Ow.
The CGI-tastic summer movie blockbuster season has left my eyes sore and my ears ringing. How about a smallish period piece to ease into the fall?
Locally filmed "The Last of Robin Hood," about the final years of swashbuckling Hollywood star Errol Flynn, hits theaters Sept. 5. Actually, "hits" is probably the wrong word. Unlike the explosion-happy action thrillers that have rocked movieplexes all summer long, this one arrives onto the theater calendar with all the bombast of a damp cocktail napkin hitting the bar after last call. At press time, "Robin Hood" was due to open at Lefont Sandy Springs; check Fandango.com to see if other theaters sign on.
Kevin Kline plays the womanizing Flynn, teetering through his boozy twilight with just enough stamina left to hit on underage starlets. Flynn died in 1959 at a prematurely wizened 50. Kline, a youthful 66, steps into the character well, given the city miles Flynn logged during his years of hard drinking.
Dakota Fanning plays Flynn's much-younger love interest Beverly Aadland, and Susan Sarandon plays Beverly's opportunistic stage mother, Florence.
Filmmakers Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer worked for years to bring "Robin Hood" to fruition, relying on the late Florence Aadland's memoir "The Big Love" and interviews with the late Beverly Aadland before her death in 2010.
“We needed the movie to be as much about Beverly as it was about Florence,” Westmoreland said. “It was a balancing act to get the tone right, to keep it from being too camp.”
The movie is set in late 1950s Hollywood with stops in a few other spots, and was shot in Atlanta. Filming locations included the splendid mansion at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, the Fox Theatre, Fulton County Airport at Charlie Brown Field and a private home in Midtown’s Sherwood Forest neighborhood.
“We had an incredible time in Atlanta making it,” said Westmoreland, who wrote and directed the movie with Glatzer. “The city has a lot of secret places that haven’t been filmed before and haven’t been altered. Although Atlanta is a very modern city, it still has these little pockets.”
The pair hopes to return for future projects.
“We made Atlanta look like L.A., New York, Africa, Cuba and Canada,” Westmoreland said. “Atlanta can do anything.”
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