In the wake of an award-winning tour of the international festival circuit, Dan Mirvish‘s (Between Us, Bernard and Huey and a Slamdance Film Festival Co-founder) indie opus, the Watergate comedy/thriller 18½, is headed to theaters in more than 50 markets across North America beginning May 27, first opening in Laemmle theaters in Los Angeles before expanding coast-to-coast on June 3 through Adventure Entertainment.
Directed by Mirvish, from a screenplay by Daniel Moya (Killer Kate!, Rental), 18½’s stellar ensemble cast includes Willa Fitzgerald (“Reacher,” “Scream,” “The Fall of the House of Usher”), John Magaro (The Big Short, War Machine, Overlord), Vondie Curtis Hall (The Night House, “Daredevil”), Catherine Curtin (“Stranger Things,” “Werewolves Within”), Richard Kind (Argo, tick, tick… Boom!), Sullivan Jones (“The Gilded Age”), Alanna Saunders, Claire Saunders, and the legendary voices of Ted Raimi (Wishmaster, Spider-Man, Intruder), Jon Cryer (“Two and a Half Men”), and Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, “Burn Notice”) as President Richard Nixon.
Mirvish’s movie chronicles the infamous gap in Nixon’s Watergate scandal in a playful and humorous light. Taking place in 1974, the film revolves around a fictional White House transcriber who unexpectedly gets her hands on the only copy of the aforementioned 18-and-a-half-minute gap in the Nixon Watergate tapes. However, her attempts to expose the recordings to the press are thwarted by hippies, swingers and nefarious forces.
In anticipation of the film’s imminent release, CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman sat down with Mirvish who discussed the genesis behind creating a film revolving around Watergate, pulling together a top-tier cast, and why bread plays such a prominent role in the film’s narrative.
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