep watching vanilla sky.......and pretend this film never existed....and wait for another new crowe project...... :wink:
Quote from: El Duderinothey're all of Kirsten Dunst
If that's a complaint, be my guest. but i'm not complaing. Oh NO.
I like her very mucho.
Aww, she looks adorable! I would so wear that dress she has on.
You can see a little bit of Orlando Bloom in the first picture. Hottttness.
Interview with Crowe about the film
http://www.louisvillescene.com/2004/07/25/movies_crowe.html
EDIT: After reading it, I'd say it's kind of spoilerish
Quote from: NEON MERCURYQuote from: themodernage02ELIZABETHTOWN SET PICS:
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=4847
damn, i know crowe likes to make sappy romance films sometimes...but those pictures of dunst [and the casting of her] cements this films fate............Prog Wrx, sorry man, but you might want to keep watching vanilla sky.......and pretend this film never existed....and wait for another new crowe project...... :wink:
:lol: what do u mean by that?
If anything , Ill keep watching Almost Famous, because its my favorite of his films. (with Singles a close second because it was my first Cameron film )
:?
Ohhh I figured Vanilla Sky would be your favorite of his films. :wink:
(It's my favorite)
as much as i loved it when it came out and when it hit dvd, its sort of moved to a close third place in my list, maybe its because its not a complete original, or maybe because i watched it so many times during those months...
Cameron's movies are so different from one another in ways, that its really hard to be fair when listing them in favorite order or whatever... each one has its moments of genius..
true.
Quote from: ProgWRXQuote from: NEON MERCURYQuote from: themodernage02ELIZABETHTOWN SET PICS:
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=4847
damn, i know crowe likes to make sappy romance films sometimes...but those pictures of dunst [and the casting of her] cements this films fate............Prog Wrx, sorry man, but you might want to keep watching vanilla sky.......and pretend this film never existed....and wait for another new crowe project...... :wink:
:lol: what do u mean by that?
If anything , Ill keep watching Almost Famous, because its my favorite of his films. (with Singles a close second because it was my first Cameron film )
.im just playing man.. :-D ..but dunst sucks...........IM
HO...i like crowe...and almost famous is my favorite film by him....but dunst.???....
not only is she a pathetic actress onscreen....even her voice acting in the spiderman 2 video game sucks.......not that that means anything but damn.she just sucks.....
i really dont have a problem with her :? she was alright in spiderman 2, and with good direction she could be great IMo...
well see
i love cameron crowe and like kirsten dunst.
Quote from: themodernage02i love cameron crowe and like kirsten dunst.
So you're bissexual with preference for men.
Pre-Production Reel (http://www.cameroncrowe.com/eyes_ears/films/elizabethtown/elizabethtown_overview.html)
now I'm more interested
Everyone watch this reel. A quarter of the way through, Orlando Bloom is standing beside Alec Baldwin. Bloom has a priceless, sincere look on his face that says, "I honestly don't know who this is.."
I have a good feeling that this movie is going to have the same sort of "feel" as Almost Famous. Also, has anyone noticed how the story seems to very closely resemble Garden State? (Parent dies, over-life kid goes back to small town for funeral, meets a girl, they fall in love, cue happy ending.)
yeah i noticed it in the GS thread a few weeks ago...
Quote from: MeshQuote from: themodernage02well if thats the case, then i dont think you're going to care much for Elizabethtown....
Hours after a ruinous product debut, suicidal industrial designer Drew Baylor learns of his father's sudden death. As the only son, Drew must travel to their small hometown of Elizabethtown, Kentucky to attend to his father's memorial. On the flight to Kentucky, Drew meets Claire, a quick-witted flight attendant, who helps him navigate the rough waters ahead and proves that amazing things happen when you least expect them.
Yeah, that sounds like a load of emo crap. Is PTA directing? :wink:
ah, on point once again modernage.
that synopsis two posts above sounds very similar to the premise of Six Feet Under minus the only son part.
it kinda sounds like garden state aswell
Quote from: depooterCrowe actually told me over the holidays that he finished two scripts and is deciding which to do next. He should be ready to go soon (and I should have more info soon)......
thanks
Greg
www.theuncool.com
I read Elizabethtown, great script...but very different in Crowe's ways...but then again throws a lot back to his other works.
From The Uncool-
E-Town Release Date
It looks like Elizabethtown will open in the U.S. on July 29th, 2005! Let the anticipation begin. It's good to see a Cameron film getting released in the heat of summer. It's technically the first Crowe film to be released in the summer (not counting Fast Times).
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8)
i don't know if it was the title or what, but i was thinking this was a period piece. this is set in modern times, right?
Yes, I believe so.
Yes, you sillies.
Since a whole two of you care, I'd like to share
From CameronCrowe.com
E-Town Release Date Change
Elizabethtown's release date has officially changed from July 29th to October 14th. Stay tuned to the site for all the latest news on the film.
Quote from: Bethie
E-Town Release Date Change
Elizabethtown's release date has officially changed from July 29th to October 14th. Stay tuned to the site for all the latest news on the film.
Ah, shoot. and I'm really feeling sad about this.
that sucks, but i had a feeling since there has been very little news about this. like, no previews and such.
Elizabethtown Poster:
http://www.adangio.com/gallery+images/large/movie148.jpg
The poster might be fake, but I kinda like it. :yabbse-wink:
yeah its fake, but not a bad one.
I've realized that I dislike everyone in this film, and thus, will not be watching it. Also, I get this and Sofia Coppolas new film mixed up cause I think her new film has actors I dislike too. Also, which one is the period piece? Crowes or Coppolas? I won't be seeing neither so I would appreciate an answer HERE.
Quote from: StefenI've realized that I dislike everyone in this film, and thus, will not be watching it. Also, I get this and Sofia Coppolas new film mixed up cause I think her new film has actors I dislike too. Also, which one is the period piece? Crowes or Coppolas? I won't be seeing neither so I would appreciate an answer HERE.
It's Sophia's that is the period piece.
Quote from: SiliasRubyQuote from: StefenI've realized that I dislike everyone in this film, and thus, will not be watching it. Also, I get this and Sofia Coppolas new film mixed up cause I think her new film has actors I dislike too. Also, which one is the period piece? Crowes or Coppolas? I won't be seeing neither so I would appreciate an answer HERE.
It's Sophia's that is the period piece.
i do too.
Elizabethtown just sounds period piece-y.
here's the poster: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20519
sorry, i still don't know how to copy and paste images right onto the page.
anyhow, i quite like the poster. i've read the script and it is wonderful to finally see that this is the imagery it's been translated to. i for one am greatly anticipating this film, and think (well, hope) it will surprise a lot of people.
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Someone else said it, but...Lost in Translation
Quote from: bigideasQuote from: SiliasRubyQuote from: StefenI've realized that I dislike everyone in this film, and thus, will not be watching it. Also, I get this and Sofia Coppolas new film mixed up cause I think her new film has actors I dislike too. Also, which one is the period piece? Crowes or Coppolas? I won't be seeing neither so I would appreciate an answer HERE.
It's Sophia's that is the period piece.
i do too.
Elizabethtown just sounds period piece-y.
That's funny because until just now when I saw the poster I thought this was a period piece.
Regarding the morons:
Way to look into things.
Regarding the poster:
I want Kirsten's shoes.
Bethie=no bullshit. except the shoes remark. I just want who's in 'em.
damn, two fucking cheesy actors on a sickening poster.....
crowe..., why dont you get real and talented actors in your films like you use to?
http://www.elizabethtown.com/video/firstlook/InternetTrailer.mov
i will love this movie.
Quote from: NEON MERCURYdamn, two fucking cheesy actors on a sickening poster.....
crowe..., why dont you get real and talented actors in your films like you use to?
i would refer you to the "who hates tom cruise" thread but im lazy
Quote from: themodernage02http://www.elizabethtown.com/video/firstlook/InternetTrailer.mov
i will love this movie.
jiholy crap. could this be the first movie where orlando bloom is actually noticed? looks damn good.
also, finally a good indoor-rain sequence to add to the collection of memorable crowe moments. i don't think it matters how spoilerful that 8min trailer (more like a montage/music video) was, i'm assuming crowe approved it and figured it was bearable.
other points:
-judy greer looking fine again
-dunst better than ever, not too pale
-still don't really know what the movie's about (a funeral?)
-that's a good thing^^^
-could still suck
i turned it off after two minutes.
Yeah it seems like a mature Garden State. I wonder what one-liners Crowe has in store for us this time around.
Quote from: Gamblor Posts DrunkYeah it seems like a mature Garden State.
well hopefully it'll be ten times better than Garden State. the internet trailer is a little disappointing, despite a few shots...it just doesn't look very Cameron Crowe-ish. but it's just an early trailer for the net so maybe it'll be a lot better than it looks right now.
I was a little underwhelmed. But then I figure Crowes films play so much off a feeling, that a montage set to music just isnt going to be able to cut-it. I really wish I hadnt seen Garden State now.
I liked the urn held high above the head in Lloyd Dobbler fashion.
Jesus, that was the most boring thing i've ever seen. Just a bunch of shots of the actors and how adorable they are, and how they are acting! I only watched the first few minutes though. Could be really good though, just wish it had more dialogue cause thats Crowes strong point, but oh well. I'll see it.
That poster is really beautiful.
The whole movie is really beautiful.
Seen it?
I had no idea how this was gonna look... but I think I actually like this now
This is going to be one hell of a movie. Even though I didn't get much information from the trailer,i t gave me a overall really pleasant feeling.
For some reason I can't view the trailer. Probably because I'm a woman.
Yeah, I think this will be good. Probably not amazing, but really good. I trust Cameron Crowe to not be Zach Braff, nor try to take anything from him. That online clip deal was an ordeal to get through though.
saw the trailer for this before War of the Worlds. i didn't realize one was coming out already after that 9 minute clip or whatever. i'm not sure if it's online yet but it looks good. also saw a stand-up of it which is basically the poster surrounded with other pictures in a scrapbook (royal tenenbaums-esque) format. can't wait. :yabbse-thumbup:
Quote from: themodernage02i'm not sure if it's online
http://www.elizabethtown.com/trailer.html
Ah, that's a good trailer. I couldn't even get through that 9 minute clip cause it was just a bunch of pretty people for 9 minutes. But this trailer is fantastic, until at the end when movie man jumps in and it reminds of when I used to rent videos before dvd came out and they would play a trailer for a movie I had never even heard of that came out on video months before. I like it though, it seems really sweet. Someone else mentioned it reminds them of Garden State and I have to agree, except the problem I had with Garden State was when Natalie Portman showed up, this seems to be a whole movie of Natalie Portman showing up, but done right and not embarassingly. I'm so happy.
Love the music on the trailer... and Kirsten... but Orlando just doesnt cut it
We'll see
I saw the trailer right before War of the Worlds. It looks good but hopefully Crowe won't make it too cheesy or anything. It looks a lot more like a Crowe movie than that early internet trailer.
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Writer/director Cameron Crowe's genre-defining "Say Anything" set the bar for teen romantic comedies. It was devoid of pandering, light on slapstick and crammed with great music. When Crowe's protagonist, Lloyd Dobler, can't think of what to say to win back his girlfriend, he stands below her bedroom window — in the rain — a boom box held aloft, Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" serenading them both.
Over the years, Crowe's films have been full of similar scenes: small, life-changing, speechless instants. From "Say Anything" through "Jerry Maguire" to his new film, "Elizabethtown," (starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon), Crowe has made a career of filming the seemingly unfilmable — illustrating those fragile moments on which entire lives turn.
Crowe recently took a break from editing "Elizabethtown" to give MTV News' Benjamin Wagner a call and talk about the new film, touring with rock stars and the "in-between" moments that matter most to him.
MTV: The gestation period on "Elizabethtown" has been ...
Crowe: It's been a while.
MTV: Give me some backstory, from the germ of an idea to where you are today.
Crowe: After "Vanilla Sky" — which is mostly about one guy's head, and not my story, really — I wanted to do a real character story. I had this script I was working on that had nine characters. It was filled with things that people in movies do. It was summer 2002, and I was on the road with my wife. She plays with the band Heart, they were playing a summer tour, and she convinced me to get out of the house and see the world from the bus. I woke up one morning and looked out of the bus, and the hillsides were electric green landscapes. We were in Kentucky, where I'm from. I got off the bus, rented a car and drove around. And I started writing something new. I started writing about the family we don't know we have and the things that happen when life intercedes to take you on a surprise journey. And tragedy [the death of Orlando Bloom's character's father] that ends up being a ticket to something wilder and greater and stronger than you anticipated. And it has a lot of music in it.
MTV: We count on you for that.
Crowe: I just have no high concepts — all this stuff kind of ends up being about music and people and life. I was just really happy that this one kind of hijacked what I'd been working on and said, "It's time to write about your family."
MTV: What strikes me is how much of this film and all your work counts on capturing those transformative, almost invisible moments in a person's life.
Crowe: Right!
MTV: How do you film that? You must have remarkable confidence in your actors' ability to demonstrate interior.
Crowe: Well, I got lucky early on, working with John Cusack and Sean Penn and other actors who were able to make those moments real. Even guys like Judge Reinhold in "Fast Times." People were like, "How are you gonna make a scene about a guy who's longing for his sister's friend and masturbating in the bathroom?" And we couldn't even find anyone to direct that movie. Then Amy Heckerling came along and said, "I know how I can make this work."
But those are the things that mean the most to me, the in-between moments. They're also the greatest stuff to use music with, because it feels like your spying on life. It's fun to write those quiet moments: falling in love, or how people watch TV ...
MTV: Or driving a car, or walking through an airport ...
Crowe: Exactly! There's a whole thing at the end of "Elizabethtown" that takes place on a road trip across the country. Kirsten Dunst's character makes Orlando's character a mixmap [a map with musical cues] that's really specific. It's 42 hours and 11 minutes long, and it's filled with music. He's never really traveled, and she's a flight attendant so she does nothing but travel. She says, "Look, I'm going to give you a map, but it's not like the usual map. It's very different, and you gotta really follow it. Call me when you're done." Before he knows it, he's completely addicted to her words and music and where she's taking him. It kind of goes back to that bus trip where you think your world is the world. And somebody pulls you out of it and says, "Come over here and see the world everybody else is living."
I wanted to make the movie about that: what it's like to truly be alive.
MTV: Kirsten strikes me as the type of woman who could transform a man like that. She sparkles. Not unlike Kate Hudson, or Phoebe Cates for that matter. Maybe you should take credit for that sparkle.
Crowe: [Laughs] Nah. It's their eyes. But there are so many actors that you're dying to work with that you can't ever hire. Kirsten came very close on "Almost Famous." She was almost in that movie, so we never really forgot her. And she's a huge music fan. I play music during takes and she's the first person I've worked with who'll go, "Um, I don't like that song." The camera will be rollin' and I'll play "Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye, and she'll go, "Turn that Marvin Gaye music off! Put on some Rilo Kiley."
She stays up all night and downloads music from LimeWire. She needs to be arrested.
MTV: You've outed her.
Crowe: She does know music and it pours out of her. And it spread to Orlando, too, By the end of the movie he was going, "Um, put on that other song." I felt like a DJ.
MTV: What songs did you gravitate to on set, or did they lead you to?
