Exclusive: Ocsar-nominated Shine director Scott Hicks’ projects about musician Ben Folds have been taken on for distribution by Banijay Rights.
The director’s features will world-premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival later this month and see Hicks combine with celebrated producers Kerry Heysen and Jett Heysen-Hicks.
Inspired by the 25th anniversary of Shine, which starred Geoffrey Rush as a pianist who suffered a mental breakdown and spent years in institutions, The Musical Mind: A Portrait in Process explores the power of the musical brain. Hicks reveals the creative process of elite international musicians focusing on Shine subject David Helfgott, Australian rock star Daniel Johns, Shine star Simon Tedeschi and Folds.
The latter is the subject of My Name’s Ben Folds, I Play Piano, a symphonic concert spectacle featuring the Emmy-nominated composer with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The film offers unique coverage of the rock pianist including the creation of a new song from scratch,...
The director’s features will world-premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival later this month and see Hicks combine with celebrated producers Kerry Heysen and Jett Heysen-Hicks.
Inspired by the 25th anniversary of Shine, which starred Geoffrey Rush as a pianist who suffered a mental breakdown and spent years in institutions, The Musical Mind: A Portrait in Process explores the power of the musical brain. Hicks reveals the creative process of elite international musicians focusing on Shine subject David Helfgott, Australian rock star Daniel Johns, Shine star Simon Tedeschi and Folds.
The latter is the subject of My Name’s Ben Folds, I Play Piano, a symphonic concert spectacle featuring the Emmy-nominated composer with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The film offers unique coverage of the rock pianist including the creation of a new song from scratch,...
- 10/14/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
The ailing screen production sector is set to get a major boost with more than $80 million worth of films, TV dramas and a documentary receiving funding from Screen Australia.
The agency is investing more than $12 million in four features, four adult dramas, two children.s dramas and a theatrical doc. In addition Scroz is providing completion funding to sex comedy The Little Deaths, writer-director Josh Lawson.s feature debut.
The projects include a Blinky Bill animated movie, a comedy set during the Cronulla race riots, the long-mooted Molly Meldrum TV drama and The Principal, the first drama commissioned by Sbs since Better Man.
.We have backed some of our great contemporary writers, directors and producers, alongside some exciting new voices, . said Screen Australia head of production Sally Caplan.
.The projects target audiences as diverse as Australia is today, with projects which are ambitious, risk-taking and culturally important, revealing we have...
The agency is investing more than $12 million in four features, four adult dramas, two children.s dramas and a theatrical doc. In addition Scroz is providing completion funding to sex comedy The Little Deaths, writer-director Josh Lawson.s feature debut.
The projects include a Blinky Bill animated movie, a comedy set during the Cronulla race riots, the long-mooted Molly Meldrum TV drama and The Principal, the first drama commissioned by Sbs since Better Man.
.We have backed some of our great contemporary writers, directors and producers, alongside some exciting new voices, . said Screen Australia head of production Sally Caplan.
.The projects target audiences as diverse as Australia is today, with projects which are ambitious, risk-taking and culturally important, revealing we have...
- 8/6/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Tweens. Fallen angels. Supernatural occurrences. A love triangle. Lots and lots of brooding. Yep it's a familiar formula and you'll find it in spades once the big screen adaptation of Lauren Kate's Fallen gets here. Speaking of which, we have your first look... furrowed brows and all.
From the Press Release
Based on the worldwide bestselling book series, Fallen is seen through the eyes of Lucinda “Luce” Price, a strong-willed seventeen-year-old living a seemingly ordinary life until she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit. Sent off to the imposing Sword & Cross reform school, Luce finds herself being courted by two young men to whom she feels oddly connected. Isolated and haunted by strange visions, Luce begins to unravel the secrets of her past and discovers the two men are fallen angels, competing for her love for centuries. Luce must choose where her feelings lie, pitting Heaven...
