All that glitters certainly isn’t gold, as “Glitter” cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson knows all too well. During a recent interview, Simpson told IndieWire that the newfound cult fandom around Mariah Carey’s 2001 film debut is staggering, as “Glitter” is “one of the 10 worst movies.” The “Center Stage” and “Under the Tuscan Sun” director of photography looked back on the feature that was released September 21, 2001 — after its soundtrack came out on 9/11.
In the film, Carey stars as a young singer who overcomes an abusive childhood to reach stardom alongside a toxic boyfriend. “Glitter” was directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall and cleared $5.3 million at the global box office against a $22 million budget. Carey developed the story behind “Glitter” with “What’s Love Got to Do with It” screenwriter Kate Lanier and playwright Cheryl L. West. Padma Lakshmi, Eric Benét, Max Bessley, Terence Howard, and Da Brat also starred.
In November 2018, a Carey fan-led hashtag...
In the film, Carey stars as a young singer who overcomes an abusive childhood to reach stardom alongside a toxic boyfriend. “Glitter” was directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall and cleared $5.3 million at the global box office against a $22 million budget. Carey developed the story behind “Glitter” with “What’s Love Got to Do with It” screenwriter Kate Lanier and playwright Cheryl L. West. Padma Lakshmi, Eric Benét, Max Bessley, Terence Howard, and Da Brat also starred.
In November 2018, a Carey fan-led hashtag...
- 9/22/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Two decades ago, one jilted heart found its way to Italy as part of the iconic, genre-redefining film “Under the Tuscan Sun.” Starring Diane Lane as Frances, a San Francisco writer who jets to Europe after realizing her soon-to-be ex-husband is cheating on her, the 2003 film cemented the early aughts’ obsession with starting over again. “Under the Tuscan Sun” was based on a real-life Frances, author Frances Mayes to be exact, whose memoir was adapted by late writer-director Audrey Wells for the big screen.
Frances, newly jilted and with the emotional support of her best friend Patti (Sandra Oh), escapes both midlife crises and bad American men by traveling across the globe for a luxury vacation. She falls in love with a Tuscan villa and opts to renovate it while bonding with locals, including the seductive Marcello (Raoul Bova).
“Under the Tuscan Sun” spurred the iconic vacation-in-a-movie feeling, kicking off...
Frances, newly jilted and with the emotional support of her best friend Patti (Sandra Oh), escapes both midlife crises and bad American men by traveling across the globe for a luxury vacation. She falls in love with a Tuscan villa and opts to renovate it while bonding with locals, including the seductive Marcello (Raoul Bova).
“Under the Tuscan Sun” spurred the iconic vacation-in-a-movie feeling, kicking off...
- 9/1/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Gillian Armstrong and Murray Forrest. (Photo credit: Peter Jackson)
Gillian Armstrong has won one of the Australian cinema industry’s highest honours, the Murray Forrest Award for Excellence in Filmcraft.
The trailblazing director whose My Brilliant Career was the first Australian feature directed by a woman in 46 years received the award at the Australian International Movie Convention.
Accepting the award, Armstrong was self-deprecating, observing: “I could not type or cook or drive so it was good to find something I wasn’t too bad at.”
She paid tribute to her numerous collaborators including first Ad, the late Mark Turnbull, film editor Nicholas Beauman and DOPs Don McAlpine, Russell Boyd, Dion Beebe and Geoffrey Simpson.
Also she thanked distributors and exhibitors, acknowledging “nothing beats the terror of audiences and the first weekend in cinemas.”
There was nothing glamorous about working in the film industry, especially getting up at 4.30 am and toiling...
Gillian Armstrong has won one of the Australian cinema industry’s highest honours, the Murray Forrest Award for Excellence in Filmcraft.
The trailblazing director whose My Brilliant Career was the first Australian feature directed by a woman in 46 years received the award at the Australian International Movie Convention.
Accepting the award, Armstrong was self-deprecating, observing: “I could not type or cook or drive so it was good to find something I wasn’t too bad at.”
She paid tribute to her numerous collaborators including first Ad, the late Mark Turnbull, film editor Nicholas Beauman and DOPs Don McAlpine, Russell Boyd, Dion Beebe and Geoffrey Simpson.
Also she thanked distributors and exhibitors, acknowledging “nothing beats the terror of audiences and the first weekend in cinemas.”
There was nothing glamorous about working in the film industry, especially getting up at 4.30 am and toiling...
- 10/24/2019
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
Emily Mortimer.
Carver Films’ Anna McLeish and Sarah Shaw have enlisted an A-list cast and some Hollywood heavy-hitters as co-producers and executive producers for Natalie Erika James’ debut feature Relic.
Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote will star in the horror movie which centres on three generations of women – daughter, mother and grandmother – who are haunted by a manifestation of aged dementia that takes over their family home.
Nine Stories’ Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker are producing together with McLeish and Shaw. Anthony and Joe Russo (directors of Marvel’s Captain America and Avengers franchise) and Mike Larocca are executive producing and co-financing via their upstart studio Agbo, which will handle international sales.
Bella Heathcote.
Co-written by James and Christian White, shooting starts in Victoria next week, with funding from Screen Australia and Film Victoria. Umbrella Entertainment is the Australian distributor.
“Relic was inspired by the experience of Alzheimer...
Carver Films’ Anna McLeish and Sarah Shaw have enlisted an A-list cast and some Hollywood heavy-hitters as co-producers and executive producers for Natalie Erika James’ debut feature Relic.
Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote will star in the horror movie which centres on three generations of women – daughter, mother and grandmother – who are haunted by a manifestation of aged dementia that takes over their family home.
Nine Stories’ Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker are producing together with McLeish and Shaw. Anthony and Joe Russo (directors of Marvel’s Captain America and Avengers franchise) and Mike Larocca are executive producing and co-financing via their upstart studio Agbo, which will handle international sales.
Bella Heathcote.
Co-written by James and Christian White, shooting starts in Victoria next week, with funding from Screen Australia and Film Victoria. Umbrella Entertainment is the Australian distributor.
“Relic was inspired by the experience of Alzheimer...
- 10/2/2018
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
From the producers of Jennifer Kent’s critically acclaimed 2014 Australian horror The Babadook comes a fantastically well devised, gripping and hugely compelling post-apocalyptic movie with a difference. Displaying strong indie credentials from the get go, Cargo presents a bleak and harrowing vision of a future dominated by a violent pandemic which turns anyone infected into a rabid flesh-eating zombie. Staring Martin Freeman as desperate man in a race against time to save his child from a gruesome fate, the film plays with the usual zombie movie tropes all the while providing a rich and dense story of human resilience in the face of unmitigated violence and utter despair.
Adapted by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke from their 2013 short film of the same name, Cargo tells the story of a Andy (Martin Freeman), a father stranded in the middle of a zombie apocalypse in rural Australia with his infant daughter. When...
Adapted by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke from their 2013 short film of the same name, Cargo tells the story of a Andy (Martin Freeman), a father stranded in the middle of a zombie apocalypse in rural Australia with his infant daughter. When...
- 5/14/2018
- by Linda Marric
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
In 2013’s “Cargo,” a seven-minute viral video that cleverly subverted several walking-dead clichés, directors Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke devised a novel way for a zombie-bitten father to lead his uninfected infant child to safety. Now, reteaming with star Martin Freeman for the Netflix-bound feature version, the duo wind up indulging the overplayed tropes at which they poked fun five years earlier — most notably, the existential questions raised when parents or spouses are infected, knowing they will soon become a threat to those they love most.
Less a straightforward walking-dead nightmare than a low-key drama about humanity’s capacity for compassion and cruelty in the face of disaster, this familiar saga eschews jolting scares for survival-esque (and dark-heart-of-man) thrills, relying largely on Freeman’s compelling lead turn to set it apart from the genre.
Coasting down a middle-of-nowhere Australian river in a borrowed houseboat, Andy (Freeman) is only intent...
Less a straightforward walking-dead nightmare than a low-key drama about humanity’s capacity for compassion and cruelty in the face of disaster, this familiar saga eschews jolting scares for survival-esque (and dark-heart-of-man) thrills, relying largely on Freeman’s compelling lead turn to set it apart from the genre.
Coasting down a middle-of-nowhere Australian river in a borrowed houseboat, Andy (Freeman) is only intent...
- 4/24/2018
- by Nick Schager
- Variety Film + TV
There is good news and bad news about Kriv Stenders’ neo-noir film Kill Me Three Times. The good news is that it’s fun to see Simon Pegg enjoying himself as a real scumbag of a hitman. The bad news is that if you’ve seen a handful of crime movies in the last 20 years, you’ve already seen most of what Kill Me Three Times has to offer.
Simon Pegg plays Charlie Wolfe, a contract killer we meet as he chases down and executes some poor sap in the desert. He’s hired to take out Alice (Alice Braga, Predators) for reasons not made clear at first, but when he shows up to do the job he discovers that she’s already been rubbed out by married dentists Nathan (Sullivan Stapleton, 300: Rise of an Empire) and Lucy (Theresa Palmer, Warm Bodies). They’re looking to cash in an...
Simon Pegg plays Charlie Wolfe, a contract killer we meet as he chases down and executes some poor sap in the desert. He’s hired to take out Alice (Alice Braga, Predators) for reasons not made clear at first, but when he shows up to do the job he discovers that she’s already been rubbed out by married dentists Nathan (Sullivan Stapleton, 300: Rise of an Empire) and Lucy (Theresa Palmer, Warm Bodies). They’re looking to cash in an...
