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MaryAnn’s quick take… Cantankerous old grump teaches directionless young people about life… in a way that is totally obnoxious and not in the least bit convincing. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for stories about women

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

It is not impossible to tell a story about a nasty character and make us like him or her. This is not a movie that achieves that. I will credit The Last Word, however, for flipping on its head that old cliché about a cantankerous old grump finally learning the true meaning of Christmas/life/love/whatever from a spunky young person: here, it’s cantankerous old grump Harriet (Shirley MacLaine: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Bernie) who teaches some timid and directionless younger people the true meanings of things… though in a way...

MaryAnn’s quick take… Cantankerous old grump teaches directionless young people about life… in a way that is totally obnoxious and not in the least bit convincing. I’m “biast” (pro): I’m desperate for stories about women

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

It is not impossible to tell a story about a nasty character and make us like him or her. This is not a movie that achieves that. I will credit The Last Word, however, for flipping on its head that old cliché about a cantankerous old grump finally learning the true meaning of Christmas/life/love/whatever from a spunky young person: here, it’s cantankerous old grump Harriet (Shirley MacLaine: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Bernie) who teaches some timid and directionless younger people the true meanings of things… though in a way...

Author: Richard Phippen

So you’re reaching the end of your life, you wonder how you’re going to be remembered, if at all. Then you realise, everyone hates you. Your legacy is so utterly negative that your best hope is to be forgotten. What do you do? In journeyman director Mark Pellington’s film, based of first-time writer Stuart Ross Fink’s script, the answer is to write your own obituary.

Or at least, that’s what retired and rich businesswoman Harriet Lauler (Shirley MacLaine) decides to do when she realises she doesn’t have much many miles left on her clock. Indeed, Harriet bullies local newspaper editor Ron (Tom Everett Scott) into sending his obits writer Anne (Amanda Seyfried) to meet Harriet at home, get to know her, talk to friends and family and focus a life story article on the good stuff. Sadly for Harriet, there’s...

Mark Pellington’s last film, the exhausting I Melt With You, asked what would an up-its-own-ass indie about ennui and middle age look like if it its primary influences were the films of Michael Bay and a dwindling supply of cocaine. The Last Word, a generic feel-good comic drama that’s lucky to star Shirley MacLaine, couldn’t be more different. Despite its initially cranky tone and the dozen or so fucks that earn it an R rating, it’s as soft and Downy-scented as a Hallmark movie. That it starts off promisingly and then seems to drop off in quality has more to do with MacLaine’s performance than with Pellington’s fitful direction or Stuart Ross Fink’s cutesy script.

The octogenarian screen legend plays Harriet Lauler, the tut-tuting menace of the fictional town of Bristol, California—a retired ad executive known for requesting refunds for pelvic ...

When The Last Word director Mark Pellington saw his cast read through first-time screenwriter Stuart Ross Fink’s script for the first time, he new their film would be something special. Starring screen icon Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried, Anne Heche and AnnJewel Dixon, the movie that just bowed at the Sundance Film Festival follows Harriet Lauler (MacLaine), a retired octogenarian businesswoman who craves control in her life, deciding to write her own obituary with the…...

Shirley MacLaine stars in “The Last Word” as Harriet Lauler, a retired businesswoman who is underwhelmed when she hires a journalist to write her obituary before she dies. Deciding to rewrite the story of her life, she drags a few people along as unwitting accomplices. “The genesis of this idea was, ‘What kind of person would want to have their obituary written while they were still alive?” asked writer Stuart Ross Fink. “The character of Harriet Lauler was created from that question.” Writer-director Mark Pellington expounded on MacLaine’s influence on him during the shoot, and vice versa: “She’s a tough bird.

Myriad Pictures has closed deals in Cannes for Germany, Spain and Italy among others on the drama starring Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried.

Mark Pellington directed The Last Word from a screenplay by Stuart Ross Fink.

Myriad has been showing footage on the story of a difficult older woman who befriends a young journalist on an unusual assignment. The project is in post.

Deals closed in Germany (Tobis), Spain (SecondGen), Italy (Teodora), Switzerland (Praesens), Japan (Pony Canyon), Canada (Elevation), Middle East (Eagle Films), and Greece and Turkey (Tanweer).

Further acquisitions closed in Portugal (Cinemundo),

South Africa (Ster Kinekor), South Korea (Main Title), Philippines (Abs-cbn), Taiwan (VieVision), and Jaguar for airlines. 

As previously announced Bleecker Street holds rights for the Us, Scandinavia, Benelux, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Rememory

Julia Ormond is confirmed to be co-starring opposite Peter Dinklage in Mark Palansky's "Rememory". The story revolves around a professor who mysteriously dies just before the release his game changing big invention.

Ormond replaces Catherine O'Hara in the role of the professor's spouse Carolyn, who discovers the memory recoding and playing device. With the help of Dinklage's character, she uses the invention to get to the bottom of her husband's death. Palansky and Mike Vukadinovich co-wrote the film and shooting begins this month in Vancouver. [Source: Deadline]

The Last Word

Anne Heche, Philip Baker Hall, Scott Speedman and Tom Everett Scott have joined Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried in the Mark Pellington-directed "The Last Word" for Bleecker Street. Stuart Ross Fink's script has MacLaine as a retired businesswoman who writes her own obituary to ensure her life story is told her way.

Seyfried portrays a local newspaper writer...

Anne Heche, Scott Speedman, Tom Everett Scott and Philip Baker Hall have signed on to join Amanda Seyfried and Oscar winner Shirley MacLaine in Bleecker Street’s “The Last Word,” the company announced Tuesday. Production started this past weekend, with Mark Pellington (“Arlington Road”) directing from a script by Stuart Ross Fink. Pellington is also producing with Kirk D’Amico (“Margin Call”) of Myriad Pictures a and Anne-Marie MacKay of Wondros. MacLaine plays a retired businesswoman who wants to control everything around her, including her own obituary, so she writes her own to ensure her life story is told her way.