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Post by Ace on Mar 31, 2010 20:34:02 GMT -5
insidemovies.moviefone.com/2010/03/31/pierce-brosnan-2010-movies/Hollywood's Hardest Working Actor? Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan. * March 31, 2010 * By: Jason Newman When we spoke to Pierce Brosnan last month during the promotion of Roman Polanski's 'The Ghost Writer,' he told us, when contrasting himself to his exiled character, "I enjoy the company of my fellow man and woman and I do not wish to be sequestered away in any type of bubble." In 2010, the Irish-born, England-bred actor needn't worry about sequestering himself, as the former James Bond has an astounding five movie projects released (or releasing) over the year's first four months. You read that right: Four months, five movies. Not even Nicolas Cage can compete with that kind of output. In his choice of roles, ranging from a grieving father (twice) to a Latin teacher-cum-centaur, Brosnan displays a nimble versatility and range that few actors have been able to achieve in recent years. In 'The Ghost Writer,' Brosnan plays Adam Lang, an exiled Prime Minister under investigation for potential war crimes. As Lang, Brosnan imbues the Tony Blair-esque figure with a combination of dignity, self-righteousness and pathos, simultaneously attracting and repelling the viewer in equal measure. Using the suavity and coolness that he brought to four James Bond films from 1995 to 2002, Brosnan seemed destined to play the role of some political figure or another in his career. Flipping from quasi-reality to pure fantasy, February's 'Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief' found Brosnan in the dual role of Latin professor Mr. Brunner -- a cross between Jerry Garcia and a shed-dwelling militia man -- and Chiron the Centaur, proof that Brosnan can even play animals if the role demands it. (In a recent interview with Moviefone, Brosnan said his 8-year old son called it "the best movie I ever made," to which we say, "Kid, you need to Netflix 'Nomads' immediately.) Yet it's the actor's dramatic side that will earn him the most notice this year, with two films pitting Brosnan as a father in mourning. 'Remember Me,' which, judging from its reception, is as much a plea to moviegoers as a film title, sees Brosnan as a businessman coping with the suicide of one son and the impertinence of another (Robert Pattinson). "It gave me the opportunity to play a father ... who is emotionally shut down [and] trying to find his own life again," Brosnan told Moviefone earlier this year. In a similar vein, the actor's upcoming role in 'The Greatest' may be his most eloquent to date. As Allan Brewer, Brosnan plays a father coming to terms with his teenage son Bennett's sudden death and the equally sudden arrival of his son's girlfriend (Carey Mulligan), who is pregnant with Bennett's child. It's a role that could easily veer into maudlin schmaltz, but Brosnan nails it, showing that something as tragic as the loss of a family member can't be easily categorized into distinct emotions and requires the commandment of a wide, sometimes conflicting, range of emotions . In the beginning of 'The Greatest,' as Brosnan, wife Susan Sarandon and son John W. Simmons are in the car leaving Bennett's funeral, director Shana Feste holds the shot, soundless, for nearly two minutes. It's an interminable amount of time given the context, and forces the viewer to confront the reality of the situation directly. With a rubbing of the brow or glance at a watch, Brosnan conveys more of the rage, pain, bemusement, consternation, resignation and quiet acceptance of the ordeal than most actors' most articulate cinematic speeches. Finally, on April 22 (Earth Day), Disneynature's 'Oceans' is released, featuring the narrating talents of, yes, ardent environmentalist Brosnan. The film features never-before-seen shots of the world's oceans and is a natural fit for Brosnan, who has worked with the California Coastal Protection Network and Ocean Futures Society among other groups. So yeah, every time someone asks you how you've been and you reply, "Busy," remember that you have nothing on the busiest man in Hollywood. Brosnan has two movies, and counting, in production for 2011 (so far).
