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Post by barbicanbelle on Apr 11, 2013 7:12:07 GMT
I still think they made a mistake putting Toby Stephens rather than Rufus on the London bus ad, though!  I totally agree ! Flying to London today - hoping to catch the film tonight! can't wait ... |
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Post by lovethemanrs on Apr 11, 2013 7:51:37 GMT
I still think they made a mistake putting Toby Stephens rather than Rufus on the London bus ad, though! Yep very true, but one RT member at least was happy  She took a photo of one of those buses. She was in her element - as she likes Rufus and Toby. Traitor!!!  xxxxx Enjoy London and the film barbicanbelle. |
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Post by kygal on Apr 11, 2013 10:37:42 GMT
Nice art work. Thanks GE2. Hope a dvd will be available soon.
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Post by rueful on Apr 11, 2013 12:56:46 GMT
That's very cool artwork, GE2! Interesting to hear the story behind it, thanks for posting. Rufus looked wonderful - exceptionally nice stubble going on there  ! .... He also has a VERY nice couple of opening, non-speaking, scenes.....  You are too cruel, teasing those of us who don't know when we'll see it! ;D Glad you enjoyed the film, Jamolivej. Have a safe trip, Barbicanbelle. Overall the following is not a very good review, but Rufus is singled out for praise so I thought I'd post it, especially since it's in Variety. variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-all-things-to-all-men-1200343428/A moody star turn from Rufus Sewell elevates this overplotted British crime thriller
Leslie Felperin
With its excessive plotting, heavy-handed use of London establishing shots and ponderous air of villainy, “All Things to All Men” could easily be dismissed as yet another minnow pulled from the overfished pond of British crime fiction. Nevertheless, the film proves intermittently watchable thanks to a moody star turn from Rufus Sewell, leading a roster of better supporting thesps than the material warrants. Producer-turned-helmer George Isaac (“Kidulthood,” “Adulthood”) shows glimpses of promise, but “All Things” has appealed to only a few men and probably fewer women since its April 5 domestic bow, despite a wide, self-distributed release.
Sewell plays bent Scotland Yard detective Parker, a cop interested in busting criminals only insofar as they might be useful to his avaricious schemes. Parker’s main aim is to build up the private retirement fund jointly held with his almost-as-corrupt partner, Sands (Terence Maynard). With newbie Dixon (Leo Gregory) in tow, Parker and Sands bust high-on-his-own-supply cocaine dealer Mark Corso (Pierre Mascolo, also one of the pic’s producers), the son of kingpin Joseph Corso (Gabriel Byrne), locally known as “the Merchant.”
With Mark in custody, Parker and Co. apply pressure to the Merchant to hire master thief Riley (Toby Stephens, dull as sawdust) to heist bonds from a London skyscraper using helicopters, which at least provides an excuse for some twinkly aerial nocturnes. But soon everyone seems to be double-crossing everyone else, a complicated scheme that requires the involvement of half a dozen other ill-defined characters, including the lone woman of note, a gangster’s grieving widow (Elsa Pataky, showing little enthusiasm in a skimpily written role). Indeed, most of the actors are largely phoning it in here apart from Sewell, and although the assembled talents elevate the film a bit, few are likely to include it in their future showreels.
With its dense array of alliances and betrayals, Isaac’s script can’t be faulted for lack of ambition, and it’s admirably willing to be oblique and sparing with its reveals. Still, even the most seasoned thiller aficionado with a working knowledge of Cockney-speak might struggle to work out what the hell is going on.
Clearly, the writer-director’s true talent, gleaned from his background as a producer, is in making sure the money is there onscreen: The budget was allegedly £3 million ($4.6 million), but it looks considerably more expensive, given the abundant use of locations in a city where street shooting is seldom easy. London auds will also appreciate that the characters’ movements from one locale to another make sense geographically (that’s more than can be said for Byrne’s accent, which ambles haphazardly from London’s Bow neighborhood to the Bronx to Dublin’s north side).