From the Press Release
Based on the worldwide bestselling book series, Fallen is seen through the eyes of Lucinda “Luce” Price, a strong-willed seventeen-year-old living a seemingly ordinary life until she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit. Sent off to the imposing Sword & Cross reform school, Luce finds herself being courted by two young men to whom she feels oddly connected. Isolated and haunted by strange visions, Luce begins to unravel the secrets of her past and discovers the two men are fallen angels, competing for her love for centuries. Luce must choose where her feelings lie, pitting Heaven...
- 5/2/2014
- by Steve Barton
- DreadCentral.com
Scheduled for a 2015 theatrical release, here’s a first look at Fallen. Based on the worldwide bestselling book series by Lauren Kate, Australian filmmaker Scott Hicks (Shine) will direct from a script by Michael Ross.
Fallen is seen through the eyes of Lucinda “Luce” Price, a strong-willed seventeen-year-old living a seemingly ordinary life until she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit. Sent off to the imposing Sword & Cross reform school, Luce finds herself being courted by two young men to whom she feels oddly connected. Isolated and haunted by strange visions, Luce begins to unravel the secrets of her past and discovers the two men are fallen angels, competing for her love for centuries. Luce must choose where her feelings lie, pitting Heaven against Hell in an epic battle over true love.
Fallen stars Addison Timlin (Stand Up Guys), Jeremy Irvine (War Horse), Harrison Gilbertson (Need For Speed...
Fallen is seen through the eyes of Lucinda “Luce” Price, a strong-willed seventeen-year-old living a seemingly ordinary life until she is accused of a crime she didn’t commit. Sent off to the imposing Sword & Cross reform school, Luce finds herself being courted by two young men to whom she feels oddly connected. Isolated and haunted by strange visions, Luce begins to unravel the secrets of her past and discovers the two men are fallen angels, competing for her love for centuries. Luce must choose where her feelings lie, pitting Heaven against Hell in an epic battle over true love.
Fallen stars Addison Timlin (Stand Up Guys), Jeremy Irvine (War Horse), Harrison Gilbertson (Need For Speed...
- 5/2/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
A group of Australia’s top film-makers have joined international counterparts in asking where all the women are in the Cannes Film Festival selection.
After not one film by a female director was selected at the Cannes Film Festival, film-maker Gillian Armstrong, along with other film-makers from Australia and around the world have ask the festival to reveal its selection criteria.
Led by Melissa Silverstein, founder of the Women and Hollywood blog on the Indiewire Network the campaign asks for transparency from the festival.
Silverstein said: “While the typical Cannes stories focus on the glamour, clothes and celebrities on the red carpet, this year many articles are focused on whether the festival is sexist. The fact that the festival’s director, Thierry Fremaux, as well as the jury had to address this issue at the opening is a big deal.”
On the lack of women, festival director Thierry Fremaux said:...
After not one film by a female director was selected at the Cannes Film Festival, film-maker Gillian Armstrong, along with other film-makers from Australia and around the world have ask the festival to reveal its selection criteria.
Led by Melissa Silverstein, founder of the Women and Hollywood blog on the Indiewire Network the campaign asks for transparency from the festival.
Silverstein said: “While the typical Cannes stories focus on the glamour, clothes and celebrities on the red carpet, this year many articles are focused on whether the festival is sexist. The fact that the festival’s director, Thierry Fremaux, as well as the jury had to address this issue at the opening is a big deal.”
On the lack of women, festival director Thierry Fremaux said:...
- 5/18/2012
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
In theaters Friday, April 20, Zac Efron stars with Taylor Schilling and Blythe Danner in the romantic drama The Lucky One, directed by Academy Award®-nominated writer/director Scott Hicks (“Shine”), based on Nicholas Sparks’ bestseller The Lucky One.
U.S. Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault (Efron) returns from his third tour of duty in Iraq, with the one thing he credits with keeping him alive.a photograph he found of a woman he doesn’t even know. Discovering her name is Beth (Schilling) and where she lives, he shows up at her door, and ends up taking a job at her family-run local kennel. Despite her initial mistrust and the complications in her life, a romance develops between them, giving Logan hope that Beth could be much more than his good luck charm.