Crowe: Orlando really loves Jeff Buckley, so he always asked for "Lover You Should Have Come Over." And he also loved this acoustic version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" from the Live 1975 Bob Dylan disc. And we all agreed on Ryan Adams, so there's a lot of Ryan Adams in the movie. Kirsten really loved Rilo Kiley and Rufus Wainwright. We played a lot of My Morning Jacket and Patty Griffin. She was kind of a big early inspiration. Her 1,000 Kisses album was a big inspiration for the movie because the story — you know, that she went into her basement and recorded that album with no frills and that became her breakthrough album — was sort of the idea behind the way we wanted to do "Elizabethtown."
MTV: Give us a sense of what songs are going to make the film. To what degree does Elton John's "My Father's Gun" play a role?
Crowe: Well, that's gonna be in there because that's the song we always used when we were auditioning guys looking into the father's casket. Elton was very cooperative on "Almost Famous" and gave us all the separated tracks on "Tiny Dancer." He's one of the guys who trust us. Not many others do.
MTV: Come on, you got Led Zeppelin [on "Almost Famous"].
Crowe: They didn't give us separated tracks [multi-track tapes that would enable the filmmaker to play, for example, just the piano from a song], though. But it's really freeing to finally talk about this stuff. We have a new My Morning Jacket song called "Where to Begin" that we love and used when we were shooting. There's a long phone call sequence that culminates in … well, actually I'm not going to tell you what it culminates in. There are too many months to go.
MTV: October's coming soon. The release date's not sliding, right?
Crowe: Yeah, it's definitely October — the land of slasher and thriller movies. Hopefully, we'll be a little different.
MTV: "Almost Famous" came out in the fall. It's a fall vibe, man.
Crowe: It is. We'd be doomed if we came out in July. But "Elizabethtown" takes place in summer. I always thought it would be great to have a movie that opens in summer that's about summer. But that plan evaporated because it's more of a fall vibe, as you noted.
[Right now] the movie's still a little long ...
MTV: No!
Crowe: [Laughs] Can you imagine such a thing? The guy who runs the focus group asks, "What would you cut out?" And the group immediately starts arguing. One person says, "Well you can cut this," and someone else says, "Are you crazy? You can't cut that!" Then this girl says, "Well, you know, it's really hard to know where to cut 'cause it's long and important." So we've been joking about that. We called the cut "long and important." But it can't be that long, or that important. We're gonna cut it down.
MTV: I imagine that process is a little heartbreaking.
Crowe: You always have favorite moments that are kind of on the bench, waiting to get in the game. But we were walking around last night and we were just saying, "Ya know what? Let's just admit the secret. This is really fun."
MTV: Let's see: riding on a tour bus, beautiful wife in a rock band, making a film from the heart, tremendous actors waiting in line to work with you. That ain't bad, man.
Crowe: If you don't question it, and treat it with great preciousness. You're making me feel like I'm really on the right track, and thank you, but studios are not run by and populated by people with your perspective, or mine. You always end up in a room with a bunch of people staring at you saying, "This is an in-between movie." They even said that the first time they saw "Jerry Maguire." "This is not 'Mission: Impossible.' How are we gonna sell it?" "Almost Famous" barely got released. It's hard getting people to believe that there's an audience out there. It's cool when you do run across people who believe in it and want to help, but that's rare.
MTV: I wonder — and forgive me here — with the rise of the niche market, I wonder whether you're able to find audiences more easily. When you mention all the musicians, I think of radio stations like WFUV or KCRW — audiences that are right in your creative wheelhouse. But it ain't "Spider-Man."
Crowe: No, it ain't. But those people — they're discerning, and they often don't leave the house. So you just have to find some place where your blind optimism will work out and become a reality. It's hard work to find people who will wave the flag with you.
However — "Spider-Man 4"? I'm available!
So, yeah..
I hate the trailer for this movie but loved the 'First Look' internet stuff. Wierd..
Maybe it's the 'cool music' playing. What song is that playing in the background?
Oh, Cameron.
One of the main reasons I wanted to see War of The Worlds was to see the Elizabethtown trailer. I haven't seen War of The Worlds yet, but I watched the trailer online Wednesday night. I like how it's looking. The part Kirsten calls Orlando and he gets that huge smile on his face. Great. I can't wait to see this for real.
QuoteCrowe: Orlando really loves Jeff Buckley, so he always asked for "Lover You Should Have Come Over."
ha ha. me too. Thanks for the article.
mixed/negative reviews from an early screening of Etown over at AICN. thats not cool... :(
uncool.
well that doesn't really bother me cuz Vanilla Sky was a Crowe masterpiece and it got 40% on the tomato meter with the critics. Elizabethtown probably will get mixed reviews across the board.
the reviews werent that bad... theyre still in the screening process so maybe theyll come up with a tighter cut that regular people love :) Im guessing when they were screening the "Untitled" version of Almost Famous people were saying the same things :) (I do love BOTh versions of Almost Famous though, the theatrical actually edging out Untitled a little bit)
Quote from: Finnwell that doesn't really bother me cuz Vanilla Sky was a Crowe masterpiece and it got 40% on the tomato meter with the critics. Elizabethtown probably will get mixed reviews across the board.
Actually, Vanilla sky
was a mess. The critics got it right.
I saw War of The Worlds today but I MISSED the Elizabethtown trailer! I was upset. It must have been the first one shown cause I caught like four other trailers.
BUT I did see one of those huge cardboard things in the theatre lobby. (What is the proper name for those?) I want it. I have absolutely no place to put it, but I feel as if I must own it.
Quote from: BethieBUT I did see one of those huge cardboard things in the theatre lobby. (What is the proper name for those?)
Standees.
The actual trailer is now availble:
http://images.apple.com/movies/paramount/elizabethtown/elizabethtown_m480.mov
MY MORNING JACKET will appear in the new CAMERON CROWE film, Elizabethtown, which hits theaters on October 14th. The filmmaker's wife and HEART guitarist NANCY WILSON and LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III are featured on the movie's soundtrack, due September 13th
i know that crowe can be cheesy/sappy at times...but this trailer seems really ghey....i think legolas can only "act" in tights [remember the awful shit he did in troy?]...kristen dunst has an annoying face like zellweger, she has lanky saggy titties like my aunts, she has fucked up teeth like john leguizamo, she has pasty flakey white skin like kidman, .....plus her body is so warped an out of shape i would rather fuck rubber johnny than her..........argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
crowe, why............?????
you know something's wrong w/ a director if your first choice is ashton kuntner...
hahahaha rubber johnny..hehe
dunst ain't that bad. she was good in "eternal sunshine." and .."spiderman"...
great interview up there. thanks.
i am actually looking forward to this even though i am not sold on blondie.
I just realised that Paul Shneider is in this (think All the Real Girls) !!!!
So happy. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Quote from: Paul Schneider from 'All the Real Girls' commentaryWhat am I if not the poor man's version of a hot guy?
I like the guy. Look forward to seeing him in a big movie. The first time I saw the trailer for this, I saw him in it and it took me three days to figure out who it was. I think it was the sideburns that threw me off.
'Lord of the Rings' heartthrob Orlando Bloom enters 21st century
TOKYO (AFP) - Orlando Bloom, the British heartthrob of "Lord of the Rings" fame, said he's glad finally to lay down his sword as he plays his first contemporary role in director Cameron Crowe's upcoming film.
Bloom, who has starred as a warrior in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the epic "Troy" and the Crusader drama "Kingdom of Heaven," plays a young Kentucky aristocrat in "Elizabethtown," due for release later this year.
"First and foremost, it was great to do a film without a sword or a horse or suit armor," the 28-year-old hunk told a news conference in Tokyo. "I wanted to do a contemporary film."
The film, described as semi-autobiographical for Cameron Crowe, revolves around a young man who begins to know his family only after his father dies -- and is helped along by a perky flight attendant, played by Kirsten Dunst.
Bloom called Crowe "one of the quintessential American directors."
"He really has his hand on his heart and his finger on the pulse of America, and he tells a really soulful story," Bloom said.
It is also Bloom's first time playing an American, for which he enlisted an accent coach.
Crowe won an Oscar for another film based on his life experience, 2000's "Almost Famous," the saga of a teenaged music critic.
He was also nominated for five Academy Awards for the 1996 film about self-doubting sports agent "Jerry Maguire."
haha hunk? more like hottie. He looks like a little kid, it was weird hearing that he was 28 cause I remember back during the lotr craze he was always like "Yea, they picked me up when I was 18 or so....i had done no movies......none, and here I am....look at me....seriously....look"
Ah, whatever. :fshhhh
wasnt LOTR in pre-production since like 1997? maybe he got cast really early on ..
Dunst Praises 'Elizabethtown' Character
Kirsten Dunst says her role as Claire in Cameron Crowe's new film, "Elizabethtown," was one of the best female parts she'd read in ages.
"She is honest and upfront to a fault," Dunst tells W magazine in its September issue, on newsstands Aug. 19. "She doesn't have a lot of fear. She's dorky and doesn't care, and in that way she's cool."
Dunst plays a flight attendant in the romantic comedy, costarring Orlando Bloom. Bloom's brooding character meets Claire while on a flight home to Kentucky.
"Kirsten is a really positive person," Bloom says. "In the film she brings my character back to life. She's perfectly cast because she is that light."
The 23-year-old actress also plays the lead in Sofia Coppola's upcoming Marie-Antoinette biopic. She predicts the French press will be especially rough on the film, which co-stars Jason Schwartzman as Louis XVI.
"And I'm not sure whether historians are going to love our movie," she says, "but we don't care."
Dunst, who began acting and modeling when she was 3, has more than 30 films to her credit, including "Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles," Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" and the "Spider-Man" movies.
But Dunst says she's no workaholic.
"If you don't live your life, then how can you act?" she says. "You have no experience except the last experience on a movie."
Quote from: MacGuffinDunst Praises 'Elizabethtown' Character
"And I'm not sure whether historians are going to love our movie," she says, "but we don't care."
Awesome.
yesss, i've been waiting for a film thats a real 'fuck you' to the damn historians.
Quote from: Tictacbkyesss, i've been waiting for a film thats a real 'fuck you' to the damn historians.
yeah kinda like "Alexander"
Fuck, i was gonna say Pearl Harbor
i was gonna say anything.
I'm waiting for a film that's a real "fuck you" to all the damn cartographers.
They could stand to be taken down a peg, is all. And Kirsten Dunst would star, so as to take them down a further peg.
Quote from: polkabluesI'm waiting for a film that's a real "fuck you" to all the damn cartographers.
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*golf clap* Solid teamwork.
Elizabethtown's official site has been updated. You can listen to the full length songs from the score. plus more.
p.s. mod, I like the avatar.
p.s.#2 I got the Elizabethtown poster for my Birthday. 8)
Trailer left me cold. But I'm sure the soundtrack will be good.
yeah, this soundtrack should be great. it'll be filled to the brim with bands that uber-hip crowe has "discovered" (see also: pointed out to him by andy fischer) and he will waste no time running them into the ground and throwing it into everyone's face making sure everyone knows how cutting edge and in-the-know he still is...
my morning jacket. rip.
Quote from: bluejaytwistyeah, this soundtrack should be great. it'll be filled to the brim with bands that uber-hip crowe has "discovered" (see also: pointed out to him by andy fischer) and he will waste no time running them into the ground and throwing it into everyone's face making sure everyone knows how cutting edge and in-the-know he still is...
my morning jacket. rip.
He probably has some 20 year old college kid working for him as a music consultant. Throw in some Elton John for good measure and bam! You've got a soundtrack.
the nancy wilson stuff sounds great...
The Nancy Wilson music is really nice. Does anybody have a full soundtrack listing?
by the way, the new my morning jacket album sounds like flaming lips to me... just a side note
Crowe Finalizes 'Elizabethtown' Soundtrack
Source: Billboard
The full track list has been confirmed for the soundtrack to "Elizabethtown," Cameron Crowe's highly anticipated new film. Due Sept. 13 via RCA, the project features exclusive tracks from Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, and, as previously reported, My Morning Jacket.
Previously released cuts are turned in by Wheat, Ryan Adams, Elton John ("My Father's Gun," which is also used in an extended trailer on the Elizabethtown Web site) and the Hollies, among others.
Another track, "Same in Any Language," was written for the film by Crowe and his wife, Nancy Wilson, who also supplied original music. It is performed here by Atlanta band I-9, which recently signed to J Records.
Members of My Morning Jacket also appear in "Elizabethtown" as the band Ruckus, which performs the Lynyrd Syknyrd favorite "Freebird" with disastrous results during one scene.
"Elizabethtown" stars Orlando Bloom as a down-on-his-luck industrial designer who turns over a new page when he returns to his Kentucky hometown for his father's funeral. It will open Oct. 14 in U.S. theaters.
Here is the "Elizabethtown" track list:
"60B (Elizabethtown Theme)," Nancy Wilson
"It'll All Work Out," Tom Petty
"My Father's Gun," Elton John
"i.o.," Helen Stellar
"Come Pick Me Up," Ryan Adams
"Where To Begin," My Morning Jacket
"Long Ride Home," Patti Griffin
"Sugar Blue," Jeff Finlin
"Don't I Hold You," Wheat
"Shut Us Down," Lindsey Buckingham
"Let It All Hang Out," Hombres
"Hard Times," eastmountainsouth
"Jesus Was a Crossmaker," the Hollies
"Square One," Tom Petty
"Same in Any Language," I-9
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I have it already. It's very good!!!
Quote from: Billboardexclusive tracks from Tom Petty
umm, that song is not an "exclusive" track
it's on the album
Anthology: Through the Years(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fanfire.com%2Fimages%2Fproduct%2Flarge%2FPETCD004.jpg&hash=82b50360ad3a5e3297099fbec8f351e94978faba)
Nice, I'll get it for sure
For anyone who is going (and has hundreds of dollars to pay for a festival pass or connections, LET ME KNOW!) Elizabethtown will be screening a month early as part of the CMJ Film Festival in NYC on Sep 14 at 5PM at the DGA Theater. According to the CMJ site the film is 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours). http://www.cmj.com/marathon/calendar.php?view=films
Yeah, anyone who wants to be disapointed ahead of time...
oh, and crowe will be there...
Cameron Crowe To Speak At CMJ
Aug 12, 2005
As part of CMJ Music Marathon, Cameron Crowe will speak at CMJ FilmFest. Crowe, the acclaimed writer/director of such films as Singles, Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire will be on hand to discuss his new film, Elizabethtown, starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst.
"Elizabethtown" brings taste of Americana to Venice
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U.S. director Cameron Crowe brought a slice of Americana to Venice on Sunday with his film "Elizabethtown," a story of hope rekindled after death and failure.
"I liked the idea of beginning our movie with death, the place most movies end," Crowe told a news conference, referring to the death of the father of the lead character, played by "Lord of the Rings" heartthrob Orlando Bloom, early in the film.
"The question is where do we go from here? The answer is -- life."
Crowe won an Oscar for his 2000 groupie film "Almost Famous," based on his days as a young Rolling Stone reporter.
For "Elizabethtown," Crowe said he drew on his experience after his father's unexpected death.
He said he was inspired by a mix of laughter and tears that his parents referred to as "Bread and Chocolate," a reference to the 1973 Italian comedy "Bread and Chocolate," about a Sicilian worker in search of a better life trying -- and failing -- to fit in with neighbours in Switzerland.
