Keanu Reeves is making his way back onto the big screen on friday starring in the new film Generation Um… a tale of three friends who form an intimate bond as their deepest secrets from their past are revealed after partying in New York City the night before. Friendships are tested and compromises are made as these three friends are preparing to do it all again tonight. Recently, I got the chance to sit down with both Keanu Reeves and director Mark Mann in a roundtable discussion about the film. Check it out below.
Keanu, your character is kind of a kleptomaniac in the film.
Keanu Reeves: Yes. I steal a camera and some chocolate. (laughs)
When you’re reading it and playing it, what did that bring to the character?
Keanu Reeves: Stealing the camera for John was the only thing he could do in order to have that camera.
Keanu, your character is kind of a kleptomaniac in the film.
Keanu Reeves: Yes. I steal a camera and some chocolate. (laughs)
When you’re reading it and playing it, what did that bring to the character?
Keanu Reeves: Stealing the camera for John was the only thing he could do in order to have that camera.
- 5/2/2013
- by Melissa Howland
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Catch the trailer for Phase4 Films' Generation Um..., starring Keanu Reeves, Adelaide Clemens, Bojana Novakovic and Daniel Sunjata. Mark L. Mann directs as well as writing the film produced by Caroline Kaplan, Lemore Syvan and Alison Palmer Bourke. Also in the cast of the drama are Jake Hoffman, Johnny Orsini and Sarita Choudhury. Generation Um...opens on May 3rd. The world is downtown New York City, present day - from the point of view of a driver for an escort service. John (Keanu Reeves), a quietly sexy withdrawn guy, is finally ageing out of his young, trendy neighborhood, dealing with the beginnings of the next chapter of his life.
- 3/12/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Catch the trailer for Phase4 Films' Generation Um..., starring Keanu Reeves, Adelaide Clemens, Bojana Novakovic and Daniel Sunjata. Mark L. Mann directs as well as writing the film produced by Caroline Kaplan, Lemore Syvan and Alison Palmer Bourke. Also in the cast of the drama are Jake Hoffman, Johnny Orsini and Sarita Choudhury. Generation Um...opens on May 3rd. The world is downtown New York City, present day - from the point of view of a driver for an escort service. John (Keanu Reeves), a quietly sexy withdrawn guy, is finally ageing out of his young, trendy neighborhood, dealing with the beginnings of the next chapter of his life.
- 3/12/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Phase 4 Films has acquired all U.S. and Canadian rights to writer-director Mark L Mann’s "generation Um...," which stars Keanu Reeves. The specialty distributor plans a theatrical release in the spring. Bojana Novakovic and Adelaide Clemens co-star in "generation Um…," a day-in the-life portrait of three people trying to make sense of their lives and relationships in the city. Alison Palmer, Caroline Kaplan and Lemore Syvan produced; Nicolas Chartier, Cassian Elwes, Zev Foreman and Jared Goldman are executive producers. Read More: Phase 4 Films to Distribute Alex Gibney's Hockey Doc 'The Last Gladiators' "We are excited to be working with Mark on his first film and to be collaborating with Keanu and the cast to share their edgy, socially relevant drama with audiences," said Phase 4 president and CEO Berry Meyerowitz. Reeves is currently on-screen as producer and host of the documentary "Side By Side,"...
- 9/28/2012
- by Jay A. Fernandez
- Indiewire
Phase 4 Films acquired all U.S. and Canadian rights to director Mark L Mann’s generation Um… Mann also wrote the screenplay for the film, with Alison Palmer, Caroline Kaplan, and Lemore Syvan producing. The film stars Keanu Reeves, Bojana Novakovic, and Adelaide Clemens and was executive produced by Nicolas Chartier, Cassian Elwes, Zev Foreman, and Jared Goldman. Phase 4 plans to release the film theatrically in spring 2013.
- 9/28/2012
- by MIKE FLEMING
- Deadline
Keanu Reeves (lately known as World’s Saddest Superstar) is back!
And this time, he has signed on to star in Mark L. Mann’s indie-drama titled Generation Um.
Reeves is set to star alongside Bojana Novakovic (Edge of Darkness) and Adelaide Clemens (Mad Max: Fury Road) in the story that will follow:
“…a day in the life of Reeves’ character and his two cohorts as they live life on the fringe, immersed in sex, drugs and indecision.
As they navigate their daily routine of bars and crowds, they embark on a path of self-discovery.”
