Cattleya acquires rights to ‘El Italiano’
ITV Studios-owned Spanish drama house Cattleya Producciones has acquired rights to Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s bestselling novel El Italiano and will adapt it as a miniseries. Inspired by real events, El Italiano is a story of love, spies, and the sea set at the height of World War II in the Bay of Algeciras, where Italian combat divers are causing chaos among the Allied forces. Arturo Díaz, Managing Director and Executive Producer of Cattleya Producciones, and Ricardo Tozzi, founder and President of Cattleya, are leafing the project. Cattleya Producciones is searching for an international cast to bring El Italiano‘s Spanish, Italian and English characters to life. Screenwriter Beto Marini, co-creator of Movistar+ series La Unidad and feature films such as Retribution and Extinction is adapting the story. Pérez-Reverte was trained in underwater activities at Spain’s Centro de Buceo de la Armada (Navy...
ITV Studios-owned Spanish drama house Cattleya Producciones has acquired rights to Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s bestselling novel El Italiano and will adapt it as a miniseries. Inspired by real events, El Italiano is a story of love, spies, and the sea set at the height of World War II in the Bay of Algeciras, where Italian combat divers are causing chaos among the Allied forces. Arturo Díaz, Managing Director and Executive Producer of Cattleya Producciones, and Ricardo Tozzi, founder and President of Cattleya, are leafing the project. Cattleya Producciones is searching for an international cast to bring El Italiano‘s Spanish, Italian and English characters to life. Screenwriter Beto Marini, co-creator of Movistar+ series La Unidad and feature films such as Retribution and Extinction is adapting the story. Pérez-Reverte was trained in underwater activities at Spain’s Centro de Buceo de la Armada (Navy...
- 7/11/2022
- by Jesse Whittock and Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
“Woodshock” begins with death, as Theresa (Kirsten Dunst), a medical marijuana dispensary employee, provides her terminally ill mother (Susan Traylor, “Greenberg”) with a dignified end by spiking some weed with a toxic, unnamed liquid substance. This sequence is juxtaposed with shots of Theresa in the nearby woods, physically tiny and powerless as she wanders among living, old growth redwoods and their devastated, blunt stumps. (The film was shot in Northern California’s Humboldt County.) A powerful opening, it’s reminiscent of “Wanda,” Barbara Loden’s 1970 independent classic that begins with a miserable housewife wandering through a decimated, coal-blackened landscape in Pennsylvania and.
- 9/22/2017
- by Dave White
- The Wrap
As noted above, the invite for Steve Balderson's latest feature, El Ganzo, swore that something special was going to occur between a gay man of color and a white female within its running time. Here was an intriguing come-on, one hard to cold-shoulder, so I didn't. Happily, the film is a well-acted, beautifully shot, two-hander about a couple of gentle souls, thrown together by fate, who wind up the better for the confrontation.
Susan Traylor plays Lizzy, an attractive American tourist in Mexico on her way to a hotel. After her cab gets into an accident midway to her destination, she abandons her nonplussed driver, grabs her shoulder bag, and starts walking in the midday heat, seemingly stunned. Maybe she's received a slight concussion or maybe . . .
Many sunstruck hours later, Lizzy arrives at the hotel and falls instantly asleep even before the manager who shows her to her room can leave.
Susan Traylor plays Lizzy, an attractive American tourist in Mexico on her way to a hotel. After her cab gets into an accident midway to her destination, she abandons her nonplussed driver, grabs her shoulder bag, and starts walking in the midday heat, seemingly stunned. Maybe she's received a slight concussion or maybe . . .
Many sunstruck hours later, Lizzy arrives at the hotel and falls instantly asleep even before the manager who shows her to her room can leave.
- 8/26/2016
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
Multiplicity: Goldberg’s Latest a Mediocre Mash-up of the Masculinity Affliction
A handful of exquisite references are bound to crop up in a discussion of Howard Goldberg’s third directorial effort, Jake Squared, which proves to be the helmer’s first stint behind the camera since 1996 indie flick, Eden. However, Goldberg’s work doesn’t stand as an equal to a bevy of obvious influences utilized in the film, from any number of Woody Allen’s nebbish protagonists, to Fellini’s autobiographically inclined 8½. Abundant quotes flash across the screen from a series of additional notables, the least of which include Jean Cocteau and Groucho Marx. And yet, for all the inspired quirks, Goldberg’s material is never elevated beyond banal cliché, despite a cavalcade of names and an energetic lead performance.
