Plot: The film follows Narvel Roth, the meticulous horticulturist of Gracewood Gardens. He is as much devoted to tending the grounds of this beautiful and historic estate, to pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill. When Mrs. Haverhill demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great-niece Maya) as a new apprentice, chaos enters Narvel’s spartan existence, unlocking dark secrets from a buried violent past that threaten them all.
Review: Paul Schrader’s career has always been one of extreme highs and lows. While his writing and directing efforts are typically tagged with his credits on Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, Schrader’s output in the 2000s has been wildly inconsistent. But, since his 2017 masterpiece First Reformed, the filmmaker has delivered a solid follow-up in 2021’s The Card Counter and looks to complete a loose thematic trilogy with Master Gardener. With an exceptional lead performance by...
Review: Paul Schrader’s career has always been one of extreme highs and lows. While his writing and directing efforts are typically tagged with his credits on Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, Schrader’s output in the 2000s has been wildly inconsistent. But, since his 2017 masterpiece First Reformed, the filmmaker has delivered a solid follow-up in 2021’s The Card Counter and looks to complete a loose thematic trilogy with Master Gardener. With an exceptional lead performance by...
- 5/26/2023
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
Exclusive: Vertigo Releasing has set a January 20th North American release for BAFTA winner After Love, marking the company’s first stateside theatrical release.
Aleem Khan’s well-received debut stars Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It), Nathalie Richard and Tali Ariss in the story of a widow who discovers her husband’s secret family after his unexpected death.
Scanlan plays Mary, a white English woman who converted to islam when she married her Pakistani husband, Ahmed, and they settled in Dover, England. Following Ahmed’s unexpected death, Mary discovers that her late husband had a secret life just twenty-one miles away across the Channel in Calais, France. The shocking discovery compels her to go there to find out more, and as she grapples with her shattered sense of identity, her search for understanding has surprising consequences.
UK distributor and producer Vertigo will release the film on at least 20 screens stateside,...
Aleem Khan’s well-received debut stars Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It), Nathalie Richard and Tali Ariss in the story of a widow who discovers her husband’s secret family after his unexpected death.
Scanlan plays Mary, a white English woman who converted to islam when she married her Pakistani husband, Ahmed, and they settled in Dover, England. Following Ahmed’s unexpected death, Mary discovers that her late husband had a secret life just twenty-one miles away across the Channel in Calais, France. The shocking discovery compels her to go there to find out more, and as she grapples with her shattered sense of identity, her search for understanding has surprising consequences.
UK distributor and producer Vertigo will release the film on at least 20 screens stateside,...
- 12/22/2022
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Director Matt Sobel called on production designer Mary Colston and cinematographer Alexander Dynan to subtly emphasize a sense of foreboding in his reimagining of the 2014 Austrian psychological thriller “Goodnight Mommy,” on Prime Video.
Naomi Watts plays a mother who returns home to her sons after having cosmetic surgery, but she’s not quite the same person who left them. Her bandaged face as she recovers hides more than a person healing from a procedure.
Colston wanted the family’s house to play on the idea that it was “a map of trauma.” The home starts out bright and inviting with white walls and high ceilings — a look she calls “Goop mom,” after Gwyneth Paltrow’s aspirational brand.
But as the story unfolds, the boys, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lucas (Nicholas Crovetti), start to notice a behavioral change in their mother. She tears up their drawings; sets up new house rules,...
Naomi Watts plays a mother who returns home to her sons after having cosmetic surgery, but she’s not quite the same person who left them. Her bandaged face as she recovers hides more than a person healing from a procedure.
Colston wanted the family’s house to play on the idea that it was “a map of trauma.” The home starts out bright and inviting with white walls and high ceilings — a look she calls “Goop mom,” after Gwyneth Paltrow’s aspirational brand.
But as the story unfolds, the boys, Elias (Cameron Crovetti) and Lucas (Nicholas Crovetti), start to notice a behavioral change in their mother. She tears up their drawings; sets up new house rules,...
