Crazy Herzog News

Variety: Nic Cage to star in 'Bad Lieutenant'

Nicolas Cage will star in an updated version of 1992's "Bad Lieutenant" with Werner Herzog directing, Edward R. Pressman producing and Avi Lerner's Nu Image/Millennium Films financing.

Project, also called "Bad Lieutenant," is due to be announced at Cannes. Production will start in late summer.

The original pic, produced by Pressman, starred Harvey Keitel and was directed by Abel Ferrara from a screenplay by Ferrara and Zoe Lund.

Story followed the depraved New York police officer of the title, who was heavily involved in drugs, gambling, sex and stealing; the pic received an NC-17 rating.

The new script's penned by Billy Finkelstein, a TV writer with credits on "Murder One," "Law & Order" and "NYPD Blue." Stephen Belafonte, who brought Finkelstein to the project, is also producing, while development was financed by producers Alan and Gabe Polsky.

Along with Lerner, Nu Image/Millennium's Danny Dimbort, Trevor Short and Boaz Davidson will exec produce with Elliot Rosenblatt and Alessandro Camon. Randall Emmett and Cage's Saturn Films are also producing.

Cage is filming "Knowing" in Australia for director Alex Proyas. Herzog's expected to follow "Bad Lieutenant" with Focus' "The Piano Tuner" late this year.

Hollywood Reporter: Werner Herzog, David Lynch take on murder drama

CANNES -- Werner Herzog and David Lynch are teaming for "My Son, My Son," a horror-tinged murder drama based on a true story.

Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote "Son," loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March.

In a separate development, Lynch's Absurda production company has attached Asia Argento and Udo Kier to star with Nick Nolte in Alejandro Jodorowsky's metaphysical gangster movie "King Shot."

Marilyn Manson is touted to appear as a prophet in the "Sin City"-style film, which producer Eric Bassett said has enough sex and violence to guarantee an NC-17 rating.

Lynch is executive producing both projects, and Absurda is repping their sales rights in the Cannes market.

"Son" is produced by Eric Bassett, who also is producing "King" with his Absurda colleague Norm Hill and Clavis Films' Simon Shandor.

Herzog, repped by Gersh, is having a busy 2008. He was set to film "Son" in the summer but postponed it to direct Nicolas Cage in a remake of Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" starting in July. In the fall, he will shoot the Victorian-era drama "The Piano Tuner" for Focus Features.

R.I.P. Karlheinz Stockhausen

1928 - 2007

Internet Irritations #1: Mediafire

I would say "for some reason, everyone has decided to adopt Mediafire as their online file storage facility of choice" but in this case, that "some reason" is simply because the site offers hosting and recipient downloads for free (no sign up is necessary though if you want to create an account, you can).
I'll admit, when Mediafire first appeared, it was robust, offering maximum download speeds for a single download, with justified fluctuation on each subsequent acquisition (don't get greedy, yo), now however; its position as a decent alternative to some of the more well known sites ceases to be. In the last few months, I've been lucky to breach 6 or 7kb/s and as the modem seems almost inactive, the download decides to give up after no more than 10%. Unfortunately, the trend continues and every fucker has embraced Mediafire like flies to shit.

Hey, look people, today I made it to 11.4kb/s.
This cap was taken before overall failure at 4%. Kewl.

Don't Look Back In Anger

Sent a week before its release date (2nd Oct 2007) but only received this morning, after having to pay an £11+ custom charge (enjoy your money for nothing, bastards), I now have the pleasure of upscaling this R0 beauty, courtesy of an artist who, along with Terence Davies, should be funded by some rich, gay connoisseur before their productive life completely wanes.

...Will Become Tomorrow's Memory.

Harmony Korine Masterclass: NFT1, London Film Festival, 28th October 2007 (pic slightly blurry as I was some distance away and he's allowed to move).

Gotta love the casual nature of "celebrity" watching that goes on at these events. There I was, standing opposite the entrance to door 4, patiently awaiting the already running late Harmony Korine masterclass, when, much to my shock, out walks Mike Leigh and friend. Leigh positions himself less than half a meter from me whilst he and his pal begin to discuss the pros of the film they'd just witnessed (just looked at the LFF website and it appears to be The Strange One (1957); Ben Gazzara's debut acting role). I, of course, wasn't paying much attention, instead, had those nasty "fan boy" thoughts circulating; the subtle butting in with any random question that would spring to mind. It wasn't until another shifty-looking fellow beat me to it, causing Leigh to retort "excuse me but I'm having a conversation with my friend here" that I figured, well, I like Leigh but he's not in my Top 50 favourite directors, so I can hold out.

Harmony Korine, however, is! and I was grateful for the relaxed tone of the afternoon (on the back of drowsy medication). You never know when you attend these masterclasses whether the artist is prepared for serious, intellectual stimuli or, as was the case with Chris Cooper (at the Edinburgh Film Festival this year), restrained and seemingly unwilling to expand on even the most simple points (think The Office-type intensity for the audience). That's not to fault the man's acting abilities but in terms of public speaking and subject matter, you'd be better off reading basic coffee table books on 'performance'.

I could go through the event, piece by piece (as, for the first time, I actually made notes) but that would end up as bullet point information to which not everything is relevant or necessary; instead, I shall mention one of the more comical moments (certainly, in telling these stories, Korine broke from the curse of his nervous interviewer, who constantly said "ya know", and was able to come to life in an unrestrained way; much akin to his fragmented film making).

