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My guest for this month is David Blakeslee, and he’s joined me to discuss the film he chose for me, the 1994 romantic comedy-drama film Reality Bites. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

As I mentioned in the intro, this show is joining up with the fine folks at CriterionCast This film doesn’t just feature Ben Stiller, he also directed it It was written by Helen Childress, who is supposedly working on a television version of the film Both David and I are nominally members of Generation X, although that can be argued for both of us as well This film also stars Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder when they were painfully young The film bares some resemblance to my choice for the previous episode Chungking Express The film reminds me of the fiction of Mark Leyner And also of the essay E Unibus Pluram...

Clarius Entertainment has acquired Us rights to Benaroya Pictures and The Genre Company’s thriller Cell starring John Cusack (upcoming Love & Mercy, Lee Daniels’ The Butler) and Oscar-nominated Samuel L. Jackson (upcoming Kingsman: The Secret Service, Django Unchained).

The film is based on the best-selling apocalyptic novel by Stephen King.

When a powerful signal is broadcast across mobile networks worldwide, cell phone users’ minds are instantly and dangerously re-programmed. Heading north through New England in search of his wife and son, Clay Riddell (Cusack) is joined by a group of survivors hoping to fend off the bloodthirsty and hyper-connected “phoners.”

Set to be a wide theatrical release later this year, Cell also stars Isabelle Fuhrman (The Hunger Games) and Golden Globe winner Stacy Keach (Nebraska, The Bourne Legacy).

The film is directed by Tod “Kip” Williams (Paranormal Activity 2). The announcement was made today by the film’s producers Michael Benaroya and Richard Saperstein.

Get ready stateside filmgoers, because the “phoners” (aka “crazies”) are coming to the Us. Stephen King fans know that the master of macabre doesn’t like using cell phones. His 2006 novel, Cell, is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong by pressing portable phones to our ears and keeping them close at hand in our pockets, and its unflinching subject matter contains flocks of murderous lunatics that would be right at home in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, George A. Romero’s The Crazies, or Simon Clark’s Blood Crazy.

We knew this unique King novel was getting the adaptation treatment, with King co-writing the screenplay and John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in the lead roles, but we’re now one big step closer to seeing it on the silver screen, as Clarius Entertainment has acquired the Us rights to the movie.

Slated to hit theaters this year,...

Clarius Entertainment has acquired Us rights from CAA and Paradigm to Benaroya Pictures and The Genre Company’s thriller, which International Film Trust sells at the Efm.

John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson star in the Stephen King adaptation about survivors on the run from blood-thirsty hordes who have been transformed by a mind-altering disruption across the global phone mobile network.

Clarius plans a wide theatrical release later this year on Cell, which also stars Isabelle Fuhrman and Stacy Keach.

Tod “Kip” Williams directed from a screenplay by King with revisions by Adam Alleca and Mark Leyner.

Michael Benaroya, Richard Saperstein, Brian Witten and Shara Kay served as producers.

As president of Dimension Saperstein oversaw the King adaptation 1408, which also stars Cusack and Jackson.

Well, this could mean trouble for Cell as it was announced this morning Clarius Entertainment has acquired domestic distribution rights to the film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. So far Clarius has had an awful track record at the box office with the releases of And So It Goes, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return and most recently the Nicole Kidman starrer Before I Go To Sleep, the three of which combine for a grand total of only $26.8 million at the domestic box office. The budget of the Oz feature alone was $70 million while the other two haven't even been reported. Perhaps, however, this will be a turn for the better as the film, directed by Tod "Kip" Williams (Paranormal Activity 2), stars John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan) and Stacy Keach centers on a powerful signal broadcast across mobile networks worldwide, resulting in...

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice is slowly unleashing itself in a few theaters to sneak into the 2014 awards race before its wide release next year. Joaquin Phoenix stars as Doc Sportello, a strange, drug-taking private eye investigating the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend and finding himself in the middle of an insane mix of missing persons, police investigations and strange business ventures. This is the first Thomas Pynchon novel to the make it to the big screen (save for “Gravity’s Rainbow” inspiring the German docudrama Prüfstand VII). It’s a film that will never be a blockbuster success, though it boasts a cast ranging from Jena Malone and Owen Wilson to Jeannie Berlin and Eric Roberts; it’s just too weird. It is, however, a breath a freakish fresh air in a film landscape that’s gotten oppressively predictable. If this could start a trend where Hollywood embraces weird texts, there...

International Film Trust (Ift) has licensed Japanese rights to the Stephen King adaptation Cell to Presidio at the Efm.

President Christian de Gallegos and his team have also closed a deal with Shoval for Israel.

Cell is shooting in the Us state of Georgia. John Cusack stars in the story of a deadly pulse that affects mobile phone users. The cast includes Samuel L Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman and Stacy Keach.

Tod Williams directs and Stephen King wrote the screenplay with revisions by Adam Alleca and Mark Leyner.

Former Dimension Films president Richard Saperstein, Michael Benaroya, Brian Witten and Shara Kay are producing.

The executive producers roster incudes Cusack, Paddy Cullen, Edward Mokhtarian, Armen Aghaeian, Xavier Gens and Laurence Freed.

