Life During Wartime Dir: Todd Solondz Cast: Alison Janney, Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Christopher Marquette, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy Nobody could accuse Todd Solondz, the provoc-auteur behind Welcome to the Dollhouse , Happiness and Palindromes of making easy films. Life During Wartime is no exception. A cold, caustic, challenging film, it will likely split audiences right down the middle....
Charlotte Rampling has only one scene in her latest film, Life During Wartime, showing at The Times BFI London Film Festival. But, boy, what a scene. In Todd Solondz’s quasi-sequel to his 1998 indie hit Happiness she orchestrates a brutal car crash of a seduction between her character, the intimidating, viciously forthright Jacqueline, and Ciarán Hinds’s Bill, a convicted paedophile...
My reading has been painfully slow this past week, you could barely call it reading at all. It seems each time I try to read, I get no more than a few pages before my eyes refuse to stay open and all I can do then is sleep. I have been feeling a bit under the weather the last couple of days, which probably explains it. I did manage to finish reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde though,...
Director Todd Solondz revisits the characters of his most (in)famous movie, Happiness (1998), in the sort-of sequel, Life During Wartime . In Happiness , the gag was how Solondz could mask the sickening acts perpetrated by a child molester/psychologist and an obscene caller—and how those acts affected their friends and family—with a defiant Leave it to Beaver vibe that made one's skin crawl...
Print: Good - Sound: Good - Label: Dreamworks - Year: 2005 - Cover: Good - Format: 2.35:1 - Length: 2h37m/2h31m - Before: No - Again: Maybe - Price: £1 - Rating: 7/10. The world was watching the 1972 Olympic games, when as 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by terrorists. Munich is the story of what happens next! In Israel, Avner Kaufman ( Eric Bana ) is deeply in love with his pregnant wife,...
Is Welcome to the Dollhouse auteur Todd Solondz a misanthrope, or a humanist whose characters just happen to engage in ugly, perverse, cruel behavior? For me, the answer has been made clear with Life During Wartime (screening Saturday, Oct. 10 at 9pm), Solondz's quasi-sequel to 1998's Happiness , in which all of the characters are now played by different actors: Todd Solondz starts his latest and...
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My sisters and I had a Thomas Hardy marathon several days ago. Fabulous! Ciaran Hinds, who I loved in Persuasion is also amazing as The Mayor of Casterbridge , a man who cannot decide whether or not to be good and often makes the wrong pick. Justine Waddall , who is sooo pretty, and perfectly played the lovely Molly Gibson in Wives and Daughters, is also the quintessential Tess. Thomas Hardy is not...
Here I am at Uppercross - at least, the location where they filmed the 1995 Persuasion. If you remember, the Musgrove family live here and in the book there are some hilarious moments as Anne finds herself party to all the complaints from everyone who wishes to take her into their confidence! I must admit the 1995 version is my favourite of all the adaptations, I think because it is so true to the...
I can still remember the unfolding tragedy of the hostage taking at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and the disastrous conclusion to the siege when the Israeli captives lost their lives. The events of the attack and the ensuing slaughter are powerfully told in the documentary One Day In September . A few years later I read a book recounting Israel’s response, sending out Mossad agents to hunt down...
This will be the last meeting of the minion movie club on this blog. All future meetings will be held on the minions’ new blog. To be honest, none of us can remember everything we’ve seen since April, so we may leave things out. (Though this probably is everything. The minions and I have been watching a lot of True Blood and very few movies.) Adventureland Summary: Bored (and frequently...
Oh... they finally figured it out... two car wreck Sundances and two car wreck Cannes and NOW "they" realize that the indie market is dead? NOW?!?!? Seriously. The enormous irony of this is that Toronto has always been a major press festival and NOT a great sales fest. Yes, there have always been a few high profile movies sold there each year - nothing of that size this year - and a bunch...
The latest adaptation of Alexander Keys' 1968 novel (made popular by a trio of Disney films released between '75 and '82), Race To Witch Mountain is another dreaded "re-imagining", this one from the desolate imagination of the producer/director behind Anaconda and Who's Your Daddy'.. With a filmography that ignoble, Race To Witch Mountain is automatically Andy Fickman 's best movie, but that's...
BRYAN Singer looks set to direct a remake of King Arthur legend Excalibur . Variety reports that Warner Bros has secured the rights to remake John Boorman’s 1981 original, which Singer is currently producing. Excalibur follows the origins of the enchanted sword, the creation of the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin the wizard and the bloody quest for the Holy Grail. It starred Liam Neeson, Helen...