31 July, 2021
Actually, it is only written in the screenplay. The book is very different.
note: Not the strongest Top 5 and a fairly weak second 5. (more…)
21 April, 2021
“And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.” (final lines)
note: An excellent Top 5 but not nearly as strong Top 10. It’s worth noting that thanks mostly to Harry Potter and the MCU this is the last year until 2020 where none of my Top 10 are franchise films. (more…)
1 April, 2021
Nothing Wahlberg says in the film is anything like the dialogue in the original film but damn it’s brilliant.
note: An excellent Top 5 and Top 10. (more…)
23 January, 2021
When it came—thirty cents—he pinned it up in his trailer, brass-headed tack in each corner. Below it he drove a nail and on the nail he hung a wire hanger and the two old shirts suspended from it. He stepped back and looked at the ensemble through a few stinging tears. “Jack, I swear—” he said, though Jack had never asked him to swear anything and was himself not the swearing kind.
note: An excellent Top 5 and Top 10. (more…)
28 December, 2020
Miles Raymond: Come on, man. You know. Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, Woolf. You can’t kill yourself before you’re even published! Jack: What about the guy who wrote Confederacy of Dunces? He committed suicide before he was published. Look how famous he is!
note: A solid Top 5 but a much weaker second 5. The rest of the list is down below with none of them among the award nominees that are fully reviewed. (more…)
25 November, 2020
note: A strong Top 5 but the second 5 is fairly weak. But it does still have several (weaker) films on my complete list down at the bottom, minus the #13 (Cold Mountain) and #16 (The Secret Lives of Dentists) which are reviewed because of awards. (more…)
7 November, 2020
How good a job are you doing if the first film your studio releases is nominated for nine Oscars and wins three including Adapted Screenplay and Actress? A pretty damn good one, one that started strong and has stayed strong over the years, although not to that same extent.
Sony Pictures Classics isn’t like Miramax. It doesn’t have a sordid story to tell, it’s doesn’t have big personalities and an indie spirit that was then sold to one of the biggest companies on the planet. Their story hasn’t been told in books (most of my information comes from an article written in 2006 for The Hollywood Reporter by Anne Thompson). It’s just a story of great films. (more…)
28 July, 2020
Some forty years ago, long before one brother sank beneath the weight of his other brother’s sexual crimes, there were Bob and Harvey Weinstein. Though they were from New York City, they had been successful with a rock promotion business in Buffalo during the seventies. But their passion for films won them over and began a small, independent distribution business that they named after their parents Miriam and Max. (more…)
11 July, 2020
“As Laura sets the plates and forks on the table – as they ring softly on the starched white cloth – it seems she has succeeded suddenly, at the last minute, the way a painter might brush a final line of color onto a painting and save it from incoherence; the way a writer might set down the line that brings to light the submerged patterns and symmetry in the drama. It has to do, somehow, with setting plates and forks on a white cloth. It is as unmistakable as it is unexpected.” (p 207)
note: A fantastic Top 5 and Top 10 as should be expected from one of the best years in film history. There is also a very long list after that. My #11 (Catch Me if You Can), #12 (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) and #15 (Chicago) are reviewed because of award considerations. But my full list was 30 films long and the other 17 are listed down at the bottom.
note: Until libraries fully reopen in San Diego, this is the list Adapted Screenplay post I can do.
6 July, 2020