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Post by Ace on Apr 1, 2010 16:05:17 GMT -5
www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/32944422/review/32944423/the_greatestROLLING STONE: The Greatest Starring: Carey Mulligan, Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon Directed by: Shana Feste A boy dies in a car crash just after having sex for the first time, leaving his girlfriend scared and alone. Sounds like a recipe for a soapy Lifetime movie. Which The Greatest could well have been without a riveting cast that plays it for real. Carey Mulligan, an Oscar nominee for An Education, is wonderfully appealing as Rose, the girl who rings the doorbell of the dead boy's parents, Allen Brewer (Pierce Brosnan) and his wife, Grace (Susan Sarandon), and announces that she's three months pregnant. They take her in, Grace resentfully and Allen with a sense of hope. In flashbacks, we see the tentative courtship of Rose and the boy (the excellent Aaron Johnson). But the bruised heart of the movie is uncovered as Rose tries to build a picture of a boy she barely knew from the memories of his family, including his younger brother (Johnny Simmons). First-time director-writer Shana Feste, covering a trail indelibly blazed by Ordinary People, sometimes lets her foray into the spiky corners of grief spill into melodrama. The actors never do. Sarandon nails every nuance as the alienated mom. And Brosnan, on a roll with this film and The Ghost Writer, vividly etches the emotional fissures in a man coming apart. The Greatest takes a piece out of you.
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Post by Ace on Apr 1, 2010 16:06:37 GMT -5
hollywoodandfine.com/reviews/?p=2160Hollywood & Fine/ Huffington Post Marshall Fine ‘The Greatest’: Give in to it It goes without saying that all movies are manipulative. They want to make you feel something – amusement, terror, squeamishness – and tell their story in a way that brings you to those feelings. The question is how much you notice the manipulation – and how much you mind it. I know a lot of critics who are instantly suspicious of any film that wants you to feel, instead of to think. No doubt they’ll hate “The Greatest,” a moving drama about the nature of grief and what it reveals about the grieving. I can already predict that there’ll be plenty of reviews that accuse it of sentimentality, soap-operatics, being maudlin and, of course, being manipulative. But Shana Feste’s touching film is none of those things. While it will have you reaching for your hankies, the film itself is about much more than simply triggering the audience’s tear ducts. The film starts with a brutal car accident, in which a teen-age boy, Bennett Brewer (Aaron Johnson), is killed. It then moves on to his family, a few months post-funeral. The alarm clock sounds, his mother Grace (Susan Sarandon) rolls over to turn it off, has a moment of realization – and begins to weep. His father Allen (Pierce Brosnan) is also deeply shaken by his son’s death, but sees his job as helping Grace through her grief. Left out of the equation is Ryan, their younger son, who is coping with feelings of his own, which he tries to stifle with recreational drugs. All of their worlds are nudged off this axis of pain by the arrival of Rose (Carey Mulligan), who turns up pregnant on their doorstep. The baby, she tells them, belongs to Bennett – though she and he had barely started dating when they consummated their love. She has nowhere to go – and so Rose convinces the Brewers to let her move in. The film then focuses on the various processes of discovery in the household: how the parents live on after the death of a child; how the girlfriend faces a future as a single mother, with a set of grandparents for her child she barely knows; how Allen and Grace find each other again after years of inattention to their marriage (including his philandering). Yet “The Greatest” is a movie that manages to make real that sense of absence that an untimely death creates. Bennett is still a huge presence in the lives of all of these characters – and eventually they must discover that, to keep those memories alive, they must come together, despite a stubborn unwillingness to do so. What they share, ultimately, is greater than the barriers they feel – but only if they find a way to pool the memories, rather than hoard them. Sarandon is like a raw nerve onscreen, her antennae on heightened alert for anything that might hit her wrong – or trigger her sense of loss. She’s scarily canny, a woman in such pain that she distrusts anything that might soothe her. Brosnan is equally good as the husband who holds his grief at arm’s length in order to provide strength for his family. Ultimately, his performance is even more shattering than Sarandon’s. Mulligan, by contrast, is understandably distant, a girl forced into a woman’s world by several sets of circumstances that seem to overwhelm her. Yet she finds a sense of calm that has nothing to do with trying to achieve control. That, ultimately, is what “The Greatest” is about: accepting the fact that you have little control of the world and letting life go on anyway. Feste has written and directed a smart, finely wrought tale that will have you choked up and nodding your head at the same time.
