Enjoy the caps!

Remember, Pippa Lee opens on USA theathers on November 27. And also, DVD will be available to Europe on November 02.

Also, if you’re on Europe, be sure to mark this dates (thanks Simon!):

DVD Pippa Lee – Nov 2nd
DVD Informers – Nov 9th
DVD Star Trek – Nov 16th

And you should had read about “Heathers” being turn into a TV Show, but the news made me too depressed to make a comment.

The official website is also up, and use the poster’s art as background.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM–(Marketwire – March 19, 2009) – From all outward appearances, Pippa Lee (ROBIN WRIGHT PENN) leads a charmed existence. An anchor of feminine serenity, she is the devoted wife of an accomplished publisher (ALAN ARKIN) thirty years her senior, the proud mother of two grown children, and a trusted friend and confidant to all who cross her path. But as Pippa dutifully follows her husband to a new life in a staid Connecticut retirement community, her idyllic world and the persona she has built over the course of her marriage will be put to the ultimate test.

In truth, the gracious woman of the present day has seen more than her fair share of turmoil in her past – an array of erotic misadventures, a diet-pill-addicted mother and the suicide of an exotic rival – until finding love and security in a family of her own. Embarking on a bittersweet journey of self-discovery, along with help from a new, strange and soulful acquaintance (KEANU REEVES), Pippa must now confront both her volatile past and the hidden undercurrents of her seemingly placid world to find the true sense of self which has always eluded her.

Golden Globe nominee Robin Wright Penn (FORREST GUMP) and Academy Award® winner Alan Arkin (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) head an all-star cast that includes Blake Lively (GOSSIP GIRL) as the young Pippa Lee; Maria Bello (A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) as her mother, Suky Sarkissian; Keanu Reeves (THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL) as Pippa’s inscrutable neighbor, Chris Nadeau; Monica Bellucci (THE MATRIX film series) as the socialite Gigi Lee; triple Academy Award® nominee Julianne Moore (THE HOURS) as the freewheeling Kat; Academy Award® nominee and Golden Globe winner Winona Ryder (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE) as Pippa’s trusted friend, Sandra Dulles; Mike Binder (THE UPSIDE OF ANGER) as novelist Sam Shapiro and rising stars Zoe Kazan (REVOLUTIONARY ROAD) and Ryan McDonald (BATTLE IN SEATTLE) as Grace and Ben Lee, Pippa’s young adult children.

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE is adapted from writer-director Rebecca Miller’s novel of the same name. Previous titles from Rebecca Miller include PERSONAL VELOCITY and THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE.

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE will be released in cinemas across the UK 26th June 2009.

Source: Marketwire

I’m so excited to see this movie, even if Winona do a small part in it. Are you feeling the same?

Gallery Links
• The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – Trailer download
• The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – Trailer screencaptures

My initial disappointment about missing out on the Berlin Film Festival has certainly been helped by the repeated suggestion that almost everything showing there sucks.

But there was one film for which I had placed my selfish travel wants aside and hoped would be great anyway. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee features the first role with any real potential my beloved Winona Ryder had been given in almost a decade (sure, there was A Scanner Darkly, but she was animated and all so it doesnt 100% count, and while The Ten was fun, it certainly wasn’t up to par with my Winonaspectations).

Sundance after Sundance, we’ve watched every single movie she makes crash, burn and fail to get distribution (The Darwin Awards, The Last Word, The Informers), or just seen films shes made fail to get seen by anyone at all (Sex and Death 101, Water Pills), and probably with good reason.

But when I heard of her casting in Pippa, alongside Julianne Moore, Maria Bello and Robin Wright Penn, among others, my heart skipped: “She’s coming back! After basically wasting the entire ‘00s, probably because any decent film wouldn’t risk insuring her crazy ass, someone was taking a chance on her, and she was going to hit it out of the ballpark and return to form!”

Sure, it looked like a small role, maybe even a cameo.. But it was something! And that cast all-but-ensured it might even screen outside a film festival!