Warner Bros Pictures and Wamg invite you to enter for your chance to win passes to the advance screening of The Lucky One.
U.S. Marine Sergeant Logan Thibault (Efron) returns from his third tour of duty in Iraq, with the one thing he credits with keeping him alive.a photograph he found of a woman he doesn’t even know. Discovering her name is Beth (Schilling) and where she lives, he shows up at her door, and ends up taking a job at her family-run local kennel. Despite her initial mistrust and the complications in her life, a romance develops between them, giving Logan hope that Beth could be much more than his good luck charm.
Warner Bros Pictures and Wamg invite you to enter for your chance to win passes to the advance screening of The Lucky One.
- 4/10/2012
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO — It's easy to believe that composer Philip Glass, whose so-called minimalist works often repeat themselves into transcendence, is a disciplined practitioner of Eastern meditation. But who'd have guessed he bakes mouthwatering pizza? Such are the personal tidbits revealed in Scott Hicks's "Glass", an entertaining pic that will fascinate admirers but is wide-ranging and unpretentious enough to engage those intimidated by Glass' aesthetic. Within the arena of artist-centric docs, theatrical prospects are solid.
Declaring its intentions immediately with scenes of Glass enjoying himself at Coney Island, the movie is at least as concerned with the ins and outs of the subject's daily life as with his place in music history. More so, to tell the truth, much to the probable relief of non-musicologists in the audience. We spend a fair bit of time watching Glass hang out with his family in New York and Nova Scotia (in an idyllic beachside compound with multiple small cabins for artists who come visit) and more among the various spiritual teachers, whose backgrounds range from Taoist to Toltec, with whom he studies.
Glass is no R. Crumb, and he admits that his biggest secret is that he gets up early and works hard, but he's not a bore, either. Down-to-earth and open, he talks about his work in layman-friendly terms. Many of the most interesting anecdotes here are less about the music than the way it entered the public sphere: tales of that much-romanticized period in New York when artists with crazy ideas could live almost for free and make names for themselves without going through normal cultural channels.
Painter Chuck Close, another veteran of that scene, provides some context about those years before going off on an amusing tangent about his famous series of portraits based on a single photo of Glass. The thing that kept him coming back to the image in different styles, we're not surprised to hear, was the fascinating dendritic curl of the young composer's hair.
The doc proceeds through segments devoted to single events like the career-making opera "Einstein on the Beach", to work in progress like "Symphony No. 8", and, of most interest to a film-fest crowd, his prolific career composing movie scores. Errol Morris, Woody Allen, and Martin Scorsese put in appearances that both entertain and enlighten, and as we watch Glass in his studio we happen to glimpse a scene from "No Reservations" -- which Hicks was wrapping up while shooting this film.
The twelve-part structure, echoing the twelve notes of the chromatic scale and the title of one of Glass's most famous compositions, may sound like a precious conceit, but Hicks for the most part makes it work. Longtime fans might wish, say, for one or two of the segments focused on current work to be redirected toward his more groundbreaking compositions, but the behind-the-scenes appeal afforded by "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Orion" is some compensation. Whether it will seem doc-worthy or not on its own in years to come, it allows a glimpse of a compositional method that seemingly consists of equal parts artistic inspiration and plain old hard work.
GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS
No Distributor
Kino Films / Independent Media / Kojo Pictures
Director: Scott Hicks
Producers: Scott Hicks, Susanne Preissler
Executive producers: Kerry Heysen, Roger Sexton
Director of photography: Scott Hicks
Co-producer: Lindsay Skutch
Editor: Stephen Jess
No MPAA rating, running time 119 minutes...
TORONTO — It's easy to believe that composer Philip Glass, whose so-called minimalist works often repeat themselves into transcendence, is a disciplined practitioner of Eastern meditation. But who'd have guessed he bakes mouthwatering pizza? Such are the personal tidbits revealed in Scott Hicks's "Glass", an entertaining pic that will fascinate admirers but is wide-ranging and unpretentious enough to engage those intimidated by Glass' aesthetic. Within the arena of artist-centric docs, theatrical prospects are solid.
