In The Wings

I did a phoner last week with Stone director John Curran. I’ll run it and a review in the final lead-up to the Toronto Film Festival — probably around 9.4 or 9.5, or the weekend before my departure. I wasn’t expecting all that much when I sat down, but Stone is an exceptionally brave and unusual film. I posted a too-long impressionistic piece that had to be taken down due to complaints from critics. I left a remnant in place but the bulk of it was gutted.

“The trailer for Stone (Overture, 10.8) makes it seem like a more-or-less conventional crime melodrama,” I wrote. “In the midst of evaluating an apparently psychopathic convict (Edward Norton) regarding an upcoming parole hearing, a retirement-age prison counselor (Robert De Niro) succumbs to sexual favors offered by the prisoner’s scheming wife (Milla Jovovich). We all know where this is likely to go. Exposure, revenge, moral ruin, chaos.

“Guess what? It goes somewhere else entirely. And I mean into a realm that, for me, is not far from the one that Robert Bresson mined in the ’50s and ’60s and early ’70s.”

Posted at by

26 thoughts on “In The Wings”

  1. Well that’s good new that you liked it; because the trailer makes it look like Righteous Kill 2. I mean it looks so utterly conventional.

    It’s nice to see Jovavich get co-credit with these heavyweights; somehow she is that rare breed that gets hotter the older she gets…

    Reply ↓

  2. Jovovich is still completely hot, but she’s been around so long she’s like a weird flip side to Lex’s Monaghan issue, where my brain has a hard time believing she’s not in her mid 40s pushing 50. Of course she’s actually 34. How is that possible? She was in Dazed & Confused!

    In honor of her involvement in Kuffs, we can call it the Christian Slater problem.

    Reply ↓

  4. somehow she is that rare breed that gets hotter the older she gets…

    Not as rare as you think, as far as I’m concerned. It happens to a lot of women…thankfully.

    Reply ↓

  5. I’ve always thought this looked promising. I like Norton, I like noir. Should be a good sit for me, like Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

    Reply ↓

  6. Still, why did so many people pan it at one of the screenings and people saying it’s another sleepwalking role for DeNiro ?

    Reply ↓

  9. Something still kinda rubs me the wrong way on this one, but there’s enough talent involved — or former talent, anyway — both behind and in front of the cameras that I can at least believe it’s as good as Jeff is implying.

    Reply ↓

  10. I am so happy to hear great things about this, I really hope this is the begining of a turn around for De Niro.

    Jeff, can you tell us anymore about Deniro and his performance?

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>