my own private idaho is a 1991 american independent adventure drama film written and directed by gus van sant , loosely based on shakespeare 's henry iv , part 1 , henry iv , part 2 , and henry v , and starring river phoenix and keanu reeves .

the story follows two friends , mike and scott , as they embark on a journey of personal discovery that takes them to mike 's hometown in idaho and then to italy in search of mike 's mother .

van sant originally wrote the screenplay in the 1970s , but discarded it after reading john rechy 's 1963 novel city of night and concluding that rechy 's treatment of the subject of street hustlers was better than his own .

over the years , van sant rewrote the script , which comprised two stories : that of mike and the search for his mother , and scott 's story as a modern update of the henry iv plays .

van sant had difficulty getting hollywood financing , and at one point considered making the film on a minuscule budget with a cast of actual street kids .

after van sant sent copies of his script to reeves and then reeves showed it to phoenix , both agreed to star in the film on each other 's behalf .

my own private idaho had its premiere at the 48th venice international film festival , and received largely positive reviews from critics including roger ebert and those of the new york times and entertainment weekly .

the film was a moderate financial success , grossing over $ 6.4 million in north america , which was above its estimated budget of $ 2.5 million .

phoenix received several awards for his performance in the film , including the volpi cup for best actor at the 1991 venice film festival , best male lead from the independent spirit awards , and best actor from the national society of film critics .

my own private idaho

my own private idaho <EOT> my own private idaho [ blu . . . has been added to your cart

my own private idaho is most striking as a vision of a vanished bohemian city .

2 . the film journal : my own private idaho page by j . d . lafrance

river phoenix and keanu reeves in " my own private idaho . " ( warner bros . )

river phoenix in my own private idaho by gus van sant ( 1991 ) © warner bros inc .

twenty years later , gus van sant reflects on my own private idaho’s vanished city of flophouses and hustlers .

[ video ] “river phoenix researching for “my own private idaho” part 1 of 9″ . youtube . com . urltoken

keanu reeves and river phoenix in my own private idaho by gus van sant . photograph : © warner bros inc

criterion collection to release ' the brood , ' ' my own private idaho , ' ' mulholland dr . '

gus van sant ' s ' my own private idaho ' uses a variety of devices to keep viewers off balance .

looking for movie tickets ? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing my own private idaho near you .

the film inside me , inside us : the experience of ' my own private idaho ' through a phenomenological lens .

my own private idaho lacks the dramatic punchiness of drugstore cowboy , yet it ' s a rich , audacious experience .

river phoenix gives the finest performance of his tragically short career in my own private idaho , now streaming at sbs on demand .

text emily manning keanu reeves and river phoenix in my own private idaho by gus van sant ( 1991 ) © warner bros inc .

documents similar to the film inside me , inside us : the experience of ' my own private idaho ' through a phenomenological lens .

keanu reeves and river phoenix in gus van sant ' s my own private idaho . photograph : cine text / allstar / sportsphoto ltd

this is river phoenix and keanu reeves at their best . my own private idaho is my favourite river phoenix movie . a superb movie of tragedy , love and lost .

the title my own private idaho was inspired by the b - 52 ' s song " private idaho , " although the film has little in common with the song . the " private idaho " in the film is the visions that mike occasionally sees in his mind . therefore it can be said that mike is " living in his own private idaho " - - an idaho which is visible only to him .

the film inside me , inside us : the experience of ' my own private idaho ' through a phenomenological lens . | perception | consciousness

there is a moment in gus van sant’s 1991 film my own private idaho when the main character awakens on a desolate midwestern american highway .

" my own private idaho " is both a love story and a tragedy . it remains the high point in gus van sant ' s career .

. “she had a real intuition about me , and not since my own mom had anybody really had my number . she really understood my tastes , and my ambition , and my fear , my anxiety about wanting to do everything by thursday morning . ”

somewhere between surreal depravity and renaissance tragedy is gus van sant’s “my own private idaho , ” a visually compelling examination of unrequited love - romantic and otherwise .

“beautifully wrought , darkly funny and finally devastating , my own private idaho almost single - handedly revives the notion of personal filmmaking in the united states . ” — chicago tribune

criterion ' s blu - ray edition of my own private idaho is available now . watch an exclusive clip of a conversation between todd haynes and gus van sant below :

music featured in my own private idaho ( 1991 ) . many of the songs in the film were not released , so this is not at all a complete list .

hand2mouth ' s " time , a fair hustler " is a collage of influences , including shakespeare ' s history plays and gus van sant ' s " my own private idaho . "

“ gus van sant ‘s sensibility is wholly original , wholly fresh . my own private idaho adds a new ingredient : a kind of boho sweetness . i loved it . ” — washington post

my own private idaho received generally positive reviews in the gay media , typified by planetout . com’s popcornq , which called my own private idaho a “deliriously unhinged story” that contains “one of the most beautifully nuanced depictions of naked desire ever captured on film” and which is part of “a cinema that resonates with more than just the facile palliative of happily - ever - after” ( 8 ) .

alex g ¡all - time quarterback ! the mountain goats my own private idaho lofi singer / songwriter love songs and other stuff . . . . . . . . everything is painful though river phoenix

grungy , grubby and authentic , the clothes in films such as my own private idaho were never meant to look good . but now a new paris exhibition is celebrating the director’s unlikely influence on the catwalk

van zant ' s my own private idaho is the story of two male hustlers , mike waters and scott favor , who meet in a bad section of portland oregon , befriend each other for some time , and then separate .

the first time i viewed my own private idaho , at rit ' s talisman , i found it quite confusing . only after attending the second screening did it make some sense to me . my own private idaho is a very complex film which ends without resolution of the story . it deals with " taboo " ideas which are not generally dealt with in the american cinema . one reason for my initial confusion may have been i was uptight about what i was seeing on the screen , and this distracted me from the story at hand . during my second viewing i knew what to expect , and devoted my attention to the story .

after studying under cinematographer ed lachman , shevaun mizrahi forged her own unique filmmaking path with its own set of rules .

because river phoenix ' s agent refused to show him the film treatment for " my own private idaho " , in late 1990 keanu reeves rode his motorcycle from canada to phoenix ' s hometown of gainesville , florida to hand deliver it himself .

“there’s not another road anywhere that looks like this road—i mean , exactly like this road . it’s one kind of place . one of a kind , like someone’s face . like a fucked - up face . ” —river phoenix , my own private idaho

tags : bisexual representation theme week , bisexuality , drama , keanu reeves , lgbtq , logan kenny , my own private idaho , river phoenix bookmark the permalink . follow comments with the rss feed for this post . both comments and trackbacks are closed .

the title of the film was based on the the b - 52 ' s song " private idaho " , released in 1980 .

“my own private idaho” is a film that is reflexive back on the original author of the story , william shakespeare . as one might know , or notice when watching the film , the film’s dialogue seems to be inspired by some kind of old - time poetry . gus van sant loosely based “my own private idaho” on one of the two plots of shakespeare’s play , henry iv , in which henry iv’s son , prince harry’s strained relationship with his father leads him to doing rebellious things , ignoring his responsibilities until he gets the money that he will inherit . in “my own private idaho , ” this can be seen clearly in the character of scott favor . but ironically enough , mike waters is the main protagonist of the story , on whose consciousness the film is based .

here’s further fuel to fire up those beliefs that james franco has succeeded in cloning himself . beginning on saturday , the actor together with director gus van sant are debuting an exhibition titled “unfinished” at the gagosian gallery in beverly hills . it consists of two films based on my own private idaho which van sant directed but franco did not star in . ( it co - starred keanu reeves and the late river phoenix as street hustlers . ) but after casting franco in 2008’s milk , van sant showed him the dailies and other footage that he had shot many years before for the 1991’s my own private idaho but which did not make it into the final cut . so franco decided to fashion it into two new films , riffing off the original title : endless idaho and my own private river .

out : first , i wanted to say that my own private idaho was the first “gay” movie i ever saw , since it somehow ended up in the little shop where we could rent vhs tapes on the air force base in japan where i went to high school .

tags : bisexual representation theme week , bisexuality , drama , gus van sant , jamie righetti , keanu reeves , lgbtq , my own private idaho , river phoenix bookmark the permalink . follow comments with the rss feed for this post . both comments and trackbacks are closed .

