Votes on January's films:
Philomena (2013): 11 Thumbs Up
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013): 2 Thumbs Up / 8 Thumbs Down
Dean will be hosting for February. The movies to see are:
Nebraska (2013)
Trivia
- Bryan Cranston auditioned for the role of David, but director Alexander Payne didn't feel that he was right for the part. Matthew Modine, Paul Rudd and Casey Affleck were also considered.
- Gene Hackman, Robert Forster, Jack Nicholson and Robert Duvall were considered for the role of Woody.
- Alexander Payne's fourth film set in his home state of Nebraska, after Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999) and About Schmidt (2002).
- Alexander Payne's first experience shooting in black and white, with digital cameras and anamorphic lenses. Paramount initially balked at Payne's choice to shoot in black and white, but relented when previews yielded positive feedback to the cinematography.
- The first Alexander Payne film that he did not also write the screenplay for, and the first since Citizen Ruth (1996) whose screenplay is original and not adapted.
- The movie begins and ends with the 50s and 60s Paramount logo, saying "A Paramount Release".
August: Osage County (2013)
Trivia
- Beverly Weston, the Weston family patriarch, was played by Dennis Letts, playwright Tracey Letts' father in the Steppenwolf premiere of the play.
- Chloë Grace Moretz auditioned for the role of Jean Fordham, but lost to Abigail Breslin, who had a 103 degree fever when she auditioned for the role.
- Jim Carrey was considered for the role of Steve.
- Renée Zellweger and Andrea Riseborough were considered for a role. Riseborough was cast but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Juliette Lewis replaced her.
- The role of Violet Weston was originally played by Deanna Dunagan who won a Tony Award for her performance on Broadway (she also played the role in its world premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company). Phylicia Rashad and Estelle Parsons replaced Dunagan later in the play's Broadway run.
- One critic noted that the story, in both its stage and film version, "draws heavily on Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (1941)"
- "Life is very long" --the opening line spoken by Sam Shepard's character Beverly Weston--is from T.S. Eliot's infamous "Hollow Men" poem, but it's a line borrowed from Joseph Conrad's novel "An Outcast of the Islands". The hollow emptiness of modern, Western life is a grand theme of this movie and its original stage play. Also, the name of the major female character, "Vi" for Violet, is very similar to the name of Eliot's wife, Vivienne. In addition, Sam Shepard--whose father was also a teacher and drinker like the Bev Weston he portrays--has long been a playwright documenting the demise of the American dream in works such as "True West".
- Tracy Letts unsuccessfully objected against Harvey Weinstein's decision in the casting of British actors for the film (Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch and etc.. including Andrea Riseborough who was nearly cast as Karen) as the characters are written to be all-American, but admitted had a change of view after seeing the film.
- Gary Cole was offered to reprise the role of Steve Heidebrecht he played in the London stage version but declined.
