Emotionally riveting and politically relevant, Rendition is a daring film that isn’t afraid to ask tough questions. With an all-star cast that includes Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep and Oscar nominee Jake Gyllenhaal, Rendition paints a vast yet intimate canvas of a world in crisis and a family in peril.
Thematically, the film bears some resemblance to Syriana and Bourne Identity, as it’s both a cautionary tale and a taut political thriller. Rendition walks a fine line between interrogation and torture, between working for the greater good in a post 9/11 world and violating basic codes of decency–between fighting terrorism and becoming a terrorist.
The film’s protagonist is Anwar El-Ibraim, a Canadian scientist of Egyptian decent. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, he is about to find out what happens when that line is crossed. Anwar is anxious to get home and see his family after a business trip in Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately, his homecoming is delayed.
Joe Carnahan, the director of Bunny Lake is the first official source to comment on Reese’s reasons for departure from the movie:
Scuttlebutt: How about NOTHING. How about a situation where the press tries to stir it up. These things happen. Movies go away every day. Reese is dealing with a lot of stuff in her life. So am I. We were running up against it as far as time for prep and shooting and scripting, etc. I had already commited to White Jazz and the longer we stretched Bunny the more in jeopardy the WJ schedule became. And there was just no way I could let that happen. I need a nice extended prep period for that flick.
And now I’ve got it.
That’s it guys. I wish there were some truly tasty bits of gossip but there just aren’t. Sorry.
Source: Smokin Joe Carnahan
Unfortunately Penelope has been pushed back from its original April release to August 17, 2007.
Thanks to Walktheline80 for the heads up.
The press is heavily speculating on why Reese left the production of Bunny Lake. The LA Times is saying she dropped out because of emotional stress due to her divorce and that she did not feel emotionally invested in the role. TMZ reports that Reese was supposed to be given a complete script last week but instead was presented with a script with major sections of the movie outlined:
Last week, Reese was presented with what she thought would be a completed script, but turned out to be 80 pages that had major sections of the movie outlined but not written.
As the deadline approached for a summer shooting, Witherspoon exercised her option not to approve the incomplete script and withdrew as the star of the project. Reese worried about people who wouldn’t have a job shooting this summer. “She’s just as disappointed as anybody,” the source says. “She’s not working too.”
Reese’s representatives have not made an official statement regarding her reasons for departure from Bunny Lake Is Missing.
Variety reports that five weeks before production was scheduled to begin on the Spyglass-financed remake of Bunny Lake Is Missing, Reese Witherspoon abruptly dropped out of the film, much to the chagrin of director Joe Carnahan.
Beyond the late notice, the exit is surprising because Witherspoon and Type A Films partner Jennifer Simpson were aboard to produce with Mark Gordon.
Spyglass is scrambling to find an actress to replace Witherspoon, but chances are the start date will have to be pushed.
The Columbia Pictures release has been in the works for three years. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright, the movie is based on the 1965 Otto Preminger film about a woman who reports that her daughter Bunny Lake is missing — only to be confronted by charges that she never existed.
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On March 6, Reese attended the P. S. Arts Bag Lunch. She was photographed with Zooey Deschanel. L.A. socialite Colleen Bell, hosted the fourth annual event at her Bel-Air home with Elizabeth Stewart from The New York Times and C Magazine’s George Kotsiopoulos.
With 100 percent of the proceeds going to arts education for California’s public schools, attendees Reese Witherspoon, Zooey Deschanel, and Kristin Davis could feel good about spending big. After raising $180,000, everyone grabbed a “brown-bag lunch” filled with a Cobb salad or a gourmet sandwich and headed to the garden, where, Bell notes, “lots of sangria with fresh fruit” was served.
First of all, the forum is back after a quick server change. Be sure to head over there to talk about the latest Reese news, including her dropping out from Bunny Lake.
I have updated the gallery today with scans from People’s Style Watch – March 2007 (thanks to our very own Walktheline80) and People – March 12, 2007 (thanks to Sammie), which features a great article on the making of Reese’s Nina Ricci Oscar gown. I’ve also uploaded some great HQs from various public appearances from throughout the years. Log in and view all of them here.
Last but not least, be sure to visit our Site of the Month, Filip’s lovely Salma Hayek Web!
In accepting an invitation to tour the still-devastated areas of New Orleans, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner and about 30 other Hollywood women – actors, directors, musicians, activists and philanthropists – received a heartbreaking first-hand look at the ongoing struggles in the area, more than seven months after Hurricane Katrina hit. The recent trip, sponsored by the Children’s Defense Fund and organized by founder Marion Wright Edelman, focused on the ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, the New Freedom School and a makeshift hospital. Here are some of their accounts.
Jennifer Garner
The night before the trip, Garner rocked 5-month-old Violet to sleep before leaving her with husband Ben Affleck. It was her first time away from her first child.
“I didn’t want to leave her, but I thought to myself, ‘People in New Orleans love their children as much as I love mine and I might be able to help there,’ ‘ she says “I’m talking to my husband all day long to see how our baby is. Our children are brought into privilege, but you know that this kind of catastrophe could happen anywhere.”
Garner, 32, listened as single dad Douglass Chambers spoke at the New Freedom School about how his son, Douglass junior, 11, was falling behind in his studies since the storm. “He told about going from teacher to teacher and to counselors,” she says. “He was not going to leave any stone unturned to help his child.”
The Morning Show (2019)