Mark L. Mann is directing Generation Um from his own script, and the movie will be shooting in New York.
Alison Palmer Bourke, who helped develop the script with Mann, is producing with Lemore Syvan and Caroline Kaplan.
At the end, little reminder for all Reeves fans out there, he next stars in Henry’s Crime,...
And this time, he has signed on to star in Mark L. Mann’s indie-drama titled Generation Um.
Reeves is set to star alongside Bojana Novakovic (Edge of Darkness) and Adelaide Clemens (Mad Max: Fury Road) in the story that will follow:
“…a day in the life of Reeves’ character and his two cohorts as they live life on the fringe, immersed in sex, drugs and indecision.
As they navigate their daily routine of bars and crowds, they embark on a path of self-discovery.”
Mark L. Mann is directing Generation Um from his own script, and the movie will be shooting in New York.
Alison Palmer Bourke, who helped develop the script with Mann, is producing with Lemore Syvan and Caroline Kaplan.
At the end, little reminder for all Reeves fans out there, he next stars in Henry’s Crime,...
- 9/13/2010
- by Fiona
- Filmofilia
Keanu Reeves has locked a leading role in 'Generation Um...'. The 'Matrix' actor will star alongside Adelaide Clemens and Bojana Novakovic in the indie drama, which has already begun shooting in New York City. The movie tells the tale of a man and his two friends who embark on a path of self-discovery while engaging in plenty of sex, drugs and bad decisions, according to Variety. Mark L. Mann scripted 'Generation Um...' and will direct, while Alison Palmer from Company Films will produce the project. Jared Goldman (Solitary Man) and Nicolas Chartier (The Hurt Locker) are on board as executive producers. Keanu, ..
- 9/10/2010
- Virgin Media - Movies
Keanu Reeves will star in the independent drama "Generation Um." According to Variety, Mark L. Mann ("Finishing Heaven") will direct from his own script with shooting set to start Thursday in New York City.The cast includes Bojana Novakovic and Adelaide Clemens.The film follows a day in the life of Reeves' character and his two friends as they embark on a path of self-discovery after drifting through life in a haze of sex, drugs and indecision. Alison Palmer ("Henry's Crime") is producing for Company Films. Palmer also helped develop the script with Mann. Lemore Syvan ("Henry's Crime," "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee") and Caroline Kaplan ("Letters to Juliet") will also produce. Reeves stars in the upcoming "Henry's Crime," which will...
- 9/10/2010
- by Adnan Tezer
- Monsters and Critics
Keanu Reeves, Bojana Novakovic and Adelaide Clemens have joined the indie drama "Generation Um..." reports Variety.
The story follows Reeves' character and his two cohorts "as they live life on the fringe, immersed in sex, drugs and indecision. As they navigate their daily routine of bars and crowds, they embark on a path of self-discovery".
Mark L. Mann ("Finishing Heaven") directs from his own script while Alison Palmer, Lemore Syvan and Caroline Kaplan will produce. Shooting kicks off Thursday in New York City.
The story follows Reeves' character and his two cohorts "as they live life on the fringe, immersed in sex, drugs and indecision. As they navigate their daily routine of bars and crowds, they embark on a path of self-discovery".
Mark L. Mann ("Finishing Heaven") directs from his own script while Alison Palmer, Lemore Syvan and Caroline Kaplan will produce. Shooting kicks off Thursday in New York City.
- 9/9/2010
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Los Angeles Film Festival (Gigantic Releasing)
Fans of the fascinating documentary "Capturing the Friedmans" might want to take a gander at "Must Read After My Death", which is in competition at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Like that earlier film, this one incorporates a wealth of home movies and audio tapes to document the behavior of a dysfunctional family over a period of years. The secrets revealed here are not quite as shocking as the hints of child molestation captured in "Friedmans". Still, this is an equally intriguing and unsettling look at the turmoil hidden behind the white picket fences of suburbia.
Charley and Allis were married after World War II and raised four children in Hartford, Conn. (Their last name is not given because of privacy concerns by their surviving children.) They seemed to have a compulsive desire to document their lives because they left thousands of feet of home movies as well as numerous tape recordings that chronicle their problems. Some of the recordings were made at the behest of their psychiatrist, who counseled them and reinforced the prejudices of the era regarding a woman's place in the home.
