PARK CITY -- Family man Kevin Bacon goes behind the camera to explore a mother's obsessive love for her son in "Loverboy", a film starring his wife Kyra Sedgwick and featuring his daughter Sosie Bacon. It may take a parent to really appreciate what attracted him to such one-dimensional material. Good performances and a keen eye for period detail can't disguise the fact that not much is happening here story-wise. Beyond fans of the Bacon clan, pic is unlikely to generate much boxoffice sizzle.
Adapted from Victoria Redel's novel by Hannah Shakespeare, "Loverboy" may have been better suited to the page where it could have the subtlety and resonance missing on screen. As a film it works on only one level--crazy love.
As we see in flashbacks to her neglectful childhood with her lovebird parents (Bacon and Marisa Tomei), Emily Stoll (Kyra Sedgwick) is damaged goods. Her parents became a model for her of the limitations of exclusivity, so when she reaches adulthood, all she wants in life is to be a single parent totally devoted to raising her child. She reasons that by sleeping with a succession of men chosen for various qualities, her child will have no father, which is fine with her.
After years of moving around the country and trying to become pregnant, she finally conceives after a one-night stand with a conventioneer played charmingly by Campbell Scott. For some reason, insufficiently explained, she could never bear to have just an ordinary child, so she showers her son Dominic Scott Kay) with every attention and advantage. For a while it works: they have a great time camping out in the backyard, splashing purple paint on the walls of his room and talking to sheep. But by the time Loverboy, as she calls him, is six, cracks start to appear. He wants to have friends, go to school, have a normal life. Emily wants him all to herself.
And that's pretty much the entire set up for the ninety minutes of the film. Although they move from Yonkers to Cape Cod, the story has nowhere to go. Stuff happens--neighbors meddle, teachers get in the way--but the film doesn't get deeper or richer. Even the flashbacks to Emily at 12 (Sosie Bacon), where she visits her idealized mother in the neighborhood (an uncredited Sandra Bullock), fail to explain why she has a psychological need to totally control her son. Every mother has separation anxiety but this goes way beyond that.
Sometimes it's unclear what tone Bacon is shooting for. Things like sex in a library are too over the top to be realistic yet too serious to play for laughs. Although there's plenty of humor, the ending qualifies the film as a tragedy, despite the attempt to put a happy face on it. And Bacon doesn't seem to want to get into the implications of a mother kissing her son on the lips and calling him "Loverboy".
So, as far as it goes, the film is entertaining, thanks largely to Kay's natural likability. He belongs to the new generation of child actors who can actually create a character. Segdwick's great accomplishment is making Emily sympathetic even in the face of monstrous behavior. Tech credits are excellent for a limited budget, especially Nancy Schreiber's sensitive lensing and a lovely score by Kevin's brother Michael.
Bacon clearly has the ability to work well with actors and he's called in favors from friends like Matt Dillon, Oliver Platt, Bullock and Scott, who show up in small roles. But perhaps as a young director (he did one other film, "Losing Chase", in 1996) he held back on the story and stayed with something familiar. Hopefully, next time he will chose fuller material that allows him to spread his talent.
LOVERBOY
A Mixed Breed Films, Daniel Bigel/Michael Mailer production
Credits:
Director: Kevin Bacon
Writer: Hannah Shakespeare
Producers: Daniel Bigel, Michael Mailer, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Avi Lerner
Director of photography: Nancy Schreiber
Production designer: Chris Shriver
Music: Michael Bacon
Co-producer:
Costume designer: John Dunn
Editor: David Ray.
Cast:
Emily Stoll: Kyra Sedgwick
Paul Stoll (age 6): Dominic Scott Kay
Marty Stoll: Kevin Bacon
Sybil Stoll: Marisa Tomei
Mark: Matt Dillon
Paul's father: Campbell Scott
Jeanette Rawley: Blair Brown
Emily (age 10): Sosie Bacon
Mr. Pomeroy: Oliver Platt
Mrs. Harker: (uncredited) Sandra Bullock.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 87 minutes...
