Timothy Hutton

DVD Review: ‘Lymelife’ is the Same Old Story

BrianTT — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:27:39 -0600

CHICAGO – Only a few short weeks ago, I sat through the two-hour shrug-fest that is Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” and lamented how so many of the film’s interactions between parents and the younger generation were played for cartoonish laughs instead of striving for the haunting poignancy of the director’s 1997 family drama “The Ice Storm.” Well, upon viewing Derick Martini’s “Lymelife,” I determined that the cliché is true: Be careful what you wish for.

DVD Rating: 2.0/5.0

Look at Lee’s film and Martini’s back to back, and you’ll note that their basic outlines are practically one and the same: In the 1970s, somewhere in the eastern United States, two married people have an affair, while the teenage son of one adulterer and the teenage daughter of the other begin to explore their own sexuality and indulge in the occasional drug. Mom and Dad probably have a good idea of what their kids are up to, but they don’t bother with any disciplinary actions. After all, how can a man chastise a boy when what the man is doing is much worse by comparison?

Lymelife was released on DVD on September 22nd, 2009.
Photo credit: Screen Media

Both films also give the cheating husband two children; one who is older and spends most of his time away from the unhappy household, and a younger child who will probably remain stuck in the dysfunctional environment until college provides an escape.

In the case of “Lymelife”, the younger sibling is Scott (Rory Culkin), a sad and awkward kid whose misfortunes include getting beaten up in front of the girl he can’t stop thinking about. Scott still worships his father, a big-shot real estate developer who spends more time at the office than at home. But older brother Jim (Kieran Culkin) has been off in the Army and developed an outsider’s take on his family that doesn’t disregard his pop’s faults. Their father (a reliably slimy and charming Alec Baldwin) isn’t doing much to hide his philandering with the mother of Scott’s female friend (Cynthia Nixon) and acts as if the material wealth he provides for his wife somehow makes up for neglecting and embarrassing his long-suffering spouse.

There is, of course, some plot-related details that separate Martini’s film from Lee’s, but the two most substantive differences pertain to the appeal of the movies’ young protagonists and the degree to which every character is likely to be forever changed by what we see onscreen.

Lymelife was released on DVD on September 22nd, 2009.
Photo credit: Screen Media

In role after role in movies like “You Can Count on Me” and “Mean Creek,” Rory Culkin showed an ability to make us believe that the boys he was portraying understood much more than would be expected at a given age. Here, though, he’s saddled with a character who can’t read situations well, rarely speaks and usually says the wrong thing when he does. It isn’t just that Scott becomes nervously tongue-tied in front of an attractive schoolmate. It’s that, rather than being capable of figuring it out for himself, he has to be told by his girlfriend that his father has had sex with someone in the next room. It’s that he brags to his mother about his father’s professional successes while being totally oblivious to her emotional discomfort. It’s not a case of denial. It’s naivete bordering on stupidity.

Granted, many of us probably weren’t the brightest of bulbs at Scott’s age, but the filmmakers don’t do him any favors by also making him dull. Unlike Jim, Scott doesn’t appear to be a charismatic person whose true identity will emerge once he gets out of that house. He’s a plain, puberty-stricken teen with a tendency to brag about sex he hasn’t had and drugs he hasn’t taken. Maybe a longer cut of the film contained scenes that could’ve proven me wrong, but the many deleted segments available on DVD certainly don’t do it.

The main character’s shortcomings might not have mattered so much if the director and screenwriters had found something new to say about marriage, parenthood or adolescence, or at least a more eloquent way of communicating old ideas. Martini and his brother Steven based some of the screenplay on their childhoods, and if they experienced the same unpleasantness as Scott, I hope they found the process of making the movie therapeutic. Still, my guess is that the lessons learned in this story (that some parents are cheaters, that some marriages are close to loveless, and that being an adult can be tough) will already be familiar to those who watch it. If not, there are plenty of better films that say the same things.

‘Lymelife’ is released by Screen Media Home Video and stars Alec Baldwin, Rory Culkin, Kieran Culkin, Jill Hennessey, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon, and Emma Roberts. It was written by Derick and Steven Martini and directed by Derick Martini. The film was released on DVD on September 22nd, 2009. It is rated R.

By DAVID STYBURSKI
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com

DVD, TV Review: TNT’s ‘Leverage’ Delivers Entertainment Despite Flaws

BrianTT — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:31:13 -0600

CHICAGO – In a world where corporate bailouts and scumbags like Bernie Madoff dominate the news, it would seem like TNT’s “Leverage” would be a natural choice for a summer diversion. The Timothy Hutton star vehicle is essentially “Robin Hood” for the modern age or “Ocean’s 11” if Danny Ocean were a bit more philanthropic and it may not be groundbreaking television but it is something the broadcast network offerings have not been this season - mostly entertaining.x

TV Rating: 3.0/5.0

Hutton stars as Nate Ford, a former insurance investigator who watched as corruption and corporate neglect led to the death of his son. In the first season, now on DVD (more details on that at the bottom of this review), Ford gathered a team of social and technical experts who assisted him in revenge schemes to try and balance the fight between David and Goliath.