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Post by Ace on Apr 1, 2010 17:14:03 GMT -5
www.movieline.com/2010/04/shana-feste-interview.phpIs The Greatest Director Shana Feste the Next Female Filmmaker You Need to Know?Written by Kyle Buchanan | 01 Apr 2010 It’s hard to call a director prolific when her first film hasn’t even been released yet, but Shana Feste makes a good case for it. Feste wrote and directed The Greatest (out this Friday in limited release), which stars Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon, and Carey Mulligan in the story of a family who’s lost their teenage son. That film premiered at Sundance in 2009, and in the interim, Feste has already wrapped her next movie Love Don’t Let Me Down, a country musical with Gwyneth Paltrow and Tron Legacy’s Garrett Hedlund. When Feste tells you that her intention is to make a film every year, Woody Allen-style, it’s not hard to believe she’ll do it. The young talent sat down with Movieline last week to discuss her speed vis-a-vis other woman filmmakers, the family story that inspired The Greatest, and the karaoke audition that landed up-and-comer Hedlund a role in her next film. You’ve already shot your next film, Love Don’t Let Me Down. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s refreshing to talk to a female writer/director who doesn’t take years off in between projects.I know. Look at Kimberly Pierce, or Lisa Cholodenko. Nicole Holofcener is fairly prolific, but I wish we were seeing more from all of them. I kind of had it in my head that if I didn’t go to Sundance with another script, it would be a big mistake. I know that you don’t get many moments like that in your career, and I was fortunate to have a moment at Sundance where if I had more material, I knew I should have it by then. Even while we were shooting The Greatest, I was writing Love Don’t Let Me Down, and the minute we finished, I had that script. I immediately started casting. I’m in the editing room right now and I’m finishing my next script, making sure that I have it. It’s so difficult to get a movie made and I love making movies. I want to make one every year. I feel so lucky that I’ve gotten to direct movies, but I think it’s in part because I’ve been so relentless about writing my own material. I won’t be able to make dramas if I don’t write them. Part of the genesis for The Greatest came from your childhood. You learned that your father had a child who had died before you were born. What was that dynamic like?My father told me when I was six years old, and he told me only once, as we were driving to L.A. from Texas on a road trip. Even then as a little girl, you feel this energy from your parents, and I felt, “OK, this isn’t something I’m supposed to talk about.” He didn’t really want to talk about it, which made it even more fascinating, like a family secret. My sister and I knew how difficult it was for him and we didn’t press, and it was never spoken about in our family. This movie for me was really a way to talk about grief, to explore it and study it and write about it and talk to other parents who have lost children. I think it definitely gave me insights into my father. There are a lot of different ways to grieve, and that’s how he’s grieving. The film is set up so that all the moments with the late son play as flashbacks, but you’ve said that was an editing room decision. What was it like to take your entire first act and sprinkle it into the rest of the movie when that isn’t something you’d planned on doing?It was one of those scary moments you have as a writer/director, when something works so beautifully on the page — and it really did, that was one thing that everyone reading the script would say: “We love that we thought were were seeing this movie but then it turned into this movie. That was such a cool thing that on page 20 he dies, and it’s a totally different movie.” I’d gotten so used to hearing that and I loved that device as well, so when we got into the editing room and I saw the assembly, I thought, “This is gonna be really great,” and it just didn’t work. It was the scariest moment as a filmmaker, because you’re like, “This is a big part of the movie that doesn’t work. How can I fix this?” With my editor, we came up with the solution to scatter those moments throughout the film, but we didn’t shoot it that way. We didn’t shoot it like, “Now she goes into this memory,” so we had to literally look for pieces all through the film where you could get into something like that. Once we did get it to a place where it worked, it was like the last piece to the puzzle, like, “Ah yes. This was the answer.” I definitely had to abandon the writer in me and not be precious with my material. It’s always hard when you have to cut out your favorite line or a joke you’re really proud of and you’re like, “Man! Isn’t there any way we can keep it?” That