News

Mubi has acquired “Pavements,” Alex Ross Perry’s unconventional documentary-musical-biopic about cult ’90s slacker band Pavement, for multiple territories following its recent world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The arthouse distributor, streamer and production company has picked up all rights to the film — soon to bow in both the New York Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival — for the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Austria, France and Canada. Meanwhile, Mubi also acquired exclusive SVOD rights for the U.S.

The deal was signed with Utopia, which is handling world sales and, the day after the film’s Venice launch, announced it would also distribute theatrically in the U.S. Mubi says it will announce its release plans in the coming months.

Directed and written by Perry (“Her Smell”), “Pavements” stars Joe Keery, Jason Schwartzman, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Logan Miller, Griffin Newman, Tim Heidecker, Michael Esper, Zoe Lister-Jones and...

Utopia has acquired US rights to Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements following its world premiere in Venice.

‘Pavements’: Venice Review

The film gets its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival which starts later this month and explores the iconic indie band’s path as they prepare for a sold-out 2022 reunion tour and tracking a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history, and a Hollywood biopic.

The film’s scripted scenes feature Joe Keery, Nat Wolff, Fred Hechinger, Logan Miller, Griffin Newman, Tim Heidecker, and Jason Schwartzman. The musical within the film includes Michael Esper,...

Utopia has picked up the U.S. rights to Pavements, director Alex Ross Perry’s musical portrait of the 1990s al-rock band a day after a world premiere in Venice earlier this week.

“One of our favorite filmmakers, one of our favorite bands, Pavements joining Utopia is simply a dream come true. The band’s iconic status has only continued to blossom out of the ’90s and Alex has crafted a film that transcends documentary and questions what the format can be in a surprising and novel way,” Utopia head of marketing and distribution Kyle Greenberg said in a statement on Friday.

Pavements will also have a North American premiere at the New York Film Festival. The musical biopic tracks the influential rock band as they prepare for a 2022 reunion tour in the prism of their earlier accomplishments.

“This multifaceted meta-movie is at once documentary, musical comedy, faux biopic and real museum exhibition.

Utopia has acquired U.S. rights to acclaimed director Alex Ross Perry’s “Pavements,” the day after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

The film debuted to strong reviews, with Variety saying “’Pavements’ dazzles as a spinning plates act,” and Screen describing it as “a joyous, slyly subversive celebration.”

A boundary-breaking look at the seminal band Pavement, the film is edited and produced by filmmaker Robert Greene and will have its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival later this fall.

An examination of the iconic 90s indie band, “Pavements” appears to be just another music documentary, until it doesn’t. A “prismatic, narrative, scripted, documentary, musical, metatextual hybrid,” the film intimately shows the band preparing for their sold-out 2022 reunion tour while simultaneously tracking the preparations for a musical based on their songs, a museum devoted to their history and a big-budget Hollywood biopic inspired by...

Exclusive: Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Showtime’s Attica) is teaming up with Jacqueline Olive (Lincoln’s Dilemma) to direct the feature documentary, The Color of Cola.

The film now in production is based on Stephanie Capparell’s 2008 book, The Real Pepsi Challenge: How One Pioneering Company Broke Color Barriers in 1940s American Business. It sheds light on the experience of the all-Black sales team at Pepsi, which was the first of its kind for any major corporation—following their journey through the Jim Crow South after being tasked with tapping its African American market.

The stories of Black pioneers are not unfamiliar, but oftentimes go untold. Nelson and Olive’s doc aims to elevate one such story exploring a time when corporate America did not include Black professionals, and the Black experience was stereotypically portrayed. The extraordinary efforts of the individuals on Pepsi’s sales team mirror the courage of many...

In today’s roundup, Hulu will soon stream 1980’s comedy series “Designing Women” and Comedy Central announces new Comedy Fellowship with Sundance Institute.

Acquisitions

Hulu has acquired the rights to comedy “Designing Women” from Sony Pictures Television. The series, which aired from 1986 to 1993, chronicles the life of design firm owner, Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) as she runs her firm out of her home with the help of her former beauty queen sister Suzanne (Delta Burke), mother Mary Jo (Annie Potts) and country girl Charlene (Jean Smart). The series is set to stream Aug. 26.

Development

Quibi has announced the series “Centerpiece” starring floral artist, Maurice Harris. Executive produced by Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, Peter Kline, John Kaplan and Maurice Harris, the show will showcase Harris on a creative journey with celebrity guests as they create floral centerpieces. Harris is a Los Angeles-based artist, best known as the creator of Bloom & Plume,...

Quibi continues its recent run on original programming with a series order for Centerpiece, a floral-arrangement docuseries led by floral artist Maurice Harris from executive producers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack.