A 50 year old filmmaker in Hollywood, Jake Klein (Elias Koteas), credits himself as a hopeless romantic, yet has never...
A handful of exquisite references are bound to crop up in a discussion of Howard Goldberg’s third directorial effort, Jake Squared, which proves to be the helmer’s first stint behind the camera since 1996 indie flick, Eden. However, Goldberg’s work doesn’t stand as an equal to a bevy of obvious influences utilized in the film, from any number of Woody Allen’s nebbish protagonists, to Fellini’s autobiographically inclined 8½. Abundant quotes flash across the screen from a series of additional notables, the least of which include Jean Cocteau and Groucho Marx. And yet, for all the inspired quirks, Goldberg’s material is never elevated beyond banal cliché, despite a cavalcade of names and an energetic lead performance.
A 50 year old filmmaker in Hollywood, Jake Klein (Elias Koteas), credits himself as a hopeless romantic, yet has never...
- 8/14/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Stars: Scott Bakula, Kevin J. O’Connor, Famke Janssen, Joseph Latimore, Sheila Tousey, Susan Traylor, Ashley Tesoro, Trevor Edmond, Wayne Grace, Daniel von Bargen, Johnny Venocur | Written and Directed by Clive Barker
Liverpool born Clive Barker is a well-known name in fiction, and especially in horror. His novels have sold millions of copies all over the world and many of his stories have been adapted to the screen over the last three decades, one of those films was Lord of Illusions, based on the short story “The Last Illusion” from Barker’s Books of Blood Vol. 6, a compilation of stories from 1985.
Directed by Clive himself, Lord of Illusions is a fantasy horror starring Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Kevin J. O’Connor and Famke Janssen (X-Men). This was the last film that Barker directed after previously stepping behind the camera for Nightbreed and Hellraiser. The director’s cut of Lord of Illusions is,...
Liverpool born Clive Barker is a well-known name in fiction, and especially in horror. His novels have sold millions of copies all over the world and many of his stories have been adapted to the screen over the last three decades, one of those films was Lord of Illusions, based on the short story “The Last Illusion” from Barker’s Books of Blood Vol. 6, a compilation of stories from 1985.
Directed by Clive himself, Lord of Illusions is a fantasy horror starring Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Kevin J. O’Connor and Famke Janssen (X-Men). This was the last film that Barker directed after previously stepping behind the camera for Nightbreed and Hellraiser. The director’s cut of Lord of Illusions is,...
- 6/2/2014
- by Chris Cummings
- Nerdly
This is the review of Greenberg, directed by Noah Baumbach starring Ben Stiller, Chris Messina, Susan Traylor, Merritt Wever, Greta Gerwig and Rhys Ifans. The latest offering from Academy Award-nominated director and writer Noah Baumbach (The Squid And The Whale, Margot At The Wedding), Greenberg follows in a similar vein to his earlier outings, offering strained family relationships, long-simmering resentments and playful indie charm. Ben Stiller plays Roger Greenberg, who, after recently recovering from a mental breakdown, decides to escape New York for six weeks to take a break at his brother’s L.A home. His brother and wife are away, but their personal assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), is present, and the two – both lost and ungrounded souls – find themselves drawn to one another.
- 10/2/2010
- by David Hudson
- Pure Movies
The 12th annual Boston Underground Film Festival isn’t set to start until March 25 — and will run until April 1 — but they’ve leaked a couple of early picks to Bad Lit. Even with just this little tease to start whetting New England underground film fans’ appetites, it looks like the venerable fest is in for another real doozy of a year.
The festival kicks off in high riotous fashion with the Opening Night feature Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi), a four-hour Japanese whirlwind of sinful transgression by Sion Sono about a good Christian schoolboy who’s obsessed with taking pictures of girls’ panties — while they’re wearing them. Eventually, he meets the love of his young life, who doesn’t much like being his object of obsession.
Then, after the Love Exposure screening on March 25 at 7:00 p.m. at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, Ma — where the entire...