was one of the biggest lessons I learned. It feels like every year, there’s one film that gets all the pre-Sundance buzz, and in 2009, it was yours. After you had things like a New York Times article touting the movie before it had been seen by the public, did it make you nervous?Oh, for sure. You feel like, “Oh God, do we have a target on our back now?” [Former festival director] Geoff Gilmore gave us a really lovely description, and I was like, “This is great, everyone’s talking about our movie. And [producer Lynette Howell] was like, “It’s actually a little bit nerve-wracking, because everyone has their expectations and sometimes there can be a target on your back there.” I have to say, though, my movie was different than most of the movies at Sundance. It did have stars and the way we shot it was very traditional, and it looks like more a studio film. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. The film got bought and then the distribution fell apart as you were setting up your next film. How could you concentrate?It was definitely hard. The kind of funny thing is that even at Sundance when we were talking with Senator, who had originally bought the film, they had said that the best time to put this movie out was March [2010]. And we were thinking, “March of next year? That’s too long, how will we wait?” But there was so much Oscar buzz for Carey out of Sundance that they said, “We have two movie stars in the movie now, and we might have three if we wait until after An Education comes out.” That was always kind of the plan, to put it out this late, so I was never panicking like, “Oh, my movie was supposed to come out months ago.” And now Carey is an Oscar-nominated actress, Johnny Simmons has been in Jennifer’s Body and will be in Scott Pilgrim, and Aaron Johnson is the lead in Kick-Ass. Do you feel pride of ownership that you cast these people when they were unknowns?Yeah, I had some good instincts! [Laughs] That’s probably the coolest thing, to see all of them go on and excel. I believe in all of them so much. Again, you’re working with buzzy young talent on Love Don’t Let Me Down. You’ve got Garrett Hedlund, who’s the star of the upcoming Tron Legacy…I know. When I met him, he was shooting Tron. Who knows what Tron is going to be? I think it’ll be a huge success and people will know who he is, but it’s like when I met Carey. She had done An Education and we didn’t know what that would be, but there was something special in her. When I met Garrett, I felt the exact same way. I saw a video of Gwyneth doing karaoke at the wrap party.[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. Gwyneth singing. I mean, that’s another cool thing about this movie, is that Gwyneth, Leighton, and Garrett are all really singing in the movie. We’re not revoicing any of them. It’s all original songs. Gwyneth — as you saw — even in karaoke when she’s just having fun, she has a beautiful voice. When you’re writing a script with so many musical sequences, how are you allowing for the songs? Would you write the lyrics? I didn’t. I would write, “Song here.” How does that work?It doesn’t work very well. [Laughs] I had a 120-page script with 13 musical numbers, and producers were going like, “Shana, this movie is timing at 3 hours and 20 minutes.” The songs were all original, and they hadn’t been written. Did you know then who would be writing them?No, I just named the songs. It’d say, Beau sings “Chances Are.” Kelly sings, “Coming Home.” I had the titles, and then we reached out to songwriters in Nashville with them and said, “Can you write these songs?” And they did. We got literally the biggest songwriters in Nashville to collaborate with us and help us with the music. How did you know Garrett could sing?I went to karaoke with Garrett. Where at?Koreatown, I think? The Brass Monkey?Yeah! [Laughs] We went to the Brass Monkey, we both got really drunk, and we did karaoke. So for actors who have to audition via karaoke in the future, what would you and Garrett recommend?I think he did a Pearl Jam song. It really wasn’t the best showcase ever of his voice, but Garrett went to school for us. Literally, he took four months off and started learning how to play the guitar, took voice lessons, went to Nashville early, started working with Nathan Chapman, a record producer in Nashville who produces Miranda Lambert. I mean, he became a country singer. It sounds like you took a leap of faith in casting him. He had a long ways to go.It was definitely a leap of faith, and there was definitely a point where we thought, “OK, are we going to have to revoice him? Is he making enough progress?” And then when you hear him sing and you hear the songs in the movie, I think everyone is gonna be blown away. I don’t know if you’ve ever met him, but he has a beautiful speaking voice. I just knew out of that voice, there had to be something special.
