Rod Lurie
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Rod Lurie
Biography
Joining the ranks of movie critics-turned-directors, Rod Lurie earned his Hollywood stripes by guiding Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges to Oscar nominations in only his second feature, The Contender (2000).Lurie seemed to be destined for an entirely different profession when he opted to attend college at the prestigious West Point military academy. After graduating in 1984, Lurie served as a Combat Arms officer in the Army for four years. Finished with the military by the late '80s, Lurie turned to the movies, working as an entertainment reporter for the New York Daily News and a freelance magazine writer. Relocating to Los Angeles, Lurie wrote for Los Angeles magazine, published a book, and became the film critic for KABC radio in 1995. During his four years at KABC, Lurie met Joan Allen at an awards show and declared that he was going to write a screenplay tailored to her talents.
While still a critic, Lurie made a foray into filmmaking with the low-budget feature Deterrence (2000). A chamber thriller involving the first Jewish president and a possible nuclear strike on Iraq, Deterrence got little attention but it presaged Lurie's interest in political stories. Lurie then made good on his promise to Allen with The Contender, about a Democratic senator's embattled appointment to be the first female Vice President. Stepping down from his KABC post in 1999, Lurie rounded up a stellar cast to support Allen, including Bridges as the sly, shark-eating President and Gary Oldman as Allen's nefarious Republican nemesis. Distributed by Dreamworks after it was independently produced, The Contender attracted praise for the performances and criticism for the facile, potboiler sex-and-politics plot; the conservative Oldman publicly kicked up a fuss over the film's apparent "liberalization" at the hands of Dreamworks. Regardless, Allen earned a nomination for Best Actress, while Bridges (not Oldman) got a Supporting Actor nod.
Lurie subsequently got to use his West Point experience when Dreamworks hired him to direct the military prison drama The Last Castle (2001), starring Robert Redford as a jailed general (and West Point grad). Though Lurie convinced James Gandolfini to play the corrupt warden with the promise that Gandolfini would be an Oscar-friendly Salieri to Redford's Mozart, The Last Castle proved to be no Amadeus (1984) on its unimpressive release. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
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Rod Lurie
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Rod Lurie
| Rod Lurie | |
|---|---|
 Lurie, September 8, 2008 |
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| Born | May 15, 1962 Israel |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter |
Rod Lurie (born May 15, 1962) is an Israeli-American director, screenwriter and former film critic.[1]
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Early life and career
The son of internationally syndicated cartoonist Ranan Lurie, he was born in Israel but moved to the United States at a young age, growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Honolulu, Hawaii.
Graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984, he served in the US Army as an Air Defense Artillery officer, then became an entertainment reporter and film critic, including stints at Channel 12 in Fairfield, Connecticut, the New York Daily News, Premiere, Movieline, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles, and talk radio shows at KMPC and KABC, where his tactical on-air bets with Martin Landau, Mel Gibson and James Cameron that they would win the Oscar resulted in them having to pay up at the Academy Awards ceremony by publicly thanking him in their acceptance speeches.
As an investigative reporter in the entertainment industry, his discovery of unethical and illegal practices at tabloid newspapers gained him national exposure on programs such as 60 Minutes, Entertainment Tonight, Larry King Live, Nightline, and Geraldo. His irreverent style, however (he once described Danny DeVito as a "testicle with arms"), often raised controversy and got him banned from screenings.
In 1995, his book Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Moviemaking, Con Games, and Murder in Glitter City, was published.
Film and TV career
Lurie's first foray into filmmaking, as writer and director, was the low-budget political thriller Deterrence (1999), with Kevin Pollak as the first Jewish President of the United States.[2]
His second was The Contender (2000), written for Joan Allen and co-starring Gary Oldman and Jeff Bridges.[3]
His next effort (directing only), The Last Castle (2001)[4] with Robert Redford and James Gandolfini, was a commercial failure; as was Line of Fire, his 2003–04 TV series about the FBI's office in Richmond, Virginia, which starred David Paymer as a mob boss.
Lurie then wrote and directed Nothing But the Truth, which is based on the stories of Valerie Plame and Judith Miller, which stars Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Angela Bassett, Alan Alda and David Schwimmer.[5] Lurie insisted his film is not intended to be an accurate depiction of the Plame Affair, but merely a vehicle to explore a similar situation, which he then takes several steps further. "You look at the story that happened in reality, and Judy Miller gets some sort of permission to speak and then speaks. So what? Nothing really big came of the whole thing," explained Lurie in an interview[6] published prior to the film's release. "I tried to make a movie that's a commercial thriller as well as being something that's topical."
Lurie worked on Resurrecting the Champ, a boxing drama, and recently served as creator and executive producer of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, which starred Geena Davis as the United States' first female President, Mackenzie Allen.[7] The show's high ratings plummeted after Lurie's departure from the show and its cancellation followed.[8]
Lurie worked for ABC, but his contract, which was terminated during the writers' strike, was not renewed when it ended.[9]
Lurie places tributes to his alma mater in his shows: Deterrence had an aide-de-camp to the President admitting he had to settle for the United States Air Force Academy because he couldn't get into West Point. Also, in The Contender, Bridges' president Evans can be seen wearing a West Point sweatshirt during the film.
The characters of President Jackson Evans (The Contender), prison inmate Lt. Gen. Eugene Irwin (The Last Castle), FBI agent Paige Van Doren (Line of Fire), and Vice Presidential nominee Gen. (ret.) Warren Keaton (Commander in Chief) are all fictional graduates of the "Long Gray Line".
Lurie also directed the remake of the home invasion thriller Straw Dogs.[10][11]
Personal life
Lurie lives in Los Angeles. He is the son of cartoonist Ranan Lurie. He has two children, Hunter and Paige.
References
- ^ New York Times
- ^ New York Times
- ^ New York Times
- ^ New York Times
- ^ New York Times
- ^ "Rod Lurie: Nothing But the Truth". SuicideGirls.com. 15 December 2008. http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Rod+Lurie%3A+Nothing+But+the+Truth/. Retrieved December 15, 2008..
- ^ New York Times
- ^ TV Guide
- ^ Variety, Feb 13, 2008"Writers return to cloudy field: Terminated deals/scribes shake up industry"
- ^ Director Rod Lurie on the Straw Dogs Remake
- ^ Director Rod Lurie Discusses Hard-R 'Straw Dogs' Remake
External links
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Mentioned in
Nothing But the Truth
(2008 Drama Film)
The Contender
(2000 Drama Film)
The Last Castle
(2001 Thriller Film)
Julie Ann Emery
(Actor, Drama)
Deterrence
(2000 Thriller Film)
» More