The festival kicks off in high riotous fashion with the Opening Night feature Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi), a four-hour Japanese whirlwind of sinful transgression by Sion Sono about a good Christian schoolboy who’s obsessed with taking pictures of girls’ panties — while they’re wearing them. Eventually, he meets the love of his young life, who doesn’t much like being his object of obsession.
Then, after the Love Exposure screening on March 25 at 7:00 p.m. at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, Ma — where the entire...
- 2/5/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Writer, producer, director Steve Balderson’s genre-bending, tragicomedy Stuck! will be playing at the beautiful Egyptian Theatre this Wednesday, February 3rd at 7:30pm.
I implore anyone in love with genre cinema and genuinely unique, low-budget films, to check it out for the discussion following the feature with Karen Black, Mink Stole, Susan Traylor, Jane Wiedlin, Pleasant Gehman, Stacy Cunningham and director Steve Balderson, which should be a hoot.
If you’re looking for a satisfying pastiche of the “girls behind bars” sub-genre of exploitation, Stuck! delivers. Early examples of the genre, like Barbara Stanwyck’s 1933 potboiler Ladies They Talk About, were – like many pictures of the day – problem pictures, in that they aimed to expose social injustices and inadequacies in the justice system. But by the 1960’s, when the genre really came into its own with cult classics like Caged and 99 Women, women-in-prison movies began to slide towards sexploitation and,...
I implore anyone in love with genre cinema and genuinely unique, low-budget films, to check it out for the discussion following the feature with Karen Black, Mink Stole, Susan Traylor, Jane Wiedlin, Pleasant Gehman, Stacy Cunningham and director Steve Balderson, which should be a hoot.
If you’re looking for a satisfying pastiche of the “girls behind bars” sub-genre of exploitation, Stuck! delivers. Early examples of the genre, like Barbara Stanwyck’s 1933 potboiler Ladies They Talk About, were – like many pictures of the day – problem pictures, in that they aimed to expose social injustices and inadequacies in the justice system. But by the 1960’s, when the genre really came into its own with cult classics like Caged and 99 Women, women-in-prison movies began to slide towards sexploitation and,...
- 2/2/2010
- by Jesse
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
Directed and written by by Steve Balderson
Featuring Karen Black, Mink Stole, Jane Wiedlin, Jeff Dylan Graham, Starina Johnson, Pleasant Gehman, Susan Traylor, Stacy Cunningham,
Review by Andrew Shearer
Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. A new women in prison film (Wip for short) starring Karen Black, Mink Stole and one of the Go-Go's was shot less than two hours away from me and I didn't even know about it! I consider it a lost opportunity. I'm currently developing a nice, dark bruise on my left leg from kicking myself repeatedly with my right...
Stuck!, written and directed by Steve Balderson (Pep Squad, Firecracker), is a gorgeous, black-and-white noir character piece that feels less like an homage and more like a newly discovered classic in the babes-behind-bars genre. Whereas Barak Epstein's Prison A Go-go opted to go the route of parody (owing more to Troma than to, say, the late Cirio H. Santiago...
Featuring Karen Black, Mink Stole, Jane Wiedlin, Jeff Dylan Graham, Starina Johnson, Pleasant Gehman, Susan Traylor, Stacy Cunningham,
Review by Andrew Shearer
Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. A new women in prison film (Wip for short) starring Karen Black, Mink Stole and one of the Go-Go's was shot less than two hours away from me and I didn't even know about it! I consider it a lost opportunity. I'm currently developing a nice, dark bruise on my left leg from kicking myself repeatedly with my right...
Stuck!, written and directed by Steve Balderson (Pep Squad, Firecracker), is a gorgeous, black-and-white noir character piece that feels less like an homage and more like a newly discovered classic in the babes-behind-bars genre. Whereas Barak Epstein's Prison A Go-go opted to go the route of parody (owing more to Troma than to, say, the late Cirio H. Santiago...
- 9/15/2009
- by Superheidi
- Planet Fury
London -- Lynn Shelton's "Humpday" will kickstart this year's Raindance Film Festival, which includes an American Indie sidebar, organizers said Monday.