[ van sant ] disdain [ s ] narrative . he got away with drugstore cowboy because its band of drugged - out dodoes were engaged in a petty crime spree that almost passed for a plot . but my own private idaho is a different story . or rather nonstory .

according to the official descriptions , franco “edited outtakes , deleted scenes , alternate takes , and behind - the - scenes footage from my own private idaho into the 12 - hour film endless idaho which circa andy warhol provides an unprecedented look into the workaday process of making a movie , from location scouting to repeated takes . in a blend of documentary and fiction , interviews with actual hustlers who played secondary characters in my own private idaho are intercut with shots of river phoenix and keanu reeves improvising and refining their performances under the direction of van sant and his crew” . by contrast , my own private river “consists largely of shots of phoenix’s character woven into a compelling portrait . franco describes being mesmerized by phoenix ‘s ‘uninhibited acting’ in this unreleased footage , and his edit captures the gifted actor at his most emotionally expressive and physically dynamic” .

the 2015 criterion release of my own private idaho is based on a new 4k digital transfer , and presented in the film’s original 1 . 85 : 1 aspect radio . this release includes a number of extras , most of which were also included in the 2005 release from criterion .

a strong beginning that becomes a bit cryptic towards the end , my own private idaho is a respectable piece of film and is pure van sant . the poetic dialogue in some scenes mixed in with river phoenix ' s narcolepsy brings a story that develops unusual characters and a excellent adventure .

my own private idaho finds a home in cinema revolution as one of the first major titles from fine line features , a production / distribution company that was founded in 1990 as the art house division of new line cinema and run by cinema revolution curator ira deutchman from 1990 - 1995 .

my own private idaho , van sant’s third feature film , is a landmark of the new queer cinema of the 1990s - a movement which gave voice and expression to lgbtq stories , while also exhibiting distinctly fluid and subversive styles of filmmaking that rejected conventional narrative forms . accordingly , my own private idaho’s story about a group of young male hustlers in portland has an episodic structure , and is visually and tonally experimental . a dense dreaminess implants mike’s narcolepsy within the film’s fabric . this magnifies the sense that mike is adrift without an anchor ; that he experiences the world through an altered reality , where time is fragmented .

the shakepearean subtlety and sedation found in “my own private idaho” is seen loosely , aside from the plot , on the characters’ lines as well . the lyrical and poetic tone of mike , scott , and bob’s words are actually paraphrases of shakespeare’s script from his play , henry iv . compared to the loud , aggressive , and violent depiction of shakespeare’s titus andronicus by julie taymor , there is no doubt that “my own private idaho” is more tranquil and relaxed . it may also be attributed to the different contents and contexts of the two plays , but it can nevertheless be credited to the two directors’ treatments of the material .

my own private idaho is not a genre film , per se , but it is a formula film in the fact that there is a main character ( mike ) who is searching for a long - lost relative . generally formula films are simply reworkings of cookie - cutter stories , but director / screenwriter gus van zant has decided to work a formula story into a product which contains unconventional ideas and characters , and forms of sexuality which are not appealing to the general public . these ingredients make for a very unpredictable film , yet it is a formula film nonetheless . my own private idaho is certainly not typical hollywood fare .

even as hand2mouth seeks to audio - visually transport its audience to a sepia - toned past , walters insists that " time , a fair hustler , " isn ' t purely nostalgic - - not about the " life on the edge " portrayed in " my own private idaho , " nor about the lost city the film portrays .

river phoenix died of an overdose just two years after making idaho , leaving behind a powerful legacy of performance which included stand by me , the mosquito coast and an oscar - nominated turn in running on empty . but as the drug - taking , narcoleptic street hustler mike waters in my own private idaho , phoenix delivered the gutsiest performance of his career and was rewarded with an independent spirit award for best male lead .

my own private idaho and the living end are very private films . conspicuously addressed to a particular audience and commercially limited by both budget and aesthetics they are not films open to everyone , entries into universal popular culture that could potentially play to random spectators . they are special , personal films that rely on audience identification for much of their impact . though it is impossible to demonstrate a gay - male - heavy demographic break down of the audiences of these two films , and though the star power of phoenix and reeves has no doubt drawn many non - gay male viewers to my own private idaho , the assumption that the two films enjoyed a proportionately large amount of interested gay male viewers on their initial release is , i believe , a reasonable one ( 10 ) .

my own private idaho will play in the annex cinema tonight at 7 pm , the penultimate addition to cinema revolution . next week , we will conclude with robert altman’s 1992 black comedy , the player . next , be on the lookout for the release of our annual summer classics film series coming next month . see you at the michigan !

frank church wilderness , idaho the largest wilderness in the lower 48 states and my personal favourite . the middle fork section of the salmon river is a legend among rafters .

before good will hunting and finding forrester ; before the ill - advised psycho remake and the experimental gerry ; before the movies about harvey milk and kurt cobain , portland - based indie auteur gus van sant made my own private idaho , an avant - garde drama starring river phoenix as a narcoleptic gay hustler and keanu reeves as his friend and co - worker .

my own private idaho is a wistful , delicate hybrid , a movie that does more than it could possibly seem to be doing at once . on the 25th anniversary of its release , it reminds us of the risks hollywood’s periphery used to take , and of the stakes that even a not explicitly political movie often had ascribed to it . van sant grew up in a wild era for cinema , amid an explosion of radical underground movies by the likes of andy warhol , but also on the cusp of new hollywood . his own art is a symptom of both trends , which might explain why a movie like my own private idaho now registers as a strange artifact , off - kilter and unusual but not quite avant - garde . van sant’s approach comes off as natural and lived in , warm rather than academic .

as a retelling of shakespeare’s “henry v , ” now set among street hustlers , “my own private idaho” was by turns nonchalant and touching , structurally loose but coherent , graced with unexpected lyrical images and narrative hairpins . shakespeare is used in the film to convey the transcendence of time , wishing to convey that mike and scott are figures than can exist anywhere and anytime .

phoenix’s best performances stand out because of this intimacy . his work in my own private idaho is all heart – open and unselfconscious , bruised yet tough . he brings us painfully close to mike so we care what happens , where he goes , what will come next . van sant’s film is a testament to the actor’s beauty , vulnerability , and his abundant talent .

on this day in 1991 , my own private idaho , an independent film written and directed by gus van sant and starring keanu reeves and river phoenix , premieres at the new york film festival . the movie told the story of two young male hustlers , one of whom ( phoenix ) is a hapless narcoleptic searching for the mother who abandoned him , and the other of whom ( reeves ) comes from a wealthy family ( the character was inspired , in part , by shakespeare’s prince hal in henry iv ) . the pair meets in portland , oregon , and later travels to idaho and italy . my own private idaho –the title reportedly came from a song by the rock band the b - 52s–was nominated for six independent spirit awards and won for best screenplay , best male lead ( phoenix ) and best film music .

the late river phoenix opens gus van sant’s 1991 surrealist drama my own private idaho on an open road in the middle of a stunningly vacant idaho landscape . he is completely alone yet sets the stage by breaking out into soliloquy , as an actor would at the beginning of a stage play . it’s a stylization choice from van sant and a reoccurring theme in the film that explores the lives of street hustlers in the pacific northwest , projected through a shakespearean lens .

after getting some attention with his micro - budget debut , mala noche , van sant wanted to make my own private idaho next . but everyone in hollywood told him a story of gay hustlers was too " niche " to get any traction . so instead he made drugstore cowboy , about a roving band of junkies who rob pharmacies—a premise with more mainstream appeal , apparently .

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the music selected by van zant for this project consists primarily of old american folk tunes . therefore it is not incidental in nature , rather it provides a continual background " mood music " effect . this is totally incongruous to the typical hollywood style , where the story is punctuated by orchestral music . the style of music used in my own private idaho perfectly suits the smooth , unobtrusive editing and chronological narrative structure . my own private idaho has a very slow , leisurely pace . scenes flow at an almost standstill rate , focusing on small details . sometimes this is beneficial , as the dialog seems to be written as though it were a literary masterpiece and not natural speech . the slow pace gives the audience time to contemplate what the characters are speaking of .

any would - be filmmaker can tell you how nerve - racking it is to meet with potential producers and then wait to hear back about whether they ' re going to make your movie . van sant said he found out his producers had committed to making my own private idaho when other filmmakers told him , " congratulations , they ' re skipping our film to make yours . ”

my own private idaho , on the other hand , often seems as rootless as poor mike . yet the film has an authentic emotional lyricism . when van sant shows us speeded - up images of clouds rolling past wheat fields , the familiar device transcends cliche , because it’s tied to the way that mike , in his benumbed isolation , experiences his own life — as a running piece of surrealism . the sheer , expressive beauty of those images haunted me for days . a -

- the making of my own private idaho , a documentary that runs about 40 minutes and includes editor curtis clayton , directors of photography john campbell and eric alan edwards and production designer david brisbin talking about the film’s development , production and post - production . good stuff , if you enjoy going beyond the principal creatives to find out what other above - the - line people think about filmmak

my own private idaho ‘s mike ( river phoenix ) is always destined to end up in the same place . no matter where he goes , he will always end up on this deserted road in idaho where the film begins . he can go anywhere in the world and he’ll end up back where he started , dealing with his thoughts , his fading memories , and his narcolepsy . this is his existence , almost the entirety of it : go somewhere , meet people , have sex , come back here . my own private idaho is an almost aimless film , there is no traditional narrative and many scenes occur with no real sense or purpose . while there is sometimes the idea of a plot or narrative goal , the film isn’t really about that ; instead , it’s a film about characters and how they live their lives , their circumstances , and the things that haunt them .

hand2mouth ' s " my own private idaho " - inspired production , " time , a fair hustler , " examines both that civic story and the story of van sant ' s film through a lens of bittersweet nostalgia . the show , which opens friday , july 31 , imagines what might have happened to the film ' s characters in the nearly 25 years since the events of the movie took place . where , it asks , would these derelicts and drifters fit into the tidier portland of today - - if they ' d fit at all ? summoned together in a vaguely judicial setting , the personae of " my own private idaho " give testimony on what they ' re up to now and how they were connected with mikey and scott ' s story . as they reminisce , memory overwhelms reality .

