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SMALL FILMS, BIG POTENTIAL<br />
BOOK IT!<br />
I’LL LEARN YOU A LESSON<br />
Jason Statham as the tutoring hitman<br />
The King’s Speech<br />
Royal Charmer<br />
DISTRIBUTOR The Weinstein Company CAST Colin Firth, Geoffrey<br />
Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Gambon, Jennifer Ehle, Derek<br />
Jacobi, Timothy Spall DIRECTOR Tom Hooper SCREENWRITER David<br />
Seidler PRODUCER Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin GENRE<br />
Drama RATING R for some language RUNNING TIME 118 min. RELEASE<br />
DATE November 24 ltd.<br />
Pete Hammond says … With first rate performances<br />
from an A-list cast, this handsome period<br />
piece is one of the most accessibly entertaining<br />
films of its kind in years. Colin Firth plays England’s<br />
King George VI (father of the current Queen<br />
Elizabeth) who must overcome an embarrassing<br />
stutter in order to lead his country through the trying<br />
times of World War II. Helena Bonham Carter is<br />
his prim and proper wife, the Queen Mother when<br />
she had pluck, and Geoffrey Rush is the Australian<br />
speech therapist who gives George strength and<br />
training and his first true friendship. This inspiring<br />
and beautifully told tale should have upscale<br />
fans of fine drama lining up for its release and<br />
wider commercial crossover prospects once award<br />
nominations start rolling in—an inevitability with<br />
Oscar-hungry Harvey Weinstein backing this flick.<br />
Flooding with Love for the Kid<br />
Rambo vs. Rambo<br />
DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER/PRODUCER Zachary Oberzan GENRE Drama/Experimental RATING<br />
Unrated RUNNING TIME 107 min. RELEASE DATE January 8 NY<br />
Sara Maria Vizcarrondo says … Budgeted at a reported $95.51 and<br />
produced completely by writer/director/cinematographer/editor<br />
and sole star Zachary Oberzan, this flick does with one camera, a<br />
computer, a 220-foot Manhattan apartment and the war novel First<br />
Blood what most 10 year olds with a camcorder and action figures<br />
dream about. Less indebted to the explosions and gunfights that<br />
made Sylvester Stallone’s crack at the story so popular, Flooding<br />
with Love also takes on the first appearance of John Rambo, the<br />
highly trained Green Beret operative who went postal in the woods<br />
of Kentucky after surviving a Vietnamese POW camp. Unless the<br />
film hits Rocky Horror status (which isn’t impossible) numbers will<br />
be modest. (Of course, since the film cost the maker so little, to him<br />
any numbers are profit.)<br />
CONTACT<br />
Zachary Oberzan / onlylivingboy@zacharyoberzan / 646-318-9633<br />
Anton Chekhov’s The Duel<br />
School, sans tests<br />
CAST Andrew Scott, Tobias Menzies, Fiona Glascott, Niall Buggy, Jeremy Swift, Nicholas<br />
Rowe, Debbie Chazen, Rik Makarem DIRECTOR Dover Koshashvili SCREENWRITER Mary Bing<br />
PRODUCERS Donald Rosenfeld, Mary Bing GENRE Drama/Comedy RATING Unrated RUNNING<br />
TIME 95 min. RELEASE DATE April 28 NY<br />
John P. McCarthy says … Anton Chekhov’s The Duel took me back<br />
to my undergraduate days (nearly three decades ago), a number of<br />
which were spent in an A/V carrel in the college library watching<br />
videotaped productions of canonical stage plays. Dover Koshashvili’s<br />
ambling, eminently accessible film captures the spirit of<br />
Chekhov’s novella without being overly taxing. In a provincial<br />
town far from the capitol and any intrigue of consequence, dissolute<br />
nobleman Laevsky (Andrew Scott) has grown tired of his married<br />
mistress Nadya (Fiona Glascott). One summer’s day, he learns via<br />
letter that her husband has died. Fearing she’ll insist on getting married,<br />
he doesn’t share the news with Nadya; instead he tries to figure<br />
out how he might be free of her. Interpreting the story through<br />
historical or allegorical prisms would spoil the experience and sour<br />
Koshashvili’s breezy charm. The last thing he and Chekhov would<br />
want is for the viewer/reader to worry about sitting for an exam.<br />
CONTACT<br />
High Line Pictures / Donald Rosenfeld<br />
donfilm@aol.com / 917 523 0446<br />
Stages<br />
A divorce worth the commitment<br />
CAST Elsie de Brauw, Marcel Musters, Stijn Koomen, Jennifer Jago, Joan Nederlof, Shireen<br />
Strooker, Jeroen Willems DIRECTOR Mijke de Jong SCREENWRITERS Mijke de Jong, Jolein<br />
Laarman PRODUCERS Joos de Vries, Leontine Petit GENRE Drama; Dutch-language, subtitled<br />
RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 80 min. RELEASE DATE November 5 ltd.<br />
John P. McCarthy says … Dutch director Mijke de Jong presents<br />
snapshots of a long-since-broken marriage, alternating intimate<br />
scenes between two forty-ish exes with brief segments featuring<br />
their reclusive 17-year-old son. Stages is an admirably spare and<br />
forthright chamber piece about divorce, its painful central theme<br />
receiving mysterious, beautiful and, eventually, hopeful counterpoint.<br />
Although a drama about a divorced couple sounds like a real<br />
downer, one of de Jong’s primary achievements is highlighting the<br />
positive in this bleak scenario. Stars Elsie De Brauw and Musters are<br />
66 BOXOFFICE DECEMBER <strong>2010</strong>
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