"Elizabethtown," whose producers include Tom Cruise, tells the story of failed Oregon shoe designer who is contemplating suicide when his sister announces his father has unexpectedly died while visiting relatives in Kentucky.
Instead of stabbing himself on an exercise bike as he intends, the designer goes to deal with the body.
He ends up being charmed by a resolutely cheerful flight attendant and his eccentric Kentucky relatives, who make him re-awaken to the joys of life.
"I wanted to make a comment on the obsession with success and failure that we see a lot in America," Crowe said.
"Orlando's character, at the beginning of the movie, is defining success and failure. But then life comes along and trumps that."
Bloom, who made his cinema debut with "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring," the first in the trilogy, and co-star Kirsten Dunst are backed by a heavyweight supporting cast including Alec Baldwin as the philosophical evil boss and Susan Sarandon as Bloom's distraught, tap-dancing mother.
For British actor Bloom, it is the first role for which he had to camouflage his accent. To prepared for the part, he took on a dialect coach and travelled around Louisville, Kentucky, where most of the film is set.
Much like the music to Crowe's "Almost Famous," the rich soundtrack to "Elizabethtown," from blues to Tom Petty's "It'll All Work Out," is a key part of the optimism and all-round Americana into which the main character is plunged.
"Music is such an inspiration to me. I love it when it completes a story, along with the words and image," says Crowe, whose wife, Nancy Wilson of rock band Heart, wrote the score.
"We used music in the film to create an environment. It made it feel like we were telling our story with a little extra -- a little extra soul."
I'm getting really excited about this movie now. If it's half of what Vanilla Sky was I'll be happy. The soundtrack is very good.
Quote from: RedVinesI'm getting really excited about this movie now. If it's half of what Vanilla Sky was I'll be happy. The soundtrack is very good.
if its only half of what vanilla sky is i'll lose all faith in cameron crowe...and i like music
did anyone read Variey's review of Elizabethtown yesterday - they more or less said Zach Braff beat Crowe by a year with Garden State - and not only did he beat him with sunject matter and tone, Garden State is a more mature, fluid, and effective film - that stings.
Quote from: Tictacbkand i like music
welcome to the club
Quote from: cowboykurtisdid anyone read Variey's review of Elizabethtown yesterday - they more or less said Zach Braff beat Crowe by a year with Garden State - and not only did he beat him with sunject matter and tone, Garden State is a more mature, fluid, and effective film - that stings.
I was afraid of that.
Quote from: cowboykurtisdid anyone read Variey's review of Elizabethtown yesterday - they more or less said Zach Braff beat Crowe by a year with Garden State - and not only did he beat him with sunject matter and tone, Garden State is a more mature, fluid, and effective film - that stings.
Wow, Elizabethtown must be BAD. And by that I mean Garden State was bad (at the very least, overrated). Crowe jumped the shark a while ago, though (not that he was ever ... approaching it ... in the first place). No alarms and no surprises please.
Garden State is better??? Wow...
Quote from: MacGuffinCrowe won an Oscar for his 2000 groupie film "Almost Famous," based on his days as a young Rolling Stone reporter.
do these assholes even watch the movies? they were BAND AIDS! his 2000 groupie film, could there be a more insulting way to encapsulate that film?
'Elizabethtown' to Premiere in Ky. County
Hardin County will host the first U.S. screening of "Elizabethtown," director Cameron Crowe's nod to his Kentucky roots.
The film, starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, will debut at an invitation-only screening on Sept. 17 at Movie Palace in Elizabethtown, WQXE-FM in Elizabethtown reported Friday.
Bloom plays Drew, whose father dies while visiting family in Kentucky. While flying home, he meets Dunst's character Claire, an airline hostess.
Crowe, who directed "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous," will be at the premiere in Elizabethtown. Crowe's father was raised in Powell County.
The film will be shown again in Louisville later that night, and Bloom is planning to attend. Bloom is best known for "Lord of the Rings" and Dunst for her role in the "Spiderman" series.
Parts of the movie were filmed last year in Elizabethtown, Versailles, Louisville and Winchester.
The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival in Italy this week.
"Elizabethtown" is scheduled to be released in mid-October.
clip from Elizabethtown
http://downloads.comingsoon.net/etownclip.mov
Quote from: modageFor anyone who is going (and has hundreds of dollars to pay for a festival pass or connections, LET ME KNOW!) Elizabethtown will be screening a month early as part of the CMJ Film Festival in NYC on Sep 14 at 5PM at the DGA Theater. According to the CMJ site the film is 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours). http://www.cmj.com/marathon/calendar.php?view=films
this is mysteriously gone from the cmj site, so i guess it's not playing there anymore. SWEET. :yabbse-grin: :yabbse-thumbup:
Quote from: cowboykurtisdid anyone read Variey's review of Elizabethtown yesterday - they more or less said Zach Braff beat Crowe by a year with Garden State - and not only did he beat him with sunject matter and tone, Garden State is a more mature, fluid, and effective film - that stings.
hahahaha... that is so fucking awesome...and such a letdown to all the crowe fans praying that e-town might be semi-watchable.
damn, fuckign garden state?!!? BETTER???....hahaha wow!
Breathing new life into that thing called death
Cremation versus traditional burial is rarely a notable plot point in American cinema, but it is in Cameron Crowe's new film.
CREMATION versus traditional burial is rarely a notable plot point in American cinema, but it is in Cameron Crowe's new film, "Elizabethtown."
Orlando Bloom, who stars in the mid-October release, has finally laid down his many swords and shields in favor of taking up his family's funeral burden over their fallen patriarch. That and other accompanying life-after-death decisions set the stage for an unusual road buddy picture and a surprisingly prolonged look at how we grieve and what it all might mean.
For something so fundamental to existence, it's taken mainstream cinema a long time to examine mourning rituals — no doubt because as any junior studio exec knows, focusing on death isn't good for box-office longevity. (A nod must be given to HBO's "Six Feet Under" for paving the commercial way for this picture.)
Of course, this still being American cinema, Bloom's character needs more than just a dead dad. He also must grapple with the apparent death of a romantic relationship, his highflying career and the significance of his own life. In the face of all this, he tells himself and the many who inquire that he's fine, just fine.
Despite the weighty themes, the film isn't a straight dose of doom-and-gloom medicine. As it plays out against a rich and diverse soundtrack, there are plenty of absurdly humorous moments. This is, after all, a film by the comically creative mind behind "Fast Times at Ridgemont High's" Jeff Spicoli, so how depressing can it be?
i love crowe but i dont think starting with the funeral is really that big of a deal. what about The Big Chill?
Quote from: modagei love crowe but i dont think starting with the funeral is really that big of a deal. what about The Big Chill?
haha, yeah i like that big chill. its got great music. i think i heard it thu' the grapevine opens its. the big chill i a good drinkign film for me. i think it would be cool to gather soem close friends once we are older and hang out get drunk and screw each other's wives/girlfriends and talk abotu the old days.
Crowe talking about the music is up at:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/elizabethtown/
A trailer just for the music... weird.
http://movies.aol.com/movie_exclusive_elizabethtown_clip
Town Pleased With 'Elizabethtown'
After seeing the U.S. premiere of Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown," Renee Shaw was pleased that it didn't depict her state in a negative light, even if the movie ran a little long for her taste.
"It had a lot of emotion and realism that movies today sometimes lack," said Shaw, 32, a producer with Kentucky Educational Television.
Crowe screened the movie in its namesake city on Saturday, the first U.S. showing of the film. The movie previously was screened at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival.
"This is a personal movie that I knew I had to come here to make," Crowe told those in the theater.
The movie stars Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon.
The 2-hour, 20-minute version of "Elizabethtown" seen Saturday isn't the final cut, which will be released nationally Oct. 14. Crowe said that he wanted the people here to see a "director's cut" that "is longer and has more soul."
During the screening in Elizabethtown, audience members cheered whenever they spotted a local building or sign.
"But I had tears in my eyes when he got off at our exit. It's home, and it's awesome that somebody wants to share that with the world," said Kelly O'Brien, a lifelong Elizabethtown resident, referring to the film's main character, played by Bloom.
Real-Life Elizabethtown Seeks Film's Fans
The namesake city for the upcoming movie "Elizabethtown" is planning an advertising campaign in hopes of luring the film's fans for a visit.
Two ads promoting the Kentucky city will be shown prior to the movie in theaters in a handful of cities, including Indianapolis, Cincinnati and St. Louis, said Sherry Murphy of the Elizabethtown Tourism & Convention Bureau.
The ads will urge people to visit the town that inspired the movie.
"We're taking very, very strong ties to the movie," Murphy said Monday.
The spotlight will continue to shine on Kentucky for its role in the movie.
Staff members of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" taped segments related to the movie in Louisville on Saturday, Murphy was told by a representative of Paramount Pictures, which is distributing the film.
The program, expected to focus either on actor Orlando Bloom or the movie itself, is scheduled to air in the first week of October. The movie is set for wide release Oct. 14.
"What a huge opportunity for our community," Murphy said. "We're just giddy with excitement over this."
Great article written by Crowe himself; even praising Tarantino, Wes and PT Anderson for their use of music in films.
DIRECTOR'S JOURNAL
Moviemaking, from the soundtrack up
Cameron Crowe on how "the right song at the right time" has shaped his filmmaking throughout his career.
By Cameron Crowe, Special to The Times
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First we see an empty staircase. Then, a pair of dress shoes slowly click-clacks down the steps. Careful hands withdraw a record and place it on an antique phonograph. An obscured figure begins to compose what must surely be a suicide note. You can't help but hold your breath. The movie is "Harold and Maude," and director Hal Ashby has already done more with that frame than most other directors do in an entire movie. But Ashby has left his masterstroke for last.
We begin to hear the music of a Cat Stevens song, "Don't Be Shy." It's optimistic, a love song to love itself, but in this context it's a magical counterpoint. The whole addictive tone of "Harold and Maude" is created in that one moment. The movie is suddenly epic and funny and full of promise. This is what happens when music and movies come together. The right song at the right time is a powerful concoction that can make a sequence, or even an entire movie. It scratches at your soul. Many years after first seeing "Harold and Maude" in a San Diego theater, I still think about that sequence and that song a lot. Hal Ashby made it all look easy.
It's not.
Music, and particularly songs, can be a finicky partner to motion pictures. After all, both are often attempting to tell a complete story, their way, without the help of the other. But just between you and me, right up through my own sixth film as a director, "Elizabethtown," it's been the prospect of those long afternoons and evenings in the editing room, coaxing that marriage between the right song and the right scene, that's kept me going through the grueling parts of making a movie.
Often at 3 a.m., when lights aren't working, or a production problem has erupted, I'll drift back to that secret thrill — well, it's not so secret, actually. Soon I'll have all this film in a room, along with my notebooks filled with music ideas, and the real fun will begin.
Often an idea for a movie will begin with a feeling, or a song. "Elizabethtown" (which opens Oct. 14) was no exception. I had been listening a lot to Ryan Adams, and Patty Griffin's great album "1000 Kisses," and was traveling with my wife, Nancy Wilson, and her band, Heart, on a tour in 2002. One morning I woke up on the tour bus to see those electric-blue landscapes of Kentucky, my father's home state, and felt a wanderlust. I hadn't been back since his funeral, years earlier, but suddenly I wanted off the bus. Soon I was, lost in Kentucky, driving in a rental car and listening to music I'd brought on CD mixes. I wasn't looking for creative inspiration, and of course, that's exactly when it arrived.
The entire story of "Elizabethtown" arrived quickly over the next couple of days, a tale of love and loss and the discovery of family roots in the aftermath of a very black turn of events in the life of a young shoe designer (Orlando Bloom). It was a story that would start with an ending, and end with a beginning and, I hoped, give a sense of what it was to be truly alive. I had been working on a different screenplay idea. Now, I was veering wildly down the Kentucky corridors and byways, making notes as I drove, feeling that rare inspiration.
"Elizabethtown's" music arrived almost fully formed too. I knew quickly that the story, named after a town near my father's birthplace of Stanton, Ky., would offer a chance to showcase a lot of new artists, writers like Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Josh Ritter and Kathleen Edwards, who are creating their own mini-movies in songs filled with deep resonance and imagery. I hoped with "Elizabethtown" that I could let the film breathe a little and take the time to let some of their music play. Much of what ended up in "Elizabethtown" was on those first CD mixes I listened to on the road, imagining the movie.
The movie itself contains a road trip and an elaborate mix-map that Kirsten Dunst's character makes for Orlando Bloom's. The map sends him on a trip across part of America, with her detailed instructions to visit specific places and listen to specific songs at specific times. We traveled across five states shooting the sequence, filming the scenes, using Eddie Hinton's "Yeah Man" in Memphis and the gospel pioneer Washington Phillips to score a visit to Oklahoma City, and much more.
My friend Ivan had the job of playing tracks from my iTunes playlist of appropriate songs, gathered in the months of preproduction. Music filled many of our shooting days, and the set pumped with the feeling of a great American radio station playing everything from bootlegs to new music to obscure gems and back again. It was the emerging sound of "Elizabethtown."
Inspiring a character
IT can be a delicate process, finding the right musical world for a movie. Sometimes one or two songs will rise above the others early on to provide a clue. For "Elizabethtown," it was a song by My Morning Jacket called "I Will Be There When You Die." I also kept returning to a largely forgotten 1987 song by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, "It'll All Work Out." Something about Petty's winsome vocal felt like "Elizabethtown."
I played the song about a hundred times on that first road trip. And it soon became a theme for one of the central characters, a flight attendant who specialized in soothing nervous travelers, a chatty optimist named Claire. Claire, and her theme song, soon became the soul of the movie.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the casting process can be matching the music to an actor. On "Almost Famous," I often played the Joni Mitchell song "People's Parties" and asked actresses auditioning for the part of the groupie Penny Lane to imagine the song playing in their heads as they moved through a crowded dressing room making sure everybody had whatever they needed, from a kind word to a perfectly rolled joint.
Though Kate Hudson won the part, one of the actresses who soaked up music best in the audition was Kirsten Dunst. Several years later, she returned and, while waiting to audition for "Elizabethtown," I played her "It'll All Work Out." She felt the song deeply, nodded quietly, and didn't speak again until it was time to act the scenes. Her entrance in the finished movie, with the song playing, is an almost exact replica of her audition in that small room where she first tried Claire on as a character.
"It'll All Work Out" worked out, but the musical lightning doesn't always strike that quickly, or even at all. For every "Sound of Silence," the Simon and Garfunkel song that ushered in the modern era of rock in cinema in Mike Nichols' "The Graduate," there are a thousand-and-one bombastic, too-literal or buzz-killing song selections that can ruin a movie.
The '80s were a particularly barren time for music in movies. Much of that decade was a "Footloose" hangover with soundtrack albums that began to resemble brazen marketing tools more than evocative souvenirs of the movie experience. Many "soundtracks" began to feature desperate attempts at hit songs that were sometimes not even in the movies themselves. Sacrilege! Songs on a soundtrack must appear in the movie! There, I've said it, and we can move on.
With the work of Quentin Tarantino and P.T. Anderson, the passionate use of records in film is on the rise again. Lately it's been Wes Anderson who's shown a mighty music lover's soul with movies like "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums." "Tenenbaums," in particular, even recalled the great touch of Hal Ashby with one amazing moment when Gwyneth Paltrow departs a bus to the broken majesty of Nico's "These Days."
