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First Look: Crash, the Series

BuzzSugar — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:34:16 -0700

What does an Oscar-winning movie look like when translated onto the small screen, with an entirely different cast and set of stories? That's the question Crash will have to answer when it premieres on Starz next month.

The 2006 Best Picture's producers (including Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco) are on board for the 13-episode series, which features nine new characters with intersecting lives as they travel through Los Angeles. Save for Dennis Hopper, who's playing an aging maverick record producer, the cast features mostly unknown or little-known actors (DB Sweeney and Jocko Sims may be the best-known of the bunch).

When we first talked about the show, most of you said you wouldn't be interested in watching. I'm wondering if any of the new video footage of the show changes your mind. After the jump, you can see a quick preview, but the better taste is the full trailer, which you can see over on the show's website. Leaving aside the issue of whether you actually have Starz, does this look like a show you'd watch when it premieres Oct. 17? To watch the preview, just read more.

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Buzz News Roundup, 8/11

BuzzSugar — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:30:51 -0700

The Office has been given the key post-Super Bowl time slot and will air a one-hour episode following the game, Entertainment Weekly reports.
According to ComingSoon, Steve Buscemi and Romany Malco will star together in Saint John of Las Vegas, a loose adaptation of Dante's Inferno.
Tori Spelling has no deal to appear on 90210 and her desired salary may be the sticking point, E! reports.
Sara Gilbert is joining the cast of The Big Bang Theory after a successful guest-starring gig, Zap2it reports.
Dennis Hopper will get his own exhibit in France where, apparently, he is highly revered, writes Variety.
Clarke Peters and Wendell Pierce - aka Freamon and Bunk from The Wire - are joining Treme, David Simon's new HBO pilot about New Orleans, writes The Hollywood Reporter.
Variety has the news that director Chris Columbus is readying a film about Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential run.
24 producer Carlos Coto and Brett Ratner are working on an action-comedy for Fox titled Wild Boys, which will follow "ex-soldiers turned suburban dads," ComingSoon reports.
Matthew Bomer - aka Bryce Larkin from Chuck and Jay from Traveler - has been cast in the lead of a USA series called White Collar, writes The Hollywood Reporter.

Photo courtesy of NBC

TV Casting News: Smits, Hopper, Cole

BuzzSugar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:29:39 -0700

The TV upfronts may be nothing more than a fond memory, but there's still a trickle of casting news coming in about Fall shows - both on networks and on cable. One of these stories involves a recently displaced actor whose show's cancellation bummed some of you out, while another puts a veteran film actor in the lead of a series based on an Oscar-winning movie. Read on:

Smits Joins Dexter
Jimmy Smits, seen most recently in the CBS show Cane, will be staying in Miami for his next role: Smits will play an attorney on Showtime's Dexter. His character is described as ""an ambitious, charismatic assistant district attorney who comes from one of Miami's most politically powerful and beloved families" and forms an unlikely partnership with Dexter. No return date has been set for the show, but it's expected to premiere sometime in the Fall.

Hopper to Crash
Dennis Hopper, best known for his film roles, will lead the cast of the TV adaptation of Crash, the Oscar-winning film that is being made into a series for Starz. It looks like the show is less of a direct adaptation and more of an "inspired by" sort of situation, as none of the characters match directly to the film counterparts; Hopper will play Ben, a veteran music producer searching for one more great hit. The series is expected to premiere in October. It will be Hopper's first TV project since his stint on the short-lived E-Ring several years back.

One more bit of news about an Office Space favorite, so read more.

Cole on Good Behavior
Fresh off his stint on Desperate Housewives as Katharine's squirm-inducing ex, Gary Cole has landed a potential full-time TV role. He's joining the cast of the ABC pilot Good Behavior, playing the father of the criminal clan that decides to get out of the business when he ends up in prison. That means he'll be the TV husband of Catherine O'Hara and father of Mae Whitman (Arrested Develoment's Ann); we're still waiting to see who will play their other daughter. Rob Thomas of Veronica Mars is leading the adaptation for ABC. Also good news: Jeffrey Tambor has signed on to guest-star in the same show!

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Sundance Review: Sleepwalking

BuzzSugar — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:30:29 -0800

According to Charlize Theron at the Q&A session after the Sundance premiere screening for Sleepwalking, the movie's script really spoke to her, enough to make her want to produce and star in it. I have to wonder what, exactly, the script said to her that made it seem like a real standout project. It's not that this coming-of-age story with strains of poverty and abandonment is bad, necessarily, it's just forgettable. It didn't make me feel anything in particular except sleepy, which is perhaps appropriate, given the title.

The story follows young Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) whose unemployed, unsteady mother Joleen (Theron) suddenly disappears one day, leaving Tara in the care of her meek uncle James (Nick Stahl). Yet James soon finds that he can't care for his 12-year-old niece as well as keep a job and pay the rent, so when Tara insists they set out to find her mother, James eventually agrees. Their journey brings them to James and Joleen's father's ranch, despite the fact that this is the same gruff father (played by Dennis Hopper) who consistently berated and abused his children. Though the movie mostly seems like Tara's story, it's James who learns the most about himself and his own power, something he thought he didn't possess. To find out more of my thoughts on Sleepwalking, read more.

The story itself is fine enough. It's sweet to see the relationship between Tara and James develop into something meaningful, and to see Tara find moments of childish joy despite her difficult home life. There's one scene in particular that is beautifully done: Tara, wearing roller skates, lounges by a motel pool while two pre-pubescent boys stare at her. Enjoying the attention, she makes a big show of lighting a cigarette, then roller skating around the pool before dramatically diving in. The mixture of youthfulness (roller skates), adult behavior (smoking) and newfound sexuality (performing for staring boys) is both truthful and disconcerting.

My main beef with the movie is a filming technique that first-time director Bill Maher constantly employs: the gradual close-up. Maybe Maher thought it would make us care more about the movie if we got closer to things very, very slowly in every scene, but it doesn't work. At some point, it becomes fiercely annoying.

Then again, there's nothing so annoying about the film that we hate it - and there's nothing really interesting about the film that makes us like it. If this movie spoke to me at all, I had no other response besides a silent shrug.

Bottom line: Middle-of-the-road drama by a new director who managed to work with Charlize Theron. It wasn't the worst of this year's Sundance options, but was far from the best.

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