All posts tagged: james gray

Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver Movie

Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver Movie

Published by Daniella Wilson

James Gray’s Paper Tiger, the biggest American film in this year’s Hollywood-lite Cannes Film Festival, debuted on Saturday night to a spirited, six-minute standing ovation. Paper Tiger follows Hester and Irwin, played by Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, respectively, who are raising a family in 1980s Queens, when Irwin’s flashy brother (Adam Driver) sells him on a moneymaking endeavor that leaves them in the crosshairs of the Russian mob. “To be very pretentious about it, the intention was to try to make a very classical drama,” Gray told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the film’s premiere. “People sometimes shit on that idea, ‘classical’ — they equate it with ‘old-fashioned,’ but the two are not the same thing. Internal conflict, struggle, love, emotion — that is never old-fashioned.” Johansson told THR, “It had so many elements that I loved. It’s a big story inside of a small story.” Of her character, a stay-at-home mom who’s determined to fight for more but faces fewer options when tragic news sets in, Johansson said, “I liked the idea of …

Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver Movie

Adam Driver in James Gray’s Bruising Drama

Published by Daniella Wilson

“Let there be wealth without tears; enough for the wise man who will ask no further.” It’s fitting that the Aeschylus quote on the opening of James Gray’s riveting Paper Tiger evokes Greek tragedy. In this piercing account of the American Dream in tatters, the magnitude of that dimension feels appropriate, echoing the currents of betrayal, fear and death that course through the film like rivulets of blood. Calling it a sequel would be reductive, but the haunting drama is a companion piece to Gray’s 2022 film, Armageddon Time, again rooted in the director’s childhood. But it’s closer both thematically and tonally to his brooding 1994 debut feature, Little Odessa.  That lends Gray’s ninth and arguably best film a gratifying full-circle symmetry. The director has often mined personal and family history for dramatic inspiration — the Vanessa Redgrave character dying of a brain tumor in Little Odessa, just as Gray’s mother did; the passage of his émigré grandparents through Ellis Island, which informed key parts of The Immigrant; his own bittersweet coming of age, when his eyes were opened to prejudice and inequality …

The Outsider Who Walked Into Cannes With Three Competition Films

The Outsider Who Walked Into Cannes With Three Competition Films

Published by Daniella Wilson

Marco Perego, a conceptual artist whose work has been displayed around the world, grew up on world cinema and tends to watch a movie every day. Yet the Italian native has operated mostly outside filmmaking circles — until now. Coming off of his feature directorial debut from 2023, The Absence of Eden — which starred his wife, Oscar winner Zoe Saldaña — Perego launched the production company Leaf Entertainment alongside Michael Cerenzie. The goal was simple: Work with the best, most decorated global auteurs and help them get their next projects made. Easier said than done, right? Perhaps, but Perego has hit a remarkable benchmark in a very short period of time. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, he will make history as the first producer to have three movies in the main competition — and they’re among the most pedigreed and anticipated: Minotaur, the first film in nine years from Russia’s Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan, Loveless); Fjord, the Sebastian Stan-led drama from Romanian master Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days); and Paper Tiger, the starry latest from Croisette regular James Gray toplined by Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller. That …