Choke Movie Trailer
Fox Searchlight has released the movie trailer for Clark Gregg’s big screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk‘s Choke. If you were a fan of Fight Club, you’ll love Choke. I’ve seen the movie two times now, and’s Mel Valentin is even quoted in the trailer (right after Entertainment Weekly), how cool is that (you can read Mel’s full review here). I’m hoping that a red band movie trailer will be released which might give you a better look at the tone of the film, but I think the green band does a good job. What do you guys think?
Watch the trailer in High Definition on MTV.com. Choke will hit theaters on September 26th 2008.
Official Plot Synopsis: Actor-turned-director Clark Gregg shows he is as adept behind the camera as he is in front of it with CHOKE, a wickedly colorful dark comedy about mothers and sons, sexual compulsion, and the sordid underbelly of Colonial theme parks. Victor Mancini (Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Huston), in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical reenactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. At night Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend, Denny (Henke) and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Macdonald), to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
Release Date Change: Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke
Fox Searchlight has just informed us that the big screen adaptation of Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke has been pushed back to September 26th 2008. When the company snapped up the film for a hefty $5 million at Sundance, they immediately announced an August 1st release date.
The last Friday of July/first Friday of August is Fox Searchlight’s magic date. They opened films like Little Miss Sunshine and Garden State in that calendar spot to much success. The plan usually is to open the film in a couple markets, slowly expand throughout August, and open wide in September. But for some reason, Searchlight has decided to move the release back to late September. And this might not be a bad move. This will give Choke breathing room from the other high-buzz late Summer indie releases like American Teen, Towelhead and The Wackness. Palahnuik also has a huge young adult following, so opening the film up right after College is back in session might help the film’s marketing strategy.
Official Plot Synopsis: Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted med-school dropout, keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in an expensive private mental hospital by working days as a historical reenactor. At night he runs a scam where he deliberately chokes in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who “save” him. When, in a rare lucid moment, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his father’s identity, Victor must enlist the aid of his best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke), a recovering chronic masturbator, and his mother’s beautiful attending physician, Dr. Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), to solve this mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
Henry Poole Is Here Movie Trailer
Lakeshore Entertainment has released the movie trailer for the upcoming Luke Wilson dramedy Henry Poole is Here. From Albert Torres, the screenwriter assigned to Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor, and from music video turned film director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, U2 3D) comes “a modern day fable about the unexpected wonders of the everyday”. Luke Wilson stars as Henry Poole, a disillusioned man who attempts to hide from life in a rundown suburban tract home only to discover he cannot escape the forces of hope. Check out the trailer below and tell me what you think in the comments.
Official Plot Synopsis:
Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) just wants to disappear. Shattered by circumstances beyond his control, he offers full price on a cookie cutter house in a drab, middle-class, L.A. neighborhood through his perky realtor Meg (Cheryl Hines). But just as he settles in to his indulgent isolation with a case of vodka and all the junk food he can eat, his neighbor, a well-meaning busybody named Esperanza (Adriana Barraza), drops by with a plate of homemade tamales and a whole lot of questions.
Despite his desire for solitude, Henry can’t help noticing Dawn (Radha Mitchell), the beautiful young divorcée next door and her daughter Millie (Morgan Lily), an eight-year-old amateur spy who hasn’t spoken a word since her parents’ break-up.
Henry’s self-imposed exile is shattered when Esperanza discovers a mysterious stain on Henry’s stucco wall that is seen to have miraculous powers. She begins leading pilgrimages to the “holy site” and invites church officials, including her pastor, Father Salizar (George Lopez), to inspect the apparition.
Although Henry remains skeptical, he finds himself gradually drawn back towards life, especially after his silent friendship with Millie brings him closer to Dawn. As news of the apparition spreads throughout the neighborhood and his feelings for Dawn grow, Henry realizes his plan to live out his days in quiet desperation is going to be much harder than he ever imagined.
Henry Poole is Here hits limited theaters on July 25th 2008, and will expands on August 1st 2008.
SXSW Movie Review: Choke
After watching Choke, an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s (Survivor, Fight Club) novel directed by Clark Gregg, the words vulgar, crude, profane, blasphemous, obscene, and, best of all, hilarious, all come to mind. A sharp critique aimed at our self-centered, self-absorbed culture, with a few digs at group therapy, psychiatry, and dysfunctional parenting, Choke is the kind of film that can be only made outside the Hollywood system, then gets picked up by a Hollywood-based distributor after it becomes a hit with festival audiences and critics, as Choke did at the Sundance Film Festival two months ago. Choke was picked up by Fox Searchlight, with a released planned for late August, a lucky month for them (Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine were both released in August).
Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) has a problem, actually many, many problems. Victor numbs himself with meaningless sex with a random assortment of women, young, middle-aged, beautiful, and not-beautiful, then shows up for his weekly group therapy for sex addicts. When he’s not pursuing women with his fellow sex addict and best friend, Denny (Brad William Henke), he’s working as a “historical interpreter” (i.e., tour guide) at a Colonial-era amusement park. Frequent run-ins with his boss, Lord High Charlie (Clark Gregg), who takes the Colonial experience far too seriously, don’t help much. Worse, Victor’s mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), a former grifter who made Victor’s life extremely difficult, has been hospitalized with Dementia and the prognosis is far from good.
To cover the costs of the expensive private facility that’s caring for his mother, Victor runs a scam on unsuspecting restaurant patrons: he chokes on food, hoping one of them, preferably someone with money and a conscience will “save” him. Once they save him, he has them on the hook, frequently contacting them with requests for money to pay his bills or cover fictitious medical procedures (money he dutifully sends to the private hospital). Everything changes for Victor (as it should) when he meets Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), a seemingly brilliant doctor who suggests a novel, experimental procedure for saving Ida from Alzheimer’s and dying prematurely. And that’s all before an out-of-left-field twist about Victor’s paternal identity presents itself, upending Victor’s views of who he is and who he wants to be.
If you’ve read or seen the film adaptation of Fight Club, then Choke is more of the same: sharp social and cultural critique delivered through scabrous, scatological, offensive, outrageous humor, all in service of whatever themes Palahniuk wants to express. Not surprisingly for a novelist for whose work pushes boundaries hard, adaptations of his work run the risk of appealing to only a small segment of moviegoers or a larger segment, but only if the adapters water it down it considerably. The latter happened here, at least where the ending is concerned (expect something wholly different from the novel). The new ending fits the film adaptation, but it veers far from the novel’s Old Testament-style ending. But that’s a minor problem for Palahniuk’s fans (or it should be) and a non-problem for moviegoers new to Palahniuk’s novels or Fight Club (all five of you).
Unfortunately, Choke has none of Fight Club’s hyperactive visual style. Gregg doesn’t have David Fincher’s (Zodiac, Panic Room, Se7en) talent or skill as a director, but he also didn’t have Fight Club’s budget or Brad Pitt/Ed Norton-level stars. What Gregg does have, though, is a talented cast in the always underrated Sam Rockwell, excellent here as the emotionally damaged, amoral sex addict/con man Victor, Angelica Huston as his grifter mother, sweet and loving one moment, emotionally manipulative the next, Kelly McDonald, a Scottish actress memorable in No Country for Old Men who’s just as good here showing solid range, and Brad William Henke as Victor’s best friend and fellow screw-up/sex addict, who does the big man/wounded vulnerability bit convincingly.