my own private idaho often feels like two films spliced together . indeed , van sant’s main sources for the film were two separate screenplays and a short story , all written by him . during the making of his first feature , mala noche ( 1985 ) , van sant met a street kid who became the inspiration for mike . there is also the influence of shakespeare’s plays , henry iv ( parts 1 and 2 ) and henry v , or more precisely , of orson welles’ chimes at midnight ( 1965 ) . welles’ film is focused on the falstaff character from those plays , reimagined in my own private idaho as bob ( william richert ) – a mentor to the hustlers , and the man from whom rich kid scott ( reeves ) , like prince hal , must break away to accept his destiny .

i found my own private idaho to be a very depressing film . river phoenix ' s character never does find his mother ; and to make matters worse , he loses scott to a woman . his narcolepsy is uncontrollable , and this makes him an oddity to most people . without scott , it appears that he has no one to turn to at a time when he seems to need help the most .

my own private idaho represents the shotgun marriage of two individual stories that , like mike and scott themselves , don’t really belong together : a road movie about mike’s fruitless search for love and security , and an arch modern retelling of shakespeare , with scott playing a role distinctly abstracted from the gritty day - to - day of his temporary street - hustling brethren . it’s common to hear people talk about my own private idaho as two movies in one—conversations that usually end with a preference for mike’s heartrending tale of unrequited love winning out over keanu reeves doing shakespeare . but the impulse to treat the film like competing anthology hours misses how gracefully van sant incorporates the two stories while making a point of how distant they are from each other . even when they occupy the same space , like the campground the characters improvise in an idaho field , they’re worlds apart , and no amount of yearning on mike’s part can bridge the gap .

the relentless deployment of the road movie genre in both films seems far from incidental . my own private idaho and the living end are overt road movies . the road is a central , fleshed - out character in both films . in idaho , a particular road that mike says he “knows” bookends the film and is returned to in a number of scenes . at one point mike ascribes a face to it , and later ponders whether it has an end , or whether it runs all the way around the world .

" idaho to north carolina : wherever you go , i ' ll follow ya . " by leftleg

i’m a bisexual man . i realized i was bi earlier this year . i haven’t known who i really am for very long and since i’m young , i still have a lot to learn about myself . the first time i watched my own private idaho was the first time i felt like i wasn’t straight . it kick - started my awakening sexuality , the first step of many in realizing who i truly am . it was the first time i felt sexual desires towards men and for a couple weeks , i thought that i could be gay since i thought like this . then i realized that i was attracted to both women and men and i didn’t have to choose ; i could be attracted to both and that would be okay . i came out to my parents , a lot of my friends , and my girlfriend . this film changed everything about my life , nothing was the same for me after watching .

my own private idaho was a landmark film when it was released in the early 1990s and joined other standout movies of the time , including jennie livingston’s documentary on new york’s underground drag shows , paris is burning ( 1990 ) ; todd haynes’ feature poison ( 1991 ) ; derek jarman’s version of christopher marlowe’s edward ii ( 1991 ) ; and gregg araki’s moving road - trip film , the living end ( 1992 ) .

in his follow - up to drugstore cowboy ( 1989 ) , the gifted writer - director gus van sant has bucked expectations in more ways than one . my own private idaho , which stars phoenix and keanu reeves as street hustlers drifting around the northwest — one homeless and mostly gay , the other a bisexual rich boy who turns tricks out of boredom and rebellion — blithely detonates any conventional wisdom about the sorts of roles young hollywood heartthrobs are supposed to be taking on . van sant , though , isn’t just out to shock the mainstream . the viewers who may actually be most taken aback by my own private idaho are those who loved drugstore cowboy and were hoping for a companion piece , a movie that burrows into the desolate street culture of young gay prostitutes with the same outlaw vitality that marked van sant’s comic tale of early - ’70s portland druggies .

it’s been 20 years since river phoenix’s death , and gus van sant’s 1991 road movie my own private idaho is still almost unbearably sad to watch . it isn’t just that phoenix’s charisma and promise are on full display , though idaho ranks alongside running on empty and dogfight among his best roles . it’s the way van sant’s script leaves phoenix in a state of constant vulnerability , like a turtle without its shell . at times , his character’s narcolepsy—in which he suddenly , unpredictably falls into a deep sleep—feels like a narrative contrivance , an ongoing deus ex machina calibrated to pivot the story in whatever direction van sant decides to take it . but it’s really more a metaphor for a lonely , loveless drifter who has no defense against a world that can take his money , his heart , and his life . phoenix and his character aren’t one and the same , but they share an openness and sensitivity that’s keenly felt in my own private idaho . they’re prey for a rapacious world .

my own private idaho was the result of three projects coming together . the first was a modern adaptation of henry iv called " howling at the moon " , which was about street kids in portland , and was told entirely in william shakespeare an verse . the second was called " in a blue funk " , and was about two spanish cousins , living on the streets of las vegas , who decide to go to spain after seeing their last name on a spanish map , and wanting to find out about themselves and their family . the third was actually titled " my own private idaho " , and was about an early version of the mike character as a hustler , who gets picked up by a german auto parts salesman and " kept " at his house . gus van sant had trouble finishing the scripts , so he merged them together into the finished form .

in this essay , i will argue that the films of “new queer cinema” were generally misread . i will read two films from the period , my own private idaho ( gus van sant , 1991 ) and the living end ( gregg araki , 1992 ) , not as defiant and coherent queer responses against the visceral and cultural traumas of the aids crisis , but as passive pieces of shrapnel from the epidemic , hiv - positive cinema .

my own private idaho follows the journey of two street hustlers , mike ( river phoenix ) and scott ( keanu reeves ) . mike has the condition of narcolepsy , something that comes up multiple times in the film , starting in the beginning while standing at a lonely stretch of highway in idaho . later , he gets hired by an older woman , who takes him back to her mansion , where two other hustlers await , including scott , mike’s best friend . right before performing his services for the woman , he experiences another fit of narcolepsy .

“my own private idaho” is a personal film , reflecting some of van sant’s own encounters and experiences . michael parker , a homeless street hustler who smokes pot , served as inspiration for the character of mike waters . scott favor , the tale’s other lead , is a rich boy who goes slumming in the underbelly of portland and seattle . as the product of upper - class family , van sant could relate more easily to scott : “scott is , or could be , me , coming from the blue - blood and royalty of portland . ” the project became even more personal , when van sant cast himself as the ponytailed bellboy in the idaho hotel .

when i had first watched the film my own private idaho ( 1991 ) , i was unaware of the specific references to shakespeare’s henry iv parts i and ii and henry v . categorized and hyped as a queer - road - western film by the press , the shakespearean element was largely overlooked in favor of the then - shocking reality that beloved teen heartthrob and james - dean - lookalike river phoenix was portraying a gay street hustler type .

after the emotional wringer of filming gus van sant’s my own private idaho , “i just did not feel like barreling through someone’s psychosis , ” river said . he opted for a low - stress money gig : sneakers . as one actor in the film said of the title , “it sounded like a bad teen comedy about a hapless junior - high basketball team that is saved when they recruit a girl point guard who’s a great shot . ”

the eldest son of a fugitive family comes of age and wants to live a life of his own .

- since my own private idaho features homelessness pretty prominently , it only makes sense that leroy ( played either by an actor or by albert ) and director jonathan caouette would sit down to talk about how their own street experiences have influenced their work , i suppose . both have connections to van sant—he produced caouette’s film tarnation and used leroy / albert’s screenplay for his film elephant — but beyond that , i’m not sure these two deserve more than 50 minutes of special features space for their discussion , especially when you consider that this is another audio - only track .

these sound like caricatures , and in some small way they are . but my own private idaho ’s enduring accomplishment is that it can see all of these men with sympathy and good humor . it allows them to be idiosyncratic and strange , and practically lynchian in their inability to conform to the usual modes of behavior . as such , they’re a spectacle to be acknowledged and loved , without suggesting that they also need to be forgiven . that’s queerness . and my own private idaho is a masterpiece because that queerness is an ethic , not a subject . it’s an ethos , not a convenience . in 2016 , when the threats to gay life have become subsumed beneath performances of polite politics and the needs of the middle class , it’s helpful to remember a movie like this , full of people like these , who confront us with who they are without giving us a chance to tell them who to be .

my own private idaho was a troubled production from the beginning , and was actually a merger of three different projects that gus van sant was working on . he was very intent on adapting shakespeare and retaining the quality of the original language in the film , which new line cinema initially rejected , but which the international market seemed to be quite excited for , allowing for much of the dialogue to maintain the original shakespearean feel . review our gay themed films here

getting much less attention not far from the kodak theatre , in beverly hills , was a gallery exhibition called unfinished , where just two days prior to oscar night franco had presided over the rebirth of another fallen star . working with director gus van sant , franco launched a powerful installation of video art , cutting a 100 - minute film full of unseen footage of river phoenix from the dailies of van sant ' s modern day classic my own private idaho .

