Well apparently there was a screening of THE NEWTON BOYS in California yesterday or the day before. Hollywood Man is an interesting fella, and loves good films from my past dealings with him. So take what he says to heart.
HOLLYWOOD MAN here. I went to a special screening of THE NEWTON BOYS last night which was followed by a discussion with Richard Linklater. It was sponsored by INDEPENDENT FEATURE WEST and INDEPENDENT FILM CHANNEL. It was totally awesome. THE NEWTON BOYS is a wonderful film and I will be very surprised if it is not a huge hit! To me it had all the great things about hollywood genre films and none of the stupid things. The movie had a perfect blend of "John Ford-type -western" and "Warner- 30's-gangster" with a lot of GREAT humor and some not to sappy romance. All the actors are fantastic in their roles, especially Ethan Hake who turns in a surpisingly AMAZING job as the "charming drunk party boy". I know there are a lot of people who are bugged by Ethan Hawke but this should open them up to what a gifted actor he is. Matthew Mcouuhl is perfect as the brains and leader of the gang and has real chemistry with Julianne Margolis(who is also great). The Art Direction is fucking mind-blowingly great(excuse the language) and the cinematography is beautiful and stylistic(but not overbearing). Harry, I know you are a big fan of scores......YOU WILL LOVE THIS ONE, I GUARANTEE IT.
Basically, the film is great, and that's that.
Then this guy Elvis Mitchell interviewed Richard up on stage. Okay, now I am going to use restraint here, but I have to say.....THAT GUY IS THE WORST INTERVIEWER I HAVE EVER HEARD!!! I am just going to site 3 things that bothered me (I could list 20!). He constantly cut off Richard before he was finished, he was very repetitive in his questions, and no matter what Richard said Elvis would retort with "But this" or "but that". HE WAS SO ANNOYING. People were leaving in droves. Not because of Richard but because of this lame interview guy. Richard was everything people have said about him. He was friendly, funny, informative, and all around just a nice guy. One of the cool things he said was "This whole Indepent film so-called scene is nothing but a circle jerk. It doesn't matter where you get the money as long as you make YOUR film, that's independent." This got huge applause as did other cool comments. After that was over around 15 people were milling around Richard for autographs or to ask questions. I had to wait for the JERK in front of me to get FIVE things signed before I could get to Richard with my SUBURBIA poster. While he was signing it I told him I would e-mail Harry and tell him how great the film was. He said, "Tell Harry I said Hi". He then said, "Also tell him that you just saw the very first screening of the 100% completed film." I don't know what was missing from previous screenings, but I can tell you this...NEWTON BOYS ROCKS!!!!
Harry, I forgot to mention the INCREDIBLE montage scene in the film. Straight out of Warner- 30's pics. Hell, Don Siegel himself could have edited this!!!!!
