Indie thriller Crave entices Ron Perlman
Ron Perlman, Josh Lawson and Emma Lung have been cast in the lead roles of the indie thriller Crave, the directing debut of Charles de Lauzirika.
Lauzirika wrote the screenplay with Robert Lawton (Sex & Sushi).
Crave centers on a troubled photographer (Lawson) whose dangerous visions wreak havoc when his romance with a young woman (Lung) ends and he is pursued by a world-weary detective (Perlman).
Lauzirika, a frequent producer of DVD and Blu-ray extras content, has worked on ancillary releases for Blade Runner, the Alien movies, Twin Peaks, Spider-Man 2, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, (500) Days Of Summer and the upcoming Avatar. Perlman starred in the Hellboy movies. He next appears in Bunraku and Season Of The Witch. Lung most recently appeared in The Boys Are Back and next appears in the thriller Triangle. Lawson recently co-wrote and starred in Squid: The Movie.
Carell tees up for gold comedy Missing Links
Steve Carell and Warner Bros. are aiming for the fairway. The studio has acquired Missing Links, a golf-comedy based on a novel by ESPN’s Rick Reilly. Carell is attached to star as a golfer angling for a better place to play and will produce via his Carousel Prods. banner. The Break-Up screenwriter Jay Lavender is writing the screenplay.
Reilly’s 1997 comedic novel tells of a group of bumblers who, after playing for years at a run-down municipal golf course in a working-class Boston neighbourhood, concoct a series of schemes that they hope will lead to them teeing off at a nearby elite club.
Reilly is a longtime Sports Illustrated columnist, known for his irreverent brand of commentary, who two years ago left the Time Inc. magazine to pen a back-page column for ESPN the Magazine and write for ESPN.com. He also tried his hand at screenwriting with the 2008 football comedy Leatherheads.
Carell is next up on the big screen in the romantic comedy Date Night and is also on board for the sequel of Get Smart. He has turned overconfident, deluded characters into a specialty with his Michael Scott role on The Office.
Canadian directors honour Passchendaele
Passachendaele continued its winning ways Saturday night at the eighth annual Directors Guild of Canada Awards, where it picked up the best feature film team trophy.
The Canadian war epic earlier this year won six trophies, including one for best Canadian movie, at the Genies, Canada’s film awards.
Passchendaele, which centres on the trench combat of World War I, also earned a production design trophy for Carol Spier.
Spier, best known for her collaboration on nine David Cronenberg films, also picked up the 2009 DGC lifetime achievement award.
Cronenberg was on hand to introduce a nervous Spier, insisting there wasn’t any tension because she’d already been tapped for the tribute. “Imagine if there was a competition for a lifetime achievement award, and you lost?” the Toronto-based director joked.
Sturla Gunnarsson’s Air India 182, a documentary about the 1985 terrorist attack on Air India flight 182, won the inaugural Allan King Award for documentary excellence. Veteran Canadian documentary maker King, a pioneer of the cinema verite movement, died in Junein Toronto after a short illness, at age 79.