Adapted from Victoria Redel's novel by Hannah Shakespeare, "Loverboy" may have been better suited to the page where it could have the subtlety and resonance missing on screen. As a film it works on only one level--crazy love.
As we see in flashbacks to her neglectful childhood with her lovebird parents (Bacon and Marisa Tomei), Emily Stoll (Kyra Sedgwick) is damaged goods. Her parents became a model for her of the limitations of exclusivity, so when she reaches adulthood, all she wants in life is to be a single parent totally devoted to raising her child. She reasons that by sleeping with a succession of men chosen for various qualities, her child will have no father, which is fine with her.
After years of moving around the country and trying to become pregnant, she finally conceives after a one-night stand with a conventioneer played charmingly by Campbell Scott. For some reason, insufficiently explained, she could never bear to have just an ordinary child, so she showers her son Dominic Scott Kay) with every attention and advantage. For a while it works: they have a great time camping out in the backyard, splashing purple paint on the walls of his room and talking to sheep. But by the time Loverboy, as she calls him, is six, cracks start to appear. He wants to have friends, go to school, have a normal life. Emily wants him all to herself.
And that's pretty much the entire set up for the ninety minutes of the film. Although they move from Yonkers to Cape Cod, the story has nowhere to go. Stuff happens--neighbors meddle, teachers get in the way--but the film doesn't get deeper or richer. Even the flashbacks to Emily at 12 (Sosie Bacon), where she visits her idealized mother in the neighborhood (an uncredited Sandra Bullock), fail to explain why she has a psychological need to totally control her son. Every mother has separation anxiety but this goes way beyond that.
Sometimes it's unclear what tone Bacon is shooting for. Things like sex in a library are too over the top to be realistic yet too serious to play for laughs. Although there's plenty of humor, the ending qualifies the film as a tragedy, despite the attempt to put a happy face on it. And Bacon doesn't seem to want to get into the implications of a mother kissing her son on the lips and calling him "Loverboy".
So, as far as it goes, the film is entertaining, thanks largely to Kay's natural likability. He belongs to the new generation of child actors who can actually create a character. Segdwick's great accomplishment is making Emily sympathetic even in the face of monstrous behavior. Tech credits are excellent for a limited budget, especially Nancy Schreiber's sensitive lensing and a lovely score by Kevin's brother Michael.
Bacon clearly has the ability to work well with actors and he's called in favors from friends like Matt Dillon, Oliver Platt, Bullock and Scott, who show up in small roles. But perhaps as a young director (he did one other film, "Losing Chase", in 1996) he held back on the story and stayed with something familiar. Hopefully, next time he will chose fuller material that allows him to spread his talent.
LOVERBOY
A Mixed Breed Films, Daniel Bigel/Michael Mailer production
Credits:
Director: Kevin Bacon
Writer: Hannah Shakespeare
Producers: Daniel Bigel, Michael Mailer, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Avi Lerner
Director of photography: Nancy Schreiber
Production designer: Chris Shriver
Music: Michael Bacon
Co-producer:
Costume designer: John Dunn
Editor: David Ray.
Cast:
Emily Stoll: Kyra Sedgwick
Paul Stoll (age 6): Dominic Scott Kay
Marty Stoll: Kevin Bacon
Sybil Stoll: Marisa Tomei
Mark: Matt Dillon
Paul's father: Campbell Scott
Jeanette Rawley: Blair Brown
Emily (age 10): Sosie Bacon
Mr. Pomeroy: Oliver Platt
Mrs. Harker: (uncredited) Sandra Bullock.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 87 minutes...
- 1/27/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Making note of the fact that a mere 10 geographical miles separate the boogie-down South Bronx from button-down Wall Street, the creators of "Empire" have set out to show what happens when those seemingly diverse worlds collide.
It's an intriguing premise, and perhaps one day somebody will make a movie that actually tells that story.
In the meantime, we'll have to settle for writer-director Franc. Reyes' version, which tries to pass off a scattered, cliched approximation of the real deal.
Fronted by the charismatic John Leguizamo and attracting such icons as Isabella Rossellini and Sonia Braga to supporting roles, this debut offering from Latino-driven Arenas Entertainment certainly held some highly charged promise.