And then there was his stellar usage of "Ruby Tuesday," the very-cinematic Rolling Stones song many, present company included, had dreamed of using correctly. Anderson let his characters simply play the album and the previous song, "She Smiled Sweetly," tracked into "Ruby Tuesday." Quietly, with devastating results, the song simply appeared … and played in its entirety. You can't use a record in a movie more simply, or better, than that.
Definitive strains
AH, but it's the perfect original song, written specifically for the movie, that remains the holy grail of music in film. Here are a few perfect original song marriages: "Moon River" in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." "Alfie" in "Alfie." "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." One of the towering landmarks of modern music in film was a song that cannot be underestimated in its lasting effect, Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin' " in "Midnight Cowboy." Harry Nilsson covered the song and gave it an extra coat of sadness and longing. While it technically wasn't written for the film, "Everybody's Talkin' " provides a strong lesson in how to write an original song with the specific boundaries of a specific movie.
It's a tricky thing. Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan cracked the code with their Oscar-winning compositions for "Philadelphia" and "The Wonder Boys," but many a rocker has stumbled on the path to similar glory. For an original motion picture song to truly work, it can't be that obviously about the movie. The best original movie songs evoke the feeling of the movie more than the story. "Everybody's talking at me / Can't hear a word they're sayin' " elevated and deepened its film partner, and delivered the bittersweet tone of "Midnight Cowboy." Imagine if the song lyrics had been, "We're hustlers, baby, trying to make it on the streets of New York." The poetic quotient plummets. Suddenly, everybody starts looking a little less timeless.
For "Elizabethtown," Jim James and My Morning Jacket hit the note with a song called "Where to Begin." Against a scene when a family memorial moves into a backyard, it taps the woozy summer feeling of longing, and a tantalizing regret, with the line "… it's the art of feeling naked … in your clothes." I can't imagine the movie without it.
Sometimes the right song works in a different way than it was originally intended. For the soundtrack of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Jackson Browne penned a song called "Somebody's Baby." It was a romantic portrait of Stacy, the character played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and it had a memorably poignant chorus. Somehow it didn't fit anywhere in the movie. Late one night, playing DJ at home with a video rough cut, I tried the song on one completely incongruous and unromantic sequence involving an awkward episode of teenage sex. It worked, immediately. Perhaps too well. I've heard that Browne sometimes introduces it in concert like this: "Well, here's a love song I wrote about a girl, and somehow it became an anthem for premature ejaculation."
With "Say Anything," there was one important scene with a boombox that needed a great record. In the sequence, Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) wants to remind his ex-girlfriend of their love by serenading her with "their" song, standing on a hillside and holding his stereo high above his head, pointing it into her bedroom. It was a moment of heartache and rebellion and heroism. No song worked.
Cusack was a huge fan of the Los Angeles ska-funk band Fishbone at the time, and it's actually their "Bonin' in the Boneyard" that he was playing as we filmed the scene. But blasting that song in the finished movie, Lloyd appeared to be a crazed Fishbone fan, forcing his musical taste on a sleeping girl.
Then I came upon a tape of songs from our wedding, nestled in the glove compartment of my car. Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" was one of the songs on the tape, and instantly, every word and note felt written for the elusive boombox scene. I raced into the editing room, and sure enough, the song worked. In fact, it really worked. But the movie had to be finished in days, and we needed to secure the rights to the song fast. Only one problem: Peter Gabriel did not allow his extremely personal composition to be used for movies.
Still, he agreed to look at a videotape of "Say Anything," and a week later, I was given the message to call him. He didn't waste a moment in turning me down in a slightly sad and resolute voice. "Thank you for letting me watch your film," he added, "and I'm truly sorry that I can't give you the approval to use the song."
I was about hang up. For some reason, I couldn't help blurting out the question hanging in the air: "But why?"
"Well," he said wearily, "I just … I didn't feel it was right for when he took the overdose."
"Wait. There's no overdose in my movie."
There was a pause. "Yours isn't the John Belushi film? 'Wired'?"
"No — mine is called 'Say Anything.' "
"Oh the teenage movie," said Gabriel, cheering instantly. "I haven't watched it yet!"
Several days later he gave us the OK. I think I'm still celebrating. The yearning in the song matched the defiance in Cusack's face, saying all the things that Cusack, as Lloyd, needed to tell his ex-girlfriend, but couldn't.
Antidote to angst
TINY DANCER" was one of my favorite songs as a young journalist in the '70s, and I'm probably proudest of the singalong scene we filmed in "Almost Famous" because I'd wanted to capture the inner fan that lurks within even the most hardened rockers. I'd often seen those moments on tour when a record appeared on the radio or in a restaurant and suddenly all the tensions could evaporate for the length of the right song. Fandom could break out for those three minutes and blatantly reveal the giddy love of music that powers most musicians, much more than sex or drugs ever did or could.
The scene worked, I thought, even as we were shooting it, because the actors threw themselves completely into that display of unabashed love of rock. (Except, of course, Noah Taylor, who disliked the song enormously but can be seen gamely struggling through the exercise.) Some criticized the scene as a product of rose-colored vision. But in the years since the movie's release, it's been the most grizzled and unsentimental musicians who sought me out most strenuously to say, "That scene happened to us." And then, in a quieter voice, "Don't ever write this, but we once sang along to … (insert guilty-pleasure pop classic)."
The right record can also alter the atmosphere during the making of a movie, often in immeasurable ways. Starting with "Jerry Maguire," I developed a habit of playing music on the set to create a mood. Such is the power of music that it can color almost any situation. Sometimes I'll play the song in a quiet moment to remind the actor of the tone of the sequence, even during their performance. Jeff Wexler, our sound mixer, was horrified when I first did it. Over time, we've worked out a delicate dance where our film audio tracks are always usable later. It's a dance we've come to love.
Tom Cruise acted many of his scenes as Jerry Maguire with the actual music playing, from the Who's "Magic Bus" to Bruce Springsteen's "Secret Garden." Cruise compared it to the job of an athlete. Each song was the equivalent of being passed the emotional football. "Play whatever you want," he'd say, "I'll run with it." This method doesn't work for everybody, or at least not at first. Intoxicated with opportunity, on my first day working with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs in "Almost Famous," I surprised him by playing Iggy and the Stooges at full volume in the middle of his second take. He looked at me as if his concentration had been shattered to pieces, which of course it had.
"What was that?" Hoffman asked in a measured voice.
"I was playing the music that you're listening to in the scene," I explained. Many faces were now looking at me, staring. "Yeah, I know," said Hoffman patiently. "I was already acting it."
We soon found our language together. Sometimes we worked with music in the take, sometimes we didn't. Hoffman, of course, brings his own audio stimulus. In between each take, he'd slip on headphones and listen to the voice of Bangs himself.
Mining musicians' sensibility
FOR "Elizabethtown," I wanted to cast as many musicians as possible. There's something about music lovers, and musicians, that can seep onto the screen and even give a movie an extra jolt of lyricism. Loudon Wainwright III and Patty Griffin both play family members to Orlando Bloom's Drew. And members of My Morning Jacket make up the band fronted by Drew's cousin, Jessie, played by Paul Schneider. Schneider, who is also a musician, plays a singing drummer. Even Bloom is a big music fan and would often request the music of Jeff Buckley or John Martyn to set the tone for a scene. The music in the movie functions like a character, and a secret guide, a voice whispering in the viewer's ear.
I think I knew "Elizabethtown" would be a very musical endeavor on the first day. The first scene was a funeral discussion set in a graveyard, and to say the scene was lacking life would be more than a bad pun. One of the actors had developed a memory problem, another was twitching from nervousness. Something had to be done. I leaned over to Ivan. "Play 'Don't Be Shy,' " I told him.
A moment later, out of our set speakers crackled that time-honored Cat Stevens song. Suddenly tensions began to ease. The soft irony of the record smoothed the nervousness — poetry was in the air again. Jeff Wexler had been a production assistant on "Harold and Maude." He slipped over to me and nodded his head. "Somewhere Hal Ashby is smiling," he said, and though only the two of us knew the reference, the mood of our movie was almost immediately recaptured with this small tribute to a great moment in movie music history. Our scene was finished shortly afterward.
Nothing ever beats the power of the human voice in a movie, speaking words that matter, but the right music can sure be a powerful ally.
The right song at the right time.
I looked around the cemetery, the green hillsides shimmering with layers of light. "Don't be shy … just let your feelings roll on by…. " All around me, equipment was being packed up. "Elizabethtown" had just begun, and there was a whiff of magic in the air. An elderly man, an extra in the funeral scene, came over to me. "I like that you play music when you're making your movie," he said. "What else you got?"
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Contact Cameron Crowe at calendar.letters@latimes.com
Quote from: MacGuffinMany "soundtracks" began to feature desperate attempts at hit songs that were sometimes not even in the movies themselves. Sacrilege! Songs on a soundtrack must appear in the movie! There, I've said it, and we can move on.
i love crowe.
Quote from: MacGuffin(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.calendarlive.com%2Fmedia%2Fphoto%2F2005-09%2F19604424.jpg&hash=d301a8ab588389f82da1f54ea7b88d2514c5a5ce)
It looks like Orlando's making his move here.
It looks like he just ran into a wall.
FWIW one of my film school professors, whom ive become friends with, went to an Elizabethtown junket last week in LA. He saw a shorter cut (2 hours) and he enjoyed it a lot. He said that he'd still cut a couple of things but overall he really liked it. Although he is a fan, he also disliked Vanilla Sky, so he seems objective. He also had the chance to interview Cameron and really enjoyed talking to him. Im trying to get my hands on the footage, if i can ill try to encode it and post it or something.
I saw a tv spot for Elizabethtown last night and again tonight while watching The Daily Show. They were both different ones. 8)
Quote from: BethieI saw a tv spot for Elizabethtown last night and again tonight while watching The Daily Show. They were both different ones. 8)
I have the feeling "We peaked on the phone" is going to join the growing pantheon of oft-quoted Crowe dialogue.
There's a screening for this on Monday and then a junket on Wednesday...and I'm having a lot of trouble convincing myself to go to either.
why? id go in a second :saywhat:
feel like youll be dissapointed?
The trailers have been making me cringe, and the bad reviews haven't helped.
And I know I shouldn't judge a movie on the trailers, but still...
might as well go and makeup your mind :) especially if you dont have to pay for your ticket :-D
my professor was prepared to be dissapointed, because he disliked Vanilla Sky... and he enjoyed it. Although he said that obviously it wasnt perfect (or close to.)
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Kentucky Fried Movie
After lackluster festival reviews, director Cameron Crowe scrambles to get his heartfelt romantic comedy ''Elizabethtown'' in shape for general audiences. Will they show him the money? by Christine Spines, EW
Cameron Crowe is having a quintessentially Cameron Crowe moment. If he had written it himself, an Elton John song might be playing over the scene and you, the fired-up audience member, would suddenly be singing along under your breath, rooting for the shaggy underdog to survive the firestorm that has engulfed his world, turning his life from comedy to high-stakes drama without his consent. In typical Crowe fashion, his rescue would probably come in the form of a soulful, beautiful woman with great taste in music who shows up with just enough good humor and good sense to remind him why he loves his life and that none of that other stuff matters. It's been a rough week for Crowe, 48, who recently screened his new movie, Elizabethtown, at the Toronto film festival, and watched critics have at it like a piñata. Crowe, a best-screenplay Oscar winner for Almost Famous, has been a critics' pet ever since he made his directorial debut with Say Anything... in 1989; which may be why he felt confident enough to take the risky step of entering the festival with an unfinished cut. His much-anticipated wistful black comedy follows a shoe designer (Orlando Bloom) whose professional fall from grace is cushioned by a new romance with an eccentric stewardess (Kirsten Dunst) and a reconnection with his Kentucky roots following his father's death. But reviewers at Toronto reacted with something close to outrage, complaining the film was manipulative instead of moving, cloying instead of charming.
There are two gods whom filmmakers aim to please: critics and audiences. Having faltered with one, Crowe is now counting on regular moviegoers for redemption. Even before he hit the festival circuit, Crowe had begun assembling an alternate, shorter cut of the movie, just in case the longer one didn't play. Now, he has his work cut out for him, with only three weeks to whittle his 135-minute Toronto version into the kind of tight, emotionally resonant crowd-pleaser his fans have come to expect. But even though Crowe is confident he'll be able to iron out the wrinkles, the sting of bad reviews lingers, especially with a film as nakedly personal as this one, which was inspired by Crowe's experiences in Elizabethtown, Ky., after his own father's death in 1989.
Today, Crowe is peering out the front windshield of an Almost Famous-style rock & roll tour bus. He's making another pilgrimage to Elizabethtown, where he's come to premiere the eponymous movie he shot here last summer. He's excited and a bit nervous as a police escort of four squad cars form a caravan leading him into town.
Crowe's eyes widen as a crowd of hundreds appears on the roadside, waving homemade signs and cheering his arrival. (Cue Sir Elton.) There's a guy holding a boom box above his head paying tribute to John Cusack's lovelorn serenade in Say Anything.... Two middle-aged women display a banner saying ''Show me the movie!'' Then there's the teenage girl with a glittery poster bearing the Almost Famous catchphrase: ''It's All Happening! Thank You, Cameron.''
For what seems like miles, diehards of all shapes and sizes line the rainy streets to hail Crowe for speaking to them in ways entirely personal to each of them. How else to explain a droopy-lidded man standing in the rain with a tiny, weeks-old infant tucked into the crook of his tattooed arm, holding an Elizabethtown poster in his free hand, and wearing a T-shirt proclaiming ''BEER: Helping ugly people have sex since 1862.'' Crowe, clearly stirred by the outpouring, turns to face his wife (and Elizabethtown's composer), Nancy Wilson, from the band Heart, who came along for moral support. ''Well, I'm glad you're here,'' he says with a slight strain of melancholy, ''so it's [proof] that it's actually real.''
For many moviegoers, Crowe is the guy who defined first love (Say Anything...), the grunge generation (Singles), what it means to be a man (Jerry Maguire), and the lonely heart of rock & roll (Almost Famous). They'll forgive him a misfire on Vanilla Sky, a misguided detour into darkness that ill suited his sunny sensibility. But now it's time to deliver the goods, and expectations are primed for Elizabethtown, Crowe's return to what he does best: young love and personal reinvention.
Crowe is one of the few writer-directors making idiosyncratic, personal movies within the mainstream studio system, and he can scarcely afford another flop after 2001's Vanilla Sky underperformed at the box office ($101 million is actually peanuts for a Tom Cruise movie) and failed to deliver his usual rhapsodic reviews. He is a true Hollywood anomaly in that he has steadfastly resisted all temptation to make a quick buck as a director- or writer-for-hire in between his personal movies, à la Steven Soderbergh. Crowe tells stories that come from the inside out, turning his preoccupations and life experiences into modern folk tales. Still, after a summer where Hollywood sent out a desperate APB for more original filmmaking, even brand-name directors like Crowe only get so many strikes. And after the screening at Toronto, where Elizabethtown went from festivalgoers' must-see list to the not-for-me or, at best, the wait-and-see list, the onus is now on Crowe to make sure Elizabethtown fills theaters and leaves the door open to a future full of the movies only he can make.