Declaring its intentions immediately with scenes of Glass enjoying himself at Coney Island, the movie is at least as concerned with the ins and outs of the subject's daily life as with his place in music history. More so, to tell the truth, much to the probable relief of non-musicologists in the audience. We spend a fair bit of time watching Glass hang out with his family in New York and Nova Scotia (in an idyllic beachside compound with multiple small cabins for artists who come visit) and more among the various spiritual teachers, whose backgrounds range from Taoist to Toltec, with whom he studies.
Glass is no R. Crumb, and he admits that his biggest secret is that he gets up early and works hard, but he's not a bore, either. Down-to-earth and open, he talks about his work in layman-friendly terms. Many of the most interesting anecdotes here are less about the music than the way it entered the public sphere: tales of that much-romanticized period in New York when artists with crazy ideas could live almost for free and make names for themselves without going through normal cultural channels.
Painter Chuck Close, another veteran of that scene, provides some context about those years before going off on an amusing tangent about his famous series of portraits based on a single photo of Glass. The thing that kept him coming back to the image in different styles, we're not surprised to hear, was the fascinating dendritic curl of the young composer's hair.
The doc proceeds through segments devoted to single events like the career-making opera "Einstein on the Beach", to work in progress like "Symphony No. 8", and, of most interest to a film-fest crowd, his prolific career composing movie scores. Errol Morris, Woody Allen, and Martin Scorsese put in appearances that both entertain and enlighten, and as we watch Glass in his studio we happen to glimpse a scene from "No Reservations" -- which Hicks was wrapping up while shooting this film.
The twelve-part structure, echoing the twelve notes of the chromatic scale and the title of one of Glass's most famous compositions, may sound like a precious conceit, but Hicks for the most part makes it work. Longtime fans might wish, say, for one or two of the segments focused on current work to be redirected toward his more groundbreaking compositions, but the behind-the-scenes appeal afforded by "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Orion" is some compensation. Whether it will seem doc-worthy or not on its own in years to come, it allows a glimpse of a compositional method that seemingly consists of equal parts artistic inspiration and plain old hard work.
GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS
No Distributor
Kino Films / Independent Media / Kojo Pictures
Director: Scott Hicks
Producers: Scott Hicks, Susanne Preissler
Executive producers: Kerry Heysen, Roger Sexton
Director of photography: Scott Hicks
Co-producer: Lindsay Skutch
Editor: Stephen Jess
No MPAA rating, running time 119 minutes...
This review was written for the theatrical release of "No Reservations"."No Reservations" is that rare thing -- an almost literal American remake of a foreign film, in this case writer-director Sandra Nettelbeck's "Mostly Martha". Which means that no one on this side of the Atlantic solved the problems of the original film, and therefore they carry over into this character-driven comedy about food, love and gourmet chefs. With Catherine Zeta-Jones top-billed and key art that suggests "Taming of the Shrew" in the kitchen, Warner Bros. Pictures should see solid middle-range business domestically. In Europe, the film could get mileage out of curiosity over what the Yanks did with the original German-Austrian-Swiss-Italian co-production.
Transferred from a trendy restaurant in Hamburg, Germany, to Manhattan's West Village, this American version hits a perfectionist female head chef, Kate (Zeta-Jones), with the same double whammy: The death of her sister in a car crash saddles the childless Kate, who shuns any and all personal relationships, with her 9-year-old niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin). Meanwhile, the restaurant's owner, Paula (Patricia Clarkson), hires a new sous-chef, free-spirited and Italian-trained Nick (Aaron Eckhart), without telling Kate.
Predictably, the Kate-Zoe relationship hits many bumps before they become a family, while Nick and Kate battle one another until they fall in love. It's a pity, though, that we can see everything coming, especially when many of the dust-ups between each pair feel so damned contrived. The same held true with the European film, yet first-time writer Carol Fuchs and director Scott Hicks stick to the original with near slavish devotion.