although river phoenix has distinguished himself as an actor ever since his second film , stand by me , nothing he has ever done before prepares you for his performance in private idaho as the motherless , homeless , loveless piece of human driftwood .

really amazing ! river phoenix is just fantastic , and van sant really knows his stuff . i love the cameos made by actual hustlers from the streets of portland , or . it really rings true . my own private idaho was the result of three projects coming together . the first was a modern adaptation of henry iv called howling at the moon , which was about street kids in portland and was told entirely in william shakespearean verse . the second was called in a blue funk , and was about two spanish cousins , living on the streets of las vegas , who decide to go to spain after seeing their last name on a spanish map and wanting to find out about themselves and their family . the third was actually titled my own private idaho and was about an early version of the mike character as a hustler who gets picked up by a german auto parts salesman and " kept " at his house . gus van sant had trouble finishing the scripts , so he merged them together into the finished form . it is a must own !

i’m a huge river phoenix fan ( rip ) , and i also enjoy gus van sant’s work when he’s on his game ( about 75 % of the time ) , so “my own private idaho” has been one of my favourite films since i was a teenager . mostly , i think that it’s phoenix’s tragic performance that carries this film and allows it to hold up 20 + years after its initial release . he brings such a raw emotion to the character of mikey , and this is definitely one of the films that reminds me of how big of a loss his death was .

in many ways , gus van sant’s my own private idaho ( 1991 ) is a film about duality , weaving together conflicting stories about love , family and the inescapable lure of home , even when it is a place you can never go back to again . and that duality also lends itself heavily to the sexual identities of the film’s main characters , mike ( river phoenix ) and scott ( keanu reeves ) , two street hustlers with opposite views of their own bisexuality , as well as the fulfillment they receive from their life on the street and where it will ultimately take them .

gvs : but i was trying not to bring my own personality into it ; i was trying to just get out of the way of the script . i was trying to make something that i thought was in their minds .

the episode “our private idaho” takes viewers to coeur d’alene , idaho . once the epicenter of the aryan nations’ white - supremacy movements , coeur d’alene has nearly doubled in population in the last two decades . nearly 90 percent of its new arrivals are white , and although the percentage of nonwhite residents is gradually increasing , it’s still tiny at 5 . 5 percent .

musing on a desolate highway in idaho , mikey waters ( river phoenix ) convulses and collapses in a narcoleptic fit . the sky passes overhead in time lapse as he dreams of his mother holding him , comforting him before the titles commence . already , in these first few shots , we are introduced to several tropes that by nearly all accounts should come across as tired cliché or , at the very least , wholly unoriginal . but it is a testament to gus van sant that “my own private idaho” rises above hackneyed tropes , repurposing rote cinematic sequences to breathe new life into the normally trite .

i ' m fascinated about the class differences between the two men in my own private idaho and think it remains a hot topic , especially when arguments around the marriage equality battle come up . or how people with wealth and privilege urge younger kids to come out , but they can be rejected and end up being homeless or sex workers or doing whatever they have to do to survive . do you think that’s a topic that should be tackled in some way in art or in film ?

if you’re going to make a movie about queer people , you’re likely going to get a divisive response . does it reinforce negative stereotypes ? does it provide an accurate cross - section of the diverse lgbt community ? how many think pieces will it incite ? in this regular column , we’ll look at depictions of queers in cinema and ask , was it good for the gays ? today we look at gus van sant’s classic entry into the new queer cinema movement , my own private idaho .

to a portlander watching two decades later , my own private idaho is most striking as a vision of a vanished bohemian city . van sant’s half - condemned landscape of questing rent boys and itinerant prankster - kings is hardly visible beneath today’s downtown , where youthful “creatives” tap ipads at prohibition - esque cocktail bars and homelessness seems anything but romantic . reeves’s and phoenix’s flannel - clad apparitions might wonder where to cruise for johns , but they could sell their wardrobes at vintage stores for hefty sums .

“my own private idaho” won the independent spirit award for best screenplay . the film also gained river phoenix the best actor honor at the venice film festival . quite established for his age , phoenix had already impressed in “stand by me” ( 1986 ) and had also received a supporting actor oscar nomination for “running on empty” ( 1988 ) , sidney lumet’s political melodrama . van sant’s feature also helped keanu reeves , then best - known for his “bill and ted” movies , to get better screen roles .

made for two and a half million dollars ( 7 ) , my own private idaho made around seven million dollars at the u . s . box office , and won several awards at film festivals around the world , mainly for phoenix’s performance , and van sant’s screenplay . it has remained a relatively well - known film , probably due to the subsequent career successes of van sant and reeves , and the enduring pop - mythology of river phoenix , who died of a drug overdose in 1993 .

gus van zant ' s three feature films are not very similar in directional style ; however they do have a few similar traits . van zant ' s films contain serious stories which appeal to one ' s intellect . at first , my own private idaho seems to be a simple and straightforward story , but as previously mentioned it is quite complex and involved . the subject matter that van zant works with is unique and original , as most directors would not be willing to work on such projects as he . during the height of nancy reagan ' s " just say no ! " campaign , van zant completed drugstore cowboy , a film whose primary characters are drug addicts . my own private idaho contains prostitution and shades of homosexuality , and was made during a time when one of the most deadly diseases in the world can be transmitted by sexual contact . for whatever reason , aids simply does not exist in this film , and the omission is so obvious that it must have been intentional .

van sant includes large chunks of shakespeare’s henry plays , as filtered through orson wells’ chimes at midnight , in my own private idaho . it certainly breaks the narrative flow to hear street hustlers speaking in a modernized version of blank verse , dropping in some direct quotes ( “i have heard the chimes at midnight” ) and re - enacting scenes straight out of the play / film . the fact that some of the young actors can’t quite handle their lines only adds to the disruptive quality of these sequences .

william richert was a writer and director who ' d made a night in the life of jimmy reardon , in which phoenix played the title character . for some reason , phoenix became fixated on the idea of richert playing bob pigeon in my own private idaho , even though richert was not an actor . richert was offended by the suggestion , telling phoenix , " it ' s a big fat pederast . is this what you think of me ? is this what you think i should be playing ? "

rewatching the film means even more to me as a bi man because of how it portrays sexuality , something that passed me by the first time . i started to notice so much more and i cried a lot . that’s okay though because this film means more to me than i can ever fully describe . we need more films with the sexual representation of my own private idaho so that other queer kids like me can figure out who they really are . it is truly a spectacular piece of work .

the film was part of a new wave of gay cinema , and it added to phoenix ' s burgeoning reputation as a sensitive , brooding actor , made all the more tragic by his sudden death two years later . it changed van sant ' s life , too , putting him on the path that would lead to high - profile hits like good will hunting . a quarter - century later , let ' s look back at the making of my own private idaho and see what dreamy treasures await us .

according to the u . s . census ( 2010 ) , the population of coeur d’alene is just over 44 , 000 , making it the seventh - largest city in idaho . boise city is idaho’s largest city with over 200 , 000 residents .

while van sant’s breakthrough feature , drugstore cowboy ( released in 1989 ) , did not feature any gay themes , his debut feature , mala noche ( released in 1988 ) , was revolutionary in that it depicted gay characters and relationships in an apolitical way . my own private idaho continued that trend ( as well as drugstore cowboy ‘s depiction of street culture , trading drug addicts for male hustlers ) and featured river phoenix as a gay male prostitute in portland who falls for his co - worker of sorts , keanu reeves .

here’s one thing i can say for sure after rewatching gus van sant’s my own private idaho , 16 years after it first hit the cinemas : it’s nothing like a conventional hollywood film . i saw it when it first came out , in 1991 , but somehow over the years my memory revised it to be an edgy story about two hustlers in the pacific northwest , with a wickedly funny sequence in which porn magazines come to life . that’s not an entirely wrong description , so much as it is incomplete : van sant does tell an edgy story about hustlers , and the porn magazine scene is pretty much as i remembered it , but what my memory erased about this film is how essentially disruptive it is , presenting anything but a conventional narrative in the usual hollywood sense .

i ' ve been tasting roads all my life . this road will never end . it probably goes all around the world .

when mike is in idaho he has a clear view of mt . hood . not only is the mountain too far away to see ( over 200 miles ) , there is another mountain range lying between idaho and mt . hood , blocking the view .

the music ( by bill stafford ) is also a jarring mix , incorporating cowboy ballads like eddy arnold’s “the cattle call” and bill stafford’s “home on the range” , and crooner rudy vallee’s “deep night” , alongside more contemporary songs like elton john’s “blue eyes” and madonna’s “cherish” . even the title cards are unconventional in my own private idaho : each is in a different , bright , solid color , behind plain white text , producing as jarring an jarring effect as if an avant - garde novel suddenly morphed into a children’s picture book .


easy money ( swedish : snabba cash ) is a swedish thriller film directed by daniel espinosa that was released on 15 january 2010 .

it is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by jens lapidus .

joel kinnaman stars in the lead role of johan " jw " westlund , a rather poor man living a double life in the upper class areas of stockholm .

after meeting a wealthy girl , he is enticed into the world of organized crime and begins to sell cocaine to afford his expensive lifestyle .