- 3/27/2015
- by Patrick Bromley
- DailyDead
Despite an off-color performance by Simon Pegg as a psychopath with a smile, Kill Me Three Times wastes a perfectly good ensemble cast on a crime caper that lacks motivation, purpose and surprise. Not only that, but Kriv Stenders’ Australian thriller begs the question on everyone’s mind – there’s really another f*cking Hemsworth brother? Wait, that’s just me? Sorry, right.
The real question on everyone’s mind is how do you waste such a charmingly devilish performance by Pegg on more of the same colorful dramatics that everyone has been attempting to recreate since Pulp Fiction? Australia may be a beautiful oasis, and Stenders sure shows off those crystal-clear Aussie beaches whenever he and cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson get a chance, but you can only dazzle an audience with shimmering blue waters and clay-toned gulches for so long.
Pegg plays Charlie Wolfe, a busy hitman taking care of...
The real question on everyone’s mind is how do you waste such a charmingly devilish performance by Pegg on more of the same colorful dramatics that everyone has been attempting to recreate since Pulp Fiction? Australia may be a beautiful oasis, and Stenders sure shows off those crystal-clear Aussie beaches whenever he and cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson get a chance, but you can only dazzle an audience with shimmering blue waters and clay-toned gulches for so long.
Pegg plays Charlie Wolfe, a busy hitman taking care of...
- 3/23/2015
- by Matt Donato
- We Got This Covered
Kriv Stenders is not a filmmaker whose name I knew before this, but "Kill Me Three Times" suggests he has both a slick sense of style and a wicked nasty sense of humor. The film stars Simon Pegg as a slimy hitman named Charlie Wolfe, and it is a sort of sun-drenched round robin of terrible people doing terrible things to one another to largely charming effect. The script by James McFarland fractures the story into three overlapping chunks of time, doubling back on itself to illuminate why people are behaving certain ways, but it's actually a fairly simple story once it becomes untangled. Someone hires Charlie to kill someone else, and that someone may not be on the level. Charlie may not be on the level, either. Basically, it is a movie of double and triple crosses in which pretty much everyone deserves what they get, all set in...
- 9/9/2014
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Teresa Palmer, Callan Mulvey, Luke Hemsworth and Bryan Brown have joined the cast of Kill Me Three Times, Kriv Stenders. crime thriller which started shooting in Perth on Monday.
That quartet adds a fair bit of star-power to the already-announced Simon Pegg, Alice Braga (the Brazilian actress who stars in Elysium) and Sullivan Stapleton. Scripted by first-timer James McFarland, an Irishman, the tale of murder, blackmail and revenge is set in an Australian surfing town.
The subject sounds far removed from Stenders. breakthrough hit Red Dog but he says there are similarities. .This is a fun, commercial movie,. he told If today on his way to the set. .It plays with the genre and doesn.t take itself too seriously. Like Red Dog it.s made for a broad international audience..
The producers are Laurence Malkin and Share Stallings (the team behind Death At A Funeral and A Few Best Men) and Tania Chambers,...
That quartet adds a fair bit of star-power to the already-announced Simon Pegg, Alice Braga (the Brazilian actress who stars in Elysium) and Sullivan Stapleton. Scripted by first-timer James McFarland, an Irishman, the tale of murder, blackmail and revenge is set in an Australian surfing town.
The subject sounds far removed from Stenders. breakthrough hit Red Dog but he says there are similarities. .This is a fun, commercial movie,. he told If today on his way to the set. .It plays with the genre and doesn.t take itself too seriously. Like Red Dog it.s made for a broad international audience..
The producers are Laurence Malkin and Share Stallings (the team behind Death At A Funeral and A Few Best Men) and Tania Chambers,...
- 9/17/2013
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Screen Australia says it has not mismanaged its finances by spending its annual production funding in just six months - a state of affairs which it says reflects the strength of the local film industry.
The government screen agency revealed in mid-December 2012 that it had spent its entire annual $42 million drama production allocation due to the unprecedented number of quality feature film and television projects seeking support. The shock announcement was reminiscent of the agency's abrupt decision to cut its investment cap in 2009 while several films were mid-financed. That decision.threw several major Australian productions into dissaray including The Tree and the biggest box office hit of.2010, Tomorrow When the War Began (Omnilab Media had to increase its investment at the last minute to ensure production).
Overspending on such a scale has never occurred before, even going back to the era of Screen Australia.s predecessor funding arm, the Film Finance Corporation.
The government screen agency revealed in mid-December 2012 that it had spent its entire annual $42 million drama production allocation due to the unprecedented number of quality feature film and television projects seeking support. The shock announcement was reminiscent of the agency's abrupt decision to cut its investment cap in 2009 while several films were mid-financed. That decision.threw several major Australian productions into dissaray including The Tree and the biggest box office hit of.2010, Tomorrow When the War Began (Omnilab Media had to increase its investment at the last minute to ensure production).
Overspending on such a scale has never occurred before, even going back to the era of Screen Australia.s predecessor funding arm, the Film Finance Corporation.
- 2/6/2013
- by Brendan Swift
- IF.com.au
French actress Emmanuelle Béart has been added to the cast of Australian film My Mistress alongside Harrison Gilbertson and Rachael Blake ahead of shooting later this month on the Gold Coast.
The film received Screen Australia funding in November. It’s directed by Stephen Lance and written by Top of the Lake’s Gerard Lee with production by Bran Nue Dae’s Robyn Kershaw and distributed by Transmission Films.
The announcement:
Internationally acclaimed French actress Emmanuelle Béart (A Heart in Winter, Nathalie, Manon of the Spring, Mission: Impossible) will join one of Australia’s rising international stars, AFI Award‐winning Harrison Gilbertson (U.S. independent film Haunt – in the title role opposite Jacki Weaver, Accidents Happen, Blessed, Beneath Hill 60, Conspiracy 365) and AFI Award‐winning actress Rachael Blake (Sleeping Beauty, Lantana, Hawke) in the seductive and touching new film My Mistress.
What starts as a beautiful and strangely innocent...
The film received Screen Australia funding in November. It’s directed by Stephen Lance and written by Top of the Lake’s Gerard Lee with production by Bran Nue Dae’s Robyn Kershaw and distributed by Transmission Films.
The announcement:
Internationally acclaimed French actress Emmanuelle Béart (A Heart in Winter, Nathalie, Manon of the Spring, Mission: Impossible) will join one of Australia’s rising international stars, AFI Award‐winning Harrison Gilbertson (U.S. independent film Haunt – in the title role opposite Jacki Weaver, Accidents Happen, Blessed, Beneath Hill 60, Conspiracy 365) and AFI Award‐winning actress Rachael Blake (Sleeping Beauty, Lantana, Hawke) in the seductive and touching new film My Mistress.
What starts as a beautiful and strangely innocent...
- 1/10/2013
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
Though Ben Lewin’s The Sessions is, at times, a wildly imperfect film, the project has such a strong heart, and features so many moments of sheer cinematic beauty, that I found it impossible not to be moved. This is an uplifting story about an inspirational man, told with passion, grace, and insight. It should not be missed.
John Hawkes, in a performance that shall be recorded in the annals of film history, stars as Mark O’Brien, a poet paralyzed from polio. He only has control over his head, and spends twenty hours a day living in an iron lung. For the three to four hours each day he has out of the lung, he still must lie flat, usually in a gurney, while attendants help him go outside and visit places, like local parks, or a Church where he seeks spiritual guidance from his Priest and friend, Father...
John Hawkes, in a performance that shall be recorded in the annals of film history, stars as Mark O’Brien, a poet paralyzed from polio. He only has control over his head, and spends twenty hours a day living in an iron lung. For the three to four hours each day he has out of the lung, he still must lie flat, usually in a gurney, while attendants help him go outside and visit places, like local parks, or a Church where he seeks spiritual guidance from his Priest and friend, Father...
- 11/1/2012
- by Jonathan R. Lack
- We Got This Covered
Based on the poignantly optimistic autobiographical writings of California.based journalist and poet Mark O.Brien, The Sessions tells the story of a man who lived most of his life in an iron lung who is determined – at age 38 – to lose his virginity. With the help of his therapist and the guidance of his priest, he sets out to make his dream a reality.
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents, in association with Such Much Films and Rhino Films, The Sessions with a cast including John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William H. Macy. The film also stars Moon Bloodgood, Annika Marks, Rhea Perlman, W. Earl Brown, Robin Weigert, Blake Lindsley, Ming Lo, Jennifer Kumiyama, Rusty Schwimmer, James Martinez with Adam Arkin. The film is written for the screen and directed by Ben Lewin. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it took home the coveted Audience Award and the Jury Prize for ensemble cast.
Fox Searchlight Pictures presents, in association with Such Much Films and Rhino Films, The Sessions with a cast including John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William H. Macy. The film also stars Moon Bloodgood, Annika Marks, Rhea Perlman, W. Earl Brown, Robin Weigert, Blake Lindsley, Ming Lo, Jennifer Kumiyama, Rusty Schwimmer, James Martinez with Adam Arkin. The film is written for the screen and directed by Ben Lewin. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it took home the coveted Audience Award and the Jury Prize for ensemble cast.
- 10/24/2012
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Medibank has launched a campaign aimed at families that introduces the new tagline, ‘Everything in between’.