But this "Empire" will likely strike out with its target audience, which can get the same dose of melodrama for free from the average telenovela.
Gifted comic actor Leguizamo locks himself into dramatic mode as respected gangster Victor Rosa, a Little Cezar in the street pharmaceutical business who commands a significant chunk of urban turf with his customized blend of heroin, sold under the name "Empire".
Rosa's definitely at the top of his game, with a loyal posse and gorgeous fiancee Carmen (Delilah Cotto) at his side and an omnipresent gold chain with an enormous letter "G" (once belonging to his murdered Big Brother) dangling around his neck, but it's all going to seriously unravel after Carmen's new friend Trish (Denise Richards) introduces him to her investment banker boyfriend, Jack (Peter Sarsgaard).
Enticing him with a swank SoHo loft and some more "legitimate" off-shore investment opportunities for his millions in drug money, the smarmy Jack is about to play Victor in one of the oldest con games around and, as orchestrated by filmmaker Reyes, Rosa's the only person in the theater that didn't see it coming.
Perhaps he was distracted by all the glare caused by that giant "G."
A former dancer-choreographer-songwriter, Reyes tries to plug the picture's many plot holes and inconsistencies with wall-to-wall Leguizamo voice-overs and music video flourishes that contribute to its all-over-the-place style.
While Leguizamo keeps it together as best he can, it's pretty much safe to say he and the rest of the cast, including Braga as Cotto's mother and Rossellini as a powerful drug "queenpin" with a Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, have done more impressive work elsewhere.
That would also extend to the Ruben Blades score, which seems to have been broken up into little sound bites in order to make room for the arsenal of Latin pop and hip-hop tunes that have been squeezed in to boost the sagging street credibility.
EMPIRE
Universal
Arenas Entertainment and Universal Pictures present a Daniel Bigel/Michael Mailer production A Franc. Reyes film
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Franc. Reyes
Producers: Daniel Bigel, Michael Mailer
Executive producer: Robert B. Campbell
Director of photography: Kramer Morgenthau
Production designer: Ted Glass
Editor: Peter C. Frank
Costume designer: Jacki Roach
Music: Ruben Blades
Music supervisor: Kathy Nelson
Cast:
Victor Rosa: John Leguizamo
Jack Wimmer: Peter Sarsgaard
Trish: Denise Richards
Jimmy: Vincent Laresca
Rafael Menedez: Nestor Serrano
Carmen: Delilah Cotto
Iris: Sonia Braga
La Colombiana: Isabella Rossellini
Chedda: Treach
Tito Severe: Fat Joe
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
It's an intriguing premise, and perhaps one day somebody will make a movie that actually tells that story.
In the meantime, we'll have to settle for writer-director Franc. Reyes' version, which tries to pass off a scattered, cliched approximation of the real deal.
Fronted by the charismatic John Leguizamo and attracting such icons as Isabella Rossellini and Sonia Braga to supporting roles, this debut offering from Latino-driven Arenas Entertainment certainly held some highly charged promise.
But this "Empire" will likely strike out with its target audience, which can get the same dose of melodrama for free from the average telenovela.
Gifted comic actor Leguizamo locks himself into dramatic mode as respected gangster Victor Rosa, a Little Cezar in the street pharmaceutical business who commands a significant chunk of urban turf with his customized blend of heroin, sold under the name "Empire".
Rosa's definitely at the top of his game, with a loyal posse and gorgeous fiancee Carmen (Delilah Cotto) at his side and an omnipresent gold chain with an enormous letter "G" (once belonging to his murdered Big Brother) dangling around his neck, but it's all going to seriously unravel after Carmen's new friend Trish (Denise Richards) introduces him to her investment banker boyfriend, Jack (Peter Sarsgaard).
Enticing him with a swank SoHo loft and some more "legitimate" off-shore investment opportunities for his millions in drug money, the smarmy Jack is about to play Victor in one of the oldest con games around and, as orchestrated by filmmaker Reyes, Rosa's the only person in the theater that didn't see it coming.
Perhaps he was distracted by all the glare caused by that giant "G."