easy money was well received by critics and was a hit at the box office .

two sequels to the film have been filmed - the first ( snabba cash ii ) was released in 2012 , while the third premiered in swedish cinemas october 2013 .

warner bros. holds the rights to an american remake of easy money , which is set to star zac efron .

easy money ( 2010 film )

easy money ( 2010 film ) <EOT> check easy money cinema listings and times with telegraph tickets . buy easy money cinema tickets online .

easy money is another film based on a swedish thriller that ' s lost the plot , says tim robey .

sukhdev sandhu , “cannes film festival 2010 : jean - luc godard’s film socialisme , review” , telegraph . co . uk , may 19 , 2010 < urltoken > .

it’s easy to see why martin scorsese was willing to velcro his name to “easy money , ” a sharp - eyed swedish crime drama .

robert koehler , “cannes 2010 : day godard” , filmjourney . org , may 22 , 2010 . < urltoken >

jordan mintzer , “film socialisme” , variety , may 20 , 2010 . < urltoken >

use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to easy money . you can also suggest completely new similar titles to easy money in the search box below .

peter brunette , “film socialisme” , the hollywood reporter , may 15 , 2010 . < urltoken >

alice furtado , “film socialisme” , contracampo , no . 95 ( may 2010 ) < urltoken > ; quim casas , “cannes 2010” , dirigido por , no . 401 ( june 2010 ) , p . 44 - 55 ; marco grosoli , “film socialisme , ” la furia umana , no . 5 ( summer 2010 ) < urltoken > , “alexander horwath im gespräch über ‘film socialisme’ von godard und ‘tournée’ von mathieu amalric” , cargo - film . de , may 18 , 2010 , < urltoken > , mariska graveland , “maandag 17 mei 2010” , de filmkrant , < urltoken > .

they include a thriller from acclaimed swedish director jens jonsson and an english - language remake of the first easy money film , the first part in a planned trilogy .

chris knight , “ film socialisme : subtitles as sparse the film itself . ”

cinedigm has acquired the north american distribution rights to easy money : hard to kill and easy money : life deluxe , both based on the novels by swedish criminal defense lawyer and writer jens lapidus . the distributor plans theatrical and home video releases in . . .

logan hill , “even the subtitles are inscrutably avant - garde in godard’s cannes film” , new york , 18 / 5 / 2010 < urltoken > ; chris knight , “ film socialisme : subtitles as sparse as the film itself” , national post ( canada ) , december 29 , 2010 .

the easy money remake previously was in development with warner bros . a new script is now being written by josh campbell and matt stuecken .

the swedish film institute has a duty to support production , distribution and screening of valuable film , to preserve and make accessible the swedish film heritage and to represent swedish film abroad .

easily one of the summer’s best films , “easy money” quickly draws a viewer in and then just keeps tightening its grip . don’t miss this one .

easy to watch , then , but hard to champion as a must - see .

xan brooks , “cannes film festival diary : no joy in godard” , guardian . co . uk , may 19 , 2010 . < urltoken >

“easy money” builds to a whopping finale that , without seeming to preach , bears out mr . espinosa’s statement : “gangster films should always be moral stories . ”

“das kino ist heute wie eine ägyptische mumie” , tagesanzeiger , november 30 , 2010 . < urltoken >

wikström nicastro is also producing the ambitious english - language remake of easy money , about a double - dealing business student who gets involved in a drug smuggling operation .

his credit , which flashes at the start of the movie , reads “presented by martin scorsese . ” the “hugo” director only came aboard earlier this year ; the weinstein co . bought u . s . distribution rights for “easy money”– its swedish title is “snabba cash”– back in 2010 after its premiere at the berlin film festival .

katherine monk , “legendary director probes modern society” , vancouver sun , march 11 , 2011 < urltoken > ; virginia wright wexman , “auteurism ground zero : the 2010 cannes film festival” , offscreen , vol . 14 , no . 9 ( september 2010 ) < urltoken > .

sweden’s tre vänner , producer of the hit easy money ( snabba cash ) trilogy , has announced the launch of two international thrillers - the company’s first in the english - language .

film critic ignatiy vishnevetsky noted it provocatively ( or did he ? ) by coupling “ film socialisme ( subtitled ) ” with “ film socialisme ( unsubtitled ) ” as one of his “fantasy double features of 2010” for the urltoken website < http : / / urltoken / notebook / posts / the - daily - notebooks - 3rd - writers - poll - fantasy - double - features - of - 2010 > .

i am expanding on a notion developed by hongjohn lin in his curatorial statement for the taipei biennial 2010 . hongjohn lin , “curatorial statement , ” in 10tb taipei biennial guidebook ( taipei : taipei fine arts museum , 2010 ) , 10–11 .

the original film was released in sweden in 2010 and set off the hollywood careers of both its director daniel espinosa ( safe house ) and its star joel kinnaman ( robocop ) .

the information given here refers to film material in the swedish film institute’s archive . access to the archive’s stock is given on request , for research , other film archives and rights’ holders .

ben kenigsberg , time out chicago , may 2010 . formerly available at < urltoken > ; reprinted at < urltoken > .

manohla dargis , “godard , with that certain je ne sais quoi at the cannes film festival” , the new york times , may 18 , 2010 , p . c5 . < urltoken >

icon film distribution has sent us a new clip from babak najafi ' s easy money ii : hard to kill a . k . a . snabba cash ii ( 2013 ) , starring joel kinnaman , matias varela , and dragomir mrsic . the film will be released on blu - ray in the united kingdom on april 7th .

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hello hi we are raising money for our brother getting married next week and is short with funds please help us . not to push off the wedding because of money tizkah lemitvot kol tov

its success as a film earned it a sequel , and it seems almost inevitable that it ' ll be remade in english - the only question is regionalisation . that mixture of languages , borders , immigrants of a variety of statuses , veterans of all manner of conflicts and , well , easy money isn ' t uncommon . what is rarer is the ingenuity and energy on display . that you ' ll enjoy easy money is , well , let ' s call it a racing certainty .

arifa akbar , “cannes diary : stars lined up for bbc rom com” , the independent , may 14 , 2010 . < urltoken >

see isabelle regnier , “jean - luc godard joue le virtuel avant le réel” , le monde , may 6 , 2010 , and hélène zylberait , “le business de socialisme ” , cahiers du cinéma , no . 658 , july - august 2010 , p . 62 .

money raised by hillary clinton , bernie sanders and ben carson for their campaign committees this year .

with pounding synthesised music on the soundtrack , easy money moves like a razor - edged frisbee that could cut off a player ' s hand or sever his jugular if he doesn ' t see what ' s coming .

the long wait will in no way hurt the film . “easy money” has lost none of its considerable snap , crackle and pop . this is a morally complex and moving crime drama , filled with well - drawn characters and a taut plot . scorsese got it right to endorse this one .

based on the bestselling books by jens lapidus , the films in the easy money trilogy have become very succesful . with more than 600 . 000 admissions in the swedish cinemas , the first installment in the series , easy money ( 2010 ) , entered the top 10 of most seen domestic films in sweden during the last decade . the remake - rights have been acquired by warner bros . and a us - version of the film is currently in development by producer charles roven ( the dark knight , 2008 ; twelwe monkeys , 1995 ) with zac efron attached in the lead role as jw . easy money proved an international success with planned releases in more than 30 countries . in july 2012 it opened in the us through the weinstein company and presented by martin scorsese to great reviews . the second installment easy money ii opened domestically on august 17th with 97 . 000 admissions in its opening weekend and stayed at the top 3 on the chart for 5 consecutive weeks . life deluxe is produced by fredrik wikström nicastro for swedish production company tre vänner in co - production with film i väst , svt ( sweden’s television ) , nordisk film , nordsvensk filmunderhållning , hobohm brothers , network movie & zdf / arte with production support from the swedish film institute in co - operation with c - more . domestic release is set for autumn 2013 through nordisk film distribution . trustnordisk handles international sales .