- 9/20/2022
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Master Gardener. “Gardening,” Joel Edgerton muses early into Master Gardener, “is a belief in the future, that things will happen.” Every installment in Paul Schrader’s untitled contemporary trilogy, which this new film brings to a close, seems engineered to test that conviction, an unwavering optimism that amounts to an act of faith. As Ethan Hawke’s Reverend Toller in First Reformed (2017) and Oscar Isaac’s William Tell in The Card Counter (2021), Edgerton’s Narvel Roth is the latest addition to the director’s pantheon of “God’s lonely men,” solitary and spiritually broken drifters searching for a redemption that seems to lie forever beyond their reach. Anyone remotely familiar with Schrader’s work will find plenty of recurrent tropes and themes here, so much so that Master Gardener almost toys with self-parody. But these motifs do not register as facsimiles. Schrader, age 76, is now clearly making “late films,” and...
- 9/6/2022
- MUBI
Click here to read the full article.
On paper, Paul Schrader’s latest, Master Gardener, has all the elements to be a continuation of the writer-director’s recent renaissance with First Reformed and The Card Counter. Another solitary man tormented by a violent past seeks regeneration, penning detailed journals about the obsession — in this case, horticulture — that keeps his darkest thoughts at bay. Joel Edgerton’s haunted central performance as former white supremacist Narvel Roth fits the essential Schrader mold of a troubled soul hiding from his demons. But little else rings true in a drama curiously lacking in texture, which misses the mark in lifeless scene after scene.
The film premieres out of competition in Venice in conjunction with Schrader receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, an honor fully earned with a distinguished body of work going back almost 50 years. However, this is one of his weaker efforts,...
On paper, Paul Schrader’s latest, Master Gardener, has all the elements to be a continuation of the writer-director’s recent renaissance with First Reformed and The Card Counter. Another solitary man tormented by a violent past seeks regeneration, penning detailed journals about the obsession — in this case, horticulture — that keeps his darkest thoughts at bay. Joel Edgerton’s haunted central performance as former white supremacist Narvel Roth fits the essential Schrader mold of a troubled soul hiding from his demons. But little else rings true in a drama curiously lacking in texture, which misses the mark in lifeless scene after scene.
The film premieres out of competition in Venice in conjunction with Schrader receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, an honor fully earned with a distinguished body of work going back almost 50 years. However, this is one of his weaker efforts,...
- 9/3/2022
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
After highlighting 40 titles confirmed to hit theaters this fall, we now turn our attention to the festival-bound films either without distribution or a release date. Looking over Venice, Toronto, and New York Film Festival selections, we’ve rounded up 20––most of which we’ll be checking out over the next few weeks––we can’t wait to see.
Check out our 20 most-anticipated festival premieres below, and return for our reviews.
A Cooler Climate (James Ivory and Giles Gardner; NYFF)
After debuting at NYFF’s third edition in 1965 with the Merchant-Ivory production Shakespeare Wallah, James Ivory returns this year for a world premiere. A Cooler Climate, co-directed with Giles Gardner, finds the filmmaker poetically revisiting a formative trip to Afghanistan through self-shot film he recovered. Featuring music by Alexandre Desplat and clocking in at 75 minutes, we’re curious what the 94-year-old Oscar winner has cooked up. – Jordan R.
A Compassionate Spy...
Check out our 20 most-anticipated festival premieres below, and return for our reviews.
A Cooler Climate (James Ivory and Giles Gardner; NYFF)
After debuting at NYFF’s third edition in 1965 with the Merchant-Ivory production Shakespeare Wallah, James Ivory returns this year for a world premiere. A Cooler Climate, co-directed with Giles Gardner, finds the filmmaker poetically revisiting a formative trip to Afghanistan through self-shot film he recovered. Featuring music by Alexandre Desplat and clocking in at 75 minutes, we’re curious what the 94-year-old Oscar winner has cooked up. – Jordan R.
A Compassionate Spy...
- 8/30/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Coming to Prime Video on September 16 is Goodnight Mommy.
