MAY, 24


HEAVY RAIN

Action / Thriller
Cast: David Duchovny, Selma Blair, Kevin Bacon, Eric Bana, Toni Collette, Laura Linney, Justin Timberlake, James Gandolfini, Martin Sheen
Director and Producer: Peter Jackson
Screenwriter: Steve Connors

Box Office: 60
Net Gains: 36

Stark’s Reaction:
The curse of the thrillers in CMP again… Box office much lower than expected. It’s a shame.

LEMIEUX

Biography / Sports
Cast: Casey Affleck, Diane Kruger, Robin Williams, Jeremy Sumpter, Abigail Breslin, Ben Affleck
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Screenwriter: Dawson Edwards

Box Office: 31 mill.
Net Gains: 6 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
It is funny how the pattern of biopics stays. If you look at past Friday’s post, ‘Look At’ section, you’ll see that so many biopics make thirty-something millions and a few millions of net gains. ‘Lemieux’ has made exactly the same. No matter the character the biopic is about or the stars or director involved, it is like a funny immutable rule.

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

Drama
Cast: John Turturro, Marisa Tomei, Eva Amurri, Sebastian Stan, Bobby Cannavale, Steve Buscemi
Director: Stephen Frears
Producer: Francis Copolla
Screenwriter: D.R. Cobb

Box Office: 19 mill.
Net Gains: 0.4 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
Well, we knew this wasn’t meant to be a blockbuster. Like past week’s ‘Short On Time’, saved from the flop by a handful of dollars. Cobb will still have to wait for his first box office’s success.


HEAVY RAIN

‘Jackson and Connors have made what probably is one of the best thrillers ever developed by CMP. Maybe a bit too long. But the story is so engrossing, the suspense is so well set, the pace is so brilliantly kept all over the movie that it is worth to spend those nearly two hours wondering who the Origami Killer may be. Sometimes CMP tends to limit talents – specially directors - making them to repeat always the same thing. Jackson has always been considered at CMP as a director only suitable for fantasy epic movies. But he has showed with ‘Heavy Rain’ that he can do more than that. He has brilliantly directed a thriller that mixes the most traditional suspense ala Alfred Hitchcock with some spectacular action sequences. Surprisingly, this very entertaining movie has not worked too well at box office. But I recommend everyone to give it a second chance with DVD as it is quality entertainment at its best.’
-Tim Reeve

‘Behind the action and suspense, this great movie raises a very interesting question. As the movie posters says: how far would you go to save someone you love? Duchovny’s character goes a far as needed to save his son’s life: he self-mutilates cutting his finger and he kills a man he does not even known – a drug trafficker – just to please his son’s kidnapper. Is that brutality justified? That’s an interesting moral debate. Connors and Jackson have been brave enough to go beyond the usual elements of thriller taking the lead character to those moral extremes. And that enriches the plot of this very interesting film. The fact that the identity of the killer wasn’t that difficult to guess after all does not hurt the quality of it.’
-Jackie O’Callaghan

‘For some years now, the most interesting original stories are not coming anymore from movies. Tv series have become lately more innovative and creative than films, in my opinion. And, surprisingly, same can be said about console games. Some adult players’ oriented games offer much more spectacular or elaborated plots than most recent movies. Connors has understood that and he keeps taking advantage of the good stories that can be found in the console world. ‘Heavy Rain’ is one of those cases. The plot of the game is so well built up that Connors only has had to loyally follow it to set up one of the most engrossing thrillers I have watched in a very long time.’
-Anne Roman

LEMIEUX

‘There’s a text showing at the beginning of this movie that begins with something like ‘This is not only the story of a hockey player…’ But that’s not true at all. This film is very much the story of a hockey player. I mean, almost 90% of what can be seen on screen are hockey games’ sequences and most of the plot is only based on showing us an exhausting succession of the statistics, goals, trophies and awards reached by Lemieux during his career. The result? An extremely boring film… unless you are a hockey freak. By the time the emotional crisis comes when Lemieux faces cancer, you are so bored of that much hockey and data you just don’t care that much about the story anymore. If you want to enjoy a hockey movie, I recommend you to re-watch 1977’s ‘Slap Shot’ with Paul Newman better than this failed film.’
-Vic Carter

