Hot Trailer: ‘Robot & Frank’
The Frank Langella-starrer Robot & Frank won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize this year at Sundance and is the first release from Park Pictures Features, the feature film division of commercial production house Park Pictures. Commercials helmer Jake Schreier is making his directorial debut with the Christopher Ford script. James Marsden, Liv Tyler and Susan Sarandon co-star. It opens August 24.
Sweet.
Are we being punked?
So it’s like Romero’s MONKEY SHINES but with a robot instead of a monkey and without the terror.
You must kill in a pitch meeting!
At the pitch meeting for this, someone should have said, “Turn it around. Have the robot be retired living in seclusion with its robot brain implanted with the memories, emotions and algorithms of the troubled HAL-9000 computer from Kubrick’s 2001, then have Langella be a sociologist who comes to comfort and evaluate the robot and tries to help the robot fit back into culture by getting it a part-time intern job at a small-town library. Then see what happens when the troubled lonely robot strikes up a friendship with Sarandon!”
Saw ROBOT & FRANK at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Twas a packed house, and the whole crowd sounded like it enjoyed the film. (Lots of belly laughs and such.) I thought it was a great mix of humor and thoughtfulness in a great take on the buddy film genre.
Why why why do trailers have to tell the whole story!
Trailers are too long and detailed because “that’s the way trailers are done” and Hollywood hates change. I’ve seen worse, but yes, this could have hinted he adopts the robot as a partner in crime and left more to our imaginations.