Tag: Miles Teller

The closing night film of the 61^st Chicago International Film Festival was an homage to films of the 80s and 90s, romantic comedies like “Notting Hill,” written by Patrick Cunnane (his first feature screenplay) and Director David Freyne (“Dating Amber,” 2020). During the Q&A onstage following the showing on October 26^th, Trevor White, a producer who works with his brother, Tim, talked about the film that the audience had just enjoyed.

PLOT

“In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen)is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life (65 years) with (Miles Teller, “Whiplash,” 2024, “The Gorge,” 2025) and her first love Luke (Callum Turner, “The Boys in the Boat,” 2023; “Masters of the Air,” 2024) who died young and has waited 67 years for her to arrive. [It reminded me of the Albert Brooks/Meryl Streep vehicle “Defending Your Life” (1991).]

Guided by an After Life Coordinator (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Oscar winner for “The Holdovers”), they have just one week to confront the ultimate dilemma: where and with whom to spend eternity.” Da’Vine and fellow ALC afterlife coordinator Ryan (John Early) are hilarious in their roles and add much to the film. So does a neighbor of Joan and Larry’s, Karen (Olga Merediz). These supporting cast members get high marks for humor.

GENESIS

Director David Freyne of “Eternity.”

Screenwriter Patrick Cunnane, who is the son of Congresswoman Madeline Dean, met Producer Trevor White (and Tim, his brother and production partner) at the White House where Cunnane was then working as a member of the White House speechwriting staff (the East Wing was intact then. Yay!). This fortuitous meeting propelled “Eternity” forward. The addition of Director David Freyne (co-credited as writer) was also serendipity. Cunnane said, “When David came on, everything went to the next level. David had a clear vision of the afterlife…It could have looked 110 different ways…I couldn’t be more thrilled with the way this turned out. It is better than I imagined it in my head.” (This is not what many screenwriters say, so give this production a Gold Star for being a happy set. It was also better than I imagined it would be, which is a recommendation for audiences to check it out.)

IMAGINING THE AFTER-LIFE

This was Freyne’s third movie and his third with Elizabeth Olsen. A corkboard outside his office led to creative suggestions for how the afterlife might appear. Since the idea was to blend romance with comedy, emulating the rom-coms of old (“That was the North Star for this movie”), some of the ideas added to the corkboard during production caused the duo to admit to the audience’s amusement, “Some were very funny and probably not appropriate for PG13.” The screenplay was on Hollywood’s Black List of the Best Unproduced Films since 2022, so its potential was recognized.

CREW

That potential was turned into reality by the expert work of Production Designer Zazu Myers (“My Old Ass,” 2024) and Cinematographer Ruairi O’Brien (“Dating Amber,” 2020; “Sea Fever,” 2019). The composer was David Fleming (“Superman,” 2025; “The Last of Us,” 2023) and the Costume Designer was Angus Strathie. (Edith Head he was not; the red-and-white checked outfits for Joan’s character and the gold-striped shirt worn by Miles Teller in the same scene did not enhance the constant remarks about how attractive the lovely Elizabeth Olsen looked, from each of her husbands. For that matter, how many of us would vote for Miles Teller as the more attractive husband of the two? But I’ll leave that plot point open to viewers, while admitting that, in terms of attractiveness–which is emphasized in the script—they could have flipped the parts, for me, but might have lost Teller’s flip finesse with humorous lines, his forte.)

SCREENPLAY

Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner in “Eternity,” the closing night picture for the 61st Chicago International Film Festival.

“Eternity” goes from Chicago to Austin’s Film Festival next, where it will be a Spotlight film. Austin is known as a screenwriter’s festival and the screenplay is very good. I particularly enjoyed the digs at the Korean War (not one of the “cool” ones) and lines like, “We can go to space for eternity, for all I care as long as Luke (husband #1) is not floating around,” from Larry (Husband #2).

HEAVEN?

The various iterations of the afterlife are presented like a giant convention, with scads of brochures about spending your after-life in 1930s Germany, but with 100% fewer Nazis; Parisland 55 (where they speak English, but with a French accent); or Infantilization World. There’s even a run on eternities where there are no men, but it filled up fast and a second similar eternity was under construction. All of the throw-away lines/ concepts were very clever.

RELATIONSHIPS

Screenwriter Patrick Cunnane and Producer Trevor White of “Eternity” at the Q&A, closing night of the 61st Chicago International Film Festival.

The opening scenes of “old” Larry and “old” Joan driving to a gender reveal party were charming and realistic. Betty Buckley, now 78 years young, played Dr. Karen Fletcher in 2016’s “Split.” I’ve missed her. Barry Primus (2013’s “Grudge Match”) portrayed old Larry. Their bickering is characteristic of marriages that have endured for decades (67 years). I can personally attest to this. The relationship question of this film is intensified when the real question is how you would choose a mate for eternity if your family were a love triangle.

CONCLUSION

The screenwriter freely admitted to stealing real-life stories from his elderly parents’ lives (the flat tire story). Cunnane shared a touching story of his mother, on-set watching the film while it was shooting, breaking down in tears when one episode unfolded.