The credits fulsomely thank the staff at the well-known British hairdressing chain Toni & Guy, which is also run by exec producer Tony Mascolo, the father of producer-thesp Pierre. This may not account for the plot’s melodramatic emphasis on the fractious relationships between fathers and sons, but it almost certainly accounts for why everyone looks so tonsorially sleek.Added: I don't think we have this interview yet--apologies if we do. A lot of it is similar to others, but there are little bits and pieces of quotes that were new to me. metro.co.uk/2013/04/05/rufus-sewell-i-play-hollywood-bad-guys-while-waiting-for-better-roles-3583940/Actor Rufus Sewell looks bleary eyed and slightly worn down by the time I meet him for a chat to promote new crime-caper Britflick All Things To All Men. Apparently, he’s spent the morning being asked for details of amusing on-set high jinks.
Were there any? ‘F*** all,’ he says. ‘There have been a lot of disappointed faces.’
How would he describe the film? ‘A gritty London crime drama is what they’re saying, isn’t it? I suppose that’s what I’d say too.’
Sewell plays Parker, a bent copper. There are schemes, double crosses and shootings – and MC Harvey, best known as Alesha Dixon’s ex-husband, is also in the cast. Sewell’s performance is the best thing in the film; he can certainly turn on the shark-eyed menace when it’s called for and it marks a bit of a departure for him.
‘I wondered why, with British films, they wait for a character to be riding a horse before they think of me, so this was an attractive role,’ he says.
Sewell first came to prominence in the mid-1990s thanks to his performances in TV adaptations of Middlemarch and Cold Comfort Farm, which he says led to a period when he was cast as ‘brooding Byronic people with coats on’, followed by ‘a spate of kings’ and then ‘bad guys in films’ – the most notable of which are his turns in A Knight’s Tale, The Legend Of Zorro and The Illusionist.
He’s previously spoken of his frustration at being offered villainous parts but took another last year asvampire supremo Adam in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
‘It’s very rare I’d be offered a bad guy role in a decent film with a decent director and turn it down,’ he says, ‘because the alternative may be a year of unemployment. It’s not like I’d turn it down because I’m doing an interesting multifacted character in an independent film. It’s like, play a baddie and be strapped to a train full of nitroglycerin or stay at home for eight months – that’s the choice.’
Home for Sewell is now a flat in West Hollywood with his girlfriend. He moved there in 2008 to star in a TV show, Eleventh Hour, as a crime-fighting biophysicist, which was cancelled after 18 episodes. He decided not to return to London when the show finished and says its early demise came as a relief.
‘I felt trapped after the first episode,’ he admits. ‘It quickly felt like something I shouldn’t be doing. The whole network TV series thing didn’t suit me. I’d rather be poor and unemployed with the hope of something interesting in the future than guaranteed riches doing something I wasn’t proud of.’
He also wasn’t disappointed when 2011 BBC crime show Zen, in which he played an Italian police detective, came and went in three episodes. ‘I was happy with the three we did – I was excited to see what would come along when it finished. I didn’t realise it would lead to a long period of unemployment,’ he laughs.
Sewell is an unusual interviewee for an actor, in that he’s more than happy to discuss his out-of-work periods, past projects he’s not keen on and the uneven trajectory of his career – perhaps because profile pieces often mention an unfulfilled expectation that he’d take Hollywood by storm.
But he’s enjoyed great success in the theatre – winning the Olivier Award for best actor for his performance in Tom Stoppard’s Rock’n’Roll. He’s just finished an acclaimed run in Pinter’s Old Times with Kristin Scott Thomas.
‘If there was a film of Old Times, I wouldn’t be on the list of the first 20 people who would be up for it,’ he says. ‘I’ve done a few films where I’ve wanted to play a particular part but then another actor gets it and I have to see them in the role I wanted – but that’s part of being an actor. It’s why I’m fussy when it comes to theatre and it’s taken me a few years to do it because I’ll be f***ed if that will happen to me on stage.’
Why’s that?
‘The market doesn’t work in the same way,’ he explains. ‘I’ll wait until I get something I want. I feel the same with film but there have been times I’ve waited for so long for something that challenges me I’ve probably ended up accepting something worse than the things I’ve turned down. It’s a difficult line to walk.’