When Pippa screened a few days back in Berlin, I immediately heard whispers it was bad, bad, bad. And I got worried. Variety’s Alissa Simon’s said the film features “cardboard characters and severe problems of tone [that] fatally flaw the awkward satirical relationship drama.” But she didn’t single out Winona, which made me think that she can’t be that bad. Then came The Hollywood Reporter’s review, which said the film’s “frenetic, off-putting script ruins what otherwise might have been an entertaining story about a fascinating woman.” However, reviewer Peter Brunette also said “the acting is top-notch.” But he didn’t single out Winona, which made me think that she can’t be that good.

Finally, there was Screen’s much kinder review. I read the review’s first paragraph: “A grown-up love story that’s rambling, quirky and sharp-eyed about mid-life doldrums, Rebecca Miller’s cinematic adaptation of her own novel works largely because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. An across-the-board solid cast backs up Robin Wright Penn’s enjoyable central performance which, like much of the film, is believable without being entirely naturalistic.” Excited, I started to scan for some mention of Ryder. And there, in the reviews final paragraph, was the glisten of hope: “As well as Moore’s tasty cameo there’s a nice turn from Winona Ryder as Pippa’s fragile poet friend Sandra, a needy, pretty wreck with a tendency to burst into tears.” A nice turn! I knew it!

Judge for yourself at seconds 0:05-0:06 of this promo trailer, where Ryder offers us a facial expression that plays like a portal into the deeply conflict mind of her “fragile poet.”

True, this might just be a small step, and one review that seems to go way against everyone else’s current occasionally doesn’t mean the film is actually good . But I take it as a token that Ryder still has something to offer, and that the first decade of this century will soon just be viewed as a little blip on a life history destined for multiple Oscars, mental stability, and being my best friend forever.

Source: The Lost Boy

A grown-up love story that’s rambling, quirky and sharp-eyed about mid-life doldrums, Rebecca Miller’s cinematic adaptation of her own novel works largely because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. An across-the-board solid cast backs up Robin Wright Penn’s enjoyable central performance which, like much of the film, is believable without being entirely naturalistic. Still, this is not a sure-fire commercial prospect even on the independent circuit. It comes on like a woman’s take on a Philip Roth novel (except with a sense of humour), and despite its oddball tone and upbeat ending could end up placing in the same $5 million region as Roth adaptations like Elegy or The Human Stain in the US. It may have better luck in urban markets abroad, especially in Europe

It starts in quiet observational mode, with DP Declan Quinn using long lenses to pick out the guests at a small dinner thrown by successful publisher Herb Lee (Arkin, in fine form) and his much younger wife Pippa (Wright Penn), soon after their move from New York to a sleepy Connecticut retirement community. Pippa doesn’t come across as a trapped wife at the beginning: she’s smart, ironic about their new home and seems to be in love with her grizzly-but-affectionate husband who has recently suffered three heart attacks.

But there’s something a little frozen about her smile, a little stilted about her movements. Soon enough she’s sleepwalking, catching herself on a closed-circuit camera as she raids the fridge for cake. At the same time we begin to explore Pippa’s unconventional past life through a series of flashbacks, pushed by some appetising costume and production design into a slightly heightened period style, that are seamlessly interleaved with the present-day action. We meet Pippa’s addled mother (the ever watchable Maria Bello), a benzadrine addict who blackmails her daughter emotionally with her wild mood swings, and follow the teenage Pippa (Lively) as she runs away from home, shacks up with a sympathetic aunt and is induced to take part in lesbian sado-masochistic photoshoots by her aunt’s bad-girl lover (Moore, having a whale of a time).

Meanwhile, in the present day, Pippa meets Chris (Reeves), a drifter who has come back to stay with his elderly parents in the retirement suburb, and the seeds of an exit strategy are planted.

The film’s structure is ‘crisis and release’, but it pans out in quite a loose and rangy way, partly because it takes Pippa a good while to realise that she’s having “a very quiet nervous breakdown”, partly because the backstory has a momentum of its own.

As well as Moore’s tasty cameo there’s a nice turn from Winona Ryder as Pippa’s fragile poet friend Sandra, a needy, pretty wreck with a tendency to burst into tears. Also good are Pippa and Herb’s grown-up twin children, mother’s boy Ben (McDonald) and father’s girl Grace (Kazan). An early scene in which all four go out to dinner in a restaurant nails the skewed family dynamic with great economy of means.

Source: ScreenDaily.com

It’s the official poster? It looks great!

You can find a large version of this poster into the gallery.