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Post by Lauryn on Apr 1, 2010 19:12:42 GMT -5
Ahh, he likes Julian best. Can't blame him. Twice as much chance of getting laid! After the Nancy Astor / Remington Steele years he had to make up for lost time. <wink>
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Post by Ace on Apr 2, 2010 6:20:12 GMT -5
www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1545457.php/Carey-Mulligan-first-saw-co-star-Pierce-Brosnan-in-a-computer-gameCarey Mulligan first saw co-star Pierce Brosnan in a computer gameBy Eric Munn Apr 2, 2010, 11:40 GMT The 24-year-old actress, who appears with the former James Bond star in the new film The Greatest, told Jimmy Kimmel that she spent hours controlling Brosnan as a character on the Nintendo 64 console. 'He was my Bond when we played Nintendo 64 when I was a kid,' Mulligan said. 'Id seen The Matador and a range of his films, so he wasn't just Bond to me but he kind of was. He was my Goldeneye.' Mulligan, who plays the pregnant girlfriend of a boy who dies in the film, said the pair broke the ice by going for a drink. She said: 'I'm pregnant in the film for most of it and when we were filming I had to wear this big plastic prosthetic. Pierce asked If I wanted to get a drink and I was like 'yes,' which was very unprofessional. 'So I left the set in the bump because it takes 20 minutes to get it on and off and we go around to this bar. I'm like, 'this is so naughty, because I'm pregnant'. But we ordered two Martinis and they came like that. Nobody blinked an eye.'
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Post by Ace on Apr 2, 2010 16:00:45 GMT -5
Carey on Jimmy Kimmel
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Post by Ace on Apr 2, 2010 18:16:35 GMT -5
Rievew-ette from Edelstein at NY Magazine: nymag.com/listings/movie/the-greatest/Despite the much-hyped presence of 2009 “It” girl Mulligan in this melodrama about a pregnant teenager who moves in with the family of her recently dead boyfriend, the real revelation here is Brosnan, whose riveting humanity in the role of the grieving father brings this mostly awkward film to life.
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Post by Ace on Apr 2, 2010 18:20:10 GMT -5
Ahh, he likes Julian best. Can't blame him. Twice as much chance of getting laid! After the Nancy Astor / Remington Steele years he had to make up for lost time. <wink> Though scene for scene he still got more action as Bond even if he had to keep it to one side of the fence - alas. On that front - every time I see him with Ewan McGregor I think back to an interview he did when promoting The Matador. He was asked by one gay publication (maybe the Advocate?) if Bond was ready for Bond-boys and if so who - he said sure, why not, and chose Ewan.
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Post by Lauryn on Apr 2, 2010 19:07:13 GMT -5
Ahh, he likes Julian best. Can't blame him. Twice as much chance of getting laid! After the Nancy Astor / Remington Steele years he had to make up for lost time. <wink> Though scene for scene he still got more action as Bond even if he had to keep it to one side of the fence - alas. On that front - every time I see him with Ewan McGregor I think back to an interview he did when promoting The Matador. He was asked by one gay publication (maybe the Advocate?) if Bond was ready for Bond-boys and if so who - he said sure, why not, and chose Ewan. What a flirt! Ewan does have some of the most famous, err, plumbing, in Hollywood. And the SMA isn't exactly shy. The mind races... Working title (in my fantasies): Two Blokes Who Like to Get Their Kit Off
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Post by Ace on Apr 4, 2010 13:16:46 GMT -5
Not really good but actually better than I thought considering the lack of any real promotion by the studio and the subject matter. To put it in perspective it's about 1/10th what the Ghostwriter made on avg, 1/4th the Matador, about on the level of Evelyn, and about 25% less than Married Life. I wonder how Paladin plans to expand on Friday - and believe it or not it's the best opening (considering # of screens) of any of their films (all four of them) so far.