Shelton's movie, which stars Joshua Leonard and Mark Duplass, opens the London event, which aims to set itself apart from other festivals here by focusing on discoveries, innovation and indie filmmaking.
The festival will close with Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" to round out a strong U.S. presence.
Also in this year's lineup is "My Suicide," featuring one of David Carradine's last turns before his death.
Steve Balderson returns to the festival with "Stuck!" starring Karen Black, Mink Stole and Susan Traylor.
Raindance will play host to the U.K. premiere of Canadian Ryan Ward's "Son of the Sunshine" and the unspooling of Zach Clark's "Modern Love Is Automatic" starring Melodie Sisk, Maggie Ross and Carlos Bustamante.
Organizers said the 17th edition of...
Shelton's movie, which stars Joshua Leonard and Mark Duplass, opens the London event, which aims to set itself apart from other festivals here by focusing on discoveries, innovation and indie filmmaking.
The festival will close with Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" to round out a strong U.S. presence.
Also in this year's lineup is "My Suicide," featuring one of David Carradine's last turns before his death.
Steve Balderson returns to the festival with "Stuck!" starring Karen Black, Mink Stole and Susan Traylor.
Raindance will play host to the U.K. premiere of Canadian Ryan Ward's "Son of the Sunshine" and the unspooling of Zach Clark's "Modern Love Is Automatic" starring Melodie Sisk, Maggie Ross and Carlos Bustamante.
Organizers said the 17th edition of...
- 9/1/2009
- by By Stuart Kemp
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Busy actor Jeff Dylan Graham, whose long genre résumé includes October Moon, Beyond The Dunwich Horror and 100 Tears, dropped us a line to let us know about his new project Baby Jane? Written and directed by William Clift, it’s a take-off on the 1962 Gothic classic What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?—only with male actors (Matthew Martin and J. Conrad Frank) camping it up in drag in the roles originally portrayed by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
“Being a huge fan of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, I was more than enthusiastic about being involved in this film,” Graham tells Fango. “It was amazing to me that no one had yet attempted to make a feature-length parody of this true cult classic.
“I was amazed by the sheer brilliance of Matthew Martin, who literally channels Bette Davis, but is a strong actor in his own right,” adds Graham,...
“Being a huge fan of What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?, I was more than enthusiastic about being involved in this film,” Graham tells Fango. “It was amazing to me that no one had yet attempted to make a feature-length parody of this true cult classic.
“I was amazed by the sheer brilliance of Matthew Martin, who literally channels Bette Davis, but is a strong actor in his own right,” adds Graham,...
- 4/20/2009
- Fangoria
Scott Ziehl's "Broken Vessels" ventures into the oft-explored world of drug addiction with the novel twist that its junkies are paramedics. This makes for a harrowing ambulance ride, but the destination is all too familiar.
Lacking a compelling script, "Broken Vessels" isn't likely to connect with a sizable audience. Look for a fast theatrical payoff with this film after having spent the past year on the festival circuit.
That is a shame because the film -- written by David Baer, John McMahon and Ziehl -- at first benefits from its fascinating milieu. The daily rounds of paramedics as they roam Los Angeles' meanest streets offer dramatic situations and colorful characters operating in a pressure-cooker environment.
Tom (Jason London), a young man from Pennsylvania anxious to pay off a self-imposed debt to society, takes a job as an ambulance driver. (One of the unexplained curiosities of the film is that although Tom is hired with that job title, he seldom, if ever, drives.)
But instead of saving humanity while he trains under his partner Jimmy (Todd Field), Tom is plunged into a cynical world of on-duty drinking, fornication, drug deals, petty theft and, finally, drug addiction. The key denizens of this underworld are Suzy (Susan Traylor), Jimmy's next door neighbor and a speed freak, and Gramps (Patrick Cranshaw), an aging addict whom Jimmy has for years supplied with heroin.
Seemingly unable to alter his partner's behavior or extricate himself from the no-win situation, Tom stumbles down the path to self-destruction with only minor qualms of conscience.
Flashbacks to Tom's past point to a deep guilt that may be partially fueling his refusal to pull himself together. A one-night stand with a "normal" girl (Roxana Zal) offers Tom the hope of redemption, which he promptly rejects.
