Tom McCarthy

Tom McCarthy to Write Supernatural Family Comedy HOME MOVIES

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: June 7th, 2011 at 12:50 pm

Win Win writer-director Tom McCarthy has made three outstanding films but his most recent gigs are writing jobs only (at least at this point).  In February, he was hired to write the inspirational sports drama Million Dollar Arm, and now he’s been hired to write the supernatural family comedy Home Movies for DreamWorks  According to Heat Vision, the story “centers on a man who is able to revisit certain moments in his life through his home movies and change things.”  That’s an intriguing premise and it seems like a script that’s well-suited for McCarthy.  All of his previous movies not only find honest drama, but they’re earnest and never resort to cheap laughs.

Director Tom McCarthy Talks WIN WIN, THE MILLION DOLLAR ARM, Working for Pixar & Making UP, More

by Ron Messer    Posted: April 11th, 2011 at 9:31 am

After three weeks of rave reviews in selected cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Phoenix, Win Win expanded to a host of new cities this weekend.  It paid off with $5,398 per theater, (in the top 5 averages over the past 3 days) and $1.22 million overall.  We’ve spread out our interviews with the film’s Oscar-nominated stars Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and newcomer Alex Shaffer through the platform release because highly praised independent films which actually exceed that hype are rare and deserve all the extended support that sites like the one you’re reading can provide.

That brings us to our fourth installment: an interview with the film’s Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor and Up).  For a writer, director and actor who is so meticulous about his work on both sides of the camera, he was surprisingly open about his process in all three disciplines.  Hit the jump for the interview’s audio and transcript, including a look inside Pixar, the latest on The Million Dollar Arm, how Patricia Clarkson one-upped him on The Station Agent and his memories of an indie film trailblazer.  Continued after the jump.

Alex Shaffer Interview WIN WIN

by Ron Messer    Posted: April 2nd, 2011 at 8:00 am

Win Win is easily one of the best-reviewed films of 2011.  The film’s success is especially impressive, given that it rests so heavily on the performance of a teenager whose only prior acting experience came in a high school class and a small role in his 6^th grade production of The Pirates of Penzance.  17-year-old Alex Shaffer delivers a strikingly assured film debut opposite three Oscar nominees: (Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and Burt Young), an Emmy winner (Bobby Cannavale) and a 6-time Emmy nominee (Jeffrey Tambor).  Luckily for the film, which continues its national rollout this weekend in a host of new cities and theaters, Alex wasn’t phased.

Shaffer filled Collider in on how much his life has changed since he went to the fateful audition that he had to be hassled into attending by a friend.  Hit the jump for the audio and transcript of our lively exchange, including stories of why he had a hard time staying awake on set, whether he’d still pick wrestling over acting and which famous actor had him tongue-tied at Sundance.

7 Clips from WIN WIN Starring Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: March 14th, 2011 at 12:45 pm

One of the best films I saw at Sundance was Tom McCarthy’s Win Win.  The film centers on a struggling lawyer (Paul Giamatti) who inadvertently ends up housing a young teenage wrestler (Alex Shaffer). While the film is somewhat lighter than McCarthy’s previous films (The Station Agent and The Visitor) it still hits strong emotional beats without coming off as cloying and dodges the indie comedy trap of being quirky for the sake of being quirky.  Instead, McCarthy rests Win Win on honest performances of strong, well-written characters.

Hit the jump to check out the clips and click here for my full review.  Win Win also stars Amy Ryan, Bobby Cannavale, Melanie Lynskey, Burt Young, and Jeffrey Tambor.  It opens in limited release this Friday.

Tom McCarthy to Write Sports Drama MILLION DOLLAR ARM

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: February 8th, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Actor/writer/director Tom McCarthy has written and directed three great movies with The Station Agent, The Visitor, and Win Win (he also worked on the story for Pixar’s Up).  Now Disney is hiring him to pen the sports drama Million Dollar Arm.  According to THR, the story is “based on the inspirational story of how sports agent J.B. Bernstein discovered professional pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel through his Indian reality show.”

Hit the jump to learn about Singh and Patel’s story and why I think McCarthy could do wonders with it.  I’ve also included video of an ESPN Outside the Lines piece on Singh and Patel.

Trailer for WIN WIN Starring Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, and Bobby Cannavale

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: February 2nd, 2011 at 12:53 pm

One of the best movies I saw at Sundance this year was Tom McCarthy’s Win Win.  The film is warm, touching, and incredibly funny.  Fox Searchlight has now released a trailer for the flick and I think it does a fine job of selling the picture without giving too much away.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer and click here to read my review of the film.  Win Win stars Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Melanie Lynskey, Jeffrey Tambor, Bobby Cannavale, and Alex Shaffer.  It opens March 18th.

Sundance 2011: WIN WIN Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: January 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm

I still have plenty of movies left to see at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, but I don’t know if any will leave me smiling as much as Tom McCarthy’s Win Win.  The movie a gigantic ball of warmth filled with terrific performances, smart humor, and genuine emotions.  Even a glaring narrative question doesn’t slow the film down because you’re too busy caring about the characters and their journey.  Everything in Win Win is earned, from the laughs to the sentiment, and the payoff is tremendous.