Timothy Hutton.
Photo credit: Erik Heinila/TNT

The rest of “Ford’s Five” include the highly skilled grifter Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman), the muscle man Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), technology wizard Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge), and the sexy thief Parker (Beth Riesgraf). It’s a well-cast ensemble with each actor and character bringing something else to each crime and the overall show.

Timothy Hutton.
Photo credit: Erik Heinila/TNT

At the end of season one, Ford’s group had gone their separate ways after the destruction of their headquarters. Consequently, a large chunk of the premiere of season two is devoted to reuniting the band.

The episode kicks off with an impressive car accident, which turns out to be the attempted murder of a bank whistleblower and his daughter. Nate witnesses the event, saves the passengers, and becomes involved in an elaborate mystery that will soon require the skills of Eliot, Sophie, Alec, and Parker.

The second season premiere of “Leverage” is consistent with the majority of this good-not-great show. It delivers disposable, popcorn entertainment that sometimes purports to say something greater about the fight of the everyman but is really just trying to keep you one step behind Ford’s complex scheme to keep you from changing the channel.

So why is “Leverage” merely good and not great? What’s holding it back?

The premiere of the sophomore season is a perfect example of everything that works about the show and what still needs a little fixing.

On the positive side of the TV ledger, this is well-paced, brisk, clever TV writing with a stronger supporting ensemble than average and witty dialogue.

Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Timothy Hutton, Aldis Hodge and Beth Riesgraf.
Photo credit: Richard Foreman/TNT

On the negative, I’m still not buying Hutton nor Bellman. The former is a little too half-asleep to truly sell the charisma this character needs to have and the latter isn’t quite believable as the multi-talented con woman she needs to be. I like the two actors but Hutton needs to show a little more energy and Bellman needs to play a little cooler.

Maybe “Leverage” will never be must-see TV, but there’s a similar basic cable show about a small group of people turning the tables on more powerful ones that really took a giant leap in quality during its sophomore year - USA’s “Burn Notice”. That show always displayed a little more potential, but it’s not hard to see “Leverage” settling into a similarly confident groove. Tune in and find out if it does.

If you want to catch up first, Paramount released the first season of “Leverage” on DVD on July 14th, 2009. All thirteen episodes are presented in widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track. The episodes look and sound better-than-average for standard but it’s a shame that they weren’t presented on Blu-Ray as well.

The special features on the first season of “Leverage” include commentary tracks on every episode and a series of brief featurettes. Fans should zip through “Leverage: Behind the Scenes,” “Anatomy of a Stunt Fight,” “The Cameras of Leverage,” “Leverage Gets Renewed,” “Beth Riesgraf’s Crazy Actress Spoof,” and Deleted Scenes from nine episodes.

The second season of ‘Leverage’ premieres on TNT on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 8pm CST. It stars Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf, and Aldis Hodge. It was created by John Rogers and Chris Downey.

‘Leverage: The First Season’ was released by Paramount Home Video. The show was released on July 14thth, 2009. It is not rated.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Writer, Director Derick Martini Turns Past Into Present in ‘Lymelife’

BrianTT — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:28:17 -0600

CHICAGO – Derick Martini’s “Lymelife,” starring Rory Culkin, Kieran Culkin, Alec Baldwin, Jill Hennessy, Emma Roberts, Timothy Hutton, and Cynthia Nixon is a dramatic slice of nostalgia for its co-writer/director. The film brings the wounds of his parent’s divorce to the surface in this acclaimed comedy/drama.

Just last week, Martini’s wife gave birth to their first child, but Derick wanted to talk about his other baby, his new film, a drama based on his own childhood as a product of divorce. The production notes for the film quote Martini - “It’s about change: how people change, and how when faced with change how they initially resist but ultimately have to embrace change because that’s life.”

Lymelife
Photo credit: Screen Media Group

Martini expounded on the idea, noting that the baby last week was “the mother of all changes.”

“When you’re a product of divorce…you have a mother and a father,” Derick Martini told me. “One day, they’re sleeping the same bed and then suddenly they’re in different houses. In my life, it was a tremendous change. I was probably about the age that Scott is in the picture. 14 or 15. It was pretty sudden. I knew everything wasn’t hunky-dory but if you grew up with that tension, you just get used to it. “This is how it is.” When the breaking point comes, it’s pretty shocking. You start to form your own opinions about who’s right and who’s wrong.”