So even small details remain: The chef still berates a customer who thinks her foie gras is faulty. She cools out in the freezer and regularly sees a shrink (Bob Balaban), a mundane device to suck more back story out of the character. One wise omission from the original is the niece's long-lost father, a character that can only get in the way.
Thus, "No Reservations", like its predecessor, has a very thin comic crust covering a very shallow dish. The chef is anal-retentive, the niece grumpy and the sous-chef aggressively jovial without any investigation into what inspires these characteristics. No one seems to have a life outside the kitchen.
Worse, the film feels miscast. Neither Zeta-Jones nor Eckhart look the least bit comfortable in a restaurant kitchen. More troubling, they look downright uncomfortable with each other. Sparks not only don't fly, their pairing is like kung pao sauce with pasta.
At one point, Zoe tells her aunt not to try so hard to be nice, but the problem is everyone is trying too hard. Zeta-Jones is a solid and beautiful presence, yet handcuffed by a basically colorless character. Eckhart is more a collection of characteristics than a flesh-and-blood character. Breslin is asked to pitch too many fits over nothing.
"No Reservations" also apes the original film in its blatant theft from that terrific restaurant comedy, "Big Night", by swamping the soundtrack in Italian "classics" ranging from pop songs to opera. There is scarcely any room for the most minimalist and atypical film score of Philip Glass' career, consisting of a few brief, upbeat bars that play over montages and scene transitions. Stuart Dryburgh's camera moves in the kitchen and restaurant are inventive without being distracting, while Barbara Ling's design is always eye-catching.
NO RESERVATIONS
Warner Bros. Pictures
Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Village Roadshow Pictures
Credits:
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenwriter: Carol Fuchs
Based on the screenplay "Mostly Martha" by: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Kerry Heysen, Sergio Aguero
Executive producers: Susan Cartsonis, Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh
Production designer: Barbara Ling
Music: Philip Glass
Co-producer: Mari Joe Winkler-Ioffreda
Costume designer: Melissa Toth
Editor: Pip Karmel
Cast:
Kate: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Nick: Aaron Eckhart
Zoe: Abigail Breslin
Paula: Patricia Clarkson
Leah: Jenny Wade
Therapist: Bob Balaban
Sean: Brian F. O'Byrne
Running time -- 103 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Transferred from a trendy restaurant in Hamburg, Germany, to Manhattan's West Village, this American version hits a perfectionist female head chef, Kate (Zeta-Jones), with the same double whammy: The death of her sister in a car crash saddles the childless Kate, who shuns any and all personal relationships, with her 9-year-old niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin). Meanwhile, the restaurant's owner, Paula (Patricia Clarkson), hires a new sous-chef, free-spirited and Italian-trained Nick (Aaron Eckhart), without telling Kate.
Predictably, the Kate-Zoe relationship hits many bumps before they become a family, while Nick and Kate battle one another until they fall in love. It's a pity, though, that we can see everything coming, especially when many of the dust-ups between each pair feel so damned contrived. The same held true with the European film, yet first-time writer Carol Fuchs and director Scott Hicks stick to the original with near slavish devotion.
So even small details remain: The chef still berates a customer who thinks her foie gras is faulty. She cools out in the freezer and regularly sees a shrink (Bob Balaban), a mundane device to suck more back story out of the character. One wise omission from the original is the niece's long-lost father, a character that can only get in the way.
Thus, "No Reservations", like its predecessor, has a very thin comic crust covering a very shallow dish. The chef is anal-retentive, the niece grumpy and the sous-chef aggressively jovial without any investigation into what inspires these characteristics. No one seems to have a life outside the kitchen.
Worse, the film feels miscast. Neither Zeta-Jones nor Eckhart look the least bit comfortable in a restaurant kitchen. More troubling, they look downright uncomfortable with each other. Sparks not only don't fly, their pairing is like kung pao sauce with pasta.
At one point, Zoe tells her aunt not to try so hard to be nice, but the problem is everyone is trying too hard. Zeta-Jones is a solid and beautiful presence, yet handcuffed by a basically colorless character. Eckhart is more a collection of characteristics than a flesh-and-blood character. Breslin is asked to pitch too many fits over nothing.