“ich werde nicht gern mit picasso verglichen – er malte zu viele teller” , neue zürcher zeitung , november 7 , 2010 . < urltoken >

15 ) tiger woods , a big caddyshack fan , played carl spackler in a 2010 american express commercial that recreates scenes from the movie .

the weinstein company , one of the leading us distribution companies headed by the harvey and bob weinstein , will release daniel espinosa ' s swedish crime thriller easy money ( snabba cash ) in the us , germany and italy .

roughly two - thirds of the money given by clinton donors has gone to support their charitable foundation .

building such a financial network — and nurturing it over four decades — is not easy , even with the perks of office .

the producer of the film fredrik wikström ( tre vänner ) said that the weinstein company will release the film in at least ten us cities in 2011 . remake rights are being negotiated , according to him , and " there is a huge interest " from several parties . easy money rides on the international success of the ‘millennium ' trilogy , currently playing successfully around the word . for wikström , easy money develops the swedish crime thriller trend by being more realistic and by telling the story from the point of view of the criminals . the film supported by nordisk film & tv fond has sold over 600 , 000 tickets in sweden so far . it opened in finland last friday and took the 11 th place at the local top ten , a very good start on a finnish scale according to distributor sari selander ( biorex distribution ) . nordisk film will release easy money in norway in may , and the danish release is set for this summer . other territories that have acquired rights from trustnordisk include spain ( contracorriente film ) , france ( mk2 ) , benelux ( lumiere ) and cis / baltics ( maywin media ) .

dave kehr , “love and other contradictions” , the new york times , july 7 , 2010 , p . ar12 . < urltoken & g ;

easy money 2 ( aka snabba cash ii ) is the 2012 sequel to the 2010 swedish gangster movie easy money . three years after the events of the first movie , jw ( joel kinnaman ) and mrado ( dragomir mrsic ) are now cellmates trying to regain a normal life . meanwhile jorge ( matias varela ) is involved in what he hopes to be his last drug deal with serbian mob boss radovan ( dejan cukic ) . on the other side mahmoud ( fares fares ) must find a way to erase his debt to radovan . as the plot thickens , all these story - lines eventually come together .

jw ( joel kinnaman , robocop , the killing ) , the promising business student who became an organized coke smuggler in easy money , is serving hard time in prison and struggling to get back on an . . . see full summary »

i am drawing on a field of meaning developed by ekaterina degot , cosmin costinas , and david riff for their 1st ural industrial biennial , 2010 .

in daniél espinosa’s crime thriller “easy money , ” joel kinnaman — familiar as a sullen , scruffy police detective with a druggie past in the amc series “the killing” — does a riveting about - face . his character , j . w . , is a swaggering young business student and a part - time cabdriver in stockholm who helps drug dealers launder their money .

the weinstein co . is hoping that trustnordisk ' s " easy money , " from director daniel espinosa , will be the next scandi crime splash . the studio won a bidding war in berlin to snatch u . s . , german and italian rights to the film . based on the novel by sweden ' s jens lapidus , " money " follows a young man looking for a quick buck who becomes a runner for a cocaine dealer .

by the end of january 2015 , mr . chandor had left the film .

efa , the rotterdam film festival and french srf directors guild step up campaign .

arthur mas , martial pisani , “film socialisme” , independencia . fr , june 1 , 2010 < urltoken > [ published in spanish , in an expanded version , as [ guillaume bourgois , jean - louis leutrat , suzanne liandrat - guigues , arthur mas , martial pisani , pauline soulat ] , “triple juego . elementos para un acercamiento a film socialisme ” , lumière internacional godard , p . 31 - 53 < urltoken > ] ; isabelle regnier , “absence de godard” , may 18 , 2010 < urltoken > and agnès catherine poirier , “godard en anglais navajo ! ” , télérama , no . 3150 , may 26 , 2010 , p . 10 .

these deals often protect the theaters from movies that bomb at the box office by giving the theaters a bigger cut of those films . so if a film only makes $ 10 million at the box office , the distributor will get only 45 percent of that money . but if a film makes $ 300 million at the box office , then the distributor gets up to 60 percent of that money .

( worth noting : “snabba cash 2” a sequel , will open in sweden later this year . the english - language remake rights to the first film were snapped up by warner bros . back in 2010 as a potential vehicle for zac efron . )

we welcome your comments on the swedish film database . you can reach the editors :

the highest profile example of a film that bombed in the u . s . but made tons of money overseas was the chronicles of narnia : voyage of the dawn treader , which made only about $ 100 million domestically but made about $ 270 million overseas . and a similar thing happened with the previous narnia movie , prince caspian . another big film that made way more money overseas than domestically was terminator salvation .

the company will manage worldwide distribution for the series . independent distributor all3media international is partnering with flx , c more , tv4 and filmregion stockholm - mälardalen / film capital on new coproduction blinded , marking the company’s first major investment in scandinavian language drama . flx is co - developing the series with local streaming service c more and swedish broadcaster tv4 . blinded is directed by jens jonsson ( easy money 3 ) and written by flx’s jesper harrie ( the bonus family , solsidan ) , alongside co - writers maria karlsson ( easy money ) and jonas bonnier ( the helicopter heist ) . blinded is a thriller following journalist bea farkas as she attempts

easy money , a 2010 adaptation of a hit swedish crime novel , comes to us late , translated and made bland from its more memorable original title , snabba cash . it has already generated two sequels in sweden , and talk of a remake with zac efron , because seemingly every successful thriller to come out of the country — from the girl with the dragon tattoo to let the right one in — is deemed to require a hollywood revamp .

" nordic financing was very easy , which i think has a lot to do with the ' millennium ' success ; people are a lot more confident about the idea of a nordic blockbuster , " nordisk producer lone korslud says . " before , you rarely had a danish or norwegian film that made money in sweden , or vice versa . now , people are more open to the idea of financing , and distributing a film across all of scandinavia . "

and in some cases , a studio will actually have less money at stake than the film ' s production budget — sometimes , the distributor will just acquire an already - made film for a small fee , plus marketing costs , says gitesh pandya with boxofficeguru . com . in those cases , the studio can make a profit even if the film doesn ' t make back its production budget .

' easy money ' isn ' t a perfect translation - the original title is snabba cash , and " snabba " means something closer to " rapid " . not just the quick and the dead , this is about fast money . not just the fast money of illegality : we ' ve got drug - smuggling , obscene wealth , unlicensed taxis , gang - wars and money - laundering . not just the business of crime , the crimes of business - " jetset freddy " and his cocaine - snorting cronies , serbian hit - men , spaniards with connections in germany , and stuck in the middle jw , jw with his desperate need to fit in .

winner of best actor and best cinematography awards at the guldbagge awards , swedish director daniel espinosa ' s " snabba cash " a . k . a " easy money " ( 2010 ) arrives on blu - ray courtesy of lionsgate films - uk . there are no supplemental features on this release . in swedish , serbian , arabic , spanish , and english , with optional english and english sdh subtitles for the main feature . region - b " locked " .

logan hill , “even the subtitles are inscrutably avant - garde in godard’s cannes film . ”

in a director’s note mr . espinosa describes his fascination with “the idea of thief’s honor” and with portraying criminals who , from their point of view , “are trying to do good through their own ethics . ” and this soul - searching quest lends “easy money” a depth rarely found in gangster films .

rubin joined clinton’s campaign as an economic adviser , and other goldman sachs partners mobilized their networks to raise money for the upstart candidate .

the price tag , according to executives involved with the film : more than $ 10 million .

the weinstein company released it in the us , where the film was presented by martin scorsese .

founded in 1999 , senses of cinema is one of the first online film journals of its kind and has set the standard for professional , high quality film - related content on the internet .

the hotly contested measure passed , and the initiative , which included more money for public schools , eventually yielded improvements in arkansas’ educational system .

british distributors icon home entertainment have revealed that they are planning to bring to blu - ray babak najafi ' s easy money ii : hard to kill a . k . a . snabba cash ii ( 2013 ) , starring joel kinnaman , matias varela , and dragomir mrsic . the preliminary release date . . .

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tara brady , “film socialisme” , the irish times , july 8 , 2011 . < urltoken > .

this was the case in spain , for example , where the film was released with “regular” subtitles .

but her top fundraisers this year have included two dozen donors who had never before given money to either clinton , according to the post’s analysis .

of course , the promotional expenses are different for each film — contrino points out that fox didn ' t seem to waste much money promoting gulliver ' s travels , once it was clear they had a dud on their hands . you didn ' t see that many tv ads for jack black ' s swiftian odyssey . so gulliver didn ' t lose as much money as it could have .

daniel espinosa made his directorial debut with easy money , originally called snabba cash . his scorsese - presented gangster pic has an aggressive atmosphere , and it ultimately helped him land his second feature and first studio gig , safe house . since then , he’s directed child 44 – a movie that reportedly had some difficulties – and his latest film , life . espinosa’s sci - fi horror thriller , which [ … ] the post ‘ life ’ director daniel espinosa on the ‘green screen disease’ and long takes [ interview ] appeared first on / film .

as vivid and realistic as his earlier pics “the babylon disease” and “outside love , ” but more complex and dynamic , “easy money” confirms espinosa’s directing chops ( it also earned him a gig helming universal’s forthcoming denzel washington starrer , “safe house” ) . performances are strong across the board , with even casting of bit parts coming up aces .

most screen time , however , is given to the backstory of naively amoral j . w . hailing from a working - class family in northern sweden , he passes himself off as the son of a diplomat in order to mingle with the scions of old money . soon after he starts the relationship of his dreams with sexy heiress sophie ( lisa henni ) , he panics when he realizes his pursuit of easy money has trapped him in a violent game where he doesn’t know the rules .

but that small percentage of loyal supporters gave a disproportionate share of the money raised , accounting for 22 percent of $ 600 million contributed by known donors .

casting will start on the film in the next few months , with production set to begin in spring 2015 .

on the page and on the screen , swedish crimers continue to storm their way across international borders . the latest to make north american landfall is the tense thriller “easy money , ” based on the bestseller by still - practicing criminal defense attorney jens lapidus . set in the violent , multicultural criminal underground of stockholm , helmer daniel espinosa’s tautly constructed [ … ]

when he was raising early money for his presidential campaign in 1991 , bill clinton received a boost from the conservative founder of wal - mart , sam walton .