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Post by Ace on Apr 4, 2010 13:30:05 GMT -5
April 2:
* Edwards Westpark 8 (Irvine,CA) * Laemmle Playhouse 7 (Pasadena,CA) * ArcLight Hollywood (Hollywood,CA) * The Landmark (Los Angeles,CA) * Laemmle Monica 4 (Santa Monica,CA) * Laemmle Town Center 5 (Encino,CA) * City Cinemas Village East (New York,NY) * City Cinemas Paris Theatre (New York,NY)
April 9: Scheduled expansion
Landmark's site has of today:
Coming Soon To:
Boston, MA *Kendall Square Cinema
Chicago, IL *Century Centre Cinema *Renaissance Place Cinema
Minneapolis, MN *Edina Cinema
Philadelphia, PA *Ritz Five
S.F. - East Bay, CA *Shattuck Cinemas
San Diego, CA *Hillcrest Cinemas *La Jolla Village Cinemas
San Francisco, CA *Embarcadero Center Cinema
Seattle, WA *Metro Cinemas
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Post by Ace on Apr 8, 2010 17:34:45 GMT -5
IMDB map where showing (but may be incomplete so check your locsal listings at Fanfango etc) www.imdb.com/title/tt1226232/cinemashowtimes?location=map;date=2010-04-09 * Kendall Square Cinema (Cambridge,MA) * Clearview Roslyn Theatre (Roslyn,NY) * City Cinemas Paris Theatre (New York,NY) * City Cinemas Village East (New York,NY) * Clearview Clairidge Cinemas (Montclair,NJ) * Ritz Theatres Ritz at the Bourse (Philadelphia,PA) * Landmark Century Centre Cinema (Chicago,IL) * Landmark's Renaissance Place Cinema (Highland Park,IL) * Landmark Edina 4 (Edina,MN) * Metro Cinemas (Seattle,WA) * Cinemas Palme D'Or (Palm Desert,CA) * Edwards Westpark 8 (Irvine,CA) * La Jolla Village Cinemas (La Jolla,CA) * ArcLight Hollywood (Hollywood,CA) * The Landmark (Los Angeles,CA) * Shattuck Cinemas (Berkeley,CA) * Camera 7 (Campbell,CA) * Embarcadero Center Cinemas (San Francisco,CA) * Rafael (San Rafael,CA)
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Post by Ace on Apr 26, 2010 16:37:22 GMT -5
The Greatest will probably be leaving theaters this week (it's down to two and only made about $116,000 in total) but it's already scheduled for U.S. DVD release for July 13. videoeta.com/movie/111293
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Post by steeleinc on Apr 26, 2010 17:47:53 GMT -5
I don't understand how it's expected to get good ratings when it's playing almost nowhere.
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tim
Nomad
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Post by tim on Apr 28, 2010 8:13:23 GMT -5
Seen it last night. One of the best Brosnan movie, he was amazing in it. Very surprise with his acting ability.An oscar worth performance.
Post Bond he did great acting job in Matador,Seraphim Falls and now The greatest.Hopefully Ghost Writer is another great acting from him.
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loogthan
Adventurer
A true career inspiration in the arts to a refined film analyst and screenwriter.
Posts: 62
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Post by loogthan on Apr 29, 2010 11:35:05 GMT -5
I couldn't wait to watch "The Greatest" so I bought the UK release. It was a wonderful film and I loved how the story about Rose and Bennett is told in flashback & traces itself up to the moment he finally gets the courage to speak to her; although the DVD did not have any special features or commentaries. Would've loved to hear one from Pierce.
