Pages tagged “billy bob thornton”

Photos taken at Nokia Theatre by Eric Ryan Anderson

The frost isn’t exactly on the pumpkin. Here in central Ohio we’ve yet to have a frost. Still, the new Holiday (as in Christmas, not Halloween) albums are beginning to arrive, and I’ve heard a few I’ve actually enjoyed. Given the normal Christmas album fare, this is a remarkable statement. You might enjoy them, too.

We know it's circular reasoning, but the upcoming adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers feels, as they say, like a Bret Easton Ellis novel. That is, it's based in Los Angeles and features a load of characters so destroyed, destructed and debauched that Billy Bob Thornton's lines in its just-released trailer ("It all becomes normal to you. The insanity becomes commonplace") seem central assumptions rather than conclusions to work toward.

Despite the critical acclaim Billy Bob Thornton’s music has received since his 2001 debut album Private Radio, most people inevitably assume that any musical project from an actor is a vanity effort—an inferior product released by an artist slumming in a foreign milieu because fame and fortune allow it. But Thornton (who just released The Boxmasters, his new band’s self-titled album) has real musical cred: He’s played in bands since he learned the drums at age 12, he used to roadie for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and his directorial debut was a documentary on Widespread Panic.

The Office has left network television lacking for the summer. But in the meantime, Ed Helms (he of anger managing Andy Bernard fame) will be taking more roles to the big screen. Helms will play Chet, a womanizing merchant, in Mark and Michael Polish’s Manure, an indie comedy about a group of manure salesmen set in the heart of 1960's America.

Cinema Blend reports that during “A Conversation with Billy Bob Thornton” at SXSW on Tuesday, amid the actor/director/singer/screenwriter’s prolix musings on the areas of his expertise (much of it transcribed here, absolutely worthy of 10 minutes of your time) was an announcement of what will be his first two directorial projects in nine years.

The only specifics he gave as he sat before the crowd in a leather jacket and sunglasses (“…the…reason I’m keeping my sunglasses on, it’s not like I’m trying to show off my new sunglasses. OK, here’s the deal. I had a little too much fun out at Cooter’s last night…”) was that one film will focus on famed cave diver Floyd Collins, who turned into a media spectacle in 1925 when he became trapped 50 feet underground.

Thornton said the story gets at the heart of humanity. “It’s human nature to want to see other people suffer for entertainment,” he said. “That’s why we have reality television. That’s why every time there’s somebody trapped in a hole, everybody’s interested.”

With a handful of brilliantly spliced-together anecdotes, Thornton explained how working with Harvey Weinstein on All the Pretty Horses soured him on directing, relating it to the time Martin Scorcese watched Sling Blade and told him to cut nothing, because he’d never have the opportunity to maintain full control of a film ever again.

As for who’s starring in these movies: “So [my manager] already is saying, OK you gotta cast this famous person and that famous person and this famous person and I’ve already called this famous person. Don’t be calling no famous people! …. I don’t want them in the part. I want this guy Bill that I know.”

Related links:
IMDB: Billy Bob Thornton
BillyBobThornton.net
CinemaBlend.com

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