"No Reservations" also apes the original film in its blatant theft from that terrific restaurant comedy, "Big Night", by swamping the soundtrack in Italian "classics" ranging from pop songs to opera. There is scarcely any room for the most minimalist and atypical film score of Philip Glass' career, consisting of a few brief, upbeat bars that play over montages and scene transitions. Stuart Dryburgh's camera moves in the kitchen and restaurant are inventive without being distracting, while Barbara Ling's design is always eye-catching.
NO RESERVATIONS
Warner Bros. Pictures
Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Village Roadshow Pictures
Credits:
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenwriter: Carol Fuchs
Based on the screenplay "Mostly Martha" by: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Kerry Heysen, Sergio Aguero
Executive producers: Susan Cartsonis, Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh
Production designer: Barbara Ling
Music: Philip Glass
Co-producer: Mari Joe Winkler-Ioffreda
Costume designer: Melissa Toth
Editor: Pip Karmel
Cast:
Kate: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Nick: Aaron Eckhart
Zoe: Abigail Breslin
Paula: Patricia Clarkson
Leah: Jenny Wade
Therapist: Bob Balaban
Sean: Brian F. O'Byrne
Running time -- 103 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 7/23/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
No Reservations is that rare thing -- an almost literal American remake of a foreign film, in this case writer-director Sandra Nettelbeck's Mostly Martha. Which means that no one on this side of the Atlantic solved the problems of the original film, and therefore they carry over into this character-driven comedy about food, love and gourmet chefs. With Catherine Zeta-Jones top-billed and key art that suggests Taming of the Shrew in the kitchen, Warner Bros. Pictures should see solid middle-range business domestically. In Europe, the film could get mileage out of curiosity over what the Yanks did with the original German-Austrian-Swiss-Italian co-production.
Transferred from a trendy restaurant in Hamburg, Germany, to Manhattan's West Village, this American version hits a perfectionist female head chef, Kate (Zeta-Jones), with the same double whammy: The death of her sister in a car crash saddles the childless Kate, who shuns any and all personal relationships, with her 9-year-old niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin). Meanwhile, the restaurant's owner, Paula (Patricia Clarkson), hires a new sous-chef, free-spirited and Italian-trained Nick (Aaron Eckhart), without telling Kate.
Predictably, the Kate-Zoe relationship hits many bumps before they become a family, while Nick and Kate battle one another until they fall in love. It's a pity, though, that we can see everything coming, especially when many of the dust-ups between each pair feel so damned contrived. The same held true with the European film, yet first-time writer Carol Fuchs and director Scott Hicks stick to the original with near slavish devotion.
So even small details remain: The chef still berates a customer who thinks her foie gras is faulty. She cools out in the freezer and regularly sees a shrink (Bob Balaban), a mundane device to suck more back story out of the character. One wise omission from the original is the niece's long-lost father, a character that can only get in the way.
Thus, No Reservations, like its predecessor, has a very thin comic crust covering a very shallow dish. The chef is anal-retentive, the niece grumpy and the sous-chef aggressively jovial without any investigation into what inspires these characteristics. No one seems to have a life outside the kitchen.
Worse, the film feels miscast. Neither Zeta-Jones nor Eckhart look the least bit comfortable in a restaurant kitchen. More troubling, they look downright uncomfortable with each other. Sparks not only don't fly, their pairing is like kung pao sauce with pasta.
At one point, Zoe tells her aunt not to try so hard to be nice, but the problem is everyone is trying too hard. Zeta-Jones is a solid and beautiful presence, yet handcuffed by a basically colorless character. Eckhart is more a collection of characteristics than a flesh-and-blood character. Breslin is asked to pitch too many fits over nothing.
No Reservations also apes the original film in its blatant theft from that terrific restaurant comedy, Big Night, by swamping the soundtrack in Italian "classics" ranging from pop songs to opera. There is scarcely any room for the most minimalist and atypical film score of Philip Glass' career, consisting of a few brief, upbeat bars that play over montages and scene transitions. Stuart Dryburgh's camera moves in the kitchen and restaurant are inventive without being distracting, while Barbara Ling's design is always eye-catching.