The agency behind the campaign was Whybin\Tbwa Group Melbourne, which won the account in June.
Chris Carroll, Gm of marketing at Mediabank, commented: “This new campaign is more than just an advertising idea, it marks a new phase in Medibank’s journey toward being a health partner. The campaign developed by Whybin\Tbwa sees the full integration of the brand across all of our communications, enabling the Medibank brand to speak with one voice to all of our members’ and people who are making the decision to purchase health insurance.”
Mark Watkin, MD of Whybin\Tbwa Group Melbourne added: “We’re happy to see this first phase of the activity for Medibank, it creates a new platform across all areas of their business. We look forward to next iterations.”
Credits: Families Campaign: Everything...
The agency behind the campaign was Whybin\Tbwa Group Melbourne, which won the account in June.
Chris Carroll, Gm of marketing at Mediabank, commented: “This new campaign is more than just an advertising idea, it marks a new phase in Medibank’s journey toward being a health partner. The campaign developed by Whybin\Tbwa sees the full integration of the brand across all of our communications, enabling the Medibank brand to speak with one voice to all of our members’ and people who are making the decision to purchase health insurance.”
Mark Watkin, MD of Whybin\Tbwa Group Melbourne added: “We’re happy to see this first phase of the activity for Medibank, it creates a new platform across all areas of their business. We look forward to next iterations.”
Credits: Families Campaign: Everything...
- 9/4/2012
- by Robin Hicks
- Encore Magazine
More than 200 people last night saw director Bruce Beresford launch a much-anticipated history of cinematography in Australia, written and compiled by filmmaker Martha Ansara.
The Shadowcatchers; A History of Cinematography in Australia is nearly 300 pages in length and includes nearly 400 photographs of working cinematographers taken on films sets from 1901 to the present day. It includes carefully researched text, biographies of significant Australian cinematographers, and personal anecdotes.
Ansara, Ron Johanson, national president of the Australian Cinematographers Society (Acs) and Calvin Gardiner, chair of the Acs book committee, all spoke at the event, held at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School. Committee members helped on every aspect of the book.s development, writing, picture selection and production.
Many stills photographers, cinematographers, directors, producers, archivists and others also contributed to the massive effort which was published by the Acs and designed by Armedia.
Video messages from Dean Semler and Don McAlpine were shown,...
The Shadowcatchers; A History of Cinematography in Australia is nearly 300 pages in length and includes nearly 400 photographs of working cinematographers taken on films sets from 1901 to the present day. It includes carefully researched text, biographies of significant Australian cinematographers, and personal anecdotes.
Ansara, Ron Johanson, national president of the Australian Cinematographers Society (Acs) and Calvin Gardiner, chair of the Acs book committee, all spoke at the event, held at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School. Committee members helped on every aspect of the book.s development, writing, picture selection and production.
Many stills photographers, cinematographers, directors, producers, archivists and others also contributed to the massive effort which was published by the Acs and designed by Armedia.
Video messages from Dean Semler and Don McAlpine were shown,...
- 6/1/2012
- by Inside Film Correspondent
- IF.com.au
Ad agency Bmf has created a new ad for CommBank.
The ad is for Everyday Settlement, a new service improvement for businesses customers that means card sales are settled into business accounts on the same day, all year round.
The idea behind the ad is to show how slow other banks are at settling card sales by comparison to CommBank.
The TV ads, which comes about a month after CommBank concluded a global creative pitch, are supported by press, radio, online and in-branch activity.
Martin Whelan, Gm, marketing business & institutional banking says: ”We know that people are more willing to engage with brands that don’t just say, but demonstrate how they are different. Challenging our competitors and demonstrating our technological leadership with a little sense of humour was the best way tobring this concept to life.”
Credits:
Agency – Bmf
Executive Creative Directors - Carlos Alija and Laura Sampredo
Creative...
The ad is for Everyday Settlement, a new service improvement for businesses customers that means card sales are settled into business accounts on the same day, all year round.
The idea behind the ad is to show how slow other banks are at settling card sales by comparison to CommBank.
The TV ads, which comes about a month after CommBank concluded a global creative pitch, are supported by press, radio, online and in-branch activity.
Martin Whelan, Gm, marketing business & institutional banking says: ”We know that people are more willing to engage with brands that don’t just say, but demonstrate how they are different. Challenging our competitors and demonstrating our technological leadership with a little sense of humour was the best way tobring this concept to life.”
Credits:
Agency – Bmf
Executive Creative Directors - Carlos Alija and Laura Sampredo
Creative...
- 3/12/2012
- by Robin Hicks
- Encore Magazine
The Hunter has lead the Aacta Awards with 14 nominations including best film.
The film, by Daniel Nettheim, is also up for best direction, adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound, production design, costume, original music score, and visual effects. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, Sam Neill and Morgana Davies are all up for acting awards.
The film has currently made just over $1m at the local box office.
It’s the first year for the re-launched AACTAs, formerly the AFI awards.
The technical awards will be given out at a luncheon on 15 January at the Sydney Opera House, with an evening ceremony for the more ‘public-friendly’ awards held at the Opera House on 31 January.
Running against The Hunter for best film is Red Dog, Mad Bastards, The Eye of the Storm, Snowtown and Oranges and Sunshine.
The Eye of the Storm, was second in the nominations race with 12, of which six are...
The film, by Daniel Nettheim, is also up for best direction, adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound, production design, costume, original music score, and visual effects. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, Sam Neill and Morgana Davies are all up for acting awards.
The film has currently made just over $1m at the local box office.
It’s the first year for the re-launched AACTAs, formerly the AFI awards.
The technical awards will be given out at a luncheon on 15 January at the Sydney Opera House, with an evening ceremony for the more ‘public-friendly’ awards held at the Opera House on 31 January.
Running against The Hunter for best film is Red Dog, Mad Bastards, The Eye of the Storm, Snowtown and Oranges and Sunshine.
The Eye of the Storm, was second in the nominations race with 12, of which six are...
- 11/30/2011
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
(My Cannes review re-posted as Sleeping Beauty is released in the UK today)
Oh dear. One of the most hyped films of the whole 64th Cannes Film festival, Julia’s Leigh’s supposedly shocking and eye-opening Australian film Sleeping Beauty opened with even less than a whimper at yesterday evening’s press screening… playing to absolute silence at the Debussy. You could have literally heard a pin drop when the credits rolled and I don’t think the silence was out of the kind of bewilderment at what was being screened to us that the filmmaker intended.
It was more… ‘Why… was that screened?”
I’ve heard of films being booed at Cannes but never anything like this – just radio silence. After a couple of seconds of no reaction there was a timid and apologetic applause perhaps from Leigh’s team who worked on the movie...
(My Cannes review re-posted as Sleeping Beauty is released in the UK today)
Oh dear. One of the most hyped films of the whole 64th Cannes Film festival, Julia’s Leigh’s supposedly shocking and eye-opening Australian film Sleeping Beauty opened with even less than a whimper at yesterday evening’s press screening… playing to absolute silence at the Debussy. You could have literally heard a pin drop when the credits rolled and I don’t think the silence was out of the kind of bewilderment at what was being screened to us that the filmmaker intended.
It was more… ‘Why… was that screened?”
I’ve heard of films being booed at Cannes but never anything like this – just radio silence. After a couple of seconds of no reaction there was a timid and apologetic applause perhaps from Leigh’s team who worked on the movie...
- 10/14/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Oh dear. One of the most hyped films of the whole 64th Cannes Film festival, Julia’s Leigh’s supposedly shocking and eye-opening Australian film Sleeping Beauty opened with even less than a whimper at yesterday evening’s press screening… playing to absolute silence at the Debussy. You could have literally heard a pin drop when the credits rolled and I don’t think the silence was out of the kind of bewilderment at what was being screened to us that the filmmaker intended.
It was more… ‘Why… was that screened?”
I’ve heard of films being booed at Cannes but never anything like this – just radio silence. After a couple of seconds of no reaction there was a timid and apologetic applause perhaps from Leigh’s team who worked on the movie but no critic was giving this thing any note of recognition.
Was it...
Oh dear. One of the most hyped films of the whole 64th Cannes Film festival, Julia’s Leigh’s supposedly shocking and eye-opening Australian film Sleeping Beauty opened with even less than a whimper at yesterday evening’s press screening… playing to absolute silence at the Debussy. You could have literally heard a pin drop when the credits rolled and I don’t think the silence was out of the kind of bewilderment at what was being screened to us that the filmmaker intended.
It was more… ‘Why… was that screened?”
I’ve heard of films being booed at Cannes but never anything like this – just radio silence. After a couple of seconds of no reaction there was a timid and apologetic applause perhaps from Leigh’s team who worked on the movie but no critic was giving this thing any note of recognition.
Was it...
- 5/12/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
Rachael Blake, Emily Browning and Peter Caroll in Sleeping Beauty
Photo: eOne Films Entertainment There was a lot of talk about Sleeping Beauty leading up to the Cannes Film Festival as the premise causes raised eyebrows. The story centers on Lucy (Emily Browning), a financially strapped college student who resorts to becoming a "Sleeping Beauty" to make ends meet. A "Sleeping Beauty" as it turns out -- for those of us not partaking in the alternative sex scene -- is a girl who is drugged by her highfalutin madame (Rachael Blake) so old men can take advantage of her. The one caveat, as we're reminded endlessly throughout this mess, is that there is to be no penetration. Too bad, because that would have probably been more exciting and less uncomfortable than what ultimately takes place.