Twin brothers (Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) arrive at their Mother’s country home (Naomi Watts) to discover her face covered in surgical bandages. Immediately something is off. Their Mother smokes, sets strict rules, refuses to sing their favorite bedtime song, and secretly rips up a drawing Elias gives her — things their previously warm, caring mom would never do. They begin to suspect the woman is not their mother at all, but even after she turns violent, the police don’t believe the children are in danger. Becoming increasingly suspicious, the boys try to uncover who they are really living with, in this suspenseful, psychological thriller.
Goodnight Mommy is directed by Matt Sobel from a screenplay by Kyle Warren, based on the 2014 film Goodnight Mommy (written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, produced by Ulrich Seidl).
The film stars Naomi Watts (21 Grams,...
Twin brothers (Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) arrive at their Mother’s country home (Naomi Watts) to discover her face covered in surgical bandages. Immediately something is off. Their Mother smokes, sets strict rules, refuses to sing their favorite bedtime song, and secretly rips up a drawing Elias gives her — things their previously warm, caring mom would never do. They begin to suspect the woman is not their mother at all, but even after she turns violent, the police don’t believe the children are in danger. Becoming increasingly suspicious, the boys try to uncover who they are really living with, in this suspenseful, psychological thriller.
Goodnight Mommy is directed by Matt Sobel from a screenplay by Kyle Warren, based on the 2014 film Goodnight Mommy (written and directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, produced by Ulrich Seidl).
The film stars Naomi Watts (21 Grams,...
- 8/24/2022
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Cinematographer Alexander Dynan got to know director Paul Schrader working on “First Reformed” and an earlier film, “Dog Eat Dog.”
Dynan developed a shorthand with Schrader and with colorist Tim Merick that helped him light and color Schrader’s “The Card Counter,” which is in cinemas now.
Told in an urgent, immersive style, the film follows William (Oscar Issac), a lonely and tortured man who once served at Abu Ghraib. He exists in a kind of purgatory, so the drab and monotonous backdrop of casinos mirrors his conflicted soul. Flipping between the drab suburban landscape of the present and hallucinatory visions of the prison, Dynan turned to inspirations from Schrader’s lodestar, Robert Bresson, to VR videos to Caravaggio to help deliver Schrader’s vision.
This is your third collaboration with Paul, can you share a little about your shorthand and how that works?
On “First Reformed,” we really established a visual language.
Dynan developed a shorthand with Schrader and with colorist Tim Merick that helped him light and color Schrader’s “The Card Counter,” which is in cinemas now.
Told in an urgent, immersive style, the film follows William (Oscar Issac), a lonely and tortured man who once served at Abu Ghraib. He exists in a kind of purgatory, so the drab and monotonous backdrop of casinos mirrors his conflicted soul. Flipping between the drab suburban landscape of the present and hallucinatory visions of the prison, Dynan turned to inspirations from Schrader’s lodestar, Robert Bresson, to VR videos to Caravaggio to help deliver Schrader’s vision.
This is your third collaboration with Paul, can you share a little about your shorthand and how that works?
On “First Reformed,” we really established a visual language.
- 9/12/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
With The Card Counter, Paul Schrader has written another “man in[to] a room”: William Tell (Oscar Isaac), an ex-torturer turned professional poker player, lives hotel to hotel, making each unit his own by wrapping their furniture in his own sterile, white sheets—“essentially bleached muslin,” the film’s Dp Alexander Dynan says. A little light went a long way when capturing these whitened rooms on the light-sensitive, medium format Alexa Lf camera. Sometimes Dynan lit Isaac journaling with nothing but a bulb wrapped in diffusion—something he could not justify using on First Reformed, as pastor Toller (Ethan Hawke) did not diary near a fabric-covered lamp. […]
The post “If Bresson Had Digital Cinematography, What Might He Do?”: Dp Alexander Dynan on the Portraits, Inserts and VR Nightmares of The Card Counter first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “If Bresson Had Digital Cinematography, What Might He Do?”: Dp Alexander Dynan on the Portraits, Inserts and VR Nightmares of The Card Counter first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/10/2021
- by Aaron Hunt
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Whatever new could be said about Paul Schrader as an artist—curving around the extra-textual value in Kickstarter campaigns, Facebook posts, and tragic losses of final cut—is almost entirely on the back of First Reformed. A cultural smash first propelled by surprise of the he’s-still-got-it! variety that, as those things always do, faded, now denotes career reset—a generational shift for telling us his anxiety-ridden men of ‘70s and ‘80s landmarks stuck around to become the doom-scrolling generation whose problems are more global than personal. (Though obviously that too.) The catch of this conquest is a greedy fan (hello) alternately thrilled at the existence of another film and worried a final statement for the ages is rendered naught. A broken promise? Please; he owes us nothing. But Ernst Toller’s martyrdom is hard to sacrifice as a last note.
