The pace of his film career down to a crawl, it would make sense that Mike Myers, hoping to continue in the field, would reach toward another avenue: directing. According to Deadline, he and A&E IndieFilms (they of the A&E TV) have partnered to bring about a documentary by the title of Supermensch, which will shed light on the life and career of music manager Shep Gordon — a collaboration of director and subject that had previously occurred, under different occupations, on Wayne’s World. Remember the scene with Alice Cooper? Paramount had to go through him to attain a song.
Now, he gets his own movie. Some quotes would indicate that Myers has already eked material out of Gordon — who, by the way, he describes as “a perfect combination of Brian Epstein, Marshall McLuhan and Mr Magoo” — though the state of progress hasn’t been illustrated, exactly. Like almost any documentary about a single man’s life, there ought to be a wealth of historical footage and photos to dig through — especially given the helmer’s intent to “[go] back to his career break after a chance encounter in 1968 with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.” That I don’t know an awful lot about Gordon‘s influence on the wide, constantly shifting music industry is all the more reason to anticipate this — a project with all the more interest because of Myers‘ jump into new waters.
Speaking of, Natalie Portman is fulfilling a years-old ambition to make a feature debut. After cutting her teeth on the short film Eve and piece of the omnibus New York, I Love You, she’s conducting work on an adaptation of author Amos Oz‘s autobiography, A Tale of Love and Darkness. The project was given his approval back in the primitive days of 2007; with the actress handing in a screenplay, co-written with two unlisted scribes — which the original source is also pleased with, too — Israeli locations are to be scouted in the next couple of months. [Israel Hayom]
Here’s a description of the novel, from Amazon:
“Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this extraordinary memoir is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.
It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was twelve and a half years old, his mother committed suicide, a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen and joins a kibbutz, changes his name, marries, has children, and finally becomes a writer as well as an active participant in the political life of Israel.
A story of clashing cultures and lives, of suffering and perseverance, of love and darkness.”
Is Myers’ switch to filmmaking something you’d like to see play out? Any thoughts on a Portman-directed title?