Friday, March 29, 2024

DeNiro, Keaton Comedy Gets Robin Williams and New Title

Share

“Gently Down the Stream,” a wedding comedy starring Robert DeNiro and Diane Keaton, has a new title and an added player. Robin Williams has joined the cast that also includes Katherine Heigl and Topher Grace, as well as Susan Sarandon and Amanda Seyfried. According to the imdb, the title may have also changed to the generic sounding “The Wedding.” How original! This means that Justin Zackham’s movie now has four past Oscar winners–DeNiro, Keaton, Williams and Sarandon. The weirdest thing is that Heigl is billed with DeNiro and Keaton in the most recent poster. Getting older is just full of indignity, isn’t it?

Anyway, I ran into beautiful, fun and wide-eyed Amanda Seyfried last night in Hollywood at the premiere of HBO’s “True Blood.” HBO gives the best parties on both coasts, don’t cha know. All the “True Blood” stars were there–Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Alex Skarsgard, etc. Even show creator Alan Ball, who expressed his dismay at my review of one his films, “Towelhead.” “Your review destroyed that film,” he said. Alas, I am a fan of “Six Feet Under” and “True Blood.” You can’t like everything! Anyway, Ball is a nice guy and tells me has a bunch of projects being readied for placement.

Oh yes, Amanda Seyfried: “I just heard about Robin Williams joining Gently Down the Stream,” she said, perhaps unaware of the movie’s title change. She told me spent Monday with pal Dominic Cooper at his Los Angeles Film Festival premiere of “The Devil’s Double.” “He should get an Oscar nomination,” Amanda observered, and she’s correct. Cooper is superb in this LionsGate release about Uday Hussein, son of Sadam. It’s like the Iraqi “Scarface.”

Also at the “True Blood” premiere, a lovely couple: Patrick Fischler, the actor who was so great as a nasty comedian a couple of seasons ago on “Mad Men,” and actress wife Lauren Bowles, a knock out, who also happens to be the half sister of Julia Louis Dreyfus (they share a mom). Lauren plays a witch on “True Blood.”  They’re just like Darrin and Samantha, I said. “Only we won’t be recasting Patrick half way through,” retorted a clever Lauren. Nice kids!

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
spot_img

Read more

In Other News