Alec
Baldwin loves making movies so much, he is now a boring talk show host. Perhaps this was the last hurrah for the star
of Rock of Ages. He and director
James Toback hit the Cannes Film Market hard in search of financing for a
prospective indie production, simultaneously filming a documentary of their
cold calling, at least guaranteeing they would not leave empty-handed. There is plenty of pitching but not a lot of
closing in Toback’s Seduced and Abandoned
(trailer
here), which
airs on HBO this coming Monday.
The
idea is to remake Last Tango in Paris
in Iraq during the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam. Baldwin will play the Brando role,
re-conceived as a rightwing military advisor and Neve Campbell will step into
the Maria Schneider part, transformed into a leftwing journalist. Campbell cannot make the trip to Cannes, but
Baldwin and Toback assure her they would never make the film without her. However, they do not make it past their
second pitch session before they start throwing her under the bus. They still love Neve, but maybe she can play
the maid who comes to change their sheets.
Before
long, they are also pitching actresses like Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, and
Bérénice Bejo along with prominent sales agents and the assorted eccentric
millionaires. Of course, Last Tango in Tikrit sounds so gob-smackingly
un-commercial we almost have to wonder if it is all an extended Borat gag, except Baldwin and Toback
take themselves so seriously. On behalf
of the nation’s film critics, I would like to thank the Cannes financiers for
not stampeding to fund what sounds like a Frankenstein combination of The Canyons and The Green Zone.
Of
course, in addition to the market, there is also a film festival going in
Cannes, allowing the fundraising duo an opportunity to talk to some world
cinema’s leading lights. Since S & A is a documentary about the
movies, Martin Scorsese duly sits for an interview. Perhaps the best sequence involves a sit-down
with Bernardo Bertolucci in a hotel suite named in his honor, at which time the
Tango auteur gives them his blessing
for their pseudo-remake. Among the many
other big name participants, James Caan has some particularly colorful things to say
about the industry.
If
you want to hear Toback and Baldwin kvetch than brother, this is the film is
for you. If only they were as funny as
they think they are. Toback captures
some amusing inside baseball moments at Cannes and he incorporates some
cleverly selected film clips, but Todd McCarthy’s Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema delivers far more behind the scenes details.
Harmless but conspicuously self-absorbed, Seduced
and Abandoned airs this coming Monday (10/28) on HBO.