First Clip from WIN WIN Starring Paul Giamatti

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: January 22nd, 2011 at 12:50 pm

In our recent interview with Paul Giamatti — shortly before he won the Golden Globe for his performance in Barney’s Version — one of the many projects he talked about was Win Win.  You sense  his enthusiasm for the movie and his respect for writer/director Tom McCarthy:

“It’s a very nice movie directed by this guy Tom, written and directed by this guy Tom McCarthy who did The Station Agent and The Visitor… And he wrote Up too. He wrote the movie Up. He’s a great guy. It’s a great movie.”

Giamatti plays “a disheartened attorney moonlighting as a high school wrestling coach” in Win Win, which just premiered at Sundance in advance of a March 25 release from Fox Searchlight.  Hit the jump to see an amusing clip from the movie of Giamatti and co-star Bobby Cannavale, plus brief Q&A’s with Giamatti and young actor Alex Shaffer at premiere.

Sundance 2011: First Images from WIN WIN Starring Paul Giamatti and SALVATION BOULEVARD Starring Pierce Brosnan

by Adam Chitwood    Posted: December 15th, 2010 at 11:33 am

We’re bringing you the first images from films premiering at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and today we’ve got two films that will have their out-of-competition premieres at the festival: Win Win and Salvation Boulevard. Win Win features Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, and Jeffrey Tambor. The film comes from writer/director Tom McCarthy (The Visitor), and centers on an attorney (Giamatti) moonlighting as a high school wrestling instructor who stumbles upon a star athlete with a mother fresh out of rehab.

Salvation Boulevard is a comedy starring Pierce Brosnan, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Greg Kinnear, Marisa Tomei, and Jim Gaffigan. The flick centers on the head of a mega-church (Brosnan) who frames an ex-hippie for a crime he didn’t commit. Hit the jump to check out images and a brief synopsis for both films. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

McCarthy Rounds Out Cast for WIN WIN

by Keith Demko    Posted: March 12th, 2010 at 7:59 am

Tom McCarthy, who along with starring in the final season of The Wire has directed the indie favorites The Station Agent and the even better The Visitor, has booked his next directing project as Win Win, and it’s taking shape very quickly.

With shooting set to start Monday in New York, Fox Searchlight has announced that Melanie Lynskey, Bobby Cannavale and, yes, even Arrested Development vet Jeffrey Tambor will join the already unveiled Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan in the flick.

So, what’s it about? The story–also written by McCarthy–is about a struggling attorney (Giamatti) who moonlights as a high school coach. He becomes the legal guardian of an elderly client, and when the old man’s teenage son runs away, Giamatti’s character’s family ends up taking him in. The lad goes on to join the wrestling team and, well, you can imagine it will get pretty uplifting from there – but, in the hands of McCarthy, I’d imagine pretty darn entertaining and insightful too, so definitely keep your eyes on this one.

­Amy Ryan Interview GREEN ZONE

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: March 10th, 2010 at 10:34 pm

After a long time paying her dues, Amy Ryan had a great decade.  After all, anytime you’re nominated for an Academy Award (Gone Baby Gone) and have a great part on one of the best shows in the history of television (The Wire), you’ve had a good run.  But she’s not sitting back and resting on past glory, as she plays a reporter in Paul Greengrass’ new film Green Zone, and she’s also in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut Jack Goes Boating – which premiered at Sundance a few months ago.

With Green Zone opening this weekend, I was able to participate in a roundtable interview with this great actress last week in New York City.  We talked about making Green Zone, will she come back to The Office, her next project with Tom McCarthy called Win Win, and reveals David Simon asked her to be a part of his new HBO show Treme, but she was pregnant at the time.

It’s a great in depth interview, so hit the jump and take a look:

Oscar-nominated Director Tom McCarthy Looking to Give WIN WIN to a “Real Kid”

by Bill Graham    Posted: February 8th, 2010 at 2:19 pm

Tom McCarthy, best known for the brilliant Oscar-nominated character study The Visitor, is scouting for the lead role in his next film, Win Win, according to MyCentralJersey, and the movie is expected to be a “light-hearted comedy” about high school wrestling. Win Win, loosely based around McCarthy’s high school friend and fellow wrestler Joe Tiboni, is given this description in the piece:

“A film about how a rough-and-tumble runaway changes the lives of a suburban New Jersey family and turns around the luck of a high school wrestling team.”

McCarthy, joined by Tiboni and actor and friend Paul Giamatti, was in a New Jersey high school gym, looking for the lead role of Kyle, a flawed character who is kind but has a vicious temper stemming from his rough home. “I’m looking for a real kid,” McCarthy told the website, noting that “wrestling experience is a plus.”

For more on the film, including McCarthy’s ideal attributes for Kyle, the reasoning behind finding a “real kid,” and why The Playlist thinks Giamatti might star, hit the jump.

First Footage from JACK GOES BOATING (2 Movie Clips) Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Directorial Debut!

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: January 22nd, 2010 at 2:45 pm

One of the movies I can’t wait to see while here at the Sundance Film Festival is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut Jack Goes Boating.  The film premieres tomorrow night here in Park City and while no trailer has yet been released, we’ve landed the first footage from the film and it’s two clips from the movie.  While I think Hoffman is one of the best actors working in the industry, it remains to be seen if he has the talent behind the camera.  We’ll all know soon enough as reviews will be everywhere this weekend.  According to the synopsis:

Jack Goes Boating is a tale of love, betrayal, friendship and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples.

If you’d like to check out two scenes from the film, hit the jump.  Jack Goes Boating stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Tom McCarthy.

Copyright ©2005 - 2012. All Rights Reserved. California web design