Angelina J. seems a natural for this movie. She can easily represent the cat woman, sexy but cool and distant, with whom sex is a given, naturalistic thing. Nothing personal.

It would be nice to hear from Rick. After all, he dismissed the script right from the start as very, very bad and something no way in hell a McCarthy would have written. At least he’s partially right: it is crap, not just the story but the dialogue too.

Dear Rick, you’ve said it would take a few days, now weeks have passed… production starts in may and we’re still hoping that all of it is just a hoax.

So… is it or is it not?

Seth, probably “Devils, Drugs and Doctors” by Haggard or this interesting character:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_von_Bibra#section_1

Unfortunately, as the news indicates the producers have been so preoccupied with the casting and production issues involved in this film that they just haven’t gotten back to me with any of the details yet, and the last thing I want to do is pester them about it with so much stuff going on on their end. I did promise Steve Schwartz to keep much of our original conversations confidential until they sorted matters out themselves, and I feel obligated to keep their confidence until they tell me it’s OK to divulge it. Hell, if Barry Bonds’ trainer can do it, so can I.

Meanwhile, I must say that these inferences of reconstituting the past three McCarthy films with the casting of the fourth makes me a bit queasy. I don’t much like Angelina Jolie and we already know what a disaster Penelope Cruz was as Alejandra. Just don’t let me hear that they’re talking to Jennifer Lopez. I don’t like where all these associations are leading. It’s bad enough we have to think of McCarthy playing golf. I definitely don’t want to see him on a tabloid cover on my way out of Publix.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Rick Wallach.

Can’t say as Cameron Diaz inclusion in a project has ever proved beneficial to my cinema going experiences. Then again, this Counselor project has yet to stimulate anything resembling interest in myself either as a lover of McCarthy’s fictions or as a moviegoer.

Is it just my perception of things or has the forum grown considerably quieter since the site revamping?

Things had quietened down considerably before the new site appeared and perhaps a tad more since. But I suppose I’m only one of several who has lurked a bit but not posted very much at all over the last 12-18 mths. I do that know it’s God’s own task to get a decent row started these days, p’raps you’ve all gone soft! However it does look like I will have more time to post now (are those cheers that i hear or…?) so…

In the meantime where’s all the juice on this Counselor business? Come on Rick, tell all.

pf

Any news about the authenticity of the script–or at this point should we all just assume the worst? My guess is that the screenplay floating around (which I have only perused) is mostly Cormac but is edited and/or is only a rough draft. Either way, from what Mr. Wallach has posted, there seems to be more to the story than appears.

But as an occasional reader of this forum–I demand–nay, deserve–answers! If the Obama administration can leak military operations to the US press, then by golly Mr. Wallach can leak Cormac information to the hungry masses! (Ha ha.)

• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by  JandK.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by  JandK.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by  JandK.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 1 week ago by  JandK. Reason: Grammar

Stew…

IMO: the script is crap. The dialogue is horrible at best. The beginning an embarrassment. Waste of time.

Hey, this just came up on Google Alert.

http://collider.com/brad-pitt-the-counselor-image/185041/

There’s also a link on the linked page to the Empire interview with Brad Pitt discussing McCarthy.

The ‘grapevine’ is the informal communication network found in every organization. The term can be traced back to the United States Civil War in the 1860s. Since battlefronts moved frequently, army telegraph wires were strung loosely from tree to tree across battlefields, somewhat like wires used to support grapevines. The wires were used to carry telegraph messages created in Morse code (the electronic alphabet, invented in 1844) because the telephone wasn’t invented until 1876. Since the lines often were strung hastily during battle, and messages were composed in a hurry, the resulting communication tended to be garbled and confusing. Soon, any rumor was said to have been heard ‘on the grapevine’.

Managers can sometimes purposely send messages through the grapevine to test the likely reaction to a possible management decision. This can allow feedback to take place and adjustments made before final decisions are made. Thus the grapevine can contribute to a more inclusive workplace.

from here:

http://www.cuttingedgepr.com/articles/empcomm_grapevine.asp

Oh look here is a wiki page about rumours:

http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Rumors

and this one:

http://www.abcarticledirectory.com/Article/How-To-Deal-With-Rumors–5-Helpful-Tips-To-Deal-With-Rumors/428216

• This reply was modified 9 months, 2 weeks ago by  Candy Minx.

Here’s an excerpt of a “Collider.com” interview with Penelope Cruz this week:

Before I run out of time with you, I know you’re filming in London now. What was it about that project – was it the script, was it Ridley, was it the actors? How did you get involved with The Counselor?

CRUZ: I read the script, and after three pages I was completely blown away by how new this feels. It’s Cormac McCarthy’s first script. Not based on any book, its just a script. And it’s an incredible piece for actors, all the characters are incredible. All the scenes are very long scenes, a lot of dialogue, scenes that have a beginning and a transition. You can travel with each scene, you have the space and the time to really go through a journey with each scene; and that, for actors, it’s a big privilege to have scenes like that. Then we started talking about it and playing Laura, who is one of the–how do I tell you without saying?

Yeah, I don’t want you to spoil it.

CRUZ: Yeah, but it’s a character that has always chosen the light. Has very particular ideology, is a very religious woman, or has been educated like that and is starting to have doubts about some things. Or, also starting to feel a curiosity toward the darkness. Also knowing that there is a very big, real danger there. Life is putting her in that situation where she’s tasting the darkness.

Do you do an accent in the film?