No stranger to doomsday predictions, Crowe takes solace in his experience with films that have prevailed over a din of bad buzz. ''With Fast Times [at Ridgemont High], they didn't want to put the movie out and it tested really poorly,'' says Crowe, who made his screenwriting debut with the teen sex comedy directed by Amy Heckerling. He was similarly vindicated when he later released a longer director's cut of Almost Famous on DVD to high praise after the studio-mandated shorter cut generated lackluster box office. ''It was very similar [to Elizabethtown]. Many things I've written have had a tough little curve.''
The illusions of success and failure and the precarious line that separates them have become recurring themes for Crowe both on screen and off. It's no wonder, considering he soared to the top of the magazine journalism world at the tender age of 16, writing cover stories for Rolling Stone, and has occupied the upper echelons of moviemaking ever since Say Anything.... So it's probably no accident that both Jerry Maguire and Elizabethtown revolve around characters whose thriving careers face sudden death. Even Say Anything...'s Lloyd Dobler was defined by his failure to have any ambitions beyond love and, similarly, Singles' Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott) became a depressed shut-in when his work project was nixed by the mayor. It's almost as if his movies are anxiety dreams with happy endings, writ large.
Back on the bus en route to the theater, Crowe has fallen under the spell of the lush, neon-green Kentucky countryside, which inspired the movie in the first place. ''Nancy was on tour [with Heart] and I woke up one morning and it was like this outside the window,'' he says. ''And I said, 'I have to rent a car and drive around.' That's where the whole movie came from.... My dad was stationed at Fort Knox nearby and this is the route he would drive into town.'' For Crowe — or any guy, really — writing about his feelings for his father was the emotional equivalent of touching the third rail. Even today, he's still tentative about copping to the script's personal origins. ''I could have just as easily said, 'I made the story up,''' he admits, as if that temptation is still with him right now. ''But I figured, f--- it. Tell the story of where it came from, because wouldn't my dad love this movie that's largely about his state and the feelings we had?''
In some respects, the film almost plays like a mixtape of moments — some new, some culled from his other movies. When Bloom's bottomed-out shoe designer immerses himself in the seemingly alien world of his long-lost Kentucky relatives planning for his father's funeral, he is able to reconnect with the most alive parts of himself and the memory of his father. Dunst's stewardess is an effervescent free spirit, hell-bent on healing Bloom's ailing heart even while hers could use some mending itself. Surrounding them is a menagerie of kooky lost souls that includes Susan Sarandon as Bloom's mother in denial of the death of her husband.
Since the male lead would essentially be playing Crowe in his mid-20s, the writer-director struggled to find an actor who could balance the pain of losing a parent with comedy. Though he had first shown the script to Bloom, with whom he'd made a Gap commercial and become pen pals, each sending the other music and postcards over the years, he ended up initially casting Ashton Kutcher because of Bloom's scheduling conflicts. ''I had a bunch of work sessions with Ashton and then the work sessions started to end on a slightly less high-fiving note,'' Crowe says, carefully. ''It wasn't quite jelling.''
Kutcher soon left the project, and by that time, Bloom was available. From the moment he stepped into the role, Bloom was keenly aware he had entered into unfamiliar territory. ''This was the first time where I was playing a real guy, a real character in a real experience. I wanted to do a contemporary movie, because I started getting the sense that people thought I was a one-trick pony,'' The Lord of the Rings star says, doubled over with exhaustion in a Kentucky hotel room after pulling an all-nighter on the set of Pirates 2 and 3 and flying in for the premiere. ''I felt so proud to be in a movie that was trying to take a risk. Not everyone will necessarily... It might fly over some people's heads or nail them right in the heart.''
The experience has made Bloom sanguine about his attitude toward his own future in Hollywood. ''It's bizarre to me that Kingdom of Heaven could open at number one, make over $200 million worldwide, and still be considered a failure,'' says Bloom of the expensive, much-anticipated 2005 summer epic whose domestic box office fizzled out at a disappointing $47 million. ''Now I think that's actually really cool because for me, it's part of the process. That's what gets you the scars, those fights. It's a notch here, a notch there, and it becomes some sort of life in itself. You [just] don't want to shrink from it.''
Dunst, who first impressed Crowe when she was a runner-up for Kate Hudson's role in Almost Famous, felt an immediate kinship with her character. She was cast early, after a typical Crowe audition, in which he played the music he'd picked out for the film to see how she responded to it and, more important, how the music sounded played against her image in close-up. ''You have this video camera in your face and I would react to different songs he would play,'' recalls Dunst, who rarely auditions but agreed because of Crowe's indelible female characters. ''Cameron wrote a beautiful role. She's messy, wise, and sad. And the words came easily to me.''
While shooting, Crowe played music to help the actors access the characters' emotions. It's a technique the director hit upon courtesy of Tom Cruise. ''We were doing the scene where Jerry Maguire's writing the mission statement and I started playing this song by His Name Is Alive and Tom was like, 'Keep it playing!' and he acted to the song and it was great,'' recalls Crowe, who appointed his assistant to be the on-set DJ, playing mostly Jeff Buckley and Simon and Garfunkel for Bloom, and Rilo Kiley and Rufus Wainwright for Dunst. Still, there are risks involved: Play the wrong song and the mood is dead. ''Kirsten came hard with her own opinions on what should be playing,'' Crowe says. ''I put on the Monkees and Kirsten just stopped and said, 'I can't do this.' She's a really hardcore music fan so sometimes it felt like being her DJ.''
Though Crowe puts on a brave face and says he doesn't give much power to Elizabethtown's naysayers, he reveals flashes of vulnerability when defending his movie as if it were his child who just got beat up after school. ''This movie is definitely a populist film, not created for cynics,'' says the director, who insists that non-industry audiences have responded positively in test screenings. ''It's the nature of this one that it's tough to get all the pieces right.... And you saying something is a 'work-in-progress' is like handing everybody a red pencil and saying, 'What are your notes?'''
Even after Toronto, Paramount, the studio releasing Elizabethtown, has refrained from the usual panicked meddling. ''Reviews are what they are. You live with them, hopefully learn from them, and move on,'' says Gail Berman, president of Paramount Pictures. ''We're on the same message since we began. The populist reaction to the movie is overwhelming. We're going on this journey with [Crowe] and believing in this process.'' In other words, Crowe has final cut.
In the new version, Crowe says he's honing the focus on Bloom's character and trimming the memorial scene, in which Sarandon's character busts out with an odd stand-up comedy routine. ''It's going to be 18 minutes shorter,'' he says. ''I cut down a lot of the goodbyes toward the end. There were two choices about how to do the movie: as a double or a long single CD. The way it was shot suggested you could make it more of a spell-creating experience [where] you go through some of this stuff almost in real time.''
Crowe, a self-described ''warrior for optimism,'' continues to battle what feels to him like an encroaching tide of cynicism, insisting that moviegoers, the real people, have got his back. His bus arrives at the theater and he is greeted by three little girls holding a banner that says ''Welcome Back to E-Town. Small town. Big heart. Just like you!'' He smiles and waves. For now, at least, his instincts are confirmed: This is humanity putting its best foot forward. The besieged protagonist of this story has found the warm embrace of an audience primed to love his movie, right here where it was born when he came to say goodbye to his father for the final time 16 years ago. ''I like that someone might come up to me and say, 'Did the father die to save his son's life?' It sure beats sitting around in a room with buddies, going, 'How do we do the heist movie for the millionth time?''' Crowe says, before stepping off the bus. ''This movie chose me. And if it works out that I get slaughtered for a movie that came from my heart, I can live with myself.''
Man, I tried to keep an open mind...but this movie seriously was anathema to my sensibilities. I haven't really watched a Cameron Crowe film since Vanilla Sky came out, and I really liked him back then. I have a feeling I've sorta outgrown him, but still, putting myself in a 2001 mindset, this is really pretty subpar. There's one really good scene, an extended phone call between Bloom and Dunst that soars with goofy romantic exuberance, but the rest of it is either bland or downright nauseating. I feel like I need to go watch Broken Flowers to cleanse myself.
Quote from: GhostboyThere's one really good scene, an extended phone call between Bloom and Dunst that soars with goofy romantic exuberance
Quote from: polkabluesI have the feeling "We peaked on the phone" is going to join the growing pantheon of oft-quoted Crowe dialogue.
polkadamus
UnScripted with Crowe and Bloom: http://movies.aol.com/unscripted_elizabethtown_movie_bloom
Director Crowe looks at success, failure in new film
For "Jerry Maguire" director "Cameron Crowe," whose new movie "Elizabethtown" debuts on Friday, his Hollywood career is all about time.
"Time," Crowe said, "puts things in proper perspective."
The saying is as appropriate for Crowe as it is for the main character in romantic comedy "Elizabethtown," a young dreamer named Drew who falls into a funk after an athletic shoe he designs turns into a financial fiasco for its manufacturer.
Crowe told Reuters he suffered a similar fate after his most recent films, 2001's "Vanilla Sky" and 2000's "Almost Famous." Surreal drama "Sky" proved a hit at box offices, but was panned by critics. "Famous," a personal story about a boy's first love, was a critical success but a box office flop.
From Hollywood's perspective, Crowe needs a hit from the new movie he wrote, directed and produced to retain his status as one of his generation's top talents. But the director doesn't see it quite that way. Over time, he said "Sky" and "Famous" have earned loyal fans, and both have done just fine financially when box office, video and DVD sales are combined.
"Almost Famous" "felt like a public embarrassment, and it kind of mirrors what happens in this new movie," Crowe said. "But now, however many years later, nobody remembers it was a dud in theaters. They only remember they dug that movie."
"Elizabethtown" is a personal story, although not as close to Crowe's own life as "Famous," in which the main character covers a rock tour for a music magazine much as Crowe wrote about music for Rolling Stone magazine.
In "Elizabethtown," Drew's depression following the shoe debacle is interrupted by his father's sudden death while on a trip home to Kentucky. So Drew goes there to arrange for the body to be returned to Oregon where Drew and his family live.
Things don't work out exactly as Drew planned, but he is embraced by his country cousins, aunts and uncles. Their warmth and a budding romance with a flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) he meets on his trip give Drew a new outlook on life.
LOST IN KENTUCKY
"The powering thing behind the movie was to capture the feeling of being alone and going back to Kentucky and getting walloped by a sense of family I hadn't realized was so much in place," Crowe said.
"That root system can really surprise you, particularly if you're caught up in your own little success and failure world, and all the sudden you realize there are bigger issues: family, life and death," he added.
The idea for making "Elizabethtown" came to Crowe in summer 2002 following the release of "Vanilla Sky" while he was on tour with his wife, Nancy Wilson, who plays with the rock group Heart.
The tour bus was driving through Kentucky where Crowe hadn't been since his father's death. He was struck by the countryside's beauty. So, he got off the bus, rented a car and "got lost" on the state's back roads and highways.
In another parallel to Crowe's life, Drew goes on a road trip visiting landmarks such as the memorial to bombing victims in Oklahoma City and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee where Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered.
So far, "Elizabethtown" has received mixed early reviews mainly from its screening at September's Toronto Film Festival. Since then, Crowe has said he trimmed 18 minutes from the film's length. He likens the festival screenings to tests.
"It was a work in progress. It was educational to just sit in the theater and look at it. It is, at its heart, a comedy, and I've always felt you tune a comedy by watching it with people," he said.
Whether "Elizabethtown" is eventually deemed a "Maguire" like hit, a "Famous" style flop, or something in between like "Vanilla Sky," Crowe said he is not so concerned anymore.
From the new movie, he said he is most struck by some words he wrote that are spoken by Drew's girlfriend, Claire, who tells her moribund beau, "Fail big and stick around and make them wonder why you're still smiling."
"It's hard to do," Crowe said. "But it's good advice." And then he grinned.
An interview with Cameron Crowe, director of "Elizabethtown"
By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic
Cameron Crowe understands the flavor of a place. Watch "Singles," his 1992 valentine to Seattle, and see the details that make it unmistakably our town at that time: the slightly grubby coffeehouse, where everyone seemed to be in a band; the easy camaraderie of a run-down Capitol Hill apartment complex filled with twentysomethings; the visionary concept, voiced reverently by Campbell Scott, of rapid transit.
Or remember how "Almost Famous" sets us firmly into the disarming strangeness that is Southern California in its opening moments: a goofy Christmas song (by Alvin and the Chipmunks) plays over the bright sunshine, as a boy and his mother step squinting out of a movie theater into the sunny, tinsel-laden streets.
At the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Crowe talked about translating the idea of Seattle into film.
"Seattle was the first place that I lived that felt like a real community, where everybody wanted to stay," he said. "That was sort of the original idea of 'Singles,' single people becoming their own family, in a place where they wanted to stay. That's the way it still is, to me." He and wife Nancy Wilson — whose band Heart helped shape the Seattle music scene — still have a home here, in Woodinville, though they're now based in Los Angeles.
With his new movie "Elizabethtown" (opening in several theaters tomorrow), Crowe takes on a very different place: a small Kentucky town. But, like many of Crowe's films, it's a place that's already in his heart. Crowe's father, who died in the late '80s (right after "Say Anything," Crowe says), was from Kentucky, and after his death Crowe and Wilson traveled there, to get to know the family.
"It felt like a faraway place that was still home," Crowe remembered of that trip. "I'd been to Europe, but for some reason Kentucky felt more far-flung. It feels like another place, and you feel like that to them.
"In Southern California, there's that feeling of people in transit. I grew up in Southern California, so whenever I ran across a world where your relatives stayed, and they lived a few miles away, and you have the roots that are really strong in your community, that always felt like a wonderful romantic notion. And this [movie] was about discovering this whole root system that you didn't realize you had."
As its title indicates, "Elizabethtown" is at heart about the mood of a specific town, and the way a young man (Orlando Bloom) gets caught up in its spell. Mirroring Crowe's life, the film's hero travels there after his father's death. Reeling from a colossal business failure, he meets a charismatic young woman (Kirsten Dunst), and gradually comes to feel at ease in this very different place.
Though the town seems idyllic, "Elizabethtown" hasn't been a smooth journey; there were casting changes (Bloom was a late replacement for Ashton Kutcher) and last-minute edits after some less-than-glowing reviews. In Toronto, just a few weeks before tomorrow's release date, Crowe said that feedback from festival screenings convinced him that "Elizabethtown" needed more trimming.
"I felt, sitting in the audience last night, I know what to do," he said. "It was a movie about saying goodbye, and last looks, and I knew I had a few too many goodbyes and endings." The Toronto version clocked in at 2 hours 15 minutes; the new version is just under the two-hour mark.
"Elizabethtown" is Crowe's sixth film as director, following the 2001 romantic thriller "Vanilla Sky." He's looking to do something quite different next: a real out-and-out comedy.
"When I was on the plane the other day, I was walking past the cabin where all these people had their [movie] screens going. There was such delight over what they were watching, and I turned around and it was almost entirely comedies. And it made me think, I'm that way too. I just feel like laughing."
He's eager to return to the Northwest to work on the screenplay. "[Seattle] is the best place to just kind of be in the world," he said, "out of the environment where you generally work really hard to get movies finished, just breathe the air and feel life and tell new stories."
