Directors: December 2008 Archives

Barbra Streisand is among those being feted this weekend with the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors and talked to the Washington Post beforehand. One of the things that she said was that she would like Larry Kramer's powerful AIDS stage play "The Normal Heart" to be her next directorial effort.

I say don't hold your breath. Streisand, whose directorial efforts include "Prince of Tides" and "Yentl," has not directed a movie since "The Mirror Has Two Faces" in 1996. She also starred in "Mirror" and has since only acted in a single movie: the smash comedy "Meet the Fockers."

But I do hope she finally does it because she is a mighty fine director with Nick Nolte ("Tides"), Amy Irving ("Yentl") and Lauren Bacall ("Mirror") all earning Oscar nods under her.

Her once all-consuming film career basically ceased ionce she married James Brolin and she has only surfaced with albums and the rare live performance.

"I've never really been, you know, married during a directorial time in my life," she told The Post. "How do you, you know, balance the personal?"

Following a screening of "Milk" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, director Gus Van Sant (pictured with Sean Penn at the 18th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Tuesday night) took questions.

Queerty reports that somebody asked the director how he felt the film could have impacted Proposition 8, if only it came out before the election. He said he and Focus Features could've rushed the film out before the Nov. 4 vote. Van Sant said they didn't even hear about the measure until July, and at that point it didn't have as much support. so there wasn't reason to think the movie would need to impact the outcome.

He's actually happy about Milk's post-election timing because seeing the film will make people "wise up" to gay civil rights, which will do more than passing "just one proposition."

I don't think it's a stretch to predict that "Milk" will be a solid box office hit and nab several Academy Award nominations. I wonder if the same thing will be said of "Valkyrie," the film directed by Bryan Singer and starring Tom Cruise as a Nazi soldier plotting the assassination of Hitler in the war thriller that opens Christmas Day.

Ironically, Singer had signed on to direct "Milk" in 2005, envisioning the movie as a political thriller. But a new Entertainment Weekly article notes that he went off to make "Valkyrie" with Cruise instead. Way back in 1995, when Gus Van Sant - who ended up directing the film - was previously connected to the project, never heard back from Cruise after offering him the role of Dan White who is played by Josh Brolin in "Milk."

A USA Today article published Monday about Cruise and Singer notes that the movie might be a sell to audiences since it is a Nazi film coming out during the crowded holiday season.

"...Ultimately, I think this is a good time for it," Singer says. "This is still a conspiracy thriller, and the holidays give a lot of people the chance to (go)."

Cruise, once box office king, has lost some of his luster. But he told USA Today that he is also optimistic that the film will find an audience: "The subject matter isn't the easiest, he says, "but ultimately, people want to see a good story."