Sleeping Beauty is writer/director Julia Leigh's debut feature film, which makes me wish...
Photo: eOne Films Entertainment There was a lot of talk about Sleeping Beauty leading up to the Cannes Film Festival as the premise causes raised eyebrows. The story centers on Lucy (Emily Browning), a financially strapped college student who resorts to becoming a "Sleeping Beauty" to make ends meet. A "Sleeping Beauty" as it turns out -- for those of us not partaking in the alternative sex scene -- is a girl who is drugged by her highfalutin madame (Rachael Blake) so old men can take advantage of her. The one caveat, as we're reminded endlessly throughout this mess, is that there is to be no penetration. Too bad, because that would have probably been more exciting and less uncomfortable than what ultimately takes place.
Sleeping Beauty is writer/director Julia Leigh's debut feature film, which makes me wish...
- 5/11/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
With this poster, the Julia Leigh film Sleeping Beauty continues to look like the arthouse alternate-reality Sucker Punch. Emily Browning stars in the movie as a student who becomes a prostitute specializing in an unusual service: she 'works' while drugged into slumber, and cannot remember her clients after they take advantage of her. The poster is a little bit American Apparel, a little bit Sofia Coppola, and quite pretty, but combined with the known plot and the look on Emily Browning's face, there's an uncomfortable undercurrent there, too. The trailer [1] (embedded again below) is equally gorgeous and unsettling. Both are after the break. Recapping, A haunting erotic fairy tale about Lucy, a student who drifts into prostitution and finds her niche as a woman who sleeps, drugged, in a ‘Sleeping Beauty chamber’ while men do to her what she can‘t remember the next morning. The cinematography is by...
- 4/29/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
I am starting to become a fan of Sucker Punch star Emily Browning. I liked her in Snyder’s film, while it is cool to see her grow as an actress. That is why I was intrigued when I saw this trailer for Sleeping Beauty, which will be at Cannes Film Festival this year. Originally Mia Wasikowska was to be in the film, but Browning replaced her. In the film it seems that she is reprising her ‘Punch role of sorts, hopping through strange surreal worlds and stuff like she did in Snyder’s girl power film. Now in a more contemporary setting, she stars in director Julia Leigh’s dark, dramatic contemporary retelling of the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. The story follows Lucy, a young university student who is pulled into a mysterious and hidden world of beauty and desire. The first trailer has been released featuring the...
- 4/15/2011
- by Kevin Coll
- FusedFilm
One of the films officially announced [1] as part of the competition slate for this year's Cannes Film Festival is Sleeping Beauty, which tells the story of a prostitute in a very strange brothel. There is now a gorgeous, if oppressive and strange, trailer for the film that, thanks in part to the central presence of Emily Browning, makes it look a bit like Sucker Punch filtered through an extreme art-house sensibility. I'm equally beguiled and disturbed by the trailer, with its ominous tone and 'Sofia Coppola meets Stanley Kubrick' aesthetic. The script was on the 2008 Black List [2], and when the film was originally being developed Mia Wasikowska was going to play the central role. She fell away and Emily Browning stepped in, much as she did with Sucker Punch. Julia Leigh wrote and directed; she's a new filmmaker, but a well-established author. Here's the disturbing synopsis: A haunting erotic fairy tale about Lucy,...
- 4/14/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
This review was written for the festival screening of "Romulus, My Father".No one could accuse Aussie actor Richard Roxburgh of being chicken.
For his directing debut, he's tackled a hard-sell downer of a tale about a migrant family living a hardscrabble existence in the Australian bush near the end of WWII.
Incredibly, like the great Shakespearean tragedies, "Romulus, My Father" manages to transcend a wretched pile-up of calamities -- suicide, infidelity, madness -- and emerge as a work of melancholic beauty.
Credit unfaltering performances by Eric Bana, Franka Potente and limpid-eyed newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, as well as Roxburgh's decision to echo the restraint of the stripped-back memoir upon which the drama is based.
"Romulus" is a beacon of sensitive filmmaking in what's lately been a fairly bleak local landscape. Its raw emotional power could also translate effortlessly to an international arthouse audience.
The memoir of Australian moral philosopher Raimond Gaita, adapted for the screen by poet Nick Drake, recounts a childhood uneasily balanced between the hard-working integrity of his father and the erratic behavior of his chronically promiscuous mother.
Smit-McPhee plays Raimond as an 8 year old, who suffers through more than a little boy should.
His beautiful mother, Christina (Potente), treats their bare-bones home in country Victoria like a hotel, dropping in unannounced whenever one of her big-city affairs peters out.
Romulus (Bana) is a poor blacksmith from Eastern Europe struggling to scrape together a living in an often hostile environment. His great love for his wife lends him a capacity for forgiveness that seems saint-like.
He's not a saint, of course, but he's a good man and -- barring the odd violent explosion of pent-up emotion -- provides a strong role model for his son.
The screenplay is frugal with dialogue, and positively stingy with exposition.
Roxburgh, who has had success as a stage director, makes terrific use of stillness and is a master at just letting his characters be.
The expressive silences between father and son are companionable, then strained as Christina's casual infidelities and reckless neglect of her family take their toll.
Letters from his absent wife turn up at the farm sporadically, each one a fresh assault on Romulus' heart.
Bana is a soulful actor and his stricken looks cut deep as Romulus learns that Christina has hooked up with his good friend Mitru (Russell Dykstra), then that she's moving in with him, and later that she's having his baby.
Cracks start to show in Romulus' stoicism; pushed to the limit after hosting Christina and her new lover in his home, a suicidal burst of speed on his motorbike leaves him in hospital with a broken leg.
The arrival of baby Susan plunges the unstable Christina into a debilitating depression and puts further weight on Raimond's young shoulders as he steps in to look after his half-sister.
Two suicides and a crushing betrayal finally get the better of Romulus and his descent into madness leaves the child stripped of the buffer that shielded him from the hardest knocks.
This laundry list of affliction sounds heavy going. Yet it's testament to the talent involved that "Romulus" emerges as a strangely uplifting tale of a rock-solid father-son bond.
Lightening the load are exuberant bursts of gallantry, from stalwart family friend, Hora (a terrific Marton Csokas), and humor, from a hobo pal (Jacek Koman) with an unconventional way of cooking eggs.
The subject matter may be weighty and often painful, but the film is truly beautiful to look at.
The period detail is flawless but not overt. And, while cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson bathes everything in a tawny glow, the sparse-leaved gums and scattered granite boulders give the landscape a haunting austerity.
ROMULUS, MY FATHER
Arclight Films
Arenafilm
Credits:
Director: Richard Roxburgh
Writer: Nick Drake
Producers: Robert Connolly and John Maynard
Executive producers: Andrew Myer, Gary Hamilton and Victor Syrmis
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: Robert Cousins
Music: Basil Hogios
Costume designer: Jodie Fried
Editor: Suresh Ayyar
Cast:
Romulus: Eric Bana
Christina: Franka Potente
Hora: Marton Csokas
Rai: Kodi Smit-McPhee
Mitru: Russell Dykstra
Vacek: Jacek Koman
Running time -- 103 minutes
No MPAA rating...
For his directing debut, he's tackled a hard-sell downer of a tale about a migrant family living a hardscrabble existence in the Australian bush near the end of WWII.
Incredibly, like the great Shakespearean tragedies, "Romulus, My Father" manages to transcend a wretched pile-up of calamities -- suicide, infidelity, madness -- and emerge as a work of melancholic beauty.
Credit unfaltering performances by Eric Bana, Franka Potente and limpid-eyed newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, as well as Roxburgh's decision to echo the restraint of the stripped-back memoir upon which the drama is based.
"Romulus" is a beacon of sensitive filmmaking in what's lately been a fairly bleak local landscape. Its raw emotional power could also translate effortlessly to an international arthouse audience.
The memoir of Australian moral philosopher Raimond Gaita, adapted for the screen by poet Nick Drake, recounts a childhood uneasily balanced between the hard-working integrity of his father and the erratic behavior of his chronically promiscuous mother.
Smit-McPhee plays Raimond as an 8 year old, who suffers through more than a little boy should.
His beautiful mother, Christina (Potente), treats their bare-bones home in country Victoria like a hotel, dropping in unannounced whenever one of her big-city affairs peters out.
Romulus (Bana) is a poor blacksmith from Eastern Europe struggling to scrape together a living in an often hostile environment. His great love for his wife lends him a capacity for forgiveness that seems saint-like.
He's not a saint, of course, but he's a good man and -- barring the odd violent explosion of pent-up emotion -- provides a strong role model for his son.
The screenplay is frugal with dialogue, and positively stingy with exposition.
Roxburgh, who has had success as a stage director, makes terrific use of stillness and is a master at just letting his characters be.
The expressive silences between father and son are companionable, then strained as Christina's casual infidelities and reckless neglect of her family take their toll.
Letters from his absent wife turn up at the farm sporadically, each one a fresh assault on Romulus' heart.
Bana is a soulful actor and his stricken looks cut deep as Romulus learns that Christina has hooked up with his good friend Mitru (Russell Dykstra), then that she's moving in with him, and later that she's having his baby.
Cracks start to show in Romulus' stoicism; pushed to the limit after hosting Christina and her new lover in his home, a suicidal burst of speed on his motorbike leaves him in hospital with a broken leg.