My fear of folly dissipated before The Card Counter‘s first shot.
My fear of folly dissipated before The Card Counter‘s first shot.
- 9/2/2021
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Green covers the screen as the opening credits for Paul Schrader’s “The Card Counter” surface. The color and texture come from the felt distinctive to casino tables. But this isn’t a study on greed for cash, in spite of what the palaces of gambling where it mostly occurs might suggest. What’s bet on with every played hand is absolution, the potential cleansing of a specter’s soul.
Men with moral vendettas are the veteran writer-director’s objects of fascination. Saints are too facile to be subjects to inspire his sordid plots, but those with dubious pasts and a righteous, self-imposed mandate for vindication are dramatic aces. His vehicle for this latest oft-gripping but ultimately mild work is William Tell (Oscar Isaac), a former military interrogator jailed for carrying out the dehumanizing torture practices his superiors ordered. Not much else emerges about him as far as the specifics of his personal life.
Men with moral vendettas are the veteran writer-director’s objects of fascination. Saints are too facile to be subjects to inspire his sordid plots, but those with dubious pasts and a righteous, self-imposed mandate for vindication are dramatic aces. His vehicle for this latest oft-gripping but ultimately mild work is William Tell (Oscar Isaac), a former military interrogator jailed for carrying out the dehumanizing torture practices his superiors ordered. Not much else emerges about him as far as the specifics of his personal life.
- 9/2/2021
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Wrap
Naomi Watts’ update on the cult horror film “Goodnight Mommy” just secured two crucial roles in Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti.
The twin boys will play Watts’ sons in the Amazon Studios project, which just kicked off production in New Jersey. Matt Sobel is directing the new take on the film, whose predecessor was selected as Austria’s entry for best international film at the 2015 Oscars.
The story follows two brothers who arrive at their mother’s country home to discover her face covered in bandages, what she says is the result of a recent cosmetic surgery. As her behavior grows increasingly erratic, a horrifying question takes root in the boys’ minds: what if the woman beneath the gauze isn’t their mother at all?
Sobel is directing from a script by Kyle Warren. Joshua Astrachan, David Kaplan, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert and Valery Guibal are producing. Watts, Sobel, Warren and the directors of the original film,...
The twin boys will play Watts’ sons in the Amazon Studios project, which just kicked off production in New Jersey. Matt Sobel is directing the new take on the film, whose predecessor was selected as Austria’s entry for best international film at the 2015 Oscars.
The story follows two brothers who arrive at their mother’s country home to discover her face covered in bandages, what she says is the result of a recent cosmetic surgery. As her behavior grows increasingly erratic, a horrifying question takes root in the boys’ minds: what if the woman beneath the gauze isn’t their mother at all?
Sobel is directing from a script by Kyle Warren. Joshua Astrachan, David Kaplan, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert and Valery Guibal are producing. Watts, Sobel, Warren and the directors of the original film,...
- 6/17/2021
- by Matt Donnelly
- Variety Film + TV
Oscar Isaac
Focus Features has acquired Academy Award® nominee Paul Schrader’s revenge thriller The Card Counter out of Cannes’ virtual market.
Written and directed by Schrader, whose celebrated works include Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and his Academy Award®-nominated First Reformed, The Card Counter brings together the talents of Golden Globe winner Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), Emmy Award winner Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Tye Sheridan (Mud), and Academy Award® nominee Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate).