Exclusive: International Film Trust (Ift) has announced a slew of deals on its Stephen King adaptation Cell, shooting now in Georgia with John Cusack.

President Christian de Gallegos and his team have licensed rights to Telemunchen for Germany and Notorious for Italy on the thriller from Benaroya Pictures and The Genre Company.

Deals also closed in Greece (Hollywood), Switzerland (Praesens), Bulgaria (Bulgaria Film), former Yugoslavia (Blitz), Poland (Monolith), Latin America (Leda), China (Hgc), Hong Kong (Deltamac), India (Pictureworks), Indonesia (Pt Amero), Malaysia and Thailand (Sahamongkol), Middle East (Shooting Stars), Philippines (Pioneer), Singapore (Cathay), Taiwan (Deepjoy) and Star TV for pan-Asian pay-tv.

Tod Williams directs and Samuel L Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman and Stacy Keach also star in the story of a deadly pulse that affects mobile phone users.

Stephen King wrote the screenplay with revisions by Adam Alleca and Mark Leyner.

“We have relished the opportunity to reunite John and Sam and with production currently underway we couldn...

Benaroya Pictures and The Genre Company have set Samuel L. Jackson to co-star with John Cusack in the apocalyptic thriller Cell, based on the bestselling novel by Stephen King. Tod “Kip” Williams will direct, with production set to begin in January. Benaroya Pictures is financing.

Samuel L. Jackson most recently co-starred in last year’s Django Unchained and next appears in the upcoming films Oldboy and Robocop as well as Captain America 2: Winter Soldier and The Avengers sequel. He is currently in production on Secret Service.

In Cell, Jackson will play Tom McCourt, an engineer and former soldier who escapes from Boston along with Cusack’s character, Clay Riddell, after a mysterious pulse, transmitted by cell phones, spreads like a virus through the human population.

“It’s really exciting to have such a great cast continue to come together on this project,” said Benaroya Pictures principal, Michael Benaroya.

More casting news for the latest Stephen King adaptation, Cell, has arrived in the form of the always entertaining Samuel L. Jackson. Read on for all the latest details that have just jumped out of the gate.

From the Press Release

Benaroya Pictures and The Genre Company announced today they have set Samuel L. Jackson to co-star with John Cusack in the apocalyptic thriller Cell, based on the bestselling novel by Stephen King. Tod “Kip” Williams will direct, with production set to begin in January. Benaroya Pictures is financing.

Samuel L. Jackson most recently co-starred in last year’s Django Unchained and next appears in the upcoming films Oldboy and Robocop as well as Captain America 2: Winter Soldier and The Avengers sequel. He is currently in production on Secret Service. In Cell, Jackson will play Tom McCourt, an engineer and former soldier who escapes from Boston along with Cusack’s character,...

A feature film adaptation of Stephen King’s Cell has been in development for quite some time, but it’s expected to begin shooting early next year. John Cusack is already on board to star in the movie and it has just been revealed that Samuel L. Jackson will be joining him.

According to Deadline, “Jackson plays Tom McCourt, an engineer and former soldier who with Cusack’s Clay Riddell character flees from Boston as the world turns mad thanks to the phones.” For those who are unfamiliar with the novel, Stephen King’s Cell was originally published in 2006 and involves a cell signal that turns most of the population into zombies:

“Artist Clayton Riddell had been in Boston negotiating a successful deal to sell his comic book project. His joy at finally hitting it big is shattered by an event called The Pulse which causes all those who were...

Exclusive: Rutger Hauer joins UK thriller Kickback with John Cusack, Sean Young.

Blade Runner actor Rutger Hauer is the latest name attached to UK thriller Kickback.

Written and directed by Raza Mallal of Yorkshire-based Talking Lens Productions, the crime-thriller, previously known as Shoot the Breeze, follows a renegade Moscow detective investigating the murder of a female war journalist.

Also attached are John Cusack in the lead role, Sean Young, Karen David, Sean Astin, Mischa Barton, Michael Biehn, Tom Sizemore and John Hannah.

DoP Douglas Milsome is also attached.

Kickback marks Mallal’s directorial debut. He is co-producing with Kevan Van Thompson and executive producer Ilja Rosendahl of Scene Bridge Entertainment.

War Inc. writer Mark Leyner is currently working on the script with Raza and the film’s latest provisional start date is March in Prague.

Kickback would mark the first on-screen reunion for Blade Runner stars Hauer and Young.

According to the production, funding for the...

In “The Raven,” which opens nationwide on April 27, John Cusack stars as a fictionalized version of Edgar Allan Poe. And in this big-screen extravaganza, directed by James McTeigue (“V for Vendetta”), Poe isn’t just the famous – and famously sozzled – author of “The Raven” and “The Telltale Heart”; he’s also a surprisingly spry action hero, recruited by the police to help solve a series of grisly murders based on his own stories.

Last weekend, Cusack, a newly minted Hollywood Walk of Famer, and his close friend Mark Leyner, author of "The Sugar Frosted Nutsack," appeared at the La Times Festival of Books to talk about Poe, his legacy, the new movie, and the artistic imperative – felt by writers and actors alike – to brave the darkness in order to tell great stories. He also offers some insight into why he hasn't starred in a romantic comedy for a while. Here...