CRUZ: No, I’m a European girl from Spain that is living in America.

Do you typically have most of your scenes with one of the other cast members? You have an incredible cast.

CRUZ: Most my scenes are with Michael Fassbender and with Cameron Diaz. And I don’t have any scenes with Javier.

[laughs] That’s very funny.

CRUZ: But for us it is better, we could do every movie like this, because then always one of us can be free. You know? We don’t have to be working in the same day. (laughs)

There you have it folks. Cruz the literary critic talks about playing the role of “Laura”, a character in the controversial script we saw months ago. If that script was a total fraud, then it was very prescient, clairvoyant even. This doesn’t necessarily mean the script we saw is authentic, as it could be an intentional fraud from An Official Source. As I did back then, I still believe the script is authentic. And I still think it is bad.

Marty, Will, etal. (whoever they are): I phrased it thus for these reasons. These reports from the entertainment press are “additional confirmations” though they don’t “necessarily mean the script is authentic”. There are many scenarios in which what we saw was a fake. I suggested an intentional fraud by, say, the producers or even McCarthy himself, simply to confound aggressive nosey parkers like us. As Marty suggested, it could be someone who glimpsed the actual and then fabricated the rest. Hence I used the word “believe” to describe where I stand in all of this. On second read, Marty, your several possible scenarios have surprising implications to me. If someone saw the real script and then pretty quickly wrote that entire fake script built around the few real facts (not just the names, but also other qualities as revealed by the actors, such as particular characteristics … such as the cheetah which Cameron Diaz said in one of those mindless interviews I half-heartedly skimmed), what would his purpose be? — perhaps to get a thrill of starting a hoax. And if the actors are perpetrating and perpetuating the deception (perhaps to help McCarthy throw us off the track), then that would be a bigger conspiracy going on. However, if my belief that the script is authentic turns out to be true after all, then that would have the most surprising consequence, at least to me!

Oedipa Maas is exactly how I’ve been feeling since the spec script came out, and I thought about that just last night. If the spec script is not authentic, then someone is making a lot of effort, taking a lot of time, involving a lot of people to — what?– just to pull an elaborate prank on me, or us, here; we would the target, since, under normal circumstances, who else would dwell so long on a spec script that is not, say, a pop culture thing, like Harry Potter, or the next movie by a cult director, like Woody Allen or Terrence Malick?

If it’s a spoof by any of us or even by McCarthy himself (especially if by McCarthy himself), then it’s funny; if it’s seriously authentic, then it’s scary.

See my post from July 11, 2012:

I can tell you right now it’s authentic. 100% McCarthy only.

On the question of: McCarthy: true or false? I picked up a copy of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia today and was amused by the following:

Bernard: Yes. One of my colleagues believed he had found an unattributed short story by D. H. Lawrence, and he analysed it on his home computer, most interesting, perhaps you remember the paper?

Valentine: Not really. But I often sit with my eyes closed and it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m awake.

Bernard: Well, by comparing sentence structures, and so forth, this chap showed that there was ninety per cent chance that the story had indeed been written by the same person as Women in Love. To my inexpressible joy, one of your maths mob was able to show that on the same statistical basis there was a ninety per cent chance that Lawrence also wrote the Just William books and much of the previous day’s Brighton and Hove Argus.

Glad to be of help.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer. But perhaps if one can see genius in it, it’s worth a second look for another? I’m willing to bet ”that script floating around” was written solely by McCarthy.

Google Alerts hasn’t been working for me lately, but now it’s assaulting my inbox with a backlog of updates. Many of them feature creepy telephoto screenshots of the cast of The Counselor. Maybe it’s time to take a break from “Cormac McCarthy” notifications for awhile. However, I have gleaned that Diaz/Malkina filmed a scene in a bed with a cheetah and Cruz/Laura filmed a scene in a red dress in an airport. Very similar scenes occur in the script, right-down to Laura wearing a red dress. The names, the tattoo, the cast talking about their roles in ways that corroborate the script. Just a few days ago I wouldn’t have said one way or the other but Stew and his fish and chips are looking pretty safe.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the script is edited or some stuff is omitted though. There are a lot typos and the formatting is weird. Perhaps it’s some hurriedly typed version of whatever McCarthy clanked out on his typewriter. I also wonder if the beginning was the same one Cruz saw. I got a chuckle when she said the first three pages blew her away with how new they felt.

I didn’t think the script was great either, but at least it got me to pick up 2666 again.

I’ve not read this script, though some time ago I did read a very short quote from it (in this thread or another one) that I thought so thoroughly characteristic of McCarthy that if it was not by McCarthy it was certainly by someone who knows how to read him.

Time for me to join in the fun and games though. Would someone be good enough to send me a link to, or a .pdf of, this contentious piece of work? Many thanks.

pf

I like the multiple gender roles and the related issues. There’s a lot of wit in the exchanges between the characters, both of the same and opposite sex. I thought the sexual scenes were done well also. Plus, there’s a realness to the locations described and a kind of charm to the characters (those in love and not so in love). Each of their motivations and drive result in fitting actions that don’t feel contrived like in other works of popular fiction.

Mr. Stew, you go overboard with the self. But still, well said.

What Lee said. Nice post by Stew. I’m in the McCarthy-wrote-every-word camp. Looking forward to the movie, and the Child of God one as well.

As I’m checking in now at the forum I’m watching it live on ESPN 1. South Carolina’s up 21 to 0 going into halftime.  I thought it would be closer!