Rod Lurie wrote and directed the widely praised Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominated political thriller “The Contender,” starring Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman and Christian Slater. The film was also honored by the Broadcast Film Critics with the first-ever Alan J. Pakula Award. His latest film, “Straw Dogs,” is a remake of the 1971 classic, starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, and Alexander Skarsgard, and was released in September, 2011.
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Rex Sikes’ Movie Beat chats with director Rod Lurie
Lurie’s other most recent projects include “Nothing But the Truth,” starring Kate Beckinsale, Alan Alda, and Matt Dillon, “Resurrecting the Champ,” which starred Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett, the ABC drama “Commander in Chief,” a show centered on the first female President of the United States starring Geena Davis and Donald Sutherland which he created and executive produced, the military prison thriller “The Last Castle,“ which starred Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo and co-star Brian Goodman, who was part of the cast of “Line of Fire,” the one-hour FBI drama that he Executive Produced for ABC.
Lurie made his film writing and directing debut in 1998 with the dramatic short “Four Second Delay,” which won the Best Short Film award at the Atlanta Film Festival and the Crested Butte Reel Fest. The film also won the Prix du Jury at the Festival of American Cinema in Deauville, France. Lurie followed in 2000 with his first feature film “Deterrence,” a drama about America coming to the brink of nuclear war, starring Kevin Pollak and Timothy Hutton.
Before he segued to filmmaking, Lurie first enjoyed success as a film critic and entertainment reporter, after completing a career in the military. Lurie graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984 and went on to serve for four years as a Combat Arms officer in the U.S. Army. He broke into journalism as an entertainment reporter for the New York Daily News, and was also a film critic and interviewer for Channel 12 in Fairfield, Connecticut. In addition, he was a frequent contributor to such magazines as Premiere, Movieline and Entertainment Weekly.
After moving to Los Angeles, Lurie worked as a film critic, investigative reporter and contributing editor to Los Angeles Magazine from 1990-1995. As an investigative reporter in the entertainment industry, Lurie’s discovery of unethical and illegal practices of tabloid newspapers gained him national exposure on programs such as “60 Minutes,” “Entertainment Tonight,” “The Larry King Show,” “Nightline,” “Geraldo” and “The Jane Whitney Show.”
He spent the next four years as the film critic for 790 AM KABC Radio in Los Angeles, where his top-rated movie review show entertained Southern California moviegoers every Saturday from 1995 to 1999. His on-air guests included: Tom Hanks, James Woods, Billy Bob Thornton, Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Landau, James Cameron and Mel Gibson. In addition, Lurie authored the book Once Upon A Time in Hollywood in 1995.