But audiences shouldn’t get the impression that “Lymelife” is a divorce picture. There are a lot of elements to the film but it is primarily a coming-of-age story. As Matrini says, “What I tried to do was take the typical coming-of-age story and turn it into what I see as an adult story from an innocent perspective. That was what got me excited about it. A lot of these people I knew growing up. I didn’t come of age in the ’70s. I came of age in the ’80s and ’90s. But I set it back in the late ’70s for other reasons. I knew a lot of these people.”

Martini, 33, grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, but moved the story back to the ’70s mostly for thematic reasons. Martini explains, “From my neck of the woods, it’s really during that time when a lot of men that I knew growing up were just becoming wealthy for the first time. I wanted to tell a story that was on the cusp of the ’80s, which, to me, was on the cusp of overindulgence. That’s why it was important to set it in ‘79. But I also wanted it to feel timeless in a sense. I didn’t want to make it That ’70s Show.”

Lymelife
Photo credit: Screen Media Group

It wasn’t just his past or the end of the disco era that inspired “Lymelife”. Martini revealed that a classic film, Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows,” helped him trim a 150-page screenplay that felt episodic down to something manageable.

“I happened to watch the Criterion of The 400 Blows again. I remembered loving it and remembered it being about a family and a boy. It hit me in the head like a hammer - “What I’m missing here is that I need to tell this adult drama from an innocent perspective just like The 400 Blows.” That’s when the script wrote itself. Everything that I was fighting to keep and to fit into the story became very flagrantly, obviously superluous. They fell off. They just fell out of the script. And it just became a movie from this boy’s point of view. And playing against the sentiment was important to me. Again, you watch The 400 Blows and the brilliant part of that movie is that in other hands it would have been a complete sap-fest. It could have been overly sentimental. But if you watch the little details of Truffaut and the way he played against the emotion of the scene with the score was the thing that made it unsentimental. That’s what makes the movie really work and a classic. It doesn’t sentimentalize. That’s a waltz for a score. A twisted version of a waltz but it’s a happy tune. It was so enlightening and inspiring.”

Of course, laying your parents divorce on to celluloid is a daring prospect for a filmmaker, but it’s turned out well for Martini, who swears that not only do his parents not harbor any anger about the transformation of their home movies into drama but that they love it.

Lymelife
Photo credit: Screen Media Group

“My father thinks it’s great. He loves it. He’s really into it. My mother thought there were too many curses in it. She saw it when we played in Toronto. I remember her saying afterwards, “Did you get that King Farouk line from me?” There’s a line that Jill throws out - “What are you King Farouk because you got a couple of dollars in your pocket?” My mother used to say something like that to me when I was a kid so she made that connection. She says, “Did you take that line from me?” And I said, “Mom, the whole CHARACTER is based on you.” She says, “No. I never curse that much.” I said, “Mom, I actually toned it down.”(Laughs.) But she enjoyed the film very much. And then she would try and give me notes that I should cut out the curses. Typical mother stuff. “Okay mom.””

Both Culkins give the best performances of their career in “Lymelife” but the real star, someone who should be in the Best Supporting Actor performances of the year conversation at the end of 2009, is Alec Baldwin, an actor who Martini wrote the role for specifically. It turns out that Martini doesn’t even watch “30 Rock”. It was a Broadway performance years ago (one that coincidentally greatly influenced myself) that got Baldwin the part.

“I wrote the role with him in mind. I remember seeing him on Broadway as a kid in A Streetcar Named Desire and he blew everyone off the stage. He was un-f**king-believable. That’s my reference when I think about Alec. I don’t watch his show. I’ve seen it once. I’m sure he’s wonderful on it. He’s a gifted actor and a gifted man. But Streetcar is my reference for him when I think about his abilities. I know this guy has the range to do what I needed him to do in this picture - going from the confident Alec we all know to the guy who loses the respect of his son and is basically begging for it back. That vulnerability was something I was really after. I thought I’d see what he thought of it and he was immediately attracted to it. I knew he was going to deliver and he did in so many different ways. Forget about the performance for a minute. He was shooting 30 Rock around the movie. He would shoot 3 days for 30 Rock and 3 days for me. I don’t know many actors that can take…not every actor can actually chance their character to such an extent.”

Lymelife
Photo credit: Screen Media Group

With actors as talented as Alec Baldwin, a director can take risks. That’s what Martini did in a major, crucial fight scene when he took Jill Hennessy aside and advised her to improv.

He explains, “I pulled Jill aside and said, “Here are the lines. Forget about them. Here’s what you do. I want you to make this guy feel like the biggest bag of sh*t on Earth. He has humiliated you your whole life. You want him to suffer for what he’s done to you. F**k the lines. Say what you want to say. Tear him to shreds.”