Tiffany Haddish
Producers are Braxton Pope, Lauren Mann (Swiss Army Man), and David Wulf with executive producer Martin Scorsese. Other executive producers include William Olsson, Lee Broda, Ruben Islas and Stanley Preschutti. This marks the fifth collaboration between Schrader and Scorsese who previously worked together on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead. Focus Features will distribute the film in the U.S. and Universal Pictures International...
Focus Features has acquired Academy Award® nominee Paul Schrader’s revenge thriller The Card Counter out of Cannes’ virtual market.
Written and directed by Schrader, whose celebrated works include Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and his Academy Award®-nominated First Reformed, The Card Counter brings together the talents of Golden Globe winner Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis), Emmy Award winner Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), Tye Sheridan (Mud), and Academy Award® nominee Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate).
Tiffany Haddish
Producers are Braxton Pope, Lauren Mann (Swiss Army Man), and David Wulf with executive producer Martin Scorsese. Other executive producers include William Olsson, Lee Broda, Ruben Islas and Stanley Preschutti. This marks the fifth collaboration between Schrader and Scorsese who previously worked together on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out the Dead. Focus Features will distribute the film in the U.S. and Universal Pictures International...
- 7/13/2020
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Focus Features has acquired out of the Cannes Virtual Market the U.S. rights to “The Card Counter,” the latest film from director Paul Schrader that stars Oscar Isaac, the studio announced Monday.
“The Card Counter” is Schrader’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated “First Reformed,” and the film co-stars Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe in what’s described as a revenge thriller executive produced by Martin Scorsese.
The film is a revenge thriller following Isaac as William Tell, a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Here’s the full synopsis:
Tell (Isaac) just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk (Sheridan), a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Dafoe). Tell...
“The Card Counter” is Schrader’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated “First Reformed,” and the film co-stars Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe in what’s described as a revenge thriller executive produced by Martin Scorsese.
The film is a revenge thriller following Isaac as William Tell, a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Here’s the full synopsis:
Tell (Isaac) just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk (Sheridan), a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Dafoe). Tell...
- 7/13/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Sales agent Le Bureau Films has added to its lineup British writer and director Aleem Khan’s “Afterlove,” which is one of only five films selected to receive the Cannes Critics’ Week Label. Variety has been given an exclusive image to the film.
“Afterlove,” set in the port town of Dover in the South-East of England, centers on Mary Hussain, who suddenly finds herself a widow following the unexpected death of her husband. A day after the burial, she discovers he has a secret just 21 miles across the English Channel in Calais.
The cast includes Joanna Scanlan, Nathalie Richard, Talid Ariss and Nasser Memarzia. The director of photography is Alexander Dynan, whose credits include Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed.” Matthieu de Braconier is producing, and Gabrielle Dumon and Gerardine O’Flynn are co-producing. The film was supported by the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.
Khan, who was a BAFTA nominee for the short film “Three Brothers,...
“Afterlove,” set in the port town of Dover in the South-East of England, centers on Mary Hussain, who suddenly finds herself a widow following the unexpected death of her husband. A day after the burial, she discovers he has a secret just 21 miles across the English Channel in Calais.
The cast includes Joanna Scanlan, Nathalie Richard, Talid Ariss and Nasser Memarzia. The director of photography is Alexander Dynan, whose credits include Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed.” Matthieu de Braconier is producing, and Gabrielle Dumon and Gerardine O’Flynn are co-producing. The film was supported by the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program.
Khan, who was a BAFTA nominee for the short film “Three Brothers,...
- 6/17/2020
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, and Willem Dafoe have been cast in “The Card Counter,” a casino-set revenge thriller starring Oscar Isaac.
Paul Schrader is directing the movie from a screenplay he wrote. Martin Scorsese also joined the project as an executive producer. It’s the fifth collaboration between Schrader and Scorsese, who previously worked together on “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Bringing Out the Dead.”