And while it's too soon to tell where the next one will be set, it's clear he still has some unfinished business with the city he documented in "Singles" and "Say Anything." He speaks, tongue in cheek, about how there's no plaque at that Capitol Hill apartment house to mark where "Singles" was shot.
"After 'Singles,' it was so funny," he said, "because nobody ever said, 'here's where they filmed 'Singles.' But they would say 'Sleepless in Seattle' was here, 'Sleepless in Seattle' was there, the people making 'Sleepless in Seattle' once walked through this building.
"Next time, my goal is to really leave a little something behind."
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Cameron Crowe trivia
His mother, Alice Crowe (who now lives in White Rock, B.C.), has appeared in all of his movies. In "Elizabethtown," look for her at the memorial scene, in an all-blue outfit with a blue hat.
The Tom Cruise role in "Jerry Maguire" was at one point offered to Hugh Grant. "Can you imagine, if he'd said yes?" said Crowe. He riffed some lines from the film, in a spot-on Grant accent: "Show me the money. Show it, to me. Rod. Oh, for God's sake, Rod. Show me, please. Let me glimpse the money."
Speaking of casting, Ashton Kutcher was originally slated to play Drew, the male lead, when Orlando Bloom — Crowe's first choice — had scheduling conflicts. Kutcher left the project at the rehearsal stage, at which point Bloom's schedule had cleared.
Crowe and Wilson continued their tradition of writing "fake rock songs" — begun while writing songs for Stillwater in "Almost Famous" — in "Elizabethtown," by writing a tune for the band Ruckus, of which Drew's cousin is a member. "If I ever tried to write a [real] song with Nancy, we'd never finish it, it would be too intimating," said Crowe. "But to write a fake song, for a wannabe Southern rock band, it's 'oh, right, it would sound like this. ' "
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
A Conversation with Cameron Crowe
Forget about drugs, says the Elizabethtown director; sex and rock & roll are enough to save us all.
After working as an entertainment reporter for a few years, a time comes when you start to feel that you've seen it all, said it all, and asked it all. It's not a matter of becoming jaded, as much as it is just plain getting tired - tired of asking the same questions about actors' motivations, screenwriters' inspirations, and directors' complications. And after a while, it all seems to boil down to the writer's frustrations: how do I muster enough energy to ask Paris Hilton about her acting challenges in House of Wax, and then turn around and write a feature that's interesting to readers, much less myself?
Thankfully, there are those few occasions whereupon writers get to embrace their inner googolplex-goer, their closet fanboy, and interview someone whom they respect and enjoy on a personal level as much as a professional one. Such is the case for me, somewhat appropriately, with Cameron Crowe, who was himself at one time a reporter, and went on to become one of Hollywood's most respected filmmakers with works like Say Anything, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. Being that the last of these films is my favorite of all time - a fact I unfortunately felt compelled to mention several times during our interview - I was perhaps understandably excited to sit down with him to discuss his latest project, the coming-of-age 'dramedy' Elizabethtown.
From our first moments together, Crowe proved to be a charming, articulate fellow; not only did he appreciate my enthusiasm, as unfocused as it may have been, but he responded in kind, offering sage wisdom about moviemaking as much as life itself. But what emerged from our time together wasn't merely an interview, or a dreaded question-and-answer session devoid of fluidity or palpable interaction. Rather, it became the unlikeliest of exchanges, particularly in a business where everyone's selling but no one's buying: a real, true-blue conversation.
So departing a bit from IGN FilmForce's typical approach to movie coverage, here are the minutes of our time together, captured in their shamelessly personal, unedited glory; and while I'd apologize for doing Cameron Crowe the disservice of attaching my own comments to his much more insightful ones, I can only throw myself on the mercy of the court, and openly confess the source of my inspiration - that is, Elizabethtown, his own shamelessly personal, far more dexterously edited moviemaking vision.
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IGN FILMFORCE: I recently read the article you wrote about music and movies for the Los Angeles Times and thought it was great, especially in terms of your sort of encyclopedic approach to looking at the way music and images work together. What kind of pressure do you feel internally to go, 'I have to pay tribute to the fans of my films?'
CAMERON CROWE: Zero. I mean, I'm a fan of that kind of movie, so it's really 'am I overdoing it,' you know what I mean? Should I shake it up and put no music in a movie, which I'm sort of thinking about for the next one. [But] once I start I can't stop (laughs).
IGN: When you're selecting music, how difficult is it to pick a song - for instance, there's certainly an impulse to find that obscure song that means a million things to you but you put it in the movie and maybe it's too new, or too old, or too obscure or something that nails a feeling for you but just doesn't work on screen. How often do you find that happens to you?
CROWE: Most of the time. I mean, there was a version of the road trip where a friend of mine saw it and said, "dude, it sounds like a new music sampler; c'mon - nobody would make a mix tape like that!" And it was true and it wasn't authentic enough, because a real mix CD made by [Kirsten Dunst's] character would have something like "Pride in the Name of Love," like a chestnut, and then a joke song and then a new song and then a semi-old song. So that was more truthful, I think, but I had all of this new music I wanted to play: definitely Josh Ritter, and "Mercury" by Kathleen Edwards, and some of that had to drop away.
IGN: Speaking of Kirsten Dunst's character, some of the other journalists and myself were having this discussion about how this character, a lot like [Say Anything's] Diane Cort and Reenee Zellweger's character in Jerry Maguire and Kate Hudson's character [in Almost Famous], that seem to be almost too good to be true, in the sense that I'm not entirely convinced that people exist in reality. You've mentioned in interviews before that there are elements of the characters drawn from your own life and your own relationships, but at what point is creating characters like this a kind of wish fulfillment for people my age who have yet to meet girls who are as cool, grounded, down to earth, insightful, and know everything about music that we want them to know?
CROWE: It's not wish fulfillment. If anything, she's sort of - she is sort of an angel. She is sent to him, and it is the first stages of a relationship and there are warts in everybody; relationships are a warts-and-all experience. But in the time of the story, I guess, I think she was sent to him with a purpose - to help save him - and the challenge is, and I think she sort of issues it him, is like 'are you really going to be in the world and appreciate me?' and that's what the journey of the road trip is; like, figure yourself out and maybe I'll be there. I think as the movie ends, he's ready for the ride, and maybe if the story continued, we'd see more of her maniacal control-freak side that made her create the map and the questionable relationship with Ben. The problems are just below the surface, but for the flow of the story I think she's an angel, a real live angel. But I do like a character in a movie that's sort of a knockaround truth-teller, and that's her in this movie.
IGN: I think in a larger sense, your movie sort of serve that purpose too. Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies - actually, my favorite movie - for the reason that unlike so many other sort of adolescent-oriented films, it really nails the sort of heartbreaking sadness of realizing the way that love and sex are often mutually exclusive from one another; personally, I think that Almost Famous and Rushmore are the only two movies that I've ever seen that accurately depicted that, where you sort of realize sex is not love and love is not sex...
CROWE: Can I suggest another one for you?
IGN: Sure.
CROWE: Have you ever seen Quadrophenia?
IGN: I haven't, no.
CROWE: Brotha, you've got to see Quadrophenia for the love affair that happens between Jimmy and a character named Steph; it will kill you. I mean, just when you were talking about Rushmore, I was like "I'm there - I know that ache." It's very familiar to me. I'm honored that you put Almost Famous in the category and I went right to Quadrophenia. When Steph says, "it was just a giggle," whew, harsh - and you'll never forget her. You know what I mean? You, the character, Jimmy, that's the girl you never forget: she sleeps with you and it just didn't mean what it meant to you. That's a beautiful melancholy (laughs).
IGN: That's what works about the scene [in Almost Famous] where William loses his virginity. That's a moment that under any other circumstances would be the end of American Pie - that would be his sort of moment of triumph, and I could totally appreciate the idea of wanting to share that with a certain person and not being able to. How difficult is it to come up with those sort of twists and turns that sort of take a conventional moment like that - losing one's virginity - and give it a different sort of slant? Do you write a scene from the outside and then go in and flip it around, or is it just a matter of putting things together exclusively based on your personal experiences?
CROWE: Uh, it changes. That's a really good question. That scene came from real life, and the feeling that the girl you want it to be with is the one leaving the room. The other thing is everybody's virginity-losing episode is different; none of them are movie-like in many ways, so I wanted to do it realistically, even with a little bit of poetry with the camera slowing down and everything...
IGN: And the feathers, and the girls jumping around...
CROWE: ...thanks, brotha, thanks for your memory. I think it's just real life has got its own kind of veracity that you can't make up in so many ways, and so always go back to real life to figure out how it would really happen. I read an interview with Mike Nichols once where he said everything he does, the question he asks about every scene is how would it really happen? I don't know if I've been able to be that strict about it, but it's a good place to go back to - how does it feel? And how does it feel is pretty much what I go back to [when I'm] writing. It kind of powers the whole movie: how does it feel to go back to Kentucky? How does it feel to leave? And how does it feel to give up? What was that palpable sadness? And that's what you chase - is the scene going to take you there. And then of course you have music.
IGN: You've been working in Hollywood longer than a lot of people who are in this movie, and have seen plenty of movies - being that you are a cineaste yourself - movies that go through different iterations. The first time I saw the movie was Friday night, but I'd heard that there were changes made since Toronto. How difficult is it to sort of stay on target when you're trying to put a movie together, making some of those hard decisions, when we now function in an era where everything is so relentlessly documented that there's no way to sort of retain the mystique, like it just emerges in its final form? I always think of Annie Hall about how there's the famous story about how it was a murder mystery and they got rid of it and it's now the greatest romantic comedy of all time.
CROWE: But they didn't screen the murder mystery, and it wasn't reviewed on Ain't It Cool News, and it wasn't dissected and he didn't take the murder mystery to Toronto (laughs). But, you know, I'll take modern life in all of its glory and freaky pain, sometimes. It's really like the coolest job to have; I mean, just in the time we've been talking, about three different times I've thought, how cool to have a movie that you would put in the realm of Rushmore? So believe me, these are small prices to pay, and this was the process on this one. I mean, you know, having everybody ask about Ashton Kutcher; I mean, that's what this one is shaping up to be. It had a little bit of an odd, interesting public history, and now it gets to be what it is. The process of editing the movie after Toronto was what I would have done anyway. I didn't want to miss the festivals; I took out the version that was ready, the most ready, and said I was doing that. Would I do it that way again? (Whispering) I don't think so. But that's the way it happened, and I'm going to roll with it. I think you've got to examine what your intent is always, and then that kind of keeps you true. But it's a great question, because there's so much relentless documentation now that a story can get set in stone early on or an attitude can get set in stone early on and that becomes it for a while until it changes.
IGN: I know that this has sort of become an issue, whether it's a virtue or a vice, of home video and DVD, where there is the availability of commentary tracks and things like that. I showed my girlfriend Almost Famous like a month ago and I was like, we're just going to watch the theatrical version first, and then we'll go watch the other one, and then we were like, "okay, let's listen to the commentary." And you learn things every time and at the same time, I'm always curious to find out how reluctant you are - your films aren't as fantastical in the sense as a Lord of the Rings, but do you have any trepidations about demystifying the moviemaking process? Before DVD, it was sort of like, "I don't know how they did that, but it was pretty cool." Now it's like, "alright, I know that they went on a blue screen and they talked to a tennis ball and then they came back" and everything.
CROWE: That can be destructive, the over-explanation of everything - it's true. There's a part of me that loves Spielberg for saying "nope, don't do it. It's one version, one version only - one stop shopping. But I also like knowing there's a track I can listen to to find out about Terms of Endearment or Broadcast News or Local Hero, and I think that's good particularly for history. I think that generations later, it's kind of cool; there's a special edition of To Kill a Mockingbird with an interview with Gregory Peck - fantastic! So I think it's the way you characterize the movie, and sometimes these DVD commentaries are so humorlessly technically full of themselves, maybe the world could do with a fewer group of those. But I don't know; there's a journalist part of me that likes to put things out there and document the movies the way they were being made, and I'm still kind of thinking about how we might deal with the two-disc set on this movie.
IGN: When a friend of mine first saw the trailer for this movie, he said "apparently Cameron Crowe makes two kinds of movies: movies that we are completely obsessed with" - which are not mutually exclusive - "and then the Tom Cruise movies." I think he was thinking more specifically in terms of like less personal stories and then the intensely personal ones. You've talked a little bit about the catharsis of doing this; do you see this as sort of a point when you can step away from the autobiographical stuff and move on to something [more conventional]?
CROWE: I think so, I think so. It was just the time to do this one, and I heard the sound of it, and it sounded like this and it felt like this, and I liked what it was about. But I become obsessed with this stuff too, you know, so my obsession begins a little earlier hopefully than some of the other people, and I also kind of want to honor the ongoing story hopefully that can be told. Because I always wanted to write about my basic generation as I got older and as that group of people got older; there's stories that I want to tell now that are a little more about family and marriage and all of that stuff - with other generations mixed into it. But I just kind of like taking snapshots. I just wish the snapshots could be made and developed more quickly - but I'm working on it.
Crowe is fuckin' up!
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/elizabethtown/
:elitist:
i'm kinda hoping this is the nail in the coffin of orlando whom's short-lived career.
he can't go on fooling ppl much longer. i'm surprised he's made it this far by somehow tricking ppl into thinking he actually exists. i'm sure if i saw him on the street i could walk straight through him and feel no more than a faint breeze. i've seen toe nails with more screen presence than this guy, honest to god, toe nails.
I dont really mind him, but ive only seen him on LOTR. Havent seen any of his other movies.
Quote from: ProgWRXHavent seen any of his other movies.
u wouldn't know it if u had, that's my point.
heh
come to think of it, aside from kingdom of heaven, what else is he in?
:yabbse-grin:
Quote from: ProgWRXheh
come to think of it, aside from kingdom of heaven, what else is he in?
:yabbse-grin:
He was the guy you don't remember from "Pirates of the Carribean", "Troy", "Black Hawk Down", and "Ned Kelly".
having seen the small clips here and there - this movie is most likely garbage (not that other crowe films are anything to celebrate about)
what are the chances of scrapping this forum and swapping it out for a fincher forum, now that he's back in action?
would it be something that could be voted on? (if anyone agrees in the slightest...)
It's been mentioned. Though I think Aronofsky was holding precedence over Fincher. There was talk of Altman, but that's been ruled out.
Quote from: polkabluesIt's been mentioned. Though I think Aronofsky was holding precedence over Fincher. There was talk of Altman, but that's been ruled out.
Aronofsky, just as well. I just think there are a handful of filmmaker far more dynamic and progressive than Crowe.
I think it's pointless to make new forums for people with such a small repetoire, Crowe's being the largest and spanning the most time (if we count Fast Times). How bout a director's forum directed at something beyond individuals, like Comic Book Movies (because so many great directors are involved in this one thing, I don't even care for them, but it just makes more sense to me). Or fuck it and make an Aronofsky forum, I think The Fountain will generate discussion for years, I love the guy, I can't lie.
Parts of this movie are very good, other parts are throwaway. I forgot how much I love Nancy Wilson's little score interludes, though.
There were some things that you can tell were very personal for Crowe, but those moments were built around a not-so-good story.
It's not very good, but it's better than I expected, if you can overlook the somewhat cringe-worthy, bizarrely trite moments (as well as Orlando Bloom's shaky accent), you can find a few really good moments in it.