when a movie’s production budget climbs past $ 100 million , the money usually flows to superheroes , sequels or remakes . not to a film based on the last hours of a doomed oil drilling rig whose fiery demise led to one of the largest environmental disasters in american history .

from his vantage point , we are . while the first of the “ snabba cash ” films ( called “ easy money ” in english - speaking markets ) comes out this week in the u . s . , sweden has already celebrated the first installment , giving the film three guldbagges ( the country’s equivalent of an oscar ) , including a win for kinnaman for best actor , and moved on to the second , “ snabba cash ii , ” which comes out august 17th abroad .

in 1971 , alanis completed her first film , christmas at moose factory , a film that reflects her attachment to the children of this remote cree village on james bay . she did this by presenting the drawings and paintings of the children and by giving them the opportunity to talk about these images and daily events in their community . her second film , mother of many children ( 1977 ) was a project alanis felt very strongly about from the beginning . in this film ,

i ' ve been going to sweden regularly for more than 50 years now , observing its daily life and its movies . back in 1959 , the year i first went there , the influential martin beck police procedural novels of maj sjöwall and per wahlöö had not yet appeared , and no one could have foreseen a thriller as violent and disturbing as easy money , directed by a swede of chilean stock and educated at denmark ' s film school . naturally it ' s being remade in the states .

helped open doors in hollywood , a key source of money for later campaigns . and his connections to the state’s banking families would later help him deftly navigate wall street .

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" we had a huge hype for the film before anyone had even seen it ; everyone was hoping it would be the next stieg larsson , " says " money " producer fredrik wikstrom , also a producer on the warners remake . " the film premiered jan . 15 in sweden , and the eyes were on us from the start . somehow a bootleg dvd of the film made it to l . a . and was passed around . we started getting calls . less than three months later we did the deal with warner bros . "

the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .

see for example derek malcolm , “film socialisme – review” , london evening standard , july 8 , 2011 < urltoken > and jason solomons , “film socialisme ; last year in marienbad – review” , the observer , july 10 , 2011 < urltoken > .

gustaf skarsgård , matias varela lead cast for projects from ‘jimmie’ director . jesper ganslandt is gearing up to start shooting 438 days for miso film sweden this summer . 438 days will be based on the true story of swedish journalist martin schibbye and photographer johan persson , who were on assignment in ethiopia when they were captured , accused of terrorism and sentenced to 11 years in prison . they were pardoned and released from jail after 438 days ; they wrote an award - winning book about their experiences in 2013 . gustaf skarsgård ( westworld ) and matias varela ( easy money ) will star in the film , which is written by peter birro . sf studios

theatrically , i feel very confident stating that the blu - ray release accurately replicates the film ' s intended theatrical look . (

6 ) “whoa , did somebody step on a duck ? ” the movie’s wildest card is standup comic rodney dangerfield , in his first substantial movie role . singer don cherry , who like the comedian was a vegas headliner , taught him how to play golf . dangerfield went on to star in easy money ( 1983 ) and another comedy smash , co - written by ramis , back to school ( 1986 ) .

crew : camera ( color , widescreen ) , aril wretblad ; editor , theis schmidt ; music , jon ekstrand ; production designer , roger rosenberg ; costume designer , denise ostholm ; sound ( dolby digital ) , rasmus winther , kasper janus rasmussen ; casting , jeanette klintberg . reviewed at toronto film festival ( vanguard ) , sept . 9 , 2010 . running time : 119 min .

it is easy to see alanis ' compassion for others , including the foster parents . it wasn ' t her intention to point fingers at people who were struggling , such as social workers , but more to change an ineffective system :

( 2013 ) . in the united states , warner are also planning to produce a remake of the first film with zac efron .

there are some genres of film that do especially well on dvd — like horror films , which are often cheaper to make than other genres to begin with , says dergarabedian . a horror movie might or might not break even at the theaters , but it ' s sure to make lots more money when it hits dvd .

it is quite obvious that film socialisme is not the same film if one understands french , english , or both languages . ( 41 ) but isn’t it the case , arguably to a lesser extent , when one watches any foreign film with subtitles ? i think that if godard took the principle of reduction inherent to subtitling to an extreme ( and added other peculiarities of his own ) , it is , among other things , to show how relative it is to try and assess a film without acknowledging the inevitable changes in perception caused by subtitling .

the film - maker , who won the grand jury prize at sundance in 2008 with the king of ping pong and also directed snabba cash iii - life deluxe , the third film in the trilogy , co - wrote the script with matthew ian cirulnick based on extensive research .

“we will keep the complex characters and grittiness of our original film but make the plot more focused and effective , ” wikström nicastro explained .

often , the film feels more like a lecture than a narrative - minus the one thing that makes a lecture useful : actual information .

despite the frequent camera movement , detail and clarity are very impressive . there are rather large portions of the film where light is restricted , but even very small objects are exceptionally easy to see . the daylight footage is always very crisp and sharp . contrast levels are stable throughout the entire film . the film ' s color scheme fluctuates as the action moves from one location to another , but these fluctuations are clearly intended . cold blues and grays and warm browns are the prominent colors . there are no serious transfer - specific anomalies to report in this review . lastly , there are absolutely no stability issues . all in all , even though i have not seen

this tangle of motivations makes " easy money " one of the most involving of the many first - rate thrillers that have come recently from scandinavia . it has additional interest because it stars joel kinnaman , known to american tv audiences as the star of amc ' s " the killing . " kinnaman , who is seamlessly multilingual , has been signed to star in a forthcoming remake of " robocop , " and seems on the brink of stardom .

lazy directing on the behalf of oliver stone , the miscasting of shia labeouf and an often incomprehensible plot turn this film into a total mess .

interview with antoine de baecque , september 24 , 2008 , quoted in de baecque , godard ( paris : grasset , 2010 ) , p . 754 . on that same page , de baecque mistakenly quotes a book’s title ( allemagne 90 neuf zéro instead of allemagne neuf zéro ) and refers to another one that does not exist ( the old place , supposedly published in 2001 , from godard and miéville’s homonymous 1999 film ) .

the bottom line on " wall street : money never sleeps " is that it is sprinkled with inspired scenes , but is never able to fully engage the viewer because of its meandering and unfocused storylines .

this weekend , some pretty big - league talent is headed to the multiplex with “ life . ” the sci - fi horror stars jake gyllenhaal , ryan reynolds and rebecca ferguson , comes from “ deadpool ” writers rhett reese and paul wernick , and has daniel espinosa of “ safe house ” and “ easy money ” behind the camera . continue reading exclusive : stream “where are you ? ” by composer jon ekstrand from ‘ life ’ at the playlist .

money never sleeps shows the black ice that our prosperity as a nation travels on . it ' s a warning straight out of dickens but without a happy ending for the poor and comeuppance for the perpetrators .

jan baetens , la novellisation : du film au roman ( brussels : impressions nouvelles , 2008 ) , p . 212 ( emphasis in original ) .

“the seventh heaven : henri langlois talks to rui nogueira and nicoletta zalaffi” , translated by tom milne , sight and sound , vol . 41 , no . 4 ( autumn 1972 ) , p . 183 . serge bozon quotes from the same passage in his introduction to the films he chose as part of “beaubourg , la dernière major ! ” , the event he co - curated with pascale bodet in november 2010 at the centre pompidou ( programme booklet , p . 26 ) . out of the eight films selected , three ( all american ) were shown without subtitles , a move that was morally backed up by langlois’ quote but was not easy at first to impose on the centre pompidou . however , one may wonder if these screenings would have been equally attended had the films been in languages less widely understood than english . one event leads to believe so : on november 13 , 2010 , director and film critic pierre léon introduced a screening of edgar g . ulmer’s murder is my beat ( 1955 ) , a film he had never seen… and would not see that time , since he did not understand english and the print was not subtitled .

) , a local drug dealer with a solid network of pushers . the money he earns isn ' t great , but his business hours are flexible , which means that he can remain focused on his studies .

