Filmmaker Gary Winick died on Sunday at the age of 49. While in recent years he was known for his work on larger movies like 13 Going On 30 and Bride Wars, we’ve always been partial to his breakthrough film: an indie comedy from 2002 called Tadpole. The premise is simple: Oscar Grubman, a 15-year old preppie with an ancient soul (think Max Fischer), has a crush on his oblivious stepmother, Eve. But because the film is set in the affluent social circles of the Upper West Side, our protagonist likes to randomly speak in French and quote Voltaire; when characters fight, the heated exchange takes place over a game of tennis; and a romance between an adult woman and a young boy seems plausible rather than illegal. It’s a very adult world for a teenager to inhabit, and one that has only been captured a handful of times on film. Click though as we revisit some of our favorite examples.
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Reservoir Dogs. sex, lies, and videotape. El Mariachi. Clerks. Slacker. The Blair Witch Project. Blood Simple. Napoleon Dynamite. Memento. Yes, the Sundance Film Festival (which kicks off less than a week from today) is the Holy Grail for aspiring indie filmmakers, who can rattle off those titles (and more) as examples of the wildest-dream scenario: Make a movie on the cheap, take it to the ‘dance, ignite a fierce bidding war, sell it to a scrappy and ingenious distributor with deep pockets, watch as they unleash it on the world, do big box office, become the next Tarantino or Soderbergh.
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1. Organizers have finally confirmed that Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle will helm the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, and he’s promising to provide a “thrilling welcome” for athletes and the world. [via WaPo]
2. A new finished print of director Nicholas Ray‘s final project — an experimental film called We Can’t Go Home Again — will premiere at the Venice International Film Festival next year. [via NYT]
3. Chace Crawford will play “a war-protesting butcher” in Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, an indie drama that also stars Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener. [via THR]
4. Party of Five star Jeremy London was abducted, robbed, and “forced to smoke dope” by armed bandits in Palm Springs, California. Do you think that they had any idea who he was? [via Radar Online]
5. Someone called the cops over the weekend claiming they had spotted Justin Bieber boozing at the Mug and Mallet bar in Ocean City, Maryland. It was really a 27-year-old woman named Katie who says that she gets mistake for him all of the time. [via TMZ]
Quote of the day: “Those are definitely not Trolli Gummi bears in the ["California Gurls"] video because Trolli Gummi Bears would never be that rude.” – John Leonardo, senior brand manager
Back when it played Sundance this winter, Gawker’s Foster Kamer had this to say about Joel Schumacher’s Twelve, a film based on the 2002 debut novel
of Upper East Side rich kid turned literary sensation Nick McDonell:
The problem with Twelve is that you don’t even have to see it to know that it makes a boldfaced joke not just out of Sundance’s former reputation as a place where independent art once thrived, but of the word “independent,” as well, because Twelve is a total fucking reach-around vanity project that represents nepotism and interests who are, as always, trying to capitalize on overwrought subject material and reinforce the status quo. Besides which, it apparently sucks.
After watching the trailer, we can see that he was right.
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Today at Flavorpill, we rocked out to a Hanukkah Mix from the Idelsohn Society. We suddenly felt inspired to check out Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. We discovered the seven food experts won’t eat. We feared this wrapping paper. We wished Mo’Nique a happy birthday while watching a roundup of the best moments from her prison special. We felt weird about the fact that we regularly follow none of the top 10 Nielsen shows for 2009. We wondered if people really want to see more movies like Paranormal Activity — it took years off of our lives. We realized that Lou Reed is really old. Really, really old. We were surprised that Chace Crawford used to be a valet. We asked WTF Comcast after reading some of their OnDemand descriptions? And finally, we vowed never, ever to intern for Michael Steele. The GOP Chairman is just way too cool for us — especially in photos.
According to Stereogum, an upcoming episode of Gossip Girl features Sonic Youth playing their ’80s hit “Starpower” at a party for Rufus and Lily. Thurston and former Be Your Own Pet frontwoman Jemina Pearl previously recorded “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” for an episode sans cameo. Rolling Stone has the pic above and the on-set scoop from Thurston: “Ed [Westwick] and Chace [Crawford] seemed aware of who we are, but they were more interested in Kings of Leon. Those are their boys.” Thurston says that he and wife Kim Gordon are “pretty fanatical viewers of the show.” In fact, “It’s sort of our dose of Shakespeare every week.”
Mind explosion. We’d pay good money to see Gordon take on Waldorf.
Season three of Gossip Girl premieres September 14.
1. Anime master Hayao Miyazaki has agreed to make a rare US appearance at San Diego’s Comic Con on July 24. [via NYT]
2. James Franco’s rejected UCLA graduation speech, courtesy of the Harvard Lampoon (video) [via Gawker]
3. Lil Wayne, Ne-Yo and Jeremih have announced that they will team up for an extensive North American tour that will kick off July 27 in Scranton, PA. [via NME]
4. Beck has launched a new interview series on his website called Irrelevant Topics; his first victim is Tom Waits. [via Pitchfork]
5. As Hollywood’s leading actors start looking eerily similar (Chace Crawford, Zac Efron, Robert Pattison), where are all the real men? [via Daily Mail]
1. Leonard Dicaprio — rumored to be at the top of Martin Scorsese’s list for that Frank Sinatra biopic — is taking singing lessons to improve his odds. [via The Sun]
2. By scooping up Zac Efron’s sloppy seconds, Chace Crawford has made it 100 percent easier for tweens to enjoy six degrees of Kevin Bacon. [via NYDN]
3. The critics’ tweets about the debut of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds at Cannes are decidedly mixed. [via /film]
4. Christie’s will auction off “Little Buddy,” a handwritten poem about a dying dog by a 16-year-old Bob Dylan. He wrote it at summer camp. [via Guardian]
5. Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall forgives Maureen Dowd for her “accidental plagiarism” of his work. [via NYT]