The arrival of baby Susan plunges the unstable Christina into a debilitating depression and puts further weight on Raimond's young shoulders as he steps in to look after his half-sister.
Two suicides and a crushing betrayal finally get the better of Romulus and his descent into madness leaves the child stripped of the buffer that shielded him from the hardest knocks.
This laundry list of affliction sounds heavy going. Yet it's testament to the talent involved that "Romulus" emerges as a strangely uplifting tale of a rock-solid father-son bond.
Lightening the load are exuberant bursts of gallantry, from stalwart family friend, Hora (a terrific Marton Csokas), and humor, from a hobo pal (Jacek Koman) with an unconventional way of cooking eggs.
The subject matter may be weighty and often painful, but the film is truly beautiful to look at.
The period detail is flawless but not overt. And, while cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson bathes everything in a tawny glow, the sparse-leaved gums and scattered granite boulders give the landscape a haunting austerity.
ROMULUS, MY FATHER
Arclight Films
Arenafilm
Credits:
Director: Richard Roxburgh
Writer: Nick Drake
Producers: Robert Connolly and John Maynard
Executive producers: Andrew Myer, Gary Hamilton and Victor Syrmis
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: Robert Cousins
Music: Basil Hogios
Costume designer: Jodie Fried
Editor: Suresh Ayyar
Cast:
Romulus: Eric Bana
Christina: Franka Potente
Hora: Marton Csokas
Rai: Kodi Smit-McPhee
Mitru: Russell Dykstra
Vacek: Jacek Koman
Running time -- 103 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/29/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
One of the most likable performers in the business, Queen Latifah finally gets a vehicle that gives her formidable talents and expansive spirit plenty of blooming room.
That picture, a remake of a 1950 Alec Guinness film recast as a female-targeted fantasy romantic comedy, would have at best been a minor bit of genial fluff without her presence.
But with the Queen on the scene, it's elevated to a breezy escapist romp with considerable crossover appeal. "Last Holiday" should be a solid King Day holiday weekend entry with sufficient word-of-mouth stamina to emerge as a tidy little hit for Paramount Pictures.
Latifah is Georgia Byrd, a glammed-down, shy New Orleans department store sales clerk who sings in her church choir and has dreams of having a boyfriend, traveling to exotic countries and meeting the celebrity chefs who inspire her to cook great meals which she dutifully photographs and pastes in her Book of Possibilities before popping a Lean Cuisine in the microwave.
As fate would have it, those possibilities are about to meet reality when a bump on the head leads to a faulty CAT scan resulting in a misdiagnosis that gives Georgia mere weeks to live.
Determined to make every last minute count, she quits her job, cashes in her savings and jets off to the venerable European resort village of Karlovy Vary, home to fairy-tale snowy mountains and the truly grand Grandhotel Pupp (not to mention the annual Karlovy Vary Film Festival).
In short order, Georgia waxes those oppressive eyebrows, outfits herself in fabulous clothing and generally busts out of her shell to become the toast of the Pupp, charming congressmen (Michael Nouri), senators (Giancarlo Esposito) and even the notoriously temperamental Chef Didier (a swell Gerard Depardieu in one of his threatened final performances), while proving to be a thorn in the side of the smarmy retail magnate (Timothy Hutton) who once was her boss.
While Georgia might be making up for lost time, director Wayne Wang ("Maid in Manhattan", "The Joy Luck Club") keeps the pace quite leisurely, for the most part refusing to force any of the gentle comedy to be found in the script by Jeffrey Price & Peter S. Seaman ("Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas").
Although their adaptation lacks the satiric edge of the J.B. Priestly original, it gives its star plenty of opportunity to showcase a more introspective side to that proven, more lively personality.
Wang also mines terrific performances from a supporting ensemble that would have been right at home in any vintage studio comedy. In addition to the aforementioned players, there's also nice work from LL Cool J as the soft-spoken object of Georgia's secret affections, Alicia Witt as Hutton's reluctant mistress, Ranjit Chowdhry as a neurotic doctor and Susan Kellermann as an uptight, nosy hotel valet.
Contributing to the desired escapist vibe are those Old World European locations, photographed to postcard picturesque effect by "Under the Tuscan Sun" DP Geoffrey Simpson, not to mention costume designer Daniel Orlandi's fabulous frocks and composer George Fenton's lush score.
Last Holiday
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures presents an Imagemovers/Laurence Mark production
A Wayne Wang film
Credits:
Director: Wayne Wang
Screenwriters: Jeffrey Price & Peter S. Seaman
Based on a screenplay by: J.B. Priestley
Producers: Laurence Mark, Jack Rapke
Executive producers: Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey, Richard Vane, Peter S. Seaman, Jeffrey Price
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: William Arnold
Editor: Deirdre Slevin
Costume designer: Daniel Orlandi
Music: George Fenton
Cast:
Georgia Byrd: Queen Latifah
Sean Williams: LL Cool J
Kragen: Timothy Hutton
Chef Didier: Gerard Depardieu
Ms. Burns: Alicia Witt
Sen. Dillings: Giancarlo Esposito
Congressman Stewart: Michael Nouri
Rochelle: Jane Adams
Ms. Gunther: Susan Kellermann
Dr. Gupta: Ranjit Chowdhry
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time 108 minutes...
That picture, a remake of a 1950 Alec Guinness film recast as a female-targeted fantasy romantic comedy, would have at best been a minor bit of genial fluff without her presence.
But with the Queen on the scene, it's elevated to a breezy escapist romp with considerable crossover appeal. "Last Holiday" should be a solid King Day holiday weekend entry with sufficient word-of-mouth stamina to emerge as a tidy little hit for Paramount Pictures.
Latifah is Georgia Byrd, a glammed-down, shy New Orleans department store sales clerk who sings in her church choir and has dreams of having a boyfriend, traveling to exotic countries and meeting the celebrity chefs who inspire her to cook great meals which she dutifully photographs and pastes in her Book of Possibilities before popping a Lean Cuisine in the microwave.
As fate would have it, those possibilities are about to meet reality when a bump on the head leads to a faulty CAT scan resulting in a misdiagnosis that gives Georgia mere weeks to live.
Determined to make every last minute count, she quits her job, cashes in her savings and jets off to the venerable European resort village of Karlovy Vary, home to fairy-tale snowy mountains and the truly grand Grandhotel Pupp (not to mention the annual Karlovy Vary Film Festival).
In short order, Georgia waxes those oppressive eyebrows, outfits herself in fabulous clothing and generally busts out of her shell to become the toast of the Pupp, charming congressmen (Michael Nouri), senators (Giancarlo Esposito) and even the notoriously temperamental Chef Didier (a swell Gerard Depardieu in one of his threatened final performances), while proving to be a thorn in the side of the smarmy retail magnate (Timothy Hutton) who once was her boss.
While Georgia might be making up for lost time, director Wayne Wang ("Maid in Manhattan", "The Joy Luck Club") keeps the pace quite leisurely, for the most part refusing to force any of the gentle comedy to be found in the script by Jeffrey Price & Peter S. Seaman ("Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas").
Although their adaptation lacks the satiric edge of the J.B. Priestly original, it gives its star plenty of opportunity to showcase a more introspective side to that proven, more lively personality.
Wang also mines terrific performances from a supporting ensemble that would have been right at home in any vintage studio comedy. In addition to the aforementioned players, there's also nice work from LL Cool J as the soft-spoken object of Georgia's secret affections, Alicia Witt as Hutton's reluctant mistress, Ranjit Chowdhry as a neurotic doctor and Susan Kellermann as an uptight, nosy hotel valet.
Contributing to the desired escapist vibe are those Old World European locations, photographed to postcard picturesque effect by "Under the Tuscan Sun" DP Geoffrey Simpson, not to mention costume designer Daniel Orlandi's fabulous frocks and composer George Fenton's lush score.
Last Holiday
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures presents an Imagemovers/Laurence Mark production
A Wayne Wang film
Credits:
Director: Wayne Wang
Screenwriters: Jeffrey Price & Peter S. Seaman
Based on a screenplay by: J.B. Priestley
Producers: Laurence Mark, Jack Rapke
Executive producers: Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey, Richard Vane, Peter S. Seaman, Jeffrey Price
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: William Arnold
Editor: Deirdre Slevin
Costume designer: Daniel Orlandi
Music: George Fenton
Cast:
Georgia Byrd: Queen Latifah
Sean Williams: LL Cool J
Kragen: Timothy Hutton
Chef Didier: Gerard Depardieu
Ms. Burns: Alicia Witt
Sen. Dillings: Giancarlo Esposito
Congressman Stewart: Michael Nouri
Rochelle: Jane Adams
Ms. Gunther: Susan Kellermann
Dr. Gupta: Ranjit Chowdhry
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time 108 minutes...
Opens
Friday, Sept. 26
Adapting "Under the Tuscan Sun", writer-director Audrey Wells spices up Frances Mayes' best-selling memoir in a way that honors the soul of the piece while creating memorable big-screen dynamics. The 1996 book's elegant, poetic prose celebrates the romance of self-discovery through immersion in a foreign place -- specifically, the hilly sun-drenched region of Italy and the tumbledown, 300-year-old villa that Mayes and her partner, Ed, lovingly renovated.
Wells' script is more insistently about love in all its manifestations as well as its folly. She also addresses matters of faith and serendipity, the power of women's friendships and the resilience of the heart, and in Diane Lane, she has a warm and likable protagonist.
