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Posts with tag JosephCross

The Climate Crisis Strikes Again with 'Son of Mourning'

Filed under: Comedy », Independent », Casting », Scripts », Cinematical Indie »

I feel the need to channel Juice Newton: Just call me angel of the morning, Angel! (Sidenote: The song was written by the brother of Jon Voight.) I just can't get this song out of my head with this latest news bit, and luckily it's a satire, so it's not completely inappropriate. Variety has reported that there's a new indie on the way called Son of Mourning, and it's pulling together a pretty tasty cast thus far. Joseph Cross, the kid who ran with scissors as Augusten Burroughs, Felicity Shagwell -aka- Heather Graham, Oscar nominee Barbara Hershey, and the Transsexual King Arthur Tim Curry are set to star.

This will be the feature directorial debut for Yaniv Raz, who has two short films under his belt -- Portishead - Cowboys and Things Fall Apart, plus some brief acting stints in shows like The District. Written by Raz as well, the film is set "amid an international climate crisis, [and] centers on a dissatisfied ad copywriter (Cross) who returns home to a resort town in Florida to meditate on his parents' divorce. While there, he is mistaken for the Messiah and must decide whether to use his newfound celebrity to indulge his own selfish desires, or to do some good in the world." I imagine Curry and Hershey will play the parents, but I'm not sure what Graham's character will be. Maybe she'll get back to her early roots and play a woman who lives/lived at a convent (like her Twin Peaks character, Annie Blackburn). Production will gear up in early 2008 in the Sunshine State.

Rachael Leigh Cook and Snoop Dogg ...Together At Last

Filed under: Comedy », Romance », Casting », Scripts »

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Rachael Leigh Cook and Snoop Dogg. Yes, Cook and Dogg have joined the romantic comedy The Golden Door. Unfortunately they will not be playing love interests in the film. Door will also star Sarah Roemer (Shia LaBeouf's co-star in Disturbia, which I'm watching tonight) and Joseph Cross (who played Augusten Burroughs in the astonishingly terrible Running with Scissors). The film will be about "a blue-collar nursing student played by Cross who's forced to quit school after his father dies in a freak handball accident." Yeah, you read that right -- a freak handball accident. "His uncle finds him a job as a doorman in a swank Manhattan apartment building, leading to an unlikely romance with a young resident, played by Roemer."

Cook (star of She's All That and the criminally underrated pop culture satire Josie and the Pussycats) will play "the sister who encourages Cross' relationship, much to the dismay of the girl's mother." Snoop Dogg (director and co-star of the Adult Video News award-winner Snoop Dogg's Hustlaz: Diary of a Pimp) plays "the slick doorman who hazes his new co-worker and shows him the ropes." I can hear the dialogue now: "You've got to learn to drop it, son. Drop it...like it's hot!" The film was written and will be directed by David M. Rosenthal (See This Movie). Rosenthal apparently has pretty lofty ambitions for the movie, which he told The Hollywood Reporter is "about an Upstairs, Downstairs type of relationship. The film explores class distinctions and the American ideal."

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Satellites: Space Junk of the Awards Season?

Filed under: Awards », Oscar Watch »

I never understood why the Golden Globes are such prestigious awards. I mean, what really makes them any different from any other critics awards? How did the Hollywood Foreign Press Association become so popular that millions of viewers tune in every year to witness the group's choices for best this and best that? I mean, they shouldn't be any more important than the International Press Academy, right?

Who? The IPA, that group that hands out the Satellite Awards. Never heard of them? Well, they just celebrated their 11th annual event on Sunday, and they're about as useless as the HFPA, only more so because they don't even get a broadcast. The IPA has more to do with the HFPA, too. The group is actually a spin-off of the more familiar awards-givers, having separated in 1996 as a broader organization (HFPA is very exclusive, IPA claims to admit any interested journalists), which explains their spin-off-sounding award name.

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