The film is certainly well made. Working with a limited budget, Ziehl and cinematographer Antonio Calvache give the adrenaline-pumping occupation of ambulance drivers a gritty reality. The actors convincingly create portraits of lost souls, especially London with a lemming-like devotion to his mentor and Field with a cocky swagger that seduces his young partner into joining a dangerous lifestyle.
But the film, much like its protagonist, becomes too fascinated with hard drugs at the expense of story and character development. How many scenes of drug buys, shooting-up and vomiting are necessary to make a point?
The film's best line belongs to Gramps who, referring to his longtime drug habit, says, "When people talk about living, this is not what they're talking about."
Ziehl should have realized that with a line like that, he could have cut 20 minutes of junkie high jinks.
BROKEN VESSELS
Unapix Films/Zeitgeist Films
Producer:Roxana Zal, Scott Ziehl
Director:Scott Ziehl
Writer:David Baer, John McMahon, Scott Ziehl
Co-producers:David Baer, Robyn Knoll, Todd Field
Director of photography:Antonio Calvache
Production designer:Rodrigo Castillo
Costume designer:Roseanne Fiedler
Editors:David Moritz, Chris Figler
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jimmy:Todd Field
Tom:Jason London
Elizabeth:Roxana Zal
Suzy:Susan Traylor
Mr. Chen:James Hong
Gramps:Patrick Cranshaw
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Lacking a compelling script, "Broken Vessels" isn't likely to connect with a sizable audience. Look for a fast theatrical payoff with this film after having spent the past year on the festival circuit.
That is a shame because the film -- written by David Baer, John McMahon and Ziehl -- at first benefits from its fascinating milieu. The daily rounds of paramedics as they roam Los Angeles' meanest streets offer dramatic situations and colorful characters operating in a pressure-cooker environment.
Tom (Jason London), a young man from Pennsylvania anxious to pay off a self-imposed debt to society, takes a job as an ambulance driver. (One of the unexplained curiosities of the film is that although Tom is hired with that job title, he seldom, if ever, drives.)
But instead of saving humanity while he trains under his partner Jimmy (Todd Field), Tom is plunged into a cynical world of on-duty drinking, fornication, drug deals, petty theft and, finally, drug addiction. The key denizens of this underworld are Suzy (Susan Traylor), Jimmy's next door neighbor and a speed freak, and Gramps (Patrick Cranshaw), an aging addict whom Jimmy has for years supplied with heroin.
Seemingly unable to alter his partner's behavior or extricate himself from the no-win situation, Tom stumbles down the path to self-destruction with only minor qualms of conscience.
Flashbacks to Tom's past point to a deep guilt that may be partially fueling his refusal to pull himself together. A one-night stand with a "normal" girl (Roxana Zal) offers Tom the hope of redemption, which he promptly rejects.
The film is certainly well made. Working with a limited budget, Ziehl and cinematographer Antonio Calvache give the adrenaline-pumping occupation of ambulance drivers a gritty reality. The actors convincingly create portraits of lost souls, especially London with a lemming-like devotion to his mentor and Field with a cocky swagger that seduces his young partner into joining a dangerous lifestyle.
But the film, much like its protagonist, becomes too fascinated with hard drugs at the expense of story and character development. How many scenes of drug buys, shooting-up and vomiting are necessary to make a point?
The film's best line belongs to Gramps who, referring to his longtime drug habit, says, "When people talk about living, this is not what they're talking about."
Ziehl should have realized that with a line like that, he could have cut 20 minutes of junkie high jinks.
BROKEN VESSELS
Unapix Films/Zeitgeist Films
Producer:Roxana Zal, Scott Ziehl
Director:Scott Ziehl
Writer:David Baer, John McMahon, Scott Ziehl
Co-producers:David Baer, Robyn Knoll, Todd Field
Director of photography:Antonio Calvache
Production designer:Rodrigo Castillo
Costume designer:Roseanne Fiedler
Editors:David Moritz, Chris Figler
Color/stereo
Cast:
Jimmy:Todd Field
Tom:Jason London
Elizabeth:Roxana Zal
Suzy:Susan Traylor
Mr. Chen:James Hong
Gramps:Patrick Cranshaw
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 7/30/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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