NEW GOSLING FILM IS ‘PURE FETISH’
“Is Nicolas Winding Refn for real?” asks Slant Magazine at the start of their profile of the quixotic director of Only God Forgives. He reteams with his Drive leading man Ryan Gosling for this blood-soaked tale of revenge, which was booed by some critics following its Cannes Film Festival premiere. Only God Forgives is a movie “comprised of fetching poses, meme-worthy lines, and Refn’s trademark arterial splatters, epitomizes polarizing cinema, capable of dividing audiences into camps of wowed surrenderers and naysayers calling bullshit.” Well, is that enough to pique your interest…? Refn describes it as “pure fetish” and notes that he struggled to strike the right tone in its depiction of violence. “I think if you approach violence as a sexuality, it’s all about the build-up to a climax. The first image I had for Only God Forgives was a clenched fist, because it’s such an iconic image of male brutality, and masculine entertainment. But it’s also n extension of a phallus, and the more you clench your fist, the more of a phallus it symbolizes.” [Slant Magazine]
GARRETT HEDLUND VISITS ‘MOJAVE’
To keep his star wattage properly tended, Garrett Hedlund is following the ideal
formula of mixing up Hollywood blockbuster films—Tron: Legacy—with smaller films, like the long-awaited adaptation of On the Road. Next up: Mojave, from Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed).
French ingenue Louise Bourgoin and Oscar Isaac—star of the upcoming Inside Llewyn Davis from the Coen Brothers—join the film “about a desolate, violent artist who escapes into the desert and encounters a worthy antagonist in the form of a brilliant and homicidal drifter.” [Deadline Hollywood]
ICEBERG SLIM AND ICE-T’S ‘PIMPING GAME’
Rapper and actor Ice-T is using his considerable cred within the industry, as well as with movie and music fans, to spread the word about a new documentary for which he served as executive producer. Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp is “a complex, compelling and provocative portrait of Robert Beck, who became the infamous Chicago pimp Iceberg Slim, and later transformed into the author of seven books, which became the blueprint for the notorious ‘pimping game,’ influencing the streets, the hip-hop movement and urban culture as a whole.” Ice-T notes “if you watch the movie, the first half, you hate this guy’s guts, and then the second half of the movie, you see this guy doing probably the most humbling job you can do, being an exterminator, and trying to raise a mixed family in L.A. during the riots. And really, you find out his wife wrote the books!” [IndieWire]