That says it all: there are real-life lessons about family and its importance in this one, much as there were real-life lessons about important people in your life in the George Clooney vehicle “Jay Kelly.” Life without someone special can be hollow. But who will Joan choose to spend eternity with—and which of the hilarious afterlife options will win out? Check out “Eternity” in November to find out.

“Top Gun: Maverick” Is Big Winner on Memorial Day Weekend (2022)

By Connie Wilson

On June 1, 2022

In Movies, Music, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

Most of us have heard the news that Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” sequel, “Maverick” was his first movie to open making $100 million. Delayed for 2 years by the pandemic, the exploits of Captain Pete Mitchell (Cruise) 36 years after the original film debuted has been a welcome post-pandemic outing for many worldwide ($300 million worldwide).

The part that critics have applauded universally is the use of the seriously ill Val Kilmer, the original “Ice Man” in the movie, as a Naval Admiral who has been protecting Mitchell during his career. Once again, we get to see Kilmer and Cruise go head-to-head, bragging about who is the best pilot. It’s a touching scene, and there was a lot of buzz about how much Cruise wanted to work to utilize Kilmer in this sequel, despite the difficulties.
For any who have seen the Val Kilmer documentary about his throat cancer diagnosis, it is sad to see the young Kilmer in his prime, now reduced to being used via texted dialogue. His few “spoken” lines worked out with special help from a sound specialist. (Val uses a mechanical device to speak at all any more). It was a touching scene, indeed, and there was also the inevitable funeral scene, when the Admiral who has been protecting Cruise’s Maverick for all these years is laid to rest.

The scenes for this one were shot in San Diego using the U.S.S. Midway. The sub-text of Goose’s son (Miles Teller) pairing with Cruise in the movie’s climactic scenes plays well, adding conflict. With 95 cast members, there aren’t many of the original cast members invited back. Cruise has obviously led a charmed life when compared to Val Kilmer, and the female leads of the original (Kelley McGillis and Meg Ryan as Goose’s wife and the mother of the toddler who grows up to be Miles Teller’s “Rooster”) are not seen. There is one brief scene at the piano, with the young son of Goose astride the piano listening to his father (Goose was originally played by Anthony Edwards). There were a few old-timers (Skerritt, Tim Robbins, Anthony Edwards) who might have been utilized in the sequel, but the new plot involved Meg Ryan having passed away, but not before making Pete Mitchell promise to keep her son out of the air (which he obviously failed at accomplishing.)

The original film was directed by Tony Scott (“True Romance”) who died in 2012. This time out, the director is Joseph Kosinski, whose last IMDB credit is “Taco Bell: Web of Fries” in 2018. Let’s just say that directing a movie that opened with $127 million in the U.S. and $300 million, world-wide, is probably going to do a lot for his future career.

The original film garnered 4 Oscar nominations, and won for Best Original Song for “Take My Breath Away.” This time out, the song is courtesy of Lady Gaga and the big name on the score is Hans Zimmer (“Gladiator,” “Dune,” “Inception”). Other names on the musical credits include Harold Faltermeyer, who was involved with the original 1986 “Top Gun” and Lorne Balfe, who worked on the 2017 “Lego Batman” movie.

Cinematography for the fantastic aerial scenes was supervised by Claudio Miranda, who is associated with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” The cinematographer for the 1986 film was Jeffrey L. Kimball, who did “Mission Impossible II.”

Jennifer Connolly turned in a nicely understated performance as Cruise’s love interest, Penny Benjamin. Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” has a turn as Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson. Bill Pullman’s son Lewis has a role as Lt. Robert “Bob” Floyd, and you can’t help but come away feeling that “the torch has been passed” from Cruise as a matinee idol to the likes of Miles Teller, who was so good in “Whiplash” as the frustrated drummer tortured by J.K. Simmons.

As Tom Cruise himself said, “You just cannot duplicate 27 cameras shooting simultaneously” when critiquing the excellent flight sequences and the terrific cinematography. Yes, you do feel as though you are looking at numbers on dials and gauges a lot and squinting at Tom Cruise’s lined G-stressed face multiple times, but the aerial shots are phenomenal. The actors were put through 5 months of flight training and Miles Teller spent 7 weeks learning to play “Great Balls of Fire” for the piano scene, so the attention to detail showed.

I learned, while reading up on the original film and reviewing it, that the sex scenes between Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise were inserted later. And, because McGillis had blonde hair in the film but had already dyed it darker for another role, they put her in the elevator with Cruise, wearing a baseball cap with just a few tendrils of hair showing. Also, the actual sex scene was shot in silhouette in a darkened bedroom, again so that her change of hair color would not be noted. The sex scene in this one is mostly a ”they wake up in bed after the deed is done” type of low-key affair, but that doesn’t detract from the film’s overall jingoistic feel good flavor.

Another interesting factoid I read while re-upping my memory of “Top Gun” (1986) was that, after Cruise co-starred with Paul Newman in “The Color of Money,” one of Cruise’s personal heroes, he decided to make “Born on the Fourth of July” as sort of penance for the jingoistic nature of the first “Top Gun,” as Newman was quite the activist and campaigner for any number of progressive causes and this rubbed off on Tom Cruise, post film.

