Its difficult to want to believe reports about how bad
Mitch Glazers directorial debut
Passion Play, supposedly is. Superficially, a Lynchian Gothic set in the desert amongst a travelling circus with dark desires and ruthless individuals locked in an other-worldly emotional war, the film stars
Mickey Rourke and
Megan Fox, the latter cast as a cold and aloof object of male desire, which one would think was within her range. In spite of all this, when the film debuted at the Toronto film festival last year it received almost blanket negative press that all but killed distributor interest. However, there will be a limited theatrical release in the US along with this accompanying trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK8Gc2Uj0uE If the film is as bad as first indications suggest, and if this ultimately scuppers Glazers career it would be a massive shame for a man for whom a great deal of affection remains around the world for seminal Christmas flick Scrooged (which shares
Bill Murray with this production) for which he wrote the screenplay, especially since he has laboured for two decades to bring his vision to the silver screen. However, in spite of its high profile cast, without a vast mindless CGI/3D based aesthetic it has little chance of overcoming critical feedback of this severity:
"Perversely eccentric and frequently inert." Variety "...an absolute car wreck."- David Poland it's hard to imagine that anyone will take Passion Play nearly as seriously as it takes itself." Village Voice
And, yet, in spite of these being among the more polite assessments, Image Entertainment will begin a limited theatrical release in LA and New York from May 6th until the end of the month when it will receive a Blu Ray/DVD release. No UK details have been confirmed, but aside from the sort of serious cult momentum that doesnt really seem to exist in British cinema anymore, it is unlikely to be coming to a multiplex near you. P.S. - Perhaps the most hilarious piece of information regarding the film came from
The Playlist this week. Thanks to one of their eagle eyed readers, they spotted that either out of negligence or a desperate desire from Image to grab your attention, they erroneously cited Mickey Rourke as an Oscar winner... when in fact he lost out on his nomination for The Wrestler to Sean Penn's Milk.
Some more images from the movie below...