‘Acting works are always an essential part of any biopic. As you could see at the blog past week, most of the talents that have starred a biopic in CMP have won or have been nominees at the GMA. But this time, the members of the cast have not had the chance to shine too much. Characters and relationships are not developed enough in the movie. Casey Affleck and Diane Kruger do the best they can as their relationship is only developed at a pretty superficial level. Abigail Breslin’s accredited talent has no chance to shine here. And the usually brilliant Robin Williams does not look comfortable playing a character he does not fully fit in. Also, I have been looking forward for long for Bigelow’s debut in CMP. She is a brilliant moviemaker. But I have the feeling that this wasn’t the right story for her to show all her visual power and moviemaking nerve.’
-Roy Winslow

‘’Lemieux’ has been a predictable box office’s disappointment. It had a lot of previous limitations. I understand a guy that likes hockey may be interested in watching this film. But imagine yourself telling your wife or girlfriend: ‘hey, honey, shall we go to the movies tonight to watch a film about a hockey player?’ What would be 99% of the answers? Also, this is a very ‘American’ movie. A NHL’s star may be an icon at the US. But Europe is not interested at all in American hockey, football or baseball – only NBA is followed in Europe - and their stars are completely unknowns. Most of Europeans have never heard about Lemieux and foreign audiences will hardly pay a movie ticket to watch a biopic so focused on hockey and an unknown character. So this movie was a very much ‘only for Americans’ oriented product and that justifies, besides any further consideration about quality, the weak box office it has made. If Elvis, The Beatles or Hendrix – worldwide legends – were not too lucky at box office with their CMP’s biopics, it was hard to expect that Lemioux would beat them.’
-Andrew Stampton

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

‘Arthur Miller’s classic theatre play has deserved for long a quality big screen adaptation. And here it is at last. Here is a brilliant adaptation of one of the best plays of American theatre together with ‘Death Of A Salesman’. Frears – with the help of a genius like Copolla – has known how to overcome the limitations of any theatre play when turning it into a movie recreating in a most detailed and beautiful way the Brooklyn of the 1950’s. You are not ‘watching theatre’ here but watching a story perfectly adapted to the movie language. I know this is not the kind of film to reach wide audiences. But it is a wonderful piece of cinematic art to be tasted and enjoyed by elite palates.’
-Amy Ratched

‘This is one of those movies based almost 100% on the acting works. And it does not disappoint in that sense, although not all the cast members shine at the same level. No doubt, Turturro, Tomei and Cannavale are the best of the function. They fully understand their characters and the three them of them have provided their acting works with the needed mix of content and emotional intensity. On the other side, Amurri and Stan fall at some moments in a bit too cheesy attitude. In their attempt to build highly romantic characters, they reminded me at some moments the overacted and a bit old fashioned style works of Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood in ‘Splendor In The Grass’. But, all in all, the final result deserves a high grade in terms of acting quality.’
-Jake Cobb

‘I wasn’t particularly impressed by the two first stories developed by D.R. Cobb – ‘The Prince Of Darkness’ and ‘Short On Time’ – but I must admit that this third work has aroused my interest in this new CMP’s writer. Looking at his first three screenplays as a whole, we have here a versatile and daring writer decided to explore all kind of territories avoiding to be labeled in any way. ‘A View From The Bridge’ is by far the best of his three writing works – original source helps, of course – and confirms Cobb’s potential. I missed in this adaptation some elements insinuated in the theatre play – mainly, the sexual attraction of Turturro’s character for her niece – but still I consider the film has perfectly captured the mix of romance and social drama of Miller’s play. I am sure we have not seen the best of Cobb yet, but I am beginning to feel we have here an author that has a lot to offer to CMP.’
-Mark Anderson