--- In harveykeitelfans@yahoogroups.com, antigona35new
<no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Ok, the website link doesn´t work, as ussual. I copy and paste
here
> the new. :))
>
> Producer Edward R. Pressman hopes to reinvent the grim 1992 indie
> drama. But will what jolted audiences in 1992 work now?
> By Jay A. Fernandez, Special to The Times
> August 29, 2007
> Hide your stash -- the Lieutenant is headed back out on the
streets.
> And he's just as bad as you remember him. If not worse.
>
> When writer-director Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" was released
in
> 1992, the grim drama that starred Harvey Keitel as the most
> spiritually anguished, nakedly self-destructive cop in New York
City
> polarized viewers and left a scorching mark in independent film.
It
> was nominated for best feature at the Film Independent's Spirit
> Awards, and Keitel's legendary raw performance won him the Spirit
for
> best male lead and a slot in the unofficial acting hall of fame.
>
>
> Veteran producer Edward R. Pressman ("Badlands," "American
Psycho"),
> who developed and produced the first movie, is poised to revisit
the
> Lieutenant and "try to reinvent the film in a way that would be
> relevant again," as he puts it. So earlier this year one of his co-
> producers, Stephen Belafonte (the new Mr. Scary Spice), brought in
> Billy Finkelstein, a Flushing, Queens-bred TV writer whose deep
cops-
> and-criminals résumé is a hit list of street cred: "L.A.
> Law," "Murder One," "Law & Order" and "NYPD Blue."
>
> The new version -- with a working title of "Bad Lieutenant '08" --
is
> less a sequel or a prequel than an attempt to take the raw
material
> of the original film and weave it into 21st century, post- 9/11
New
> York. In the draft I have, dated July 24, 2007, Finkelstein
provides
> the Lieutenant with a small amount of addiction back story, the
event
> that prompts his promotion from sergeant and the drug-related
murder
> of five Senegalese illegal immigrants to pursue.
>
> He has also given his tortured protagonist, who went nameless in
the
> first film, a name: Terence McDonough. Meanwhile, the familiar
> relentless tear of reckless drug-taking, gambling, stealing and
sex
> continues unabated.
>
> The original film was rated NC-17 -- a rating that was still new
and
> provocative at the time -- and justifiably, given not just its
sexual
> violence, drug abuse and nudity, but also its punishing emotional
> brutality. The question is: What will the Bad Lieutenant do with
more
> money and looser standards to play with? And is it possible to
have
> the same effect?
>
> "We have to factor in the passage of time and what's happened in
the
> interim," says Finkelstein, who has yet to write in an updated nod
to
> Keitel's full-frontal, drug-addled glory. "I don't know that the
same
> sorts of things that caused us to sit up and take notice 15 years
ago
> are necessarily gonna have the same effect now."
>
> Pressman has discussed the new version with Ferrara and Keitel,
> although neither is attached to the project. But neither Pressman
nor
> Finkelstein seems particularly worried about criticism from purist
> fans of the cult film. (Pressman is trying a similar reinvention
with
> the Stephen Schiff-scripted "Money Never Sleeps," a revisiting of
the
> iconic '80s master of the universe Gordon Gekko from Oliver
> Stone's "Wall Street.")
>
> "These things have to stand on their own two feet," says
Finkelstein,
> who's currently finishing up a second draft. "Listen, how many
movies
> have been made about Jesse James and Eliot Ness? There are certain
> characters that are part of our literature and they will be
> revisited -- that's just the nature of it. There's a difference
> between appreciating something and putting it in amber."
>
>
>
> --- In harveykeitelfans@yahoogroups.com, Jimi_68_ <no_reply@>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In harveykeitelfans@yahoogroups.com, antigona35new
<no_reply@>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > "Hide your stash -- the Lieutenant is headed back out on the
> > streets.
> > > And he's just as bad as you remember him. If not worse." I
think
> is
> > a
> > > mistake to make a new version of the cult film. Here´s all the
> info:
> > >
> > >
> > > http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-
> > > scriptland29aug29,1,2729912.story?coll=la-headlines-
> > > entnews&track=crosspromo
> > >
> > Any clue on who is to play keitels role? I would be interested
in
> > seeing it but I am, of course, a little biased here.I would give
it
> a
> > chance.
> >
>Wow. A ton of information. Thanks. I love how they gave the
Lieutenant a name, Terrence McDonough. It is a fun coincidence for
me because McDonough is my family surname. Too funny.