The eminently watchable Lane, fresh off her searing, Oscar-nominated performance in "Unfaithful", again demonstrates her appeal to men and women alike, though her full-blooded portrait of an intelligent, sensuous woman will have particular resonance for female audiences. "Tuscan Sun" allows her to explore a more sympathetic, identifiable character than in her previous film. Wells, too, is delving into more accessible emotional territory than in her flawed "Guinevere". All elements click in "Sun", a shimmering, deeply felt film. Fueled by the must-see factor among fans of Lane and of Mayes' book, "Sun" will shine at the fall boxoffice.
Wells astutely heightens the drama of Mayes' discovery: While the author and her partner searched diligently through real estate before choosing the villa Bramasole, here Frances is newly single and buys the Cortona property on an impulse. She's a San Francisco writer shellshocked from a brutal divorce
her best friend, Patti (Sandra Oh, perfectly wisecracking and compassionate), believes she's "in danger of never recovering." Patti gives her a needed push out of the crossroads, and soon Frances is traipsing through the cobbled streets of Tuscany and impulsively buying an old stone house with an olive grove.
The film is very much about the ways we create our families, and in her new aloneness, Frances is surrounded by vivid characters, some invented for the screen, some expanded upon from the book. Her adopted clan includes Katherine (an arresting turn from Lindsay Duncan), a 50-ish Brit in showy hats and high heels who worked with Fellini as a teenager and can't quite move beyond that golden moment.
Closer to Bramasole, Frances' immediate family consists of her comical contractor, Nino (Massimo Sarchielli), and his "team of experts" -- three Polish workers (Valentine Pelka, Sasa Vulicevic and Pawel Szajda).
Vincent Riotta delivers a lovely performance as Frances' real estate agent, Martini, a kind man who is attracted to Frances but a devoted husband. He and Lane share an especially tender scene in which he calms her doubts about the project she's undertaken and her fears of being alone.
By far the spiciest addition to the source material is dreamboat Marcello (Raoul Bova, suitably smoldering), whom Frances meets on an antique-hunting expedition to Rome. Their ultraromantic, movie-ish idyll is a jarring departure from the down-to-earth tone of the film, but it makes sense in light of the way things play out between them.
Shooting in Italy, DP Geoffrey Simpson captures the region's warm light through all the seasons and, more impressive, depicts the transformation from Frances' initial, tourist's-eye view to the outlook of someone at home. There also are top-notch contributions from designers Stephen McCabe and Nicoletta Ercole and an unobtrusive score by Christophe Beck.
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN
Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures presents a Timnick Films/Blue Gardenia production
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Audrey Wells
Based on the book by: Frances Mayes
Producers: Audrey Wells, Tom Sternberg
Executive producers: Laura Fattori, Sandy Kroopf, Mark Gill
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: Stephen McCabe
Music: Christophe Beck
Costume designer: Nicoletta Ercole
Editors: Andrew Marcus, Arthur Coburn
Cast:
Frances: Diane Lane
Patti: Sandra Oh
Katherine: Lindsay Duncan
Marcello: Raoul Bova
Martini: Vincent Riotta
Chiara: Giulia Steigerwalt
Pawel: Pawel Szajda
Jerzy: Valentine Pelka
Zbignew: Sasa Vulicevic
Nino: Massimo Sarchielli
Placido: Roberto Nobile
Old Man With Flowers: Mario Monicelli
Nona Cardinale: Evelina Gori
Signora Raguzzi: Claudia Gerini
Contessa: Laura Pestellini
Ed: David Sutcliffe
Running time -- 113 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Friday, Sept. 26
Adapting "Under the Tuscan Sun", writer-director Audrey Wells spices up Frances Mayes' best-selling memoir in a way that honors the soul of the piece while creating memorable big-screen dynamics. The 1996 book's elegant, poetic prose celebrates the romance of self-discovery through immersion in a foreign place -- specifically, the hilly sun-drenched region of Italy and the tumbledown, 300-year-old villa that Mayes and her partner, Ed, lovingly renovated.
Wells' script is more insistently about love in all its manifestations as well as its folly. She also addresses matters of faith and serendipity, the power of women's friendships and the resilience of the heart, and in Diane Lane, she has a warm and likable protagonist.
The eminently watchable Lane, fresh off her searing, Oscar-nominated performance in "Unfaithful", again demonstrates her appeal to men and women alike, though her full-blooded portrait of an intelligent, sensuous woman will have particular resonance for female audiences. "Tuscan Sun" allows her to explore a more sympathetic, identifiable character than in her previous film. Wells, too, is delving into more accessible emotional territory than in her flawed "Guinevere". All elements click in "Sun", a shimmering, deeply felt film. Fueled by the must-see factor among fans of Lane and of Mayes' book, "Sun" will shine at the fall boxoffice.
Wells astutely heightens the drama of Mayes' discovery: While the author and her partner searched diligently through real estate before choosing the villa Bramasole, here Frances is newly single and buys the Cortona property on an impulse. She's a San Francisco writer shellshocked from a brutal divorce
her best friend, Patti (Sandra Oh, perfectly wisecracking and compassionate), believes she's "in danger of never recovering." Patti gives her a needed push out of the crossroads, and soon Frances is traipsing through the cobbled streets of Tuscany and impulsively buying an old stone house with an olive grove.
The film is very much about the ways we create our families, and in her new aloneness, Frances is surrounded by vivid characters, some invented for the screen, some expanded upon from the book. Her adopted clan includes Katherine (an arresting turn from Lindsay Duncan), a 50-ish Brit in showy hats and high heels who worked with Fellini as a teenager and can't quite move beyond that golden moment.
Closer to Bramasole, Frances' immediate family consists of her comical contractor, Nino (Massimo Sarchielli), and his "team of experts" -- three Polish workers (Valentine Pelka, Sasa Vulicevic and Pawel Szajda).
Vincent Riotta delivers a lovely performance as Frances' real estate agent, Martini, a kind man who is attracted to Frances but a devoted husband. He and Lane share an especially tender scene in which he calms her doubts about the project she's undertaken and her fears of being alone.
By far the spiciest addition to the source material is dreamboat Marcello (Raoul Bova, suitably smoldering), whom Frances meets on an antique-hunting expedition to Rome. Their ultraromantic, movie-ish idyll is a jarring departure from the down-to-earth tone of the film, but it makes sense in light of the way things play out between them.
Shooting in Italy, DP Geoffrey Simpson captures the region's warm light through all the seasons and, more impressive, depicts the transformation from Frances' initial, tourist's-eye view to the outlook of someone at home. There also are top-notch contributions from designers Stephen McCabe and Nicoletta Ercole and an unobtrusive score by Christophe Beck.
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN
Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures presents a Timnick Films/Blue Gardenia production
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Audrey Wells
Based on the book by: Frances Mayes
Producers: Audrey Wells, Tom Sternberg
Executive producers: Laura Fattori, Sandy Kroopf, Mark Gill
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: Stephen McCabe
Music: Christophe Beck
Costume designer: Nicoletta Ercole
Editors: Andrew Marcus, Arthur Coburn
Cast:
Frances: Diane Lane
Patti: Sandra Oh
Katherine: Lindsay Duncan
Marcello: Raoul Bova
Martini: Vincent Riotta
Chiara: Giulia Steigerwalt
Pawel: Pawel Szajda
Jerzy: Valentine Pelka
Zbignew: Sasa Vulicevic
Nino: Massimo Sarchielli
Placido: Roberto Nobile
Old Man With Flowers: Mario Monicelli
Nona Cardinale: Evelina Gori
Signora Raguzzi: Claudia Gerini
Contessa: Laura Pestellini
Ed: David Sutcliffe
Running time -- 113 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 10/9/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
While it may appear to be another high-octane, high-concept Eddie Murphy comedy, "Life" has something more to offer.
Forgoing the broad strokes for some welcome substance, the century-spanning picture is an unexpectedly moving surprise -- a bittersweet excursion that isn't afraid to mix a little poignant reflection in with all the laughs.
That blend may not exactly be what those paying for a Murphy-Martin Lawrence match-up have in mind. As a result, "Life" will unlikely hit the lofty heights of a "Nutty Professor" or "Dr. Dolittle". Nevertheless, backed by a terrific supporting cast and featuring a strong Wyclef Jean score, the Universal release should do some serious time at the boxoffice.
Murphy's in fine form as two-bit hustler Ray Gibson, whom we first see scoping out potential victims at Club Spanky's, a swank Harlem nightclub circa 1932.
Despite a lingering sensation of "Harlem Nights" Deja Vu, things kick into gear when Gibson and down-on-his-luck Claude Banks (Lawrence) -- an aspiring bank teller with a big gambling debt -- find themselves at the mercy of Spanky (a smartly cast Rick James).
Paying him back by doing a little bootlegging job down in Mississippi, Ray and Claude find themselves framed for murder by a corrupt Southern cop (Nick Cassavetes) and handed a life sentence at a state work camp.
The days turn into months, the months turn into years, the years turn into decades and, over half-century and countless escape attempts later, Banks and Lawrence, bickering like an old married couple, persevere.
Based on an idea by Murphy and nicely fleshed out by screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone ("Destiny Turns on the Radio"), the film has been given something of a "Forrest Gump"-style historic sweep by director Ted Demme.
While the ploy may be derivative, it's oddly affecting. Credit Demme's willingness to take a little time with the material, allowing the audience to get to know and appreciate all the colorful characters. He's not afraid to throw heavier dramatic elements in with the high jinks.