A former dancer-choreographer-songwriter, Reyes tries to plug the picture's many plot holes and inconsistencies with wall-to-wall Leguizamo voice-overs and music video flourishes that contribute to its all-over-the-place style.
While Leguizamo keeps it together as best he can, it's pretty much safe to say he and the rest of the cast, including Braga as Cotto's mother and Rossellini as a powerful drug "queenpin" with a Bride of Frankenstein hairdo, have done more impressive work elsewhere.
That would also extend to the Ruben Blades score, which seems to have been broken up into little sound bites in order to make room for the arsenal of Latin pop and hip-hop tunes that have been squeezed in to boost the sagging street credibility.
EMPIRE
Universal
Arenas Entertainment and Universal Pictures present a Daniel Bigel/Michael Mailer production A Franc. Reyes film
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Franc. Reyes
Producers: Daniel Bigel, Michael Mailer
Executive producer: Robert B. Campbell
Director of photography: Kramer Morgenthau
Production designer: Ted Glass
Editor: Peter C. Frank
Costume designer: Jacki Roach
Music: Ruben Blades
Music supervisor: Kathy Nelson
Cast:
Victor Rosa: John Leguizamo
Jack Wimmer: Peter Sarsgaard
Trish: Denise Richards
Jimmy: Vincent Laresca
Rafael Menedez: Nestor Serrano
Carmen: Delilah Cotto
Iris: Sonia Braga
La Colombiana: Isabella Rossellini
Chedda: Treach
Tito Severe: Fat Joe
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 12/6/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
James Toback's "Black and White" is an interesting film without being a very good film. Diving into a range of complex topics including hip-hop culture, race, sex and celebrityhood from a semi-documentary point of view, it lays out a series of snapshots of certain aspects of American culture at the end of the millennium.
Indeed, "Black and White" might be viewed with more fascination 50 years hence than it is today. But the film is so all over the place with no real sense of where it wants to end up that its process is more intriguing than the film.
With a highly charged sexual energy and generous use of hip-hop and rap music, the film has a sure-fire audience among young people. The only trouble is that it has R rating, which will hamper its exposure to that target audience.
Toback is one of our most idiosyncratic directors, whose obsessions take in a range of addictive behavior including gambling, drugs, sex (including interracial sex) and music. Themes going back to his brilliant screenplay "The Gambler" and his first feature, the underrated "Fingers", find their way into this exploration of hip-hop. The feverishness of Toback's filmmaking style, coupled here with mostly improvisational work by a bunch of professional and nonprofessional actors, is highly mesmerizing.
The cast ranges from amusing turns by Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller to Power and Raekwon of popular hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan. It almost feels as if whoever showed up on the set won a role for a day or two, with people such as Marla Maples, Mike Tyson and "Rush Hour" director Brett Ratner popping up in odd situations. (The oddest comes when Tyson bitch-slaps Downey for making a pass at him.)
Several stories are told all at once, with the central focus being on a group of Upper East Side white kids whose fascination with black culture causes them to hang out with rappers and gangsters.
Several conventional plot lines take the viewer through the chaotic scenes. A seedy white gambler (Stiller) tries to bribe a college basketball star (Allan Houston) into throwing a game. A documentary filmmaker (Brooke Shields) and her gay husband (Downey) hang around the periphery while making a film about the white kids' fascination with black culture. And a rap producer-cum-gangster (Power) struggles to protect his turf while dealing with betrayal by his childhood buddy.
Like the professor he once was, Toback wants to deconstruct hip-hop while delivering pithy observations about this social and musical phenomenon. But no truly new observations emerge from any of this and, often, the film all-too-proudly states the obvious.
Toback has brought too many characters in front of his camera -- none of whom gets explored in any depth -- for the viewer to understand why these people behave as they do. The most puzzling of all is Claudia Schiffer's bitch goddess who messes with every man she meets.
But Toback seems content to let his actors take control and tell him what the movie he's making is about. Cinematographer David Ferrara deserves special praise for maintaining a stylistic unity and letting his fluid camera catch the hectic action.