John Cusack in "The Raven"

In the newest film from Ninja Assassin and V for Vendetta director James McTeigue, actor John Cusack plays the famous American author Edgar Allan Poe in a horror story that mixes biographical fact with Poe’s own fiction. The end result is something like your great-great grandfather’s version of the Saw saga, with people using fancier language and the power of newspaper criticism still being a thing.

I sat down with John Cusack in a roundtable interview to discuss the author, what it was like embodying the literary figure, and why fanboy culture is now more effective than the New York Times.

The Raven opens Friday in theaters.

You have your own screenplay writing experience, and you’ve co-written some special movies (High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank) in your career. How would you describe your own relationship with writing?

The writing I do, I never have to finish it.

Chicago – Though Chicago’s John Cusack is perhaps best known for his beloved roles as a down-to-earth charmer in “Say Anything” and “High Fidelity,” he’s no stranger to exploring the troubling depths of darkness. He’s engaged the dangerous obsessions of his neurotic puppeteer in Spike Jonze’s “Being John Malkovich” or the horrific visions of his paranormal writer in Mikael Håfström’s “1408”.

In James McTeigue’s period thriller, “The Raven,” Cusack tackles perhaps his darkest role to date: the legendary poet and writer, Edgar Allan Poe. The film blends history and fiction a la “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” as Poe hunts down a serial killer whose crimes are modeled after the author’s goriest tales. During an April press conference at Chicago’s C2E2 convention, Cusack said that he admired Poe for being a “highbrow guy” who somehow managed to “write pulp Saturday afternoon thrillers” as well...

Over the weekend, John Cusack appeared at the La Times Festival of Books to talk about Edgar Allen Poe, and his new movie The Raven.

We were there among a packed crowd by the open-air stage to hear his thoughts about Poe and moviemaking - and also, unexpectedly, a list of the books that he's currently reading.

The contents of the list are as surprising as they are eclectic - including the unexpected way that a movie inspired him to pick up a classic text. He also talks about the iPad and defacing books, alongside Mark Leyner, the author of the new book "The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack".

Watch the video above and let us know in the comments what you think of his choices.

David Plakke Media NYC Author Mark Leyner

Perhaps you know Mark Leyner as the brazen satirical writer whose absurdist novels inspired a generation of comic novelists, including Sam Lipsyte and Gary Shteyngart. Or perhaps you know him as the author of the bestselling popular medical book, “Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini.”

Or perhaps you’ve never heard of him at all. Leyner, who in the 1990s was...

The men behind Hilary Duff's new movie War Inc. felt sure they'd have to rewrite some scenes when the squeaky-clean actress landed the lead - because they'd be too crude for her.

But the game actress/pop star shocked them by going through with the risque scenarios - which included performing mock fellatio on a fuel pump and dropping a live scorpion down her pants.

Writers Jeremy Pisker and Mark Leyner say, "We wrote a scene where her character gives a blow job to a gas nozzle, and when we got Hilary to do the movie, we thought, 'Well, we've got to rewrite that.' But she did it."

And co-star John Cusack admits her fake fellatio was better than the one on paper: "She did it in a more sly way. She licked it (the nozzle) like an ice-cream cone. She did better than the script."

When it came to the scorpion scene, Duff, who plays a wildchild Eastern European pop star in the film, had nothing to lose.

She explains, "I had done so much for this film by then, I couldn't really say no."

But Duff admits she was a little concerned her tough-talking, wild character would upset her fans: "I have to have this foul mouth, be this rude and crude girl who tries to be sexy but she's so young and kind of vulgar."...

By Aaron Hillis

Cult author Mark Leyner hit his stride in the '90s with meta-fictional novels ("Et Tu, Babe," "The Tetherballs of Bougainville") and short story collections ("My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist," "Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog"), all hilariously overstimulated, fantastical parodies of mass culture and ephemeral trends both highbrow and low. He created and voiced the audio series "Wiretap" (about a 19-year-old's conversations with pal Kim Jong Il), had columns in magazines like Esquire and George, and co-wrote two books of answers to unusual medical questions with Dr. Billy Goldberg ("Why Do Men Have Nipples?", "Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?"). It was only a matter of time before Leyner's peculiar sensibilities wiggled their way into cinema.

Co-scripted by Leyner, John Cusack and "Bulworth" screenwriter Jeremy Pikser, "War, Inc" is an absurdist Iraq war satire set in the fake country of Turaqistan, where a privatized war has...

John Cusack will team up with Hilary Duff and Marisa Tomei to play the titular hitman in the dark comedy Brand Hauser. The political satire co-written by Cusack with Mark Leyner and Bulworth scribe Jeremy Pikser tells the story of an assassin who gets in way over his head when he's hired to kill a key player in the oil industry. Cusack will co-produce the project with Grace Loh through his New Crime Productions company along with Millennium's Danny Lerner and Les Weldon. Joshua Seftel is on board to direct the film, which is scheduled to begin production this month in Bulgaria.