NO RESERVATIONS
Warner Bros. Pictures
Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Village Roadshow Pictures
Credits:
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenwriter: Carol Fuchs
Based on the screenplay Mostly Martha by: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Kerry Heysen, Sergio Aguero
Executive producers: Susan Cartsonis, Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh
Production designer: Barbara Ling
Music: Philip Glass
Co-producer: Mari Joe Winkler-Ioffreda
Costume designer: Melissa Toth
Editor: Pip Karmel
Cast:
Kate: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Nick: Aaron Eckhart
Zoe: Abigail Breslin
Paula: Patricia Clarkson
Leah: Jenny Wade
Therapist: Bob Balaban
Sean: Brian F. O'Byrne
Running time -- 103 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Transferred from a trendy restaurant in Hamburg, Germany, to Manhattan's West Village, this American version hits a perfectionist female head chef, Kate (Zeta-Jones), with the same double whammy: The death of her sister in a car crash saddles the childless Kate, who shuns any and all personal relationships, with her 9-year-old niece, Zoe (Abigail Breslin). Meanwhile, the restaurant's owner, Paula (Patricia Clarkson), hires a new sous-chef, free-spirited and Italian-trained Nick (Aaron Eckhart), without telling Kate.
Predictably, the Kate-Zoe relationship hits many bumps before they become a family, while Nick and Kate battle one another until they fall in love. It's a pity, though, that we can see everything coming, especially when many of the dust-ups between each pair feel so damned contrived. The same held true with the European film, yet first-time writer Carol Fuchs and director Scott Hicks stick to the original with near slavish devotion.
So even small details remain: The chef still berates a customer who thinks her foie gras is faulty. She cools out in the freezer and regularly sees a shrink (Bob Balaban), a mundane device to suck more back story out of the character. One wise omission from the original is the niece's long-lost father, a character that can only get in the way.
Thus, No Reservations, like its predecessor, has a very thin comic crust covering a very shallow dish. The chef is anal-retentive, the niece grumpy and the sous-chef aggressively jovial without any investigation into what inspires these characteristics. No one seems to have a life outside the kitchen.
Worse, the film feels miscast. Neither Zeta-Jones nor Eckhart look the least bit comfortable in a restaurant kitchen. More troubling, they look downright uncomfortable with each other. Sparks not only don't fly, their pairing is like kung pao sauce with pasta.
At one point, Zoe tells her aunt not to try so hard to be nice, but the problem is everyone is trying too hard. Zeta-Jones is a solid and beautiful presence, yet handcuffed by a basically colorless character. Eckhart is more a collection of characteristics than a flesh-and-blood character. Breslin is asked to pitch too many fits over nothing.
No Reservations also apes the original film in its blatant theft from that terrific restaurant comedy, Big Night, by swamping the soundtrack in Italian "classics" ranging from pop songs to opera. There is scarcely any room for the most minimalist and atypical film score of Philip Glass' career, consisting of a few brief, upbeat bars that play over montages and scene transitions. Stuart Dryburgh's camera moves in the kitchen and restaurant are inventive without being distracting, while Barbara Ling's design is always eye-catching.
NO RESERVATIONS
Warner Bros. Pictures
Castle Rock Entertainment in association with Village Roadshow Pictures
Credits:
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenwriter: Carol Fuchs
Based on the screenplay Mostly Martha by: Sandra Nettelbeck
Producers: Kerry Heysen, Sergio Aguero
Executive producers: Susan Cartsonis, Bruce Berman
Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh
Production designer: Barbara Ling
Music: Philip Glass
Co-producer: Mari Joe Winkler-Ioffreda
Costume designer: Melissa Toth
Editor: Pip Karmel
Cast:
Kate: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Nick: Aaron Eckhart
Zoe: Abigail Breslin
Paula: Patricia Clarkson
Leah: Jenny Wade
Therapist: Bob Balaban
Sean: Brian F. O'Byrne
Running time -- 103 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 7/23/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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