Ok, on the set of Julien-Donkey Boy (1999), during the family dinner sequence in which Ewan Bremner's character recites a "chaotic" poem, causing his father (fantastically played by Werner Herzog), to retaliate with "I don't like all that artsy-fartsy stuff", before himself describing the "go ahead punk, make my day" reference from Dirty Harry (1971) as something that is "unpretentious" and "good", we might notice a simple detail such as the grandmother (Harmony Korine's actual grandmother), appearing to be constantly staring at her glass (in the film, this type of reaction would seem commonplace). The reason for this reaction as it turns out, was because prior to shooting, Harmony's grandmother's hearing aid had fallen out and ended up in her cleavage but, unable to speak fluent English, there was a commotion as to its where-abouts. As the sound emitting from the device was a loud 'ringing', the first person to cotton on was Herzog, who (and this was best described by Korine - I'm paraphrasing here), "lunged himself at my grandmother, literally grabbing at her titties; his hand was right down the parting until he pulled out the hearing aid. From that point on, my grandmother couldn't look at Herzog without feeling total embarrassment." Haha!

Korine's advice to aspiring film makers was (based on his own method, of course): "watch a lot of films and live your life. Get involved in petit crimes..." (he was definitely serious about the last comment too).

Finally, as a cinephile, I should mention his influences: Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers (Gummo being the name of the "failed" Marx brother) and of course, Werner Herzog. On a more contemporary basis, Carlos Reygadas was the only name to emerge, whilst he briefly panned Kevin Smith as an (obvious) example of why his peers provide no interest. In fact, he said he was more in line with contemporary artists such as Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley than film makers.

Fuck it! I ended the night as a total "fan boy"; getting my DVD of Gummo signed and having my picture taken with the man. I shook his hand and wished him all the best. A good night, overall.

PS. For an excellent article on Harmony Korine, I recommend reading Benjamin Halligan's chapter from New Punk Cinema (Edited by Nicholas Rombes), entitled: What Was the Neo-Underground and What Wasn't: A First Reconsideration of Harmony Korine.

Today's Harmony...

At 4.15pm today I'll be in the same room as the director of these contemporary masterworks:


Unfortunately, time has not permitted me from seeing his latest offering, Mister Lonely (the premise reminds me a little of Roeg's Insignificance (1985) but I'm positive the execution will be immensely different), but it'll be definitely something I pick up on DVD as soon as released. Korine is one of the few American directors working today whom I have utmost respect for.

(Slow) Recovery / Brighter Day

To cut a long story short, when I was at secondary school, I suffered from what I called "unprescribed insomnia", that is, I never felt the need to see a doctor to explain my consistent sleeping defects, some nights two hours, other times 72 hour blocks, the situation was insane but I felt it worked to my advantage by allowing me extra time to watch so many films (maybe 6 a night). The situation changed when I became employed, with 6am wake-ups, 9 hour days, by the time I got home (whether that would be through lifts or its alternate, a lengthy bicycle ride), I had no stamina to, for example, last through a 90 minute film without falling asleep before the halfway mark (in this case, it could be days before watching anything again, which, in my view constitutes a non-productive existence). After 2 years and 3 months in the 8 - 5 routine, I then became a "mature" (22 or 23) student at University and that's where my sleeping patterns began to become erratic. In social terms, a typical university student (aka. Nosferatu) sleeps during the day and arises at night whereby sleep might come into play sometime between 2 - 8am... this is a problem for me as I pretty much awake between 6 and 7am every morning (force of habit), regardless of what time I go to bed the night/morning before. Bed at 10pm, awake at 6. Bed at 4am, awake at 6. A built in alarm clock with unalterable factory default. So, I tended to swing between the two states of (un)conscious (insomnia and narcolepsy).

Fast forward to Monday's screening of the new Rivette film and by the time I had reached the cinema (film started at 4pm), I was absolutely exhausted, almost to the point of delirium. Prior to the film's opening credits, I spent the time trying to find a comfortable position in a part of the cinema where the seats are only OK, suffice to say, I thought I had found it slightly outstretched with my head resting against the back of the chair (no headrests). Not good. A day later I suffered the consequences and through a combination of fatigue (which I had gone to see the doctor about - looking like a leftover from a Romero film), and the evils of a stinking cold, it seemed my body couldn't repair the damage my "sitting" position had caused a few days before. Drowsy, passive and any movement around the lower back region ready to cause disembowelment have meant my incapacitation for the last three days. So rarely do I get ill, the last trip to the doctor was for the rare condition amongst healthy young people known as pneumothorax (aka collapsed lung), that was a year ago and before that, must be something like 3-4 years... up to 5 year increments.

In other news: I received Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (1991) on a dual layer DVD+R from AsiaFilm, this film has no official distribution in any English speaking country (or, to my knowledge, *any* country as an official release). Sadly, on the reverse is written:

This Brighter Summer Day DVD is published by Asiafilm.com
This masterpiece film is not currently being distributed in any video format worldwide, so we are making this available as a service to film lovers. If you know how we can contact Edward Yang to try to distribute BSD on DVD in North America, please contact us at (940) 497-FILM. Thank you and enjoy!

Unfortunately, as of 29th June 2007, there was no way of reaching Mr. Yang. R.I.P.

[with thanks to Jonathan Rosenbaum for pointing me out to this DVD via his page on the cinemascope website]