Is it nostalgia for his stoner turn as Jeff Spicoli in the comedy classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High nearly 30 years ago, or Sean Penn's adventurous spirit & love of life that keeps attracting the two-time Oscar winner to free-spirited, anti-establishment surfing films? No more than three months ago, Penn was in talks to support Curtis Hanson's (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile) drama Mavericks, based on the tragic life of surfer Jay Moriarty, where Penn would play Moriarty's mentor and confidante in what was essentially a surfing version of his own Into The Wild. He eventually passed on that role (presumably because his surfing time was short), but not to be out-done, Variety reports this week that he is negotiations to play legendary surfer Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz in a film he would produce and lead. Ah, much more surfing! Just like Hanson's film, this story feels like one you would associate with Penn. Paskowitz was a physician in the mid 1950's who become disheartened with medicine and after living in Israel for a year (where he was rejected in his application to join their army) - he moved back to the states and took up a life of full-time surfing. He quickly ran out of money and lived on the edge of society. He lived two decades of a bohemian lifestyle, traveling America in his camper van and giving his kids his own style of education (based around philosophy) and eventually he setup a surfing camp which anyone could live and join, and his family was dubbed "The First Family of Surfing". This was all chronicled in the excellent 2008 doc Surfwise which we reviewed two years ago, and fittingly compared it to Into the Wild;
'While Sean Penn's film about Chris McCandless felt glossy and a bit heavy-handed, this film takes a similar subject and makes the experience real. This family left the world and its trappings behind, and not only survived, but thrived. Along the way, they shared experiences that most people deny themselves due to their lifestyle, yet are vitally important to the life of the human organism. This film contains a lot of joy, regret, love, and sadness, wrapped in life lessons that we all desperately need to consider'.
If talks go well, Penn would work with Bad Lieutenant producers Alan and Gabe Polsky. Paul Feldsher (producer on The Wings of the Dove, Get Over It) has written the movie, his first screenplay. The project has unsurprisingly ended up with Penn. We know he loves surfing (we shouldn't forget two years ago he also optioned In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road which went unrealised) and this kind of forgetting the materialism of life and going back to basics, is something Penn has delved into before. We have to say it... the movie sounds "Awesome, Totally Awesome". Whether it ends up being Penn's next will depend on how complete the screenplay is, how long it takes them to find a director and a studio to finance the project. Penn has The Tree of Life hopefully opening sometime this year, and has a couple of irons already in the fire. Namely - the much delayed Three Stooges goofball from the Farrelly Brothers but the woes of MGM mean we won't see that, maybe ever.