He’s about to make quite a leap from doing Pinter to working with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson on action bonanza Hercules – with weapons training getting underway shortly. ‘I’m not the bad guy. I’m the pal – it’s progress,’ he laughs.
Then he’s got a range of films ready for release – an adaptation of John Banville’s Booker prize-winning novel The Seas, I’ll Follow You Down with former child star Haley Joel Osment and horror film The Devil’s Rapture. ‘I play the dad of the teenage girl,’ he says. ‘I found the relationship between the father and daughter quite moving and sweet, and I hadn’t had a chance to do that before.’
Sewell hopes this diverse workload will lead to him playing ‘a wider type of role’. He speaks about his admiration of actors such as Ian Holm and Anthony Hopkins, ‘people who could play a butler, a king, a drag queen in anything – theatre, film, TV, radio’.
‘I’m prepared to be cast as bad guys in film so I can get other types of roles in other mediums and hopefully it will filter back,’ he says. ‘It’s a long game.’ |
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Post by kissmekate on Apr 11, 2013 14:02:12 GMT
It's nice to see that at least Rufus's talent gets praised even if reviewers don't think too much of the movie itself.
And that's another lovely interview, thanks for posting! That dad-and-daughter thing in "Devil's Rapture" sounds great.
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Post by barbicanbelle on Apr 12, 2013 7:52:29 GMT
Would some of you agree with me that this was something of a missed opportunity? Although they have done wonders with a small budget, and the film does look great - London manages to look real and vibrant without the overbearing gloss of a Richard Curtis number - I'd say overall that it's a waste of good actors in search of a more coherent script. I don't mean to sound too harsh - it's an enjoyable 83 mins, but that's part of the problem : it's overscripted and there's not enough time to provide the audience with more background to the characters, allowing you to care about them, decide who to root for, and have a chance to work through all the different plot strands, double and treble crosses. Having said all that - it's a visual treat for any Rufus admirer There was only about another 6 people in the Leicester Square cinema watching ATTAM yesterday evening apart from me and hubby - I wonder how the box office is doing  |
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Post by lovethemanrs on Apr 12, 2013 9:21:11 GMT
Barbicanbelle - It's disconcerting isn't it? When I went to see ATTAM on the first day at Leicester Square there were only about a dozen people there.
Also where I live we have at least 4 decent cinemas within reach, but ATTAM is not being shown at any of them!!! The closest cinema showing it is in Stevenage which is about a 30 minute drive.
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Post by kygal on Apr 12, 2013 10:27:23 GMT
Thanks for the reviews. Was really hoping it would do better at the box office.
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Post by rueful on Apr 12, 2013 16:24:14 GMT
Thanks for the review, Barbicanbelle. Having said all that - it's a visual treat for any Rufus admirer I think this is the key point. ;D Here's another long, lovely video interview with Rufus!  www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqt2h0X0Y6o&feature=player_embedded#! Love his response to what are you watching? Wait for the "girls" bit. ;D |
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Post by kissmekate on Apr 12, 2013 16:39:13 GMT
That was great! I loved how he said "things work better if you treat each other well" Nice that he's a Game of Thrones fan. And the "girls" bit was indeed hilarious |
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Post by Petruchio - Good God on Apr 12, 2013 16:44:28 GMT
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Post by jamolivej on Apr 12, 2013 17:58:21 GMT
Lovely interview. Thanks Rueful.
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Post by jamolivej on Apr 12, 2013 18:32:05 GMT
Just like to backtrack re lack of cinemas showing ATTAM. I too had to hunt for a showing locally and in the West End, and saw it in a minor cinema in London's Leicester Square, in an area of London awash with cinemas. There were three of us there. What chance will this film have at the box office?
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Post by nell on Apr 12, 2013 21:14:36 GMT
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Post by kygal on Apr 13, 2013 11:47:01 GMT
Great interview Rueful. Nice pic Nell. Thanks!
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! .... He also has a VERY nice couple of opening, non-speaking, scenes..... 