I admit that listening to grown men call themselves “Fanboy” and “Payback” and “Phoenix” was jarring. Of course, “Phoenix” was the call name for the sole female pilot, portrayed by Monica Barbaro as Lt. Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, an actress known formerly for “The Good Cop.” It was nice to see some female empowerment recognized onscreen, 36 years later.

All-in-all. The film is the feel good movie of the season, so far, and eve as new Covid-19 variants sweep the globe (according to the CDC) we all feel that we have been waiting a very long time for a feel good movie with top-notch production values (Paramount). The movie had a $152 million production budget. It shows onscreen.

“War Dogs” Mentions Rock Island Arsenal

By Connie Wilson

On August 21, 2016

In Local, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics, Pop Culture, Reviews

The preview (above) shows the gun runners in “War Dogs” meeting with officials (ostensibly) at the Rock Island, Illinois Arsenal. Does the Arsenal employ twins who meet with gun providers about purchasing artillery and ammunition? No idea. Is that really the interior of the offices of the Rock Island Arsenal? Based on actually having been inside some of them, I seriously doubt the resemblance, since the “real” Arsenal is all brick and old and pretty much ancient-looking.

For years, The Quarters on Arsenal Island was the second-largest government residence, after the White House, but its antiquated kitchens and bathrooms (the place still had a recessed roof with a lever so, in the days before running water, you could heat water and then lower it for use in the 1800s) made it unsuitable for constant habitation, despite its Abraham Lincoln-era splendor. I don’t believe that it is the Commander’s official residence any more.

But what about the film “War Dogs?” I was particularly interested in seeing the film adaptation of the “Rolling Stone” article by Guy Lawson entitled “Arms and the Dude” because, reading it, I became fixated on the Rock Island (IL) connection.

So did people like Bradley Cooper, apparently, become fixated with the nearly unbelievable true piece. He plays a bit part as a shadowy arms dealer to terrorists (a part I don’t remember from the source material) and is listed as executive producer. The film is directed by Todd Phillips.

The movie outlines the more-or-less true adventures of 2 young guys who got a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to provide arms to Afghanistan. The opening date onscreen for these shenanigans is January 1, 2008. We quickly learn that it costs the U.S. government $17,500 to outfit just one American soldier. With 2 million sold and an annual bill of $4.5 billion just to provide AC for those stationed in the very, very hot Afghanistan, one savvy small-time con saw an opportunity to make money after new regulations were passed in the wake of no-bid contracts for Cheney’s boys. That led to bidding on everything and AEY (don’t ask what it stands for; it doesn’t stand for anything, and asking could get you fired) was there to provide the materials of war.

Initially, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), the brains behind the outfit, was bankrolled by a Jewish dry cleaning magnate, Ralph Slitsky (Kevin Pollak), who thought Efraim was sending arms to defend Israel. It will be Ralph who will fold like a cheap accordion when the questions begin flying thick and fast. Efraim involves his childhood friend David Packouz (Miles Teller).

But, before all hell breaks loose, we get lines like, “I dropped out of high school before they covered international diplomacy” from Hill’s character, who plays the part with an insouciance and aplomb that would challenge many. An unusually insightful script theme appears from the “good guy” arms dealer, David Packouz (Miles Teller of “Whiplash”), who says of Efraim: “He would figure out who someone wanted him to be and he would become that person.”

Punctuated by little messages onscreen like, “When does telling the truth ever help anybody?”, the film explains how the duo gets a major contract to supply Italian barettas to U.S. troops and, ultimately, to provide 100 million rounds of AX47 ammo, The Afghan Deal.

Problems arise when the chutzpah that has carried Efraim and David this far wears thin while facing hurdles like 68,520 crates of ammunition stuck in Albania that turn out to be filled with Chinese goods, when the U.S. has an embargo on buying from China. The solution, albeit an illegal one, is to re-pack the embargoed bullets in cardboard boxes that don’t scream “China” and send them off to the front,anyway. But Efraim doesn’t pay “the box guy” in Albania and that leads to charges of 70 federal crimes and a 4-year sentence for the guiltier of the two and the mastermind, Efraim Diveroli (who could be back in business by 2020, because the government still hasn’t closed a few loopholes in their online outsourcing M.O., says the script at movie’s end.)

The friendship unravels as the deal does. “We were never best friends. You were just playing the role of my best friend,” says David to Efraim (Teller to Hill) and this, above all, struck me as a very insightful statement. It’s happened to me. Has it happened to you?

While “The New Yorker” gave the film a very sniffy review, most critics liked the film (giving Jonah Hill’s laugh high marks) and it has a high rating on IMDB from those who have actually seen it.

We liked it. How often do you get to see identical twins from the Arsenal negotiating an arms deal with a couple of doofuses from Miami who admit they are stoned at the time? (one of whom, David Packouz, is a massage therapist).

Try it. You’ll like it.