The results aren't always smooth and there are a few awkward moments when the viewer is unsure whether to laugh. And, like Ray and Claude, the picture has a little trouble making a clean getaway.
But there is a lot of enjoyment to be found. In addition to the rich comic chemistry between Murray and Lawrence (reuniting the pair for the first time since 1992's "Boomerang"), there's a wealth of character performances among the inmates, including Bernie Mac as the predatory Jangle Leg, Miguel A. Nunez Jr. as the prim Biscuit, Michael "Bear" Taliferro as the imposing Goldmouth and Bokeem Woodbine as the mute, baseball-slugging Can't Get Right.
Also good are Clarence Williams III as a conniving card shark, Ned Beatty as a sympathetic prison superintendent and Poppy Montgomery as the warden's flirtatious daughter.
Playing a significant role are Rick Baker's special makeup effects, which startlingly age Murphy and Lawrence 60-plus years, though the effect works more convincingly when not held up to the harsh scrutiny of extreme close-ups.
Among the other standout technical contributions, cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson ("Oscar and Lucinda", "Shine") evocatively keeps pace with the time periods, especially during a couple of nicely textured montage sequences; while Wyclef Jean, making his feature film composing debut, has come up with an ambient soundscape that unobtrusively surveys the various eras' defining musical signatures.
LIFE
Universal Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment present
A Brian Grazer production
A Ted Demme film
Director: Ted Demme
Screenwriters: Robert Ramsey & Matthew Stone
Producers: Brian Grazer, Eddie Murphy
Executive producers: Karen Kehela, James D. Brubaker
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: Dan Bishop
Editor: Jeffrey Wolf
Costume designer: Lucy Corrigan
Special makeup effects: Rick Baker
Music: Wyclef Jean
Music supervisor: Amanda Scheer-Demme
Casting: Margery Simkin
Color/stereo
Cast:
Ray Gibson: Eddie Murphy
Claude Banks: Martin Lawrence
Willie Long: Obba Babatunde
Dexter Wilkins: Ned Beatty
Jangle Leg: Bernie Mac
Biscuit: Miguel A. Nunez Jr.
Winston Hancock: Clarence Williams III
Sgt. Dillard: Nick Cassavetes
Can't Get Right: Bokeem Woodbine
Older Mae Rose: Poppy Montgomery
Spanky Johnson: Rick James
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Forgoing the broad strokes for some welcome substance, the century-spanning picture is an unexpectedly moving surprise -- a bittersweet excursion that isn't afraid to mix a little poignant reflection in with all the laughs.
That blend may not exactly be what those paying for a Murphy-Martin Lawrence match-up have in mind. As a result, "Life" will unlikely hit the lofty heights of a "Nutty Professor" or "Dr. Dolittle". Nevertheless, backed by a terrific supporting cast and featuring a strong Wyclef Jean score, the Universal release should do some serious time at the boxoffice.
Murphy's in fine form as two-bit hustler Ray Gibson, whom we first see scoping out potential victims at Club Spanky's, a swank Harlem nightclub circa 1932.
Despite a lingering sensation of "Harlem Nights" Deja Vu, things kick into gear when Gibson and down-on-his-luck Claude Banks (Lawrence) -- an aspiring bank teller with a big gambling debt -- find themselves at the mercy of Spanky (a smartly cast Rick James).
Paying him back by doing a little bootlegging job down in Mississippi, Ray and Claude find themselves framed for murder by a corrupt Southern cop (Nick Cassavetes) and handed a life sentence at a state work camp.
The days turn into months, the months turn into years, the years turn into decades and, over half-century and countless escape attempts later, Banks and Lawrence, bickering like an old married couple, persevere.
Based on an idea by Murphy and nicely fleshed out by screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone ("Destiny Turns on the Radio"), the film has been given something of a "Forrest Gump"-style historic sweep by director Ted Demme.
While the ploy may be derivative, it's oddly affecting. Credit Demme's willingness to take a little time with the material, allowing the audience to get to know and appreciate all the colorful characters. He's not afraid to throw heavier dramatic elements in with the high jinks.
The results aren't always smooth and there are a few awkward moments when the viewer is unsure whether to laugh. And, like Ray and Claude, the picture has a little trouble making a clean getaway.
But there is a lot of enjoyment to be found. In addition to the rich comic chemistry between Murray and Lawrence (reuniting the pair for the first time since 1992's "Boomerang"), there's a wealth of character performances among the inmates, including Bernie Mac as the predatory Jangle Leg, Miguel A. Nunez Jr. as the prim Biscuit, Michael "Bear" Taliferro as the imposing Goldmouth and Bokeem Woodbine as the mute, baseball-slugging Can't Get Right.
Also good are Clarence Williams III as a conniving card shark, Ned Beatty as a sympathetic prison superintendent and Poppy Montgomery as the warden's flirtatious daughter.
Playing a significant role are Rick Baker's special makeup effects, which startlingly age Murphy and Lawrence 60-plus years, though the effect works more convincingly when not held up to the harsh scrutiny of extreme close-ups.
Among the other standout technical contributions, cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson ("Oscar and Lucinda", "Shine") evocatively keeps pace with the time periods, especially during a couple of nicely textured montage sequences; while Wyclef Jean, making his feature film composing debut, has come up with an ambient soundscape that unobtrusively surveys the various eras' defining musical signatures.
LIFE
Universal Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment present
A Brian Grazer production
A Ted Demme film
Director: Ted Demme
Screenwriters: Robert Ramsey & Matthew Stone
Producers: Brian Grazer, Eddie Murphy
Executive producers: Karen Kehela, James D. Brubaker
Director of photography: Geoffrey Simpson
Production designer: Dan Bishop
Editor: Jeffrey Wolf
Costume designer: Lucy Corrigan
Special makeup effects: Rick Baker
Music: Wyclef Jean
Music supervisor: Amanda Scheer-Demme
Casting: Margery Simkin
Color/stereo
Cast:
Ray Gibson: Eddie Murphy
Claude Banks: Martin Lawrence
Willie Long: Obba Babatunde
Dexter Wilkins: Ned Beatty
Jangle Leg: Bernie Mac
Biscuit: Miguel A. Nunez Jr.
Winston Hancock: Clarence Williams III
Sgt. Dillard: Nick Cassavetes
Can't Get Right: Bokeem Woodbine
Older Mae Rose: Poppy Montgomery
Spanky Johnson: Rick James
Running time -- 108 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 4/12/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
CHICAGO -- A radiant drama about a concert pianist's emotional turmoil, "Shine" dazzled Saturday night viewers at the 32nd annual Chicago International Film Festival. Crescendoing with a number of previous festival accolades, this Fine Line release should similarly win the hearts of select-site audiences when it is released later this fall. It will surely grace many end-of-year top 10 lists.
"Shine" is based on a true story, centering on the life of one David Helfgott, a promising concert pianist who "cracked" under the strain of playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. The breakdown was due only in part to the demands of confronting that awesome work on a technical, as well as artistic level, but had its roots in Helfgott's tumultuous childhood. In his household, his father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) ruled with an iron-fisted hand with one major goal in mind, that young David (Alex Rafalowicz) would someday be a great pianist.
In Jan Sardi's complex and perceptive scenario we see that the father's rule was in large part an attempt to live vicariously through the accomplishments of his son. But, we further see how his autocratic rule placed the young pianist in a contradictory bind: While his father encouraged him to the highest artistry, he also forbid many practices that would ensure David's reaching such a height.
Rafalowicz magically conveys that young boy's turmoil in marvelous, shimmering detail. He evinces both the boy's passion and talent, as well as providing clues to his insecurities and inner confusions. In effect, David Was expected to interpret works -- by Chopin and Liszt as well as Rachmaninoff -- with a feeling beyond his years. And more debilitating, his emotional life was so constricted by his father that David instinctively knew he did not have the range-of-life to adequately play such mature wonders.
Alternately lilting and frisky, "Shine" is a terrific, complex character study. Under Australian director Scott Hicks' wand, the players, as well as the technicians, combine in a wonderful symphony of passion and despair and rise ultimately in transcendent triumph.
In large part this is due to Geoffrey Rush's virtuoso performance as the gifted but troubled adult pianist. It is a truly poetic characterization, graced with idiosyncratic flourishes and enlivened by a number of cadenza-like interludes of almost slapstick desperation. Other cast members are similarly superb, particularly Mueller-Stahl as David's overbearing father and John Gielgud as a wily music professor.
Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson's compositions are marvelously apt, conveying the emotional link between David's troubled world and the healing power of the music he plays. Propelled by telling, singular images, as well as grand 'scapes of the mind, "Shine" is also accentuated by Pip Karmel's crisp, but resonant editing.
SHINE
Fine Line Pictures
A Scott Hicks Film
Producer :Jane Scott
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenwriter :Jan Sardi
Director of photography:Geoffrey Simpson
Editor :Pip Karmel
Production designer:Vicki Niehus
Costume designer:Louise Wakefield
Music :David Hirschfelder
Color/stereo
David as an adult:Geoffrey Rush
David as a young man:Noah Taylor
David as a child :Alex Rafalowicz
Peter :Armin Mueller-Stahl
Gillian:Lynn Redgrave
Cecil Parkes :John Gielgud
Katharine:Susannan Prichard
Sylvia :Sonia Todd
Ben Rosen :Nicholas Bell
Running time -- 107 minutes...
