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Between one and "Tenn" on the Freudian scale, Tennessee Williams biopic guaranteed to be a twenty
Oh boy, this is the best news I've heard all week: Taylor Hackford (director of such films as An Officer and a Gentleman, Ray, and My Wife Helen Mirren is Way Hotter than Your Wife Will Ever Be) has signed on to direct Tenn, a biopic about the formative years of notorious head-case and great gay American author Tennessee Williams. The Variety article notes that the film will focus on Williams's troubled home life, "complete with a scornful father, depression, conflicts about sexuality and watching his beloved sister institutionalized and lobotomized." Sounds like the feel-good movie of the year! Unsurprisingly, the project comes from the same folks behind the recent biopic Capote, which similarly looked at a great gay writer in a particularly troubling time in his life. Any ideas who would be perfect to play the man who would eventually bring us The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire and engage in one of the hottest high-profile three-way slapfests ever with fellow authors Gore Vidal and Truman Capote? I could see James McAvoy pulling it off. Or Ryan Gosling?
Submitted by on Tue, 2008-08-12 15:32. |
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Just looking at that pic of Williams...
...I was thinking Jon Favreau.
Tennessee should be played by an unknown
There are a lot of brilliant young actors out there none of us have heard of yet who could do it.
Or maybe Vincent Kartheizer.
Mrs. Hackford (Helen Mirren, who IS way hotter than any of us could ever be) most definitely has the chops do do "Miss Edwina," Tennessee's monster mother, and Laura Linney was BORN to play Rose.
If it's dealing with his early years then Frank Merlo won't appear. Or maybe he will for a "happy ending." That would be nice.
Seriously- what is that?
Bad director
Vito Russo must be spinning in his grave. The director of the homophobic An Office And A Gentleman is directing a movie about one of the most famous gay man ever. Yikes! It has been a while since I read The Celluloid Closet, but as I recall Russo really disliked how homophobic comments were thrown around by the main characters and the audience is clearly not supposed to judge them for it.
I am more upset that Taylor HACKford, director of such cinematic turds as Double Jeopardy and Proof Of Life, is being handed such a potentially great project. The producer of the movie has already said the film would be more like Capote than Ray. To guarantee that, the producer should start by hiring the director of Capote rather than the director of Ray.
Well, "Officer" WAS set in military boot camp...
Future epitaph: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
You're probably thinking of the immortal line, "Only two things come out of Oklahoma...steers and queers!" However, these are also men who comment when a woman walks by, "Did you see those bodacious ta-tas?" Late in the film, Gere snarls at a woman, "You little cunt." These guys aren't role models for polite society in any way.
Hackford, however, is great with actors: think of the casts of "Officer" and "Ray," just for starters. Jon Favreau would be sensational (and I also think he's hot hot HOT), but he's probably too mature at 40+ to play the younger Tom, a.k.a. Tennessee. Casey Affleck would probably be terrific, but I'm not sure he's enough of a "name." Ryan Gosling is brilliant, but I don't see the resemblance.