Although Allis was a strong-willed woman, she was encouraged to subordinate her own needs to those of her husband, a drinker and philanderer. Their children suffered as a result of this psychodrama. Two of them were sent to mental institutions, and one of them died as a teenager. Eventually, Charley also died under mysterious circumstances, after Allis confronted him about his failings.
Technically, the film is limited by the quality of the home movie footage, but it remains engrossing, if not quite as explosive as "Friedmans". The director, Morgan Dews, happens to be the couple's grandson, and he was granted access to the tapes after Allis' death.
Given the resistance to documentaries at the boxoffice, the film will find only a limited audience. But that audience will be riveted.
Director-writer-producer-editor: Morgan Dews. Executive producer: Alison Palmer Bourke. Music: Paul Damian Hogan.
No MPAA rating, 76 minutes.
Fans of the fascinating documentary "Capturing the Friedmans" might want to take a gander at "Must Read After My Death", which is in competition at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Like that earlier film, this one incorporates a wealth of home movies and audio tapes to document the behavior of a dysfunctional family over a period of years. The secrets revealed here are not quite as shocking as the hints of child molestation captured in "Friedmans". Still, this is an equally intriguing and unsettling look at the turmoil hidden behind the white picket fences of suburbia.
Charley and Allis were married after World War II and raised four children in Hartford, Conn. (Their last name is not given because of privacy concerns by their surviving children.) They seemed to have a compulsive desire to document their lives because they left thousands of feet of home movies as well as numerous tape recordings that chronicle their problems. Some of the recordings were made at the behest of their psychiatrist, who counseled them and reinforced the prejudices of the era regarding a woman's place in the home.
Although Allis was a strong-willed woman, she was encouraged to subordinate her own needs to those of her husband, a drinker and philanderer. Their children suffered as a result of this psychodrama. Two of them were sent to mental institutions, and one of them died as a teenager. Eventually, Charley also died under mysterious circumstances, after Allis confronted him about his failings.
Technically, the film is limited by the quality of the home movie footage, but it remains engrossing, if not quite as explosive as "Friedmans". The director, Morgan Dews, happens to be the couple's grandson, and he was granted access to the tapes after Allis' death.
Given the resistance to documentaries at the boxoffice, the film will find only a limited audience. But that audience will be riveted.
Director-writer-producer-editor: Morgan Dews. Executive producer: Alison Palmer Bourke. Music: Paul Damian Hogan.
No MPAA rating, 76 minutes.
- 6/23/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
South By Southwest
AUSTIN -- Although it isn't the kind of critical investigation viewers may walk in expecting, Mike Mills' "Does Your Soul Have a Cold?" presents refreshingly sensitive, sympathetic portraits of Japanese youths suffering from clinical depression. It may not have the muckraking appeal that helps many docus at the boxoffice, but its lyrical depiction of a novel subject will be welcomed on the festival circuit and could find a niche in theatrical and small-screen exhibition.
After dramatizing a skeptical attitude toward mood-regulating pharmaceuticals in his feature debut "Thumbsucker", director Mills at first seems to have found a natural follow-up: In Japan, where the concept of depression as an illness didn't even exist a decade ago, cultural attitudes have been reinvented by the heavy-duty PR campaigns of American drug companies. Introductory titles, depicting corporations bent on popularizing a disease so they can sell its cure, indicate a critique of the ethics of drug advertising (the film's title was a widely used ad slogan); at the very least, the topic offers a unique sociological appeal.
Over the course of his interviews, though, Mills is so attuned to the micro that he largely abandons the macro. We meet individuals across the spectrum of depression, from those who are almost healthy to others on the verge of suicide. Mills is deeply curious about the daily rituals and lifestyle strategies each employs to cope with illness, and he questions subjects thoroughly about how their lives have changed since the widespread demystification of depression.
The characters aren't uniformly engaging. While Mills connects particularly well with a flamboyant S&M aficionado, whose sexual inclinations may both contribute to and help alleviate his difficulties relating to those around him, other subjects are so emotionally drained that they threaten to drag the film to a standstill.
Mills hints at a discomfort with the number of drugs these youths are being prescribed -- listing brand names and dosages, listening as they worry about life without them -- but never quite marshals these observations into a coherent point of view. Some viewers will be disappointed by the film's lack of clear polemics, seeing the occasional hard factoid as a tease and faulting Mills for an incoherent documentary perspective. Others, though, will intuit that the director's receptiveness to a subject's mood (and his knack, honed in his music-video career, for translating those moods into images) is valuable in itself, despite making him not particularly well suited to journalism.
DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD?
IFC /Netflix/Mabel Longhetti Group
Credits:
Director: Mike Mills
Producers: Callum Greene, Mike Mills, Takuo Yasuda
Executive producers: Alison Palmer Bourke, Christine Lubrano, Debbie Demontreux, Evan Shapiro
Directors of photography: James Frohna, D.J. Harder
Editor: Andrew Dickler
Running time -- 81 minutes
No MPAA rating...
AUSTIN -- Although it isn't the kind of critical investigation viewers may walk in expecting, Mike Mills' "Does Your Soul Have a Cold?" presents refreshingly sensitive, sympathetic portraits of Japanese youths suffering from clinical depression. It may not have the muckraking appeal that helps many docus at the boxoffice, but its lyrical depiction of a novel subject will be welcomed on the festival circuit and could find a niche in theatrical and small-screen exhibition.
After dramatizing a skeptical attitude toward mood-regulating pharmaceuticals in his feature debut "Thumbsucker", director Mills at first seems to have found a natural follow-up: In Japan, where the concept of depression as an illness didn't even exist a decade ago, cultural attitudes have been reinvented by the heavy-duty PR campaigns of American drug companies. Introductory titles, depicting corporations bent on popularizing a disease so they can sell its cure, indicate a critique of the ethics of drug advertising (the film's title was a widely used ad slogan); at the very least, the topic offers a unique sociological appeal.
Over the course of his interviews, though, Mills is so attuned to the micro that he largely abandons the macro. We meet individuals across the spectrum of depression, from those who are almost healthy to others on the verge of suicide. Mills is deeply curious about the daily rituals and lifestyle strategies each employs to cope with illness, and he questions subjects thoroughly about how their lives have changed since the widespread demystification of depression.
The characters aren't uniformly engaging. While Mills connects particularly well with a flamboyant S&M aficionado, whose sexual inclinations may both contribute to and help alleviate his difficulties relating to those around him, other subjects are so emotionally drained that they threaten to drag the film to a standstill.
Mills hints at a discomfort with the number of drugs these youths are being prescribed -- listing brand names and dosages, listening as they worry about life without them -- but never quite marshals these observations into a coherent point of view. Some viewers will be disappointed by the film's lack of clear polemics, seeing the occasional hard factoid as a tease and faulting Mills for an incoherent documentary perspective. Others, though, will intuit that the director's receptiveness to a subject's mood (and his knack, honed in his music-video career, for translating those moods into images) is valuable in itself, despite making him not particularly well suited to journalism.
DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE A COLD?
IFC /Netflix/Mabel Longhetti Group
Credits:
Director: Mike Mills
Producers: Callum Greene, Mike Mills, Takuo Yasuda
Executive producers: Alison Palmer Bourke, Christine Lubrano, Debbie Demontreux, Evan Shapiro
Directors of photography: James Frohna, D.J. Harder
Editor: Andrew Dickler
Running time -- 81 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 4/17/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
SAN FRANCISCO -- Eric Steel's documentary, The Bridge, opens with a picturesque shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the great architectural and engineering feats of the 20th century. Less than five minutes into the film, a man casually climbs over the bridge railing and jumps 225 feet to his death in the chilly waters of San Francisco Bay. This is one of six such episodes shown in the film out of more two dozen caught by Steel's camera crew, who shot the bridge every day in 2004. (One man happily chats on his cell phone moments before leaping.)
Despite Steel's admirable intention to stimulate discussion about two taboo subjects -- suicide and mental illness -- its morbid fascination with the physical reality of death and what drives people to override the primal instinct to survive is what sustains interest in an otherwise unremarkable film. The Bridge has a television deal with IFC, which plans to broadcast it sometime in 2007.
Lengthy interviews with family and friends of the six victims, culled from over 100 hours of footage, needs tighter editing, and are, for the most part, presented in a mundane fashion. Steel cuts back and forth between those interviews and Peter McCandless' awe-inspiring cinematography of the bridge, captured at nearly every time of day and from every conceivable angle. Eerie music by Alex Heffes sets a mood of apprehension and dread.