Peter Kline, John Kaplan and Harris also are EPs on the show, which explores the nature of creativity through the process of flower design. Each episode will see Harris go on a creative journey with a celebrity guest exploring who they are to create a mind-blowing floral centerpiece.

Los Angeles-based Harris — who co-created the series with Kline — is behind Bloom & Plume, a bespoke floral design studio in Echo Park. His unique point of view, sense of humor and craftsmanship has made him both one of the most sought-after floral designers in L.A. and one of the most followed florists on Instagram. His clients include some of Hollywood’s biggest names as well as such top-tier brands such as Louis Vuitton,...

Gravitas Ventures has secured the U.S. distribution rights to the Adam Bhala Lough-directed documentary Alt-Right: Age of Rage, which had its world premiere at SXSW. Gravitas will release the film in select theaters in August followed by a digital rollout October 30. The doc features activist Daryle Lamont Jenkins and alt-right leader Richard Spencer as it investigates major players on both sides of the battle, which bolstered after the recent Presidental election. Alex Needles and Michael Karbelnikoff produced the film while Peter Kline, Greg Stewart, and Brent Stiefel served as exec producers. Nolan Gallagher of Gravitas negotiated the deal with CAA on behalf of the filmmakers.

Cleopatra Entertainment has obtained the Us rights to Making A Killing, a crime drama produced and directed by Devin Hume. Starring Michael Jai White, Mike Starr, Jude Moran, Aida Turturro, Sally Kirkland, and Christopher Lloyd, the film follows three morticians who get caught in...

Director Todd Phillips has brought in some big money ($1.2 billion worldwide) for Warner Bros., so it's no surprise they have re-upped his contract. Deadline reports that he's been resigned to a new first-look deal through the end of 2013. Phillips' Green Hat Films has been based at the studio since 2005, after he directed the 2004 comedy Starsky & Hutch.

He is currently working on the third installment of The Hangover, and has four other projects in development. Here is what Green Hat is currently developing:

* An adaptation of the Tony D’Souza novel Mule, about a young couple that turns to drug trafficking to scratch a living during the recession. Green Hat’s Phillips and Scott Budnick are producing with Jamie Patricof and Lynette Howell’s Electric City Entertainment. They are out to writers.

*Arms and the Dudes, based on a Guy Lawson Rolling Stone article that chronicled the unlikely rise of two...

Long before Todd Phillips found success in two Hangover movies, the director helmed Old School, Road Trip, and the PG-13 adaptation of Starsky and Hutch. But it was the Hangover movies that put Phillips on the comedic map and gave Warner Bros. an ample amount of box office revenue. While Phillips and his team prepares for The Hangover Part III and the promotional tour for Project X, Deadline reports that Warner Bros. is extending its deal with the director’s Green Hat Films through 2013 and revealed the company’s upcoming projects:

Mule – a movie about a young couple’s desperate turn to drug trafficking in order to make ends meet.

Arms and the Dudes – a movie about two drug addicts who discover their success in arms dealing but hit rock bottom when the government raids their compound.

The Island – Details on this movie are being kept under wraps. Due Date...

Warner Bros. Pictures has extended its first-look deal with writer/director/producer Todd Phillips' Green Hat Films through the end of 2013. The announcement was made today by Jeffrey Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group and Office of the President.

Phillips, who most recently directed, wrote, and produced the studio's record-breaking 2011 hit comedy The Hangover Part II, has been based at Warner Bros. since 2005.

"Todd's been a cherished member of the Warner family for a long time, and the comedic genius he's brought to the big screen has made for an extraordinarily successful partnership," said Robinov. "We're excited to extend our relationship and eagerly anticipate more great movies from Todd and Green Hat."

"I'm really excited to renew my partnership with Jeffrey Robinov and everyone at Warner Bros.," said Phillips. "I am so grateful that they will continue to provide me with a platform to satisfy my endless hunger for revenge and schadenfreude.

Director: Sol Tryon Writer: Peter Kline, Mike O'Connell Starring: Mike O’Connell, Jesse Eisenberg, Jim Gaffigan K. Roth Binew (Mike O'Connell) is a flamboyant, arrogant and eccentric drunk whose incessant pontifications – made in an exaggeratedly aristocratic accent – are scribbled down verbatim by his loyal best friend, authorized biographer, and rickshaw-cum-pedicab chauffeur, Mills (Jesse Eisenberg). (Mills is also a poet extraordinaire.) The Living Wake opens with a Cliff Notes montage of K. Roth’s life of failure which wraps up with the life-changing declaration by his doctor that K. Roth is dying of a nameless disease. That’s right kids – K. Roth is dying prematurely, foolishly and namelessly. The narrative itself commences in the morning of the very day that K. Roth’s life is set to expire (at 7:30pm). K. Roth and Mills scuttle across town on their makeshift rickshaw-cum-pedicab arranging the last-minute preparations for K. Roth’s death,...