“He wasn’t expecting it and she was BRILLIANT. I saw that light in eyes go off. And that is what set the scene on fire. He got so worked up. She was saying things like “I hate the way you smell, the way you brush your teeth, that stupid f**king grin.” Everything she said - it’s in the picture. I kept most of those lines in the picture. That’s what set that scene on fire.”

See that scene and many more in the very-good “Lymelife,” now playing at the Landmark Century and expanding wider in the coming weeks, including around the world.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Oscar Winner Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman on TNT’s New ‘Leverage’ Series

HollywoodChicago.com — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:50:28 -0700

CHICAGO – After hearing comical interpretations of leverage from HollywoodChicago.com readers – including “taking someone’s pet hostage,” “having goons, paying them well and feeding them well” and a “push-up bra” – Academy Award-winning actor Timothy Hutton jumped into his “Leverage” character and said it’s just one matter-of-fact word: “power”.

Academy Award-winning actor Timothy Hutton is photographed in Chicago on Dec. 2, 2008 in this exclusive HollywoodChicago.com portrait for the TV series “Leverage,” which premiered on TNT on Dec. 7, 2008.
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

“I say at the end of the first episode: ‘You’ve just had this terrible thing happen to you. You’re going through a hard time. But don’t worry. We’re here. We provide leverage,’ a mellow Hutton said in a Chicago interview with HollywoodChicago.com critic Adam Fendelman about the new TNT series. “In our show, leverage can mean a lot of things, but really it comes down to power.”

Hutton added with more specificity: “It’s the strategic application of power to gain a favorable result. That could go right in Webster’s Dictionary.”

But does Hutton – who has made a career out of supporting roles and won such an Oscar for 1980’s “Ordinary People” from director Robert Redford – have the star power to lead a TV series in the way Kyra Sedgwick is the closer in TV’s “The Closer”? That’s the bet by series directors Dean Devlin and Jonathan Frakes (who played William T. Riker in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”).

Hutton himself doesn’t think he was necessarily the one man for the job, though, since the inception of the series. He feels he evolved into the role over time.

The “Leverage” team from left to right:
Aldis Hodge, Beth Riesgraf, Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman and Christian Kane.
Photo credit: TNT

“As time went on, we (referring to himself and “Leverage” star Gina Bellman) eventually fit. I don’t know that either one of us was the immediate likely person,” Hutton said. “I am happy they asked us because it’s a really great script. Once this team comes together, we get to do so many different things to carry out the con or sting operation. That’s very appealing to all of us.”

All the while, Hutton’s Nathan Ford character is experiencing his own character evolution and inner conflict. He initially disowns the concept of being a criminal – like his “Ocean’s Eleven”-like teammates – and views himself in a very different light from the rest.

Hookup: 30 Passes to VIP Chicago Premiere of New TNT Series ‘Leverage’ With Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:32:09 -0700

CHICAGO – In a special edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: TV, we have 30 admit-two passes up for grabs to the exclusive Chicago VIP premiere of the new TNT drama “Leverage” with Academy Award-winning actor Timothy Hutton (“Beautiful Girls”) and Gina Bellman (“Coupling”) in attendance for a Q&A.

You will also be treated to a special screening of “Leverage”. To win your free pass to the VIP “Leverage” event in Chicago courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, all you need to do is be one of the first 30 people to submit a comment in this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup. That’s it!

The premiere will be held on Dec. 2, 2008 at 7 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter this Hookup and immediately win can be found beneath the “Leverage” trailer and poster below.

“Leverage” on TNT stars Academy Award-winning actor Timothy Hutton and Gina Bellman.
Image credit: TNT

Here is the “Leverage” plot description:

Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton stars in “Leverage,” which is a fun and fast-paced caper drama from the producer of “Independence Day”.

Hutton plays Nate Ford: a former insurance investigator leading a team of criminals who – after the score of a lifetime – decide to use their skills to help society’s underdogs.

This renegade team of modern-day Robin Hoods operates outside the law to take revenge against those who use power and wealth to victimize others.

Separately, they’re criminals with reputations for working alone. Together, they’re the perfect team to combat the corrupt and level the playing field for the little guy.

To secure your free pass now to the “Leverage” premiere in Chicago, make sure you’re logged into your HollywoodChicago.com account. If you don’t yet have one, you can quickly register here. Having an account with a valid e-mail address is required.

Then, add a new comment in the form below. In your comment, include an answer to this question:

What do you do at work and in life to get leverage?

Like all Hookups here, this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: TV is simple: The first 30 people to comment below win! We will be in touch with the 30 winners via e-mail to distribute your passes. “Leverage” premieres on TNT on Dec. 7, 2008 at 9 p.m. CST.

By ADAM FENDELMAN
Editor-in-Chief
HollywoodChicago.com
adam@hollywoodchicago.com