The ideas behind it weren't bad, but really it's the script that was lazy. It felt like an early draft of a good movie...
And this is coming from a Crowe fan... who just happens to think that his last couple of movies weren't that successful. I'll state wholeheartedly, though, that Almost Famous is a full-on masterpiece worth dancing naked in the streets for. So my respect for Crowe is strong, and I look forward to his next work. I just hope he's not so lazy on the next script!
i've been looking forward to this movie for years and reading about it since there were scarecely any details to be known. crowe is one of my favorite filmmakers probably in the 2nd ring below PT and (perhaps formerly?) Wes Anderson. so i had been entirely psyched for this to come out until the TIDAL WAVE of bad reviews that i've peeked at too much in the last couple weeks here. which instantly took years of anticipation and turned it into straight WORRY. i went into the theatre tonite with almost no expectations other than it would probably be bad and i would know it and wouldnt be able to deny it.
so the film. there are too many story threads that dont get quite enough attention (and i hope to see that longer version on dvd someday to flesh them out), and a few awkward moments dont work as perfectly as they should. orlando bloom isnt entirely convincing but is likable enough that it didnt ruin it for me. the entire life crumbling failure was already in jerry maguire!? and of course the superficial garden state comparisons...
BUT in spite of these things, i was quite shocked at how much i liked the movie. while it is not Jerry Maguire or Almost Famous, i really liked it anyway. (i liked it better than singles and about as much as (blasphemy!) say anything.) there were certain things in the movie i liked enough to forgive what didn't work as well and overall i had a good A- time (which IS a disappointment for a Crowe film which for me is usually an A+), but not the disaster i was geared up for. many of the moments between dunst and bloom were things that i have never seen in a film but have gone through in my own life. so i really appreciated that. i just want to have my heartstrings pulled sometimes and crowe knows how to do it. :kiss:
its ironic that this film about making a spectacular failure is doomed to be a spectacular failure. crowe unwittingly made this film which should help himself through the fiasco of this film. so, while i wont really argue with anyone (aka EVERYONE) who will undoubtedly hate this film, let me just extend the hope that it is possible to really like it. it is my 2nd favorite film of the year.
ive been surprised by the barrage of almost universally bad reviews, so ill be going in with extremely low expectations... :yabbse-undecided:
it's the only film i've seen this year where the feeling stuck with me for hours after leaving the theatre. (last year was eternal sunshine and the year before was lost in translation.) NOT that i'm saying this is in the league with those films, just that those are the last times i can remember going home really thinking about the characters and wanting to play the soundtrack.
Sounds good to me. From the reviews ive read, what most people seem to be criticizing is the plotline (or lackthereof?) Although ive seen criticism on Bloom's performance and in some cases in Kirsten Dunst too. I only know 1 person who has seen the movie (my film school professor/friend) and he enjoyed it (although he pointed out that it felt overlong and needed trimming). Since i can identify with his tastes in movies im sure i will enjoy it to some extent. But ive definately lowered my expectations too... :yabbse-undecided:
I haven't seen this film yet, but on note of the soundtrack, its really perfect Cameron Crowe is highlighting Patty Griffin's work. Long Ride Home, on the soundtrack and taken from the album 1000 Kisses, really is a great song. It's also a magnificent album. The type of album you feel many pop artists talk about but this one stays with you. I hope people extend themselves to pick it up or download it.
Cameron Crowe has officially joined the M. Night Shyamalan club of mediocrity.
Where a film like "Almost Famous" felt warm and genuine, "Elizabethtown" feels like fan club pandering. It's as if Crowe sat down to write this movie like a boy-band record producer might write music with an audience in mind. The storylines are frayed and the whole thing feels very self conscious. The movie isn't bad. It has some good laughs and the music is outstanding. Overall though, the whole thing felt like drinking a glass of warm water when you're really thirsty.
Bleh.
I really really liked this. I don't understand all of the hate towards it. Yes the opening kinda sucks, and there's some beats that are off, but if nothing stikes a chord in your body i'd say that you have problems and not the movie.
Maybe it's just because it's in the south, but this kinda felt like a Crowe/DG Green hybrid. There's one actor link as well. But the overall feeling of the family and the SOUND of the south are dead on. There were just so many great little moments, more than the bad, and they really added up into an enjoyable experience. Everything that took place in the Hotel was great, Chuck was awesome. When he got chocked up about Drew's loss was priceless.
I hated the scene in the parking lot after the 'room-service.' A) Dunst looked like an Ass and ET combined, and B) it didn't make sense. Both characters seemed out of character and unlogical. That's my biggest gripe with the movie.
It's a solid B
i'll agree about the parking lot scene, but i guess they had to be broken apart somehow.
Quote from: killafilm... this kinda felt like a Crowe/DG Green hybrid.
How the hell does it feel like that? I didn't feel that at all. I would love to see that pulled off successfully, though.
There are certain scenes that I connected with, and other scenes that felt like they were strictly there for plot purposes. There's nothing wrong with scenes being there for plot purposes, but at least the audience shouldn't be aware of that! Several scenes between Dunst and Bloom (and nearly everything involving the cell phone) felt very plot-oriented in an un-natural way. What I love about Crowe's best movies is how natural they feel. In Almost Famous, you don't feel like William goes on tour with the band because that's what the plot-guide says he should do, even though there's no movie without him doing that.
I liked all the moments with a Nancy Wilson score (except for the tapdancing scene, I guess), and I really liked the roadtrip part (made me want to get out and see America), even if it was a little bizarre that a flight attendant with a couple of days off had time to make such a detailed guide to driving cross-country. I felt the resolution was there during the roadtrip, with all that beauty of America and the death of his father finally hitting him. So the last 5 minutes felt out of place, for me. I guess most people want a resolution to the love story, but by that point I wasn't even thinking about seeing Dunst again in the movie. It felt tagged on.
But Crowe is still good in my book. I look forward to his next.
good to see some positive responses, i had all but lost hope on this after reading all the dismal reviews.
Quote from: ProgWRXgood to see some positive responses, i had all but lost hope on this after reading all the dismal reviews.
Never let someone else's opinion keep you from seeing a film.
:-D
i know , i know...
I was planning on seeing it anyway as soon as it opened, i was just going in with REALLY low expectations. Also being a Crowe fan it makes me feel sorry to see him get slammed so badly :oops:
Quote from: matt35mmQuote from: killafilm... this kinda felt like a Crowe/DG Green hybrid.
How the hell does it feel like that? I didn't feel that at all. I would love to see that pulled off successfully, though.
Once he steps out of the rental car you are surrounded by the sound of insects. And yeah, him meeting his family, and all of them being wild southern. Just really the southness of it, which is vague I know, but it's still there.
saw this today.
really really enjoyed it.
it was pretty awkward at first.
the whole voice over thing wasn't really working for me.
but then it all turned out really really good.
claire's "map" montage was the best part of the film, obviously.
Best Romantic Movie I have seen since Eternal Sunshine. It really touched me in many ways and made me really care for the characters. I had low expectations because of the reviews it is definitely a A but not as great as Untitled.
i thought the map business was the worst part of an otherwise pretty enjoyable movie. i mean, the implausibility of the whole thing was just beyond ridiculous. and what's with some ditzy stewardess lecturing me on the contributions of mlk, jr? that came from out of nowhere...
while i don't like it now as much as i did after i first saw it, i still think it's pretty good. i just didn't really care for dunst's character...she was kind of unnecessary...i liked the movie more before she showed up, and after she showed up, i liked it better when she wasn't in the scene. nothing against dunst, i just get kinda annoyed by female characters like that. and girls like that, while they may seem perfect during the course of a two hour movie, are frickin' obnoxious, and you could never date one for longer than a couple of months.
and someone said the tap dance scene was bad? i thought it was one of the better parts...
the map montage brought the idea of a mix tape/cd/collage book (to be literally heard/viewed and followed through) better than any other film i've ever-- wait, as a film even done that? i thought it was a lovely and great scene. but yeah, dunst's character was pretty damn annoying.
we sound pretty reverse though. you like parts i didn't, you hated parts i loved. as far as the mlk thing goes, you have to appreciate shit like that. whether you read some 789 paged biography of his, or you know jack squat, it was amazing to actually see it filmed and to see the room, etc. that kind of randomness is priceless in film.
anyway, pretty good movie.
Quote from: noyesthe map montage brought the idea of a mix tape/cd/collage book (to be literally heard/viewed and followed through) better than any other film i've ever-- wait, as a film even done that? i thought it was a lovely and great scene. but yeah, dunst's character was pretty damn annoying.
we sound pretty reverse though. you like parts i didn't, you hated parts i loved. as far as the mlk thing goes, you have to appreciate shit like that. whether you read some 789 paged biography of his, or you know jack squat, it was amazing to actually see it filmed and to see the room, etc. that kind of randomness is priceless in film.
anyway, pretty good movie.
oh, i agree....the mlk scene was magnificently, and i kinda got caught up in it for a minute...until i was realized that it was really out of place and just kind of random. it seemed like crowe just wanted to film that location (and i don't blame him), so he threw it in there. and the way dunst's voiceover described it was just bad. she sounded like a teacher explaining mlk to a bunch of fourth graders. maybe her voiceover is what bothered me about that scene.
Saw it with anticipation and hated it. Saw it again and liked it a little better, but not by much. It boggles the mind how he went from Almost Famous to that. As for the editing, it was pretty damn bad. I don't know if anyone else noticed (to lazy to read previous posts...yes, I'm one of those), but it was amateur hour for more then a few scenes. It had some good moments going for it, but many were ruined by going on beyond cute and fun to awkward and boring. So, so sad. I'm really troubled.
I have to say i felt dissapointed as well, it just seems to lose focus too many times. The plot feels like it stops for too long. There were a lot of beautiful Crowe moments, but they soon get lost in awkward pacing and editing. I didnt mind the tap dance or some of the "standup", but i wouldve definately removed the boner story. It just seemed way out there. Also while the little side story with Jesse and his unruly kid was nice, i thought showing the tape and that whole scene was competely unnecesary (one of those moments where the plot just stops).
Also i did like the roadtrip and map montage, but the voice overs seemed awkward. Ive never been a fan of voice overs, but Crowe has used them before with much better results in Singles, Jerry Maguire and even Vanilla Sky (the scene where he talks about getting back to work, where we see the Homer baloon).
In general i felt dissapointed, but did end up liking the movie as a whole. If it had been done by anyone else i wouldve liked it more, but it being Crowe's i cant help but want something more.
Cameron Crowe on music, marriage, film and "Elizabethtown"
Source: Reuters/Billboard
Cameron Crowe was on tour with his wife, musician Nancy Wilson. He gazed out the bus window at the Kentucky landscape and thought of his father; he had not been back to Kentucky since his dad's funeral many years earlier. For Crowe, returning to Kentucky was a celebration, an adventure into all the things he loved, all the things he could not see when he was mourning his father. "Elizabethtown" -- the film and the soundtrack -- was born.
Music and movies have no separation for Crowe, who began his writing career at age 15 with a byline in Rolling Stone. Crowe likens the music from "Elizabethtown" to a "great American radio station" -- a perfect road-trip mix tape.
Music has been an important presence in all of Crowe's films. In "Say Anything," the lovelorn hero blasts Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" from a boombox as a wooing technique. "Singles" features the members of Pearl Jam, a band that was little known when the film was shot; and in "Almost Famous," loosely based on Crowe's days as a writer for Rolling Stone, Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" turns a bus sing-along into a meaning-of-life moment.
Crowe says he wanted to champion singer/songwriters on the soundtrack to "Elizabethtown," which stars Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. This eclectic mix, out on RCA Records, features previously unreleased songs by Tom Petty, Lindsey Buckingham and My Morning Jacket, as well as tracks from Elton John, Ryan Adams and Patty Griffin.
Crowe recently spoke with Billboard about music, marriage, film and his personal journey with "Elizabethtown."
Q: "Elizabethtown" marks another musical collaboration between you and your wife, Nancy Wilson, who wrote the score. How do you work together?
A: It's the most natural collaboration. Because even if there wasn't a movie, we'd still be playing each other music and having that kind of dialogue. From the years she toured with her sister (Ann Wilson) in Heart, they would always go back to their room, put on robes and watch movies. She's actually seen more movies than I've seen. That was the great surprise when we first got together. I thought, "That's crazy. You're not supposed to know that much about movies and be able to play the guitar like that!"
Q: Did you write any music into the script?
A: The Hollies' "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" was the only music cue that I wrote into the script, to begin the movie. The song is like the black-sheep stepbrother of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." I thought it would be great to begin the film with this feeling of an ending, because the movie ends with a beginning.
Q: How much music did you listen to in the process of making the film?
A: Tons. For years. I kept packing my iTunes with stuff that I thought might be right for the movie. I kept a notebook of thoughts for every scene. Then it was about whittling it down. There is so much great music. Maybe not albums, as much as there might have been when albums were crafted in a certain way.
Q: What makes a really good album?
A: Albums have been abused. There were some artists who would put out 27-minute albums. A good 40 minutes with two sides, that's sweet. You don't want to abuse the length on a CD. It's good when you approach it like a mix, like a letter to a friend. That's how the music in the movie was always supposed to be. It's really personal -- it's (Orlando Bloom's character's) journey.
In the past couple of years, many people hanging out around movies said, 'Ah, there's no good music.' Well, they weren't listening. There's tons of great music, particularly singer/songwriters. So I was thinking early on, maybe we could celebrate some of the singer/songwriters like Ryan Adams.
Q: Do you think this is more of a music film than "Almost Famous?"
A: Yes. It's got more music. It's more of a character in a way, whereas "Almost Famous" was about the characters who love music. In this, the music is the voice of the father who passes away.
Q: Let's go back to your days as a writer for Rolling Stone. Who was your worst interview?
A: The disastrous one was Steve Miller, who was a friend of (Rolling Stone founder) Jann Wenner. I really wanted to do well for Jann. But when I showed up, Steve Miller had a big problem with me being 17 years old. He was like, "Tell me how you know my music." And I said, "Everybody knows your music." He said, "But you're only 17." I said, "Your fans are 17!"
It got ugly and weird from there. I forget how it ended, but I think I was dismissed. It was the only time that ever happened. Everyone else I interviewed thought, "Wow, you actually buy my records."
What a lovely movie this is. You don't appreciate a movie like this, you just love it. The best way I can sum it up is that its the Americana counterpart to Cinema Paradiso.
It also made me attracted to Kirsten Dunst again. A boyhood crush, her personality in movies drifted for me with Spiderman and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She is naturally lovely here. Also, Orlando Bloom still can't act. When the part required romantic comedy styling, he had the same face. When the part required the tragic, he had the same face. He just had enough personality not to screw it up.
I think many of you guys are looking too closely at this film. There's really nothing to dissect, but if you look at it as just movie lore to certain nostalgia we all have, its quite an engaging movie. Cinema Paradiso was as over the top as this film and every film goer loves it. It's very easy to do so because the ambition for both films are so innocent.
I think this also has to be my favorite Crowe film. With Almost Famous and Say Anything, they try to be respectable movies. You can really criticize those films. Elizabethtown gives into the nostalgic nature Crowe has carried with him his entire career.
hey. hey. HEY
I don't recall approving this.
what did you and cine think of the film?