" the ballad of narayama " is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…

ratko ( prvoslav gane dzakovic ) carries what seems to be a smith & wesson model 686 . he fires it briefly toward the end of the film .

this deftly plotted morality thriller was a hit in sweden in 2010 , spawning two sequels and catapulting its lean , strong - jawed star joel kinnaman in the direction of hollywood via the us remake of tv series the killing . here , he plays a slick - and slicked - back - stockholm economics student who , gatsby - style , affects the persona of a high - flying jet - setter while living in digs and driving an unlicensed cab . the bungled pick - up of an escaped chilean drug dealer ( matias padin varela ) opens kinnaman ' s eyes to the possibilities of organised crime and he is soon fronting a plot to launder money through a failing bank , as serbian hitman dragomir mrsic closes in . as coolly atmospheric as the best in scandi - drama , easy money matches every thrilling gunfight and tense drug deal with an insight into the humanity of its protagonists , while the moving relationship between mrsic and his eight - year - old daughter ( lea stojanov ) recalls the dynamic of french thriller leon .

she had difficulty convincing others to fund the film . the topic was not of interest to the film board , nor did it garner the support of the department of indian affairs ( which had partially financed other films ) . alanis received letters telling her to " forget it " . at one point , she gave up but then reconsidered because of all the energy she had already invested into it . she went to ottawa and started knocking on doors until she came back with funding from the secretary of state . it was necessary for her to do one segment at a time and then go looking for more funding . when the film was finally finished , she received a letter from the secretary of state saying they had " never invested their money in a better way in any film up to that time . " ( alioff & schouten levine , p . 14 )

taking another page from the " girl " book , wikstrom is in the middle of development for two back - to - back sequels to " money " featuring the same director and cast . shooting is planned for summer 2011 .

easy money has a lot going for it . there are some beautiful moments - a scene on a bridge is punctuated by a speedboat , an apt reminder that even as jw is drawn into the underworld the actual world persists . there ' s jw attending a party , detail - obsessed from the buttons on his shirt to his cautious approach to the mansion . there ' s also mrado ' s supermarket expedition , daughter in tow he approaches the problem of shopping for a child for the first time with characteristic cunning .

from left , john malkovich , gina rodriguez , kurt russell and mark wahlberg in “deepwater horizon , ” a risky star - driven film out on sept . 30 .

the post identified 2 , 700 donors who made political contributions to support both bill and hillary clinton . they make up less than 1 percent of donors who gave more than $ 200 , but they gave 21 percent of the money .

she also made the film for other children : " i want people who look at the film to have a different attitude next time they meet what is called a ' problem child ' , and develop some love and some relationship to the child — instead of alienating him . " ( alioff and schouten levine , p . 12 )

in an authoritative filmography of the director published in 2006 , there are two entries for the film king lear ( 1987 ) . it was shot in english , but godard thought it was “impossible to subtitle” and recorded a simultaneous translation / commentary when it was broadcast on swiss television in december 1989 , which , according to the authors of the filmography , “constitutes another version of the film . ” ( 47 ) if this document is updated , film socialisme ’s subtitled version would undoubtedly warrant an extra entry .

you might have noticed that studios are pushing a lot harder lately to make a film as big a hit as possible in its opening weekend . and films tend to open on more screens right away — a typical big film will open on 4 , 000 screens , instead of the hundreds of screens it would have opened on in the 1980s .

director : tba starring : tba a re - boot of the eighties disney comedy has been the subject of dubious rumour for half a decade , but no official news has yet emerged . information from a crew member on the original film reportedly said in 2010 that a re - boot was in the works , and that it would not be sequel due to rick moranis having retired . equally unofficial sources named mike myers to play wayne szalinski , but i don’t think we should be holding our breath on this one .

r - under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian . contains some adult material . parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them .

on the page and on the screen , swedish crimers continue to storm their way across international borders . the latest to make north american landfall is the tense thriller “ easy money , ” based on the bestseller by still - practicing criminal defense attorney jens lapidus . set in the violent , multicultural criminal underground of stockholm , helmer daniel espinosa ’s tautly constructed tale is sweden’s top domestic grosser of the year so far , with production company tre vanner greenlighting two sequels ; a u . s . remake is in the works from warner bros . starring zac efron .

shmuli is alone with his 5 years old son and lives with his parents . he works as security guard to make money to fulfill his dream of moving to usa . he falls in love with the young and . . . see full summary »

mr . williams was not a central character in many of the catastrophes that struck the deepwater horizon , but he was a significant character in a “60 minutes” segment in may 2010 . as one of the last people on the burning rig when he hurled himself into the water to safety , he would serve as the audience’s entry into a complicated world .

the percentage of revenues that the exhibitor takes in depends on the individual contract for that film — which in turn depends on how much muscle the distributor has , according to stone .

on the night of april 20 , 2010 , a series of explosions ripped through the deepwater horizon rig 50 miles off the coast of louisiana , following the blowout of an oil well thousands of feet below . in the ensuing maelstrom , 11 men died and dozens more were injured , while millions of barrels of oil were soon spewing into the gulf of mexico .

wall street : money never sleeps is oliver stone ' s sequel to his 1987 film wall street . i quite enjoyed the original , and i thought it was a surprising effort from oliver stone . with this follow - up , he crafts a decent film that could have been much better , and in the end , it leaves a lot to be desired . this sequel is somewhat entertaining , but it could have been much better . luckily for stone , he assembles a colorful cast of actors that keeps this so - so sequel afloat . the film had so much potential in being so much more , but it ends up falling flat . as a whole , it ' s decent , but it lacks the power of the original . michael douglas is very good here as usual , and his screen presence is really what kept me involved in the film . wall street money never sleeps is not a good sequel , but it is somewhat entertaining , just don ' t expect anything truly remarkable . oliver stone seems to navigate sketchy territory with this one , and it feels like he is trying too hard at outdoing his original film . the idea of creating a sequel to wall street was interesting , but the end result is somewhat lacking even though it ' s entertaining to some degree . i still think it could have been better , and the film ' s potential is there , but is underdeveloped . michael douglas is the best part about the film , however shia labeouf lacks in screen presence and he ' s not convincing in his performance . oliver stone focuses his sequel on the recent crash , but he doesn ' t elaborate on it , considering that it ' s one of the key aspects of the time where the story is set . fans of the first may be disappointed with this one and with good reason . this is a decent film , and nothing more . the plot could have been rewritten and more detailed , but it just fails to truly be entertaining and interesting in the long run .

a great sequel about the endurance of the money game and the pleasure for some to be in the speculation battle , with a sharp dialogue and another amazing performance by douglas in this compelling story whose sole misstep is a weak , unnecessary conflict in the final act .

“they were pretty concerned , ” said mark wahlberg , who plays mike williams and is also a producer on the film . “this is not the type of movie they’re used to making . ”

if you really liked a particular movie , and you ' re hoping it made enough money to warrant a sequel , then the wealth of box - office news can be confusing . how can you tell when a movie ' s a hit ? we asked the experts .

as she makes her second white house bid , hillary clinton is raising money in a dramatically different environment than her past campaigns . since then , the supreme court has made it easier for wealthy individuals , corporations and unions to spend huge , unregulated sums on political activity .

here ' s the first trailer for edge of winter , a new thriller starring suicide squad leader joel kinnaman ( robocop remake , amc ' s the killing ) and the mcu ' s new spider - man , tom holland . kinnaman plays a father who ' s struggling to retain visitation rights with his two sons ( the other played by percy hynes white ) , and after they get stranded way out in the wintry woods , things go from bad to worse when they meet a new bunch of characters at a nearby cabin . this looks like kinnaman has a lot of dramatic heft to throw around in this one , and this may be the most fascinating character he ' s played since he starred in snabba cash ( aka easy money ) back in 2010 . recently divorced and laid off from his job , elliot baker ( joel kinnaman ) is desperate to spend more time bonding with his sons , bradley ( tom holland ) and caleb ( percy hynes white ) . what starts as family

director : tba starring : tba updates on the awil remake have been somewhat thin on the ground recently : all we really know is that fernley phillips ( 2007 film the number 23 is his only visible writing credit to date ) was signed to write the script back in 2010 . producer brothers sean and bryan furst have also been attached to the production . we’re told the remake will be a " modern twist " on the original , although it’s hard to see how ipads or tindr might become central players in a plot about a rabid werewolf causing havoc on the english moorland .

stiftelsen svenska filminstitutet har i uppgift att stödja produktion , distribution och visning av värdefull film , att bevara och tillgängliggöra det svenska filmarvet samt att representera den svenska filmen internationellt . läs mer om vårt uppdrag

because the overly ambitious storyline lacks clarity , the film lacks the pulse - pounding energy of the original . what heart there is comes from the family drama among jake , winnie , and gordon .

steven , peter . " interviews : alanis obomsawin . " in brink of reality : new canadian documentary film and video . toronto : between the lines , 1993 , p . 176 - 186 .

director : tba starring : not arnie . fox bought the rights for a commando reboot five years ago , and it is still yet to be matched with a director and cast . in 2010 , writer david ayer said the 21st - century commando will be " less brawny , but more skilled in covert tactics and weaponry . " ayer however dissociated himself from the project last year , and we ' re yet to hear who might next attempt such a resurrection . die hard was initially meant to be a commando sequel - might this project too end up as an entirely different film ?

" i was very pleased when the alberta government bought the rights to the film . many social workers in different departments see it now . one time i was in edmonton . . . and a man who had been the provincial ombudsman presented me with two new reports , saying that the richard cardinal film had helped force new policies and laws in alberta . young people in the audience said to him , ' why do you need a film to be made before you change the law ? ' he quickly replied , ' well , sometimes the government waits for the public to make a move , to push , otherwise they don ' t know . ' it was incredible . i was shocked but happy that the film was able to do that . but primarily , i made it for richard . "

but in an election shaped by a mounting distaste for the influence of big money , clinton’s long - standing ties to a cadre of wealthy patrons cuts against her efforts to cast herself as a champion of the middle class and a leader who will challenge the influence of large donors .

given the death of robin williams , the status of the jumanji remake is somewhat up in the air . according to columbia pictures president doug belgrad , the new film is set to be reimagined and updated version of the original . with her and tolbach ' s spider - man connection , may kirsten dunst star in the film again ? perhaps not in the same role as her 13 year old self …