The rhythm is repetitive and grows monotonous. In fact, the entire film could have used a more structured approach. "What was in their minds when they jumped?" is asked over and over again by those left behind. The question is given a partial answer by Kevin Hines, 25, who struggled with mental illness for most of his young life, and miraculously survived his jump into the bay. Segments that feature him are engrossing.
Steel, who produced major Hollywood features such as Angela's Ashes, Bringing Out the Dead and Shaft, works on a smaller, more intimate scale in his directorial debut. One of the faults of the film is its perspective is too narrow. Steel may have chosen to do this in an attempt to force the audience to confront the central issue, though he decided to make the film after reading Tad Friend's New Yorker article, Jumpers, which provided context by looking at the debate over whether or not a suicide barrier should be installed on the bridg.
When first screened at the San Francisco Film Festival, the film met with protests and controversy. For one, Steel misled the bridge district as to the purpose of the filming. And, even though the victims chose to commit suicide in a public setting, there's an ethical question in regard to showing images of people going to their deaths, some shot through a telephoto lens. It's a violation of their privacy on what had to be the loneliest and most desperate day of their lives and a form of voyeurism, however inadvertent. Still, it's difficult to avert one's eyes and therein lays the problem. These moments are inherently dramatic, shocking -- and, for some, perversely exciting to watch.
The Bridge
IFC presents an Easy There Tiger Production
Credits:
Writer/director: Eric Steel
Producer: Eric Steel
Executive producer: Alison Palmer Bourke, Evan Shapiro
Director of photography: Peter McCandless
Music: Alex Heffes
Editor: Sabine Krayenbuhl
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 93 minutes...
Despite Steel's admirable intention to stimulate discussion about two taboo subjects -- suicide and mental illness -- its morbid fascination with the physical reality of death and what drives people to override the primal instinct to survive is what sustains interest in an otherwise unremarkable film. The Bridge has a television deal with IFC, which plans to broadcast it sometime in 2007.
Lengthy interviews with family and friends of the six victims, culled from over 100 hours of footage, needs tighter editing, and are, for the most part, presented in a mundane fashion. Steel cuts back and forth between those interviews and Peter McCandless' awe-inspiring cinematography of the bridge, captured at nearly every time of day and from every conceivable angle. Eerie music by Alex Heffes sets a mood of apprehension and dread.
The rhythm is repetitive and grows monotonous. In fact, the entire film could have used a more structured approach. "What was in their minds when they jumped?" is asked over and over again by those left behind. The question is given a partial answer by Kevin Hines, 25, who struggled with mental illness for most of his young life, and miraculously survived his jump into the bay. Segments that feature him are engrossing.
Steel, who produced major Hollywood features such as Angela's Ashes, Bringing Out the Dead and Shaft, works on a smaller, more intimate scale in his directorial debut. One of the faults of the film is its perspective is too narrow. Steel may have chosen to do this in an attempt to force the audience to confront the central issue, though he decided to make the film after reading Tad Friend's New Yorker article, Jumpers, which provided context by looking at the debate over whether or not a suicide barrier should be installed on the bridg.
When first screened at the San Francisco Film Festival, the film met with protests and controversy. For one, Steel misled the bridge district as to the purpose of the filming. And, even though the victims chose to commit suicide in a public setting, there's an ethical question in regard to showing images of people going to their deaths, some shot through a telephoto lens. It's a violation of their privacy on what had to be the loneliest and most desperate day of their lives and a form of voyeurism, however inadvertent. Still, it's difficult to avert one's eyes and therein lays the problem. These moments are inherently dramatic, shocking -- and, for some, perversely exciting to watch.
The Bridge
IFC presents an Easy There Tiger Production
Credits:
Writer/director: Eric Steel
Producer: Eric Steel
Executive producer: Alison Palmer Bourke, Evan Shapiro
Director of photography: Peter McCandless
Music: Alex Heffes
Editor: Sabine Krayenbuhl
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 93 minutes...
- 6/22/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Greg the Bunny is hopping back to television. The puppet protagonist of the short-lived Fox sitcom will return to cable channel IFC -- where he was first discovered hosting a movie showcase in 2001 -- for a half-hour special next year that also is under series consideration. Also appearing in the program are former Greg co-stars Seth Green and Sarah Silverman. "'Greg the Bunny' was this tiny thing on IFC that became this huge series on Fox," said Alison Palmer Bourke, vp development and production of original specials and series at IFC. "We always kept up our relationship with the creators, so when the opportunity presented itself, we thought, 'Why not?' "...
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