In “The Card Counter,” Isaac portrays a card player on the casino trail who sees a chance at redemption when he’s approached by a young man (Sheridan), seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Dafoe.) With backing from a mysterious gambling financier (Haddish), the duo go from casino to casino and set their sights on winning a World Series of poker tournament.
“Scorsese and I liked the symmetry of it, the reflection of a...
Paul Schrader is directing the movie from a screenplay he wrote. Martin Scorsese also joined the project as an executive producer. It’s the fifth collaboration between Schrader and Scorsese, who previously worked together on “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Bringing Out the Dead.”
In “The Card Counter,” Isaac portrays a card player on the casino trail who sees a chance at redemption when he’s approached by a young man (Sheridan), seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Dafoe.) With backing from a mysterious gambling financier (Haddish), the duo go from casino to casino and set their sights on winning a World Series of poker tournament.
“Scorsese and I liked the symmetry of it, the reflection of a...
- 2/19/2020
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Martin Scorsese is set to re-team with Paul Schrader on the First Reformed director’s next movie The Card Counter.
Fresh off his latest Oscar nominations for The Irishman, Scorsese will executive-produce the revenge thriller pic, marking his fifth collaboration with Schrader after Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation Of Christ and Bringing Out The Dead.
I can also confirm that Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe have all joined Oscar Isaac in the movie, which centers on card player Tell (Isaac) whose spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk (Sheridan), an angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Dafoe). Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda (Haddish), Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino until the unlikely trio set their sights on winning a World Series of poker tournament.
Fresh off his latest Oscar nominations for The Irishman, Scorsese will executive-produce the revenge thriller pic, marking his fifth collaboration with Schrader after Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation Of Christ and Bringing Out The Dead.
I can also confirm that Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe have all joined Oscar Isaac in the movie, which centers on card player Tell (Isaac) whose spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk (Sheridan), an angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel (Dafoe). Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda (Haddish), Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino until the unlikely trio set their sights on winning a World Series of poker tournament.
- 2/19/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Oscar Isaac is set to star in a revenge thriller titled “The Card Counter,” the next film from Oscar-winner Paul Schrader that will be presented to buyers at the upcoming American Film Market.
Schrader wrote the original screenplay and will direct the film. Isaac will star as William Tell, a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Here’s the full synopsis of the film:
Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk. Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda, Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino...
Schrader wrote the original screenplay and will direct the film. Isaac will star as William Tell, a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Here’s the full synopsis of the film:
Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk. Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda, Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino...
- 10/29/2019
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Picture, if you can, a Paul Schrader film about a troubled man. No, actually: a Paul Schrader film about a troubled man, redemption, revenge, and a seedy underworld. Once your world is done being rocked, take note, via Variety, that the living legend’s First Reformed follow-up will be The Card Counter, starring Oscar Isaac as William Tell, a gambler, former serviceman, and card-player living a “spartan existence on the casino trail […] who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past.” The young man, Cirk, seeks to assassinate a military colonel; Tell, with “backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda,” takes Cirk under his wing on the card-playing trail through America’s casinos, winding up at Las Vegas’ World Series of poker.
One could draw lines to, uh, many Schrader projects from pasts both recent and not-so, though First Reformed—our #1 film...
One could draw lines to, uh, many Schrader projects from pasts both recent and not-so, though First Reformed—our #1 film...
- 10/29/2019
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Oscar is set to star in revenge thriller “The Card Counter,” the next film from Oscar-nominee Paul Schrader.
The film, written and directed by Schrader, follows William Tell (Isaac), a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk. Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda, Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino until the unlikely trio set their sights on winning the World Series of poker in Las Vegas. But keeping Cirk on the straight-and-narrow proves impossible, dragging Tell back...
The film, written and directed by Schrader, follows William Tell (Isaac), a gambler and former serviceman who sets out to reform a young man seeking revenge on a mutual enemy from their past. Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk. Gaining backing from mysterious gambling financier La Linda, Tell takes Cirk with him on the road, going from casino to casino until the unlikely trio set their sights on winning the World Series of poker in Las Vegas. But keeping Cirk on the straight-and-narrow proves impossible, dragging Tell back...