Quote from: modagewhat did you and cine think of the film?
DO I SMELL ROMANCE ???
Quote from: Pas RapDO I SMELL ROMANCE ???
I think it's that thing on your lips.
I really enjoyed it. I like what GT wrote. I'm pleasently surprised it wasn't something negative.
I loved the map set to music. When Dunst's character said "some music needs air" I actually agreed out loud.
I liked how the ladies of the wedding party took such a liking to Dunst. Some people have that affect on others..you meet them once and want them to be part of your life.
Quote from: BethieI actually agreed out loud.
tell me about it.. :roll:
Quote from: Bethieyou meet them once and want them to be part of your life.
tell me about it.. :roll:
hey. hey. HEY
I don't recall approving this.
approve THIS: :violin:
it feels like 4 things happen in this movie.
-the phone rings
-bloom flounders
-dunst smiles
-an impossible and completely ridiculous ending
what is this about? can someone tell me the point of at least half the scenes in this thing? an easy example, he puts the urn down, forgets it, they run back to it, omg drama! or how he misses "60B", pulls over, has a shitty cringe-worthy 'comedic' moment of talking to himself, then finds the town randomly. DOUBLE-U TEE EFF.
ok, i'm a sucker for dunst, this was no exception. she carried this movie by kind of having fun with her character but at the same time was limited to one facial expression along with everyone else. i think what i mean by only 4 things happening is a comment on the repetitive plot, which is like a short playlist stuck on a loop. track 1, track 2, track 3, REPEAT, track 1, track 2, track 3. orlando bloom's lack of personality doesn't help. something is happening within scenes, but not between them.. it's really a lot like flipping through channels on tv.
bloom flounders. i just don't like the guy, and even so i'm not gonna blame his boring character on his boring self. the script gave him little to work with.. i just can't understand.. why everyone in the film has just ONE facial reaction?? Judy Greer: 'mom is losing it!'; Susan Sarandon: 'i'm losing it!'; the Jesse dude: 'i'm mellow, dude'; bloom: ' ______ '; dunst: 'smile!' (she is smilerrific, i want to eat her teeth right up).. AND OF COURSE, the big character arc everyone has is that they change this expression right at the end.
funny things. the recurring style of joke in the movie seemed to be a repetition of things that were kinda funny once, not funny the 4th time, and then actually funny cos they just don't shut up. for example when dunst keeps yelling "60B!". there were good parts, i would even say great parts such as the obvious long phone call sequence. it's just not enuff to gel into a great movie, the bits in between are not meaningful and not at all "nostalgic like cinema paradiso" as GT claims.
i'm not gonna read all these damn interviews from the previous pages to get some clues as to what crowe was trying to do here. it's not like there's anything cryptic to decipher, but if there is no meaning what else is there? there's no feeling, it's muddled.
ADMIN EDIT: SPOILER
its just very unreal that a shoe company loses a BILLION dollar with one shoe... more than that is unreal that they invest so much in one shoe... more than that is impossible that they would invest and lose all that money and blame it on one single person!
he was the designer? fine... what about the marketing? what about endorsements? what about making fucking sense?
homer's car creation and powell motors made more sense when he took his brother to bankrupcy than this... and also something similar made sense in jerry maguire.. which means crowe is not stupid, he just put enfasis in all the wrong things with this movie...
i tried to like it... i really did and i hope if i watch it again i will like it more... but its just boring and has hundreds of scenes that dont lead to anything
what the fuck happened to chuck and all that? i thought they were going to show the wedding at least or something... all the buildup and all the characters and all that crap, just for one little scene with chuck crying?
i dont know... i just dont get how it could be so bad when it had so much potential
Paramount has set the DVD release for Elizabethtown for 2/7.
Quote from: andykits just very unreal that a shoe company loses a BILLION dollar with one shoe... more than that is unreal that they invest so much in one shoe... more than that is impossible that they would invest and lose all that money and blame it on one single person!
he was the designer? fine... what about the marketing? what about endorsements? what about making fucking sense?
homer's car creation and powell motors made more sense when he took his brother to bankrupcy than this... and also something similar made sense in jerry maguire.. which means crowe is not stupid, he just put enfasis in all the wrong things with this movie...
I didn't think about this. And you're completely right. I feel like I was duped. Duped into believing that this could possibly be the case. What the fuck? He was just the fucking designer! You'd blame marketing because there wasn't any apparent thing wrong with the shoe itself. Except that it's kinda crap-looking, but then you blame Alec Baldwin for putting all company resources behind that fucking shoe! I'm angry now. Thanks, AndyK, you've ruined my day!
from the onion.
Cameron Crowe To Release Only Soundtracks
November 9, 2005 | Issue 41•45 (http://www.theonion.com/content/index/4145)
LOS ANGELES—Explaining that his movies were but a small step in the pursuit of a career he has always dreamed about, Almost Famous director Cameron Crowe announced Monday that he is retiring from filmmaking to focus exclusively on soundtracks. "For me, the moving image has become redundant, and I believe that I can more effectively tell stories with carefully chosen music," said Crowe, backed by Electric Light Orchestra's "Do Ya." Crowe's first soundtrack, Walking With Headphones, will begin compilation later this winter for a summer release, with the soundtrack's soundtrack available on Polydor Records
this is very sad. soundtracks would be great for him. but damn, no more films at all???
Quote from: RedVines on November 09, 2005, 10:34:15 AM
this is very sad. soundtracks would be great for him. but damn, no more films at all???
invalidated for life.
Quote from: Pubrick on November 09, 2005, 10:35:46 AM
Quote from: RedVines on November 09, 2005, 10:34:15 AM
this is very sad. soundtracks would be great for him. but damn, no more films at all???
invalidated for life.
good response to sarcasm :notworthy:
Quote from: MacGuffin on November 02, 2005, 01:29:58 PM
Paramount has set the DVD release for Elizabethtown for 2/7.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedigitalbits.com%2Farticles%2Fmiscgfx%2Fcovers3%2Felizabethtowndvd.jpg&hash=9090f0bee678f717e931f7c7409a22fde2d6f5d4)
Quote from: Pubrick on November 08, 2005, 09:43:55 PM
from the onion.
Cameron Crowe To Release Only Soundtracks
November 9, 2005 | Issue 41•45 (http://www.theonion.com/content/index/4145)
LOS ANGELES—Explaining that his movies were but a small step in the pursuit of a career he has always dreamed about, Almost Famous director Cameron Crowe announced Monday that he is retiring from filmmaking to focus exclusively on soundtracks. "For me, the moving image has become redundant, and I believe that I can more effectively tell stories with carefully chosen music," said Crowe, backed by Electric Light Orchestra's "Do Ya." Crowe's first soundtrack, Walking With Headphones, will begin compilation later this winter for a summer release, with the soundtrack's soundtrack available on Polydor Records
:bravo:
great news... i knew it...i knew it...this makes me so happy ..i told you guys that this guy is a hack...
hes the tom cruise of directors.....anybody who would fucking cast asston cuntner and then fire him b/c you found out "he cant act"...well fucking duh! crowe doesnt deserve to make films anymore...and its funny that his swan song film has two of the most annoying actors currently in the biz....fuck dunst, crowe and that sweet dick motha fucker bloom.....
quote="cameron crowe"]"For me, the moving image has become redundant,....
Quote
dude, thats because all your shit is the same lame, sappy bullshit...i can safely say that "gay" would easily apply to crowes filmography....[no offense to my homosexual peeps..you know i love ya.. :kiss:]
God, I hope that's sarcasm. You even quoted "from the onion."
Quote from: pyramid machine on December 01, 2005, 10:20:58 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on November 08, 2005, 09:43:55 PM
from the onion.
Cameron Crowe To Release Only Soundtracks
November 9, 2005 | Issue 41•45 (http://www.theonion.com/content/index/4145)
LOS ANGELES—Explaining that his movies were but a small step in the pursuit of a career he has always dreamed about, Almost Famous director Cameron Crowe announced Monday that he is retiring from filmmaking to focus exclusively on soundtracks. "For me, the moving image has become redundant, and I believe that I can more effectively tell stories with carefully chosen music," said Crowe, backed by Electric Light Orchestra's "Do Ya." Crowe's first soundtrack, Walking With Headphones, will begin compilation later this winter for a summer release, with the soundtrack's soundtrack available on Polydor Records
:bravo:
great news... i knew it...i knew it...this makes me so happy ..i told you guys that this guy is a hack...
hes the tom cruise of directors.....anybody who would fucking cast asston cuntner and then fire him b/c you found out "he cant act"...well fucking duh! crowe doesnt deserve to make films anymore...and its funny that his swan song film has two of the most annoying actors currently in the biz....fuck dunst, crowe and that sweet dick motha fucker bloom.....
quote="cameron crowe"]"For me, the moving image has become redundant,....Quote
dude, thats because all your shit is the same lame, sappy bullshit...i can safely say that "gay" would easily apply to crowes filmography....[no offense to my homosexual peeps..you know i love ya.. :kiss:]
do you smash beer cans against your forehead after you drink them?
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sheepproductions.com%2Ftps%2Fmultimedia%2Fseries%2Ftp377.jpg&hash=b440754ed1a12b18391ec681aef8e12e3babd890)
NEON
no NEON is dead.
Quote from: Cinephile on December 02, 2005, 12:36:39 AM
no NEON is dead.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cenedra.com%2Ftwinpeaks%2FEpisode16%2Fpic66.jpg&hash=1b6138a8a9f21679fb65e4fba9c6e28449fe6b53)
Further Details:
Paramount Home Entertainment has kindly provided us with some official artwork for the Cameron Crowe directed Elizabethtown which stars Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. The film will be available to own in seperate widescreen and full screen editions from the 7th February. Each will include an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Extras will include a Training Wheels featurette, a Meet the Crew featurette, extended scenes (Rusty's Learning to Listen Part 8 and Hanging with Russell in Memphis), a photo gallery, and two theatrical trailers.
crappy extras. i smell a 'it's been 10 years, time to not hate this film' double dip, with commentary etc. i wonder if this is because
A. nobody liked the movie/nobody saw the movie. paramount could care less about spending time/money for extras
B. crowe was so dejected by its performance he couldnt bear to spend the effort on them now
C. paramount knows this movie cost lots and to help recoup forced crowe into a double dip
Quote from: modage on January 02, 2006, 05:14:12 PM
A misstep from one of my favorite filmmakers still manages to have enough moments to keep it one of my favorite experiences in the theatre this year. I look forward to being able to watch it again and see if it holds up better or worse than my initial viewing.
well, i hate to say it, but it held up worse. A LOT worse. its really a pretty collosal flop. bloom is terribly miscast and brings the movie down. though thats not crowe's only misstep, the script and some of the music is also to blame for the movies shortcomings. one of the main problems is that bloom and dunst are never believable partially because what should be completely NATURAL performances instead come off incredibly like ACTING. firstly, they're both attempting accents. dunst's southern and bloom's american. and even the superficial similarities having been covered in Garden State also hurt the film. (in Dunst's map The Shins - New Slang can even be seen as one of the songs on her mix cds. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!) so part of me thinks that somehow Crowe and Braff could've teamed up with their partially good films braffs around 2/3 and crowe's around 1/3 and made a film that was actually 3/3 great. but in crowes story braff would've been wrong for that part too, though nobody could be more wrong than bloom. (maybe ashton kutcher?) in my mind, the film might've worked atleast much better with Jake Gyllenhall and Natalie Portman in the leads. and i really like kirsten dunst and have no problems with bloom, but together here, they just dont work. all of the characters seem to act inexplicably, not like any people who live in our world. the collossal failure subject had already been breached in jerry maguire and i dont see why crowe felt the need to fall back on it. mostly i feel terrible for crowe, because after a 4 year hiatus to return with THIS film its going to be hard for him to get back up again and face the world. audiences and critics alike. there were many places in the film that you could see THIS is where the CROWE MOMENT would be, IF the film worked. THIS is that line, THIS is that moment. but because the balance of the film is off it just DOES NOT WORK. I only hope Crowe will take his own advice and get back up for another round. "Fail BIG and stick around, then make them wonder why you are still smiling..." Re-Evaluation: C-
that's disappointing to hear. but the movie was much better on my second viewing. I couldn't believe how bad it was on my first viewing. I was almost in shock. but somehow, things started to work and come together later on. this movie did for Crowe what "The Village" did for M. Night. except a lot more people saw "The Village", thus there was a lot more hatred. I'd love to see what both of them do next but I bet their movies won't do as well (meaning box office) as their previous films. it's gonna be difficult for them to recover from all this.
E-Town is not Crowe's best film by a long shot, but M. Night? He's a hack and I think most people here realize that Cameron has never been and never will be a hack...............
i wish that were true, greg, but i think at this point the perception here is probably that they're about the same. :yabbse-sad:
Quote from: modage on February 14, 2006, 08:54:08 PM
i wish that were true, greg, but i think at this point the perception here is probably that they're about the same. :yabbse-sad:
Not at all... Crowe is a guy who's made a bunch of great movies and one shitty one, while M. Night has made one great movie and a bunch of shitty ones. And then ruined any future attempts at credibility with that ridiculously ill-conceived "Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan" TV special.
So, in short, Crowe wins. No contest. "Elizabethtown" notwithstanding.
Quote from: modage on February 14, 2006, 08:54:08 PM
i wish that were true, greg, but i think at this point the perception here is probably that they're about the same. :yabbse-sad:
you can't be serious. crowe has been putting out great movies since the 80s, this is his one and only terrible movie. shyamalan, like polka said, made one (sort of) great one and a bunch of crap thereafter. i applaud the latter for giving bryce dallas howard her first big gig. i'm struggling to see any basis for comparison between the two.
oh, well thats good to hear. it was my impression around here that most people hated vanilla sky didnt think etown was worth seeing and thought that crowe never belonged with our other directors. he's still one of my FAVORITE directors but i thought that most everybody really could care less about him right now.
I'm still undecided about Vanilla Sky, but can anyone really argue against Almost Famous?
Well, I didn't think this film was the Hindenberg everyone's making it out to be. In fact, I thought their 'meet-cute' scenes ranked right there with some of the better romantic comedies. The problem comes from once they get together, there's no anticipation or suspended disbelief of are they going to get together. At that point, they're already together. Along with Bloom's character resolving the family issues and reconciling with his dad, the movie ended before it's running time did. And Crowe seemed to be recycling ideas already dealt with in Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous (with Dunst's character feeling like a cousin to Penny Lane).
Quote from: modage on February 15, 2006, 10:06:31 AM
oh, well thats good to hear. it was my impression around here that most people hated vanilla sky didnt think etown was worth seeing and thought that crowe never belonged with our other directors. he's still one of my FAVORITE directors but i thought that most everybody really could care less about him right now.
:yabbse-grin:, i was one of those poeple who thinks e-town is shit...i really cant relate to crowe anymore [i think he writes films for the TRL/mtv crowd]...out off all things crowe affiliated i like fast times the most...but i like it more for the 80's nostalgia then its criticial/thematic merits...alot of crowes material is very very cheesy...and his characters are just as annoying as the OC people...his dialogue is corny..the same feeling i get watching crowes material is the same sappy, embarassing feeling i get when i watch an episode of full house and when the "focal point" of the show arrives which cues the piano music and the typical danny tanner speech..its just pathetic..