BLACK AND WHITE
Screen Gems
Palm Pictures
Producers: Michael Mailer, Daniel Bigel, Ron Rotholz
Writer-director: James Toback
Executive producers: Ed Pressman, Mark Burg, Oren Koules, Hooman Majd
Director of photography: David Ferrara
Production designer: Anne Ross
Music: Wu-Tang Clan
Costume designer: Jacki Roach
Editor: Myron Kerstein
Color/stereo
Cast:
Terry: Robert Downey Jr.
Casey: Jared Leto
Charlie: Bijou Phillips
Rich: Power
Cigar: Raekwon
Greta: Claudia Schiffer
Sam: Brooke Shields
Mark: Ben Stiller
Himself: Mike Tyson
Wren: Elijah Wood
Muffy: Marla Maples
Sheila: Stacy Edwards
Raven: Gaby Hoffmann
Scotty: Scott Caan
Dean: Allan Houston
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Indeed, "Black and White" might be viewed with more fascination 50 years hence than it is today. But the film is so all over the place with no real sense of where it wants to end up that its process is more intriguing than the film.
With a highly charged sexual energy and generous use of hip-hop and rap music, the film has a sure-fire audience among young people. The only trouble is that it has R rating, which will hamper its exposure to that target audience.
Toback is one of our most idiosyncratic directors, whose obsessions take in a range of addictive behavior including gambling, drugs, sex (including interracial sex) and music. Themes going back to his brilliant screenplay "The Gambler" and his first feature, the underrated "Fingers", find their way into this exploration of hip-hop. The feverishness of Toback's filmmaking style, coupled here with mostly improvisational work by a bunch of professional and nonprofessional actors, is highly mesmerizing.
The cast ranges from amusing turns by Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller to Power and Raekwon of popular hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan. It almost feels as if whoever showed up on the set won a role for a day or two, with people such as Marla Maples, Mike Tyson and "Rush Hour" director Brett Ratner popping up in odd situations. (The oddest comes when Tyson bitch-slaps Downey for making a pass at him.)
Several stories are told all at once, with the central focus being on a group of Upper East Side white kids whose fascination with black culture causes them to hang out with rappers and gangsters.
Several conventional plot lines take the viewer through the chaotic scenes. A seedy white gambler (Stiller) tries to bribe a college basketball star (Allan Houston) into throwing a game. A documentary filmmaker (Brooke Shields) and her gay husband (Downey) hang around the periphery while making a film about the white kids' fascination with black culture. And a rap producer-cum-gangster (Power) struggles to protect his turf while dealing with betrayal by his childhood buddy.
Like the professor he once was, Toback wants to deconstruct hip-hop while delivering pithy observations about this social and musical phenomenon. But no truly new observations emerge from any of this and, often, the film all-too-proudly states the obvious.
Toback has brought too many characters in front of his camera -- none of whom gets explored in any depth -- for the viewer to understand why these people behave as they do. The most puzzling of all is Claudia Schiffer's bitch goddess who messes with every man she meets.
But Toback seems content to let his actors take control and tell him what the movie he's making is about. Cinematographer David Ferrara deserves special praise for maintaining a stylistic unity and letting his fluid camera catch the hectic action.
BLACK AND WHITE
Screen Gems
Palm Pictures
Producers: Michael Mailer, Daniel Bigel, Ron Rotholz
Writer-director: James Toback
Executive producers: Ed Pressman, Mark Burg, Oren Koules, Hooman Majd
Director of photography: David Ferrara
Production designer: Anne Ross
Music: Wu-Tang Clan
Costume designer: Jacki Roach
Editor: Myron Kerstein
Color/stereo
Cast:
Terry: Robert Downey Jr.
Casey: Jared Leto
Charlie: Bijou Phillips
Rich: Power
Cigar: Raekwon
Greta: Claudia Schiffer
Sam: Brooke Shields
Mark: Ben Stiller
Himself: Mike Tyson
Wren: Elijah Wood
Muffy: Marla Maples
Sheila: Stacy Edwards
Raven: Gaby Hoffmann
Scotty: Scott Caan
Dean: Allan Houston
Running time -- 100 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/22/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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