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Post by Ace on Jun 12, 2010 20:57:08 GMT -5
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Post by Ace on Jun 27, 2010 16:29:05 GMT -5
www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/43625/greatest-the/The Greatest National Entertainment Media // R // July 13, 2010 Review by Brian Orndorf Recommended THE FILM Grief is such a tricky emotion to handle in film. It's an elusive sensation, often manifesting itself in resolute silence, which doesn't always register cleanly for the cameras. "The Greatest" is not a picture of complete quiet, but it's marvelous when it settles into a hushed mood of introspection and unspoken personal connection; a sweeping feeling of sea change reflected through a trio of splendid actors and their unexpected articulation of mourning. On the very evening that teenagers Bennett (Aaron Johnson) and Rose (Carey Mulligan) have consummated their hasty coupling, a car accident separates them forever, killing the young boy. Bennett's father Allen (Pierce Brosnan), mother Grace (Susan Sarandon), and brother Ryan (Johnny Simmons) are forced to deal with the death in their own ways, but pressure is applied to the household when Rose seeks shelter, arriving at their doorstep three months pregnant with Bennett's child. With Grace lashing out and clinging to the comatose man (Michael Shannon) who killed her son, Allen takes a shine to Rose, engaging the young mother-to-be as a way of coping with the loss. Rose, stupefied by her circumstances, tries to piece together a portrait of a lover she barely understood through a family that doesn't know how to accept her. "The Greatest" is not always a gushy, comforting film. It's a feature of unsettling thoughts and unfinished business, tearing at the hearts of the lead characters as they cope with the most unimaginable of circumstances. While the plot seems to be an invitation to build up a series of contrivances, the screenplay by Shana Feste (who also directs) is careful with the characterizations and blessedly aware of most maudlin touches. The plot's organic in the manner it distributes the unbearable pain amongst the family, weaving together four strands of grieving that form a sorrowful whole, with each character assigned secrets and frustrations bubbling underneath brittle veneers of domestic stability. Feste doesn't push too hard with the subject matter, and I enjoyed how "The Greatest" almost casually works through the conflicts, without huge displays of arm-flapping melodrama. Sure, the tears flow steadily throughout the picture, but the purgings feel earned, sold by gifted, intuitive actors who understand how to demonstrate the gut-churning nuances of loss. For Sarandon, who worked a similar pinch of sorrow in the 2002 picture "Moonlight Mile," the role is practically her calling card. A few obligatory idiosyncrasies sneak into the writing, including a weird bit that has Allen as some sort of numbers savant, but it's a settled script that invests more in the questions left behind after an abrupt loss than the constant stress of dysfunction. THE DVD Visual: Navigating a mournful tone, the anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio) presentation maintains the domestic blahs with a careful articulation of color, with the bright, green outdoors allowing for a proper contrast with the claustrophobic interiors. The film's soft cinematography is competently maintained, with healthy black levels and natural skintones. Some EE is detected, but nothing's distracting, with the widescreen ambiance comfortably settled and communicative. Audio: The 5.1 Dolby Digital sound mix is more concentrated on dialogue exchanges, with whispered tones and wails of grief superbly balanced on the track, well throttled throughout the film. Scoring cues are faint, but helpful, while outdoor environments provide a sense of cinematic movement. Not a profound mix, but one that suits the fragile hold of the picture well. A 2.0 track is also included. Subtitles: English SDH and Spanish subtitles are included. Extras: "Deleted Scenes" (16:05) provide more connective tissue for the character development, a moment with Grace and her girlfriends, three passes at a manic hospital moment where Grace comforts her son's killer, and a bit of discomfort between Rose and her mother on the morning of Bennett's funeral. "Interviews" (30:29) sit down with Shana Feste, Pierce Brosnan, Carey Mulligan, and Johnny Simmons as they talk about creative inspiration, dramatic interpretation, and character motivation in a junket-style setting. There's an enormous amount of valuable information shared here, especially from Feste, who really walks though the film one step at a time. A Theatrical Trailer is included. FINAL THOUGHTS "The Greatest" is slight, not taking on too much dramatic weight as the family struggles to understand Bennett's life and final moments. The lean hold of the picture is welcome, adding to the force of the emotional outbursts, helping the film to close on a touching note of recollection that reinforces the yearn of the writing -- a sincere summation of memories that feels like a natural conclusion to this sensitive depiction of bereavement.
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Post by Ace on Oct 10, 2012 10:35:15 GMT -5
If anyone doesn't have the DVD The Greatest is showing for free on Hulu (country restrictions probably apply though) www.hulu.com/watch/410847Ace
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