- 10/29/2019
- by Justin Kroll
- Variety Film + TV
The best cinematography of 2018 has come in black and white. It’s come in vibrant color. It’s come as photochemical reaction and as streams of ones and zeroes. It’s crossed genres and approaches, from horror and satire to costume porn and blockbuster action. It’s taken us from the hearth to the moon and into the souls of artists and lovers.
This annual column, a 12th edition, is a personal reflection on the year in single cinematic images. Thematic import, technical prowess and of course good old fashioned subjective affinity figure into determining the list, which would probably change if you asked me tomorrow. But if you’re asking me today, these are the 10 best shots of the year.
Spoiler Warning: It goes without saying that a granular assessment of filmmaking such as this will deal quite liberally in information that might be deemed a spoiler. Some of...
This annual column, a 12th edition, is a personal reflection on the year in single cinematic images. Thematic import, technical prowess and of course good old fashioned subjective affinity figure into determining the list, which would probably change if you asked me tomorrow. But if you’re asking me today, these are the 10 best shots of the year.
Spoiler Warning: It goes without saying that a granular assessment of filmmaking such as this will deal quite liberally in information that might be deemed a spoiler. Some of...
- 12/19/2018
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Variety Film + TV
Paul Schrader’s austere, intense thriller is billed as a return to the director’s ‘transcendental’ roots, although we suspect he never really left them at all. Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried and Victoria Hall immerse us in a country pastor’s dreadful impulse to act on spiritual values and strike back against evil.
First Reformed
Blu-ray
Lionsgate
2017 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / Street Date August 21, 2018 / 24.99
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Antonio Kyles, Victoria Hill, Philip Ettinger, Michael Gaston, Bill Hoag.
Cinematography: Alexander Dynan
Film Editor: Benjamin Rodriguez Jr.
Original Music: Brian Williams
Produced by Jack Binder, Greg Clark, Gary Hamilton, Victoria Hill, David Hinojosa, Frank Murray, Deepak Sikka, Christine Vachon.
Written and Directed by Paul Schrader
No Spoilers.
Paul Schrader begins his commentary on the new Blu-ray of First Reformed practically spelling out my review criticism — he says his movie is made from pieces of other movies, a truth that...
First Reformed
Blu-ray
Lionsgate
2017 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / Street Date August 21, 2018 / 24.99
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, Cedric Antonio Kyles, Victoria Hill, Philip Ettinger, Michael Gaston, Bill Hoag.
Cinematography: Alexander Dynan
Film Editor: Benjamin Rodriguez Jr.
Original Music: Brian Williams
Produced by Jack Binder, Greg Clark, Gary Hamilton, Victoria Hill, David Hinojosa, Frank Murray, Deepak Sikka, Christine Vachon.
Written and Directed by Paul Schrader
No Spoilers.
Paul Schrader begins his commentary on the new Blu-ray of First Reformed practically spelling out my review criticism — he says his movie is made from pieces of other movies, a truth that...
- 9/4/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Before he wrote and directed movies, Paul Schrader was a film critic, best known for his book “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer.” Director Robert Bresson’s “Diary of a Country Priest” has always been a key film for Schrader, with Bresson’s ascetic Catholicism mirroring Schrader’s fully-absorbed Calvinism. And now Schrader has made “First Reformed,” a film that even freshman film students will be able to easily connect to this influential earlier movie.
“First Reformed” is about a country priest, and he keeps a diary. And, like the hero of Bresson’s film (and the Georges Bernanos novel on which it is based), he’s got stomach cancer.
There’s more than homage going on here, though. As Schrader’s hero takes a bleaker look at life, and considers committing an extreme act as a desperate attempt to find resonance and morality in the world, he stands...
“First Reformed” is about a country priest, and he keeps a diary. And, like the hero of Bresson’s film (and the Georges Bernanos novel on which it is based), he’s got stomach cancer.
There’s more than homage going on here, though. As Schrader’s hero takes a bleaker look at life, and considers committing an extreme act as a desperate attempt to find resonance and morality in the world, he stands...
- 5/16/2018
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
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