"Shine" is based on a true story, centering on the life of one David Helfgott, a promising concert pianist who "cracked" under the strain of playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. The breakdown was due only in part to the demands of confronting that awesome work on a technical, as well as artistic level, but had its roots in Helfgott's tumultuous childhood. In his household, his father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) ruled with an iron-fisted hand with one major goal in mind, that young David (Alex Rafalowicz) would someday be a great pianist.
In Jan Sardi's complex and perceptive scenario we see that the father's rule was in large part an attempt to live vicariously through the accomplishments of his son. But, we further see how his autocratic rule placed the young pianist in a contradictory bind: While his father encouraged him to the highest artistry, he also forbid many practices that would ensure David's reaching such a height.
Rafalowicz magically conveys that young boy's turmoil in marvelous, shimmering detail. He evinces both the boy's passion and talent, as well as providing clues to his insecurities and inner confusions. In effect, David Was expected to interpret works -- by Chopin and Liszt as well as Rachmaninoff -- with a feeling beyond his years. And more debilitating, his emotional life was so constricted by his father that David instinctively knew he did not have the range-of-life to adequately play such mature wonders.
Alternately lilting and frisky, "Shine" is a terrific, complex character study. Under Australian director Scott Hicks' wand, the players, as well as the technicians, combine in a wonderful symphony of passion and despair and rise ultimately in transcendent triumph.
In large part this is due to Geoffrey Rush's virtuoso performance as the gifted but troubled adult pianist. It is a truly poetic characterization, graced with idiosyncratic flourishes and enlivened by a number of cadenza-like interludes of almost slapstick desperation. Other cast members are similarly superb, particularly Mueller-Stahl as David's overbearing father and John Gielgud as a wily music professor.
Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson's compositions are marvelously apt, conveying the emotional link between David's troubled world and the healing power of the music he plays. Propelled by telling, singular images, as well as grand 'scapes of the mind, "Shine" is also accentuated by Pip Karmel's crisp, but resonant editing.
SHINE
Fine Line Pictures
A Scott Hicks Film
Producer :Jane Scott
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenwriter :Jan Sardi
Director of photography:Geoffrey Simpson
Editor :Pip Karmel
Production designer:Vicki Niehus
Costume designer:Louise Wakefield
Music :David Hirschfelder
Color/stereo
David as an adult:Geoffrey Rush
David as a young man:Noah Taylor
David as a child :Alex Rafalowicz
Peter :Armin Mueller-Stahl
Gillian:Lynn Redgrave
Cecil Parkes :John Gielgud
Katharine:Susannan Prichard
Sylvia :Sonia Todd
Ben Rosen :Nicholas Bell
Running time -- 107 minutes...
- 10/14/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
An anecdotal film that settles for being gently sad, sweet and uplifting, ''Fried Green Tomatoes'' plants tantalizing hints around its periphery of subjects amd relationships that are intriguing and touchy. However, it backs off those potential controversies and relies on its talented female cast to save it from the generic routine of blighted Southern blossoms.
They do so often enough that this saga of Alabama womanhood could turn into a satisfactory performer with longlasting boxoffice wind.
The action unfolds as a series of flashbacks narrated to overweight and emotionally cowed housewife Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) by Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), an elderly stranger Evelyn accidently meets on a family visit to a nursing home. The lonely Ninny, who insists she's at the home just to look after a friend, immediately sizes up the unhappy Evelyn, and begins telling her tales of her youth in the local countryside back in the '20s and '30s.
These stories focus on the friendship between Idgie Threadgoode Mary Stuart Masterson), a devoted tomboy, and Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker), a classic good girl who is initially presented to Idgie as an example of proper femininity. However, no sooner do they meet than it is Idgie who is transforming Ruth, first bringing out her new friend's assertiveness and eventually rescuing her from an unhappy marriage and going partners with her on a trainstop restaurant, the Whistlestop Cafe (which is where the fried green tomatoes come in).
As Ninny relates these vignettes of independent womanhood, Evelyn is slowly inspired to take more control of her own life. The shy housewife wends her way through a series of trendy self-actualization fads that perturb her corpulent husband Ed (Gailard Sartain) and provide the film with broad comedy, until, by film's end, she is ready to confront life on her own terms.
The Idgie-Ruth portions are both more emotional and much darker, with accidental deaths, domestic violence, retaliatory murder and the like adorning a story of romantic friendship. Just how romantic is not clear, since the relationship between the mannishly dressed Idgie and the excessively feminine Ruth suddenly veers away from a sexual component it seems to be heading for early on.
Director Jon Avnet, who has lingered on an affectionate kiss or a clasped hand, becomes more and more perfunctory with the scenes between the two, waiting until the very end to reveal the two have separate sleeping quarters.
The film's strengths are mostly in its screenplay (by director Avnet and Fannie Flagg, who wrote the source novel) and performances, particularly from Tandy, who provides the film's moral center with soothing effervescence.
Cicely Tyson, as a family employee in the Idgie-Ruth sections, is briefly memorable but shunted to the foreground only when dramatically required, a treatment symptomatic of the film's uncertain handling of its supporting chracters; Big George (Stan Shaw), another important black character, as well as Grady Kilgore (Gary Basarba), a local lout who undergoes a major transformation into a nice-guy sheriff, are relegated to mere plot utility, despite their putative importance.
Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson has lent the film a nice burnished quality, although someone has decided to make Masterson look like a figure in a shampoo ad every time she comes into range, her golden locks and fresh-scrubbed looks making for a peculiarly well turned-out scamp.
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
Universal
Director Jon Avnet
Producers Jon Avnet, Jordan Kerner
Screenplay Fannie Flagg, Jon Avnet
Based on the novel ''Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'' by Fannie Flagg
Director of photography Geoffrey Simpson, A.C.S.
Production designer Barbara Ling
Editor Debra Neil
Music Thomas Newman
Casting David Rubin, C.S.A.
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Evelyn Couch Kathy Bates
Idgie Threadgoode Mary Stuart Masterson
Ruth Jamison Mary-Louise Parker
Ninny Threadgoode Jessica Tandy
Sipsey Cicely Tyson
Big George Stan Shaw
Ed Couch Gailard Sartain
Running time -- 130 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
They do so often enough that this saga of Alabama womanhood could turn into a satisfactory performer with longlasting boxoffice wind.
The action unfolds as a series of flashbacks narrated to overweight and emotionally cowed housewife Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) by Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), an elderly stranger Evelyn accidently meets on a family visit to a nursing home. The lonely Ninny, who insists she's at the home just to look after a friend, immediately sizes up the unhappy Evelyn, and begins telling her tales of her youth in the local countryside back in the '20s and '30s.
These stories focus on the friendship between Idgie Threadgoode Mary Stuart Masterson), a devoted tomboy, and Ruth Jamison (Mary-Louise Parker), a classic good girl who is initially presented to Idgie as an example of proper femininity. However, no sooner do they meet than it is Idgie who is transforming Ruth, first bringing out her new friend's assertiveness and eventually rescuing her from an unhappy marriage and going partners with her on a trainstop restaurant, the Whistlestop Cafe (which is where the fried green tomatoes come in).
As Ninny relates these vignettes of independent womanhood, Evelyn is slowly inspired to take more control of her own life. The shy housewife wends her way through a series of trendy self-actualization fads that perturb her corpulent husband Ed (Gailard Sartain) and provide the film with broad comedy, until, by film's end, she is ready to confront life on her own terms.
The Idgie-Ruth portions are both more emotional and much darker, with accidental deaths, domestic violence, retaliatory murder and the like adorning a story of romantic friendship. Just how romantic is not clear, since the relationship between the mannishly dressed Idgie and the excessively feminine Ruth suddenly veers away from a sexual component it seems to be heading for early on.
Director Jon Avnet, who has lingered on an affectionate kiss or a clasped hand, becomes more and more perfunctory with the scenes between the two, waiting until the very end to reveal the two have separate sleeping quarters.
The film's strengths are mostly in its screenplay (by director Avnet and Fannie Flagg, who wrote the source novel) and performances, particularly from Tandy, who provides the film's moral center with soothing effervescence.
Cicely Tyson, as a family employee in the Idgie-Ruth sections, is briefly memorable but shunted to the foreground only when dramatically required, a treatment symptomatic of the film's uncertain handling of its supporting chracters; Big George (Stan Shaw), another important black character, as well as Grady Kilgore (Gary Basarba), a local lout who undergoes a major transformation into a nice-guy sheriff, are relegated to mere plot utility, despite their putative importance.
Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson has lent the film a nice burnished quality, although someone has decided to make Masterson look like a figure in a shampoo ad every time she comes into range, her golden locks and fresh-scrubbed looks making for a peculiarly well turned-out scamp.
FRIED GREEN TOMATOES
Universal
Director Jon Avnet
Producers Jon Avnet, Jordan Kerner
Screenplay Fannie Flagg, Jon Avnet
Based on the novel ''Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'' by Fannie Flagg
Director of photography Geoffrey Simpson, A.C.S.
Production designer Barbara Ling
Editor Debra Neil
Music Thomas Newman
Casting David Rubin, C.S.A.
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Evelyn Couch Kathy Bates
Idgie Threadgoode Mary Stuart Masterson
Ruth Jamison Mary-Louise Parker
Ninny Threadgoode Jessica Tandy
Sipsey Cicely Tyson
Big George Stan Shaw
Ed Couch Gailard Sartain
Running time -- 130 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 12/20/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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