The Living Wake tells the story of a self important and undiscovered genius living his last day on Earth. Determined to control as much of his legacy as possible he decides to visit his friends and enemies, to make peace or to exacerbate rivalries, to culminate in a final bow at his own wake.

This dark comedy played the festival circuit a few years ago and is now finding its way out into the world on DVD, and in amongst the glitter strewn Hollywood fare it does the soul good to shine a light on the films that might otherwise be left on the shelves.

Speaking to IndieWire first time director Sol Tryon talked of his approach to the unconventional nature of the film,

I believe that all comedy, however absurdist in nature, is rooted in some form of realism and truth. Like all great parables, however outrageous they may seem,...

Jesse Eisenberg, Mike O’Connell, The Living Wake Directed by Sol Tryon, and co-written by Mike O’Connell and Peter Kline, The Living Wake is the sort of movie that defies both labels and expectations. It’s comedy; it’s drama; it’s a musical; it’s a character piece; it’s bizarre; it’s its own genre. Even though you can’t pigeonhole it — or perhaps for that very reason — The Living Wake has received some positive notices. (Check out Film Threat and The Reeler.) Starring O’Connell and Jesse Eisenberg (he of Zombieland and Kristen Stewart’s pal in Adventureland), The Living Wake chronicles the final day in the weird life of a self-proclaimed genius, the exuberant K. Roth Binew (O’Connell). With the assistance of his more subdued [...]...

Rating: 2.5/5

Writers: Mike O’Connell and Peter Kline

Director: Sol Tryon

Cast: Mike O’Connell, Jesse Eisenberg, Jim Gaffigan, Ann Dowd

Studio: Mangusta Productions

What would you do if you found out you would die soon? Would you live your life like an Oscar bait film, with soaring strings playing over your final days, declarations of love to those near and dear to you, and probably one last dip into an icy ocean, as you scream to gods and heaven above for taking from you this mortal coil? Or would you loll around in a bicycle rickshaw piloted by your biographer and man servant, continue your assault on the lesser brains around you, and perform a one man show at your own wake?

Read more on Theatrical Review: The Living Wake…...

Director Sol Tyron's The Living Wake has elements that are endearing for precisely the reason they are off-putting. The florid dialog is precise to the point of being mannered while the performances are broad - but in a way that the roles being played demand. It's particular, this film, but a brand of particular that appealed to me.

The story chronicles what may very well be the last day in the life of K. Roth Binew (Mike O'Connell) whose business cards would likely read, "writer, artist, and professional eccentric." Having learned that he suffers from a disease that is as punctual as it is fatal, K. Roth sets off with his biographer/manservant Mills (Jesse Eisenberg) to wrap up unfinished business. This includes admitting his true love to his septuagenarian nanny, waging war against his neighbor and rival, and attending his own wake as a sort of performer and Mc.

CineVegas

Shoreline Entertainment

It's not every day you see an absurdist quixotic tale about a self-proclaimed artist and genius by the name of K. Roth Binew, who has meticulously mapped out the last day of his life.

That is both the allure and the curse of The Living Wake, a unique, in-your-face example of no-budget filmmaking co-written by and starring comedian Mike O'Connell that quickly proves to wear out its novel welcome.

The film is certain to win its share of admirers in addition to its annoyed detractors -- a number of whom made their feelings known during its CineVegas world premiere by beating a hasty retreat before Binew finally packs it in.

That heated divided alone could justify a theatrical release, although it seems as if all that unapologetic theatricality would have been better contained in a short film format.

O'Connell, who wrote the screenplay with Peter Kline, plays the dreaming-scheming-delusional Binew as an oddball cross between Don Quixote, Walter Mitty and Conan O'Brien.

Convinced that he's about to die of a very rare disease, he sets about saying his final farewells and preparing for his living wake with the help of his faithful minion and biographer, the timid Mills Joquin ("The Squid and the Whale's" Jesse Eisenberg).

The inherent problem with the Binew character and O'Connell's performance is that it's essentially a one-note proposition and that particular note would have been more at home in a Saturday Night Live or Mad TV sketch than sustained over the course of a 90-minute feature.

But while there's a familiar "inmates running the asylum" vibe to the proceedings, debuting feature director Sol Tryon admittedly gets considerable bang out of his very modest budget.

Props go to production designer Michael Grasley's quaint props used to dress those timeless Maine sets, as well as to costume designer Negar Ali whose vintage wardrobe finds appear to have been dug out of dozens of musty old trunks.