Twixt

A United States Zoetrope production. (Worldwide sales: Pathe Intl., Paris.) Created by Francis Ford Coppola. Executive producers, Anahid Nazarian, Fred Roos. Directed, compiled by Francis Ford Coppola.Hall Baltimore - Val Kilmer Bobby LaGrange - Bruce Dern V - Elle Fanning Edgar Allan Poe - Ben Chaplin Denise - Joanne Whalley Mike - David Paymer Pastor Allan Floyd - Anthony Fusco Flamingo - Alden Ehrenreich Arbus - Bruce A. Miroglio Melvin - Don Novello Ruth - Lisa Biales Narrator - Tom WaitsOne hopes "Twixt" does not end up being Francis Ford Coppola's swan song -- though whether it does, this disarmingly cheeky, occasionally gorgeous trifle would produce the perfect bookend to some career begun almost half a century ago using the Roger Corman-created schlocker "Dementia 13." Falling somewhere betwixt might "Night time in Paris," Coppola's comic thriller follows an unexpected emergency witchcraft novelist (Val Kilmer) whose hopes for Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin) give you the grist for any modest commercial resurrection. Toying with semi-autobiography, Coppola themself slouches toward industry together with his gimmicky utilization of three dimensional in 2 moments, although wide distribution of "Twixt" seems unlikely. At this time in the lengthy, occasionally illustrious career, Coppola has gained the authority to do what he likes, which recently has led to the decently experimental (and self-funded) "Youth Without Youth" and "Tetro." "Twixt" is clearly of the piece with individuals two, climax a great deal more accessible, because of its horror-film trappings and exceedingly simple narrative. Easily the pic's most powerful element, otherwise its very reason behind being, is its group of surreal dream sequences, whose lush black-and-whitened with splashes of twinkling color recall early hands-colored cinema, in addition to Coppola's own "Rumble Seafood." Provided to booze-fueled dreams carrying out a particularly humiliating book-tour visit a little-town home improvement store, flailing author Hall Baltimore (Kilmer) imagines a woodsy encounter with spooky 12-year-old Virginia (Elle Fanning), who might be the ghost of 1 of the dozen-odd kids killed sometime ago and hidden underneath the local hotel where Poe once notoriously remained. In Hall's next dream, Poe themself appears, meting out writerly advice in addition to a couple of sparse particulars concerning the killings. Flames burn yellow during these mostly monochromatic moments, while curtains and stained-glass home windows -- and bloodstream, obviously -- have a hypnotic red-colored glow. In the comparatively dull waking existence, appropriately made by Coppola and d.p. Milhai Malaimare Junior. as something from a TV detective movie in the early '70s, Hall trades insults together with his frustrated wife (Joanne Whalley) via Skype and book ideas using the town's aspirant author, Sheriff Bobby LaGrange (a frizzy-haired and hammy Bruce Dern). At some point LaGrange breaks out a Ouija board inside a nutty bid to uncover the identity from the decades-old killer, who can also be accountable for the corpse that's laying having a stake through its heart within the sheriff's backroom morgue. The very first from the pic's two five-minute three dimensional sequences arrives around an hour in (signaled, in B-movie huckster style, with a set of stereoscopic glasses flying in to the frame), as Hall hopes for climbing the town's bell tower while children shriek, "Include us, Dad!" Because the film winds circuitously through its final half-hour, Coppola enables Hall's uncertainty over how you can conclude his work to reflect the director's own third-act dilemma. By telephone, the novelist's editor (David Paymer) requires a "great twist ending, with a lot of heart" -- an equation satisfied, following a fashion (as well as in three dimensional), by "Twixt" itself. Regardless of the finale's obvious connection to Coppola's tragic lack of his boy Gio (acknowledged ultimately credits as "creative connect"), "Twixt" registers like a refreshingly loose as well as silly work from the major filmmaker within the fall of his oeuvre. Furthermore, the pic comes closer compared to ill-fated "One In the Heart" towards the director's lengthy-mentioned ideal of iconoclastic genre filmmaking inside a controlled, studio-free atmosphere. Mainly in the dream moments, you have the sense that Coppola, secure in the legacy, prefer to push for self-reflexive humor and a number of haunting images compared to another hard-fought against masterpiece. The film's bevy of in-jokes includes Kilmer's enjoyably ridiculous impersonation of Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now," together with a throwaway mention of the that classic film's utilization of "The Finish," sang by Jim Morrison (whom Kilmer performed in "The Doorways"). If a lot of "Twixt" is something of the goof, it's one which generously allows the viewer in about the gag.Camera (color/B&W, three dimensional/2D), Milhai Malaimare Junior. editor, Robert Schafer music, Osvaldo Golijov, Serta Deacon art director, Jimmy DiMarcellis costume designer, Marjorie Bowers seem (Dolby Digital), Richard Beggs supervisory seem editor, Erectile dysfunction Callahan re-recording mixers, Angie Yesson, Beggs, Sin Cohen visual effects supervisor, Viktor Muller visual effects, VPP stunt coordinator, Tom DeWier connect producers, Masa Tsuyuki, Josh Griffith assistant director, Gregory Kent Simmons. Examined at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 11, 2011. Running time: 88 MIN. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com