#48
Winter’s Tale
TBA
Based on the novel by Mark Helprin, this fantasy epic is still filming so whether it actually finds its way to screens in 2013 is a question mark, but I can’t help but be curious as screenwriter Akiva Goldsman tackles his feature directorial debut with a cast that includes Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Will Smith, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Jessica Brown Findlay, Matt Bomer and even Eva Marie Saint.
Here’s the plot description of Helprin’s 1983 novel:
Set in New York at the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, Winter’s Tale unfolds with such great narrative force and beauty that a reader can feel that its world is more real than his own. Standing alone on the page before the book begins are the words, I have been to another world, and come back. Listen to me. In that world, both winter and the city of New York (old and new) have the strength and character of protagonists, and the protagonists themselves move as if in a vivid dream. Though immensely complicated, the story is centered upon Peter Lake (Farrell), a turn-of-the-century Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn (Brown Findlay), a young heiress whom he encounters in robbing her house, and who eventually will die young and in his arms. His love for her, and a gift of grace, will allow him after the most extraordinary and painful explorations and discoveries to stop time and bring back the dead. To follow him, his predecessors, his inheritors, and his companions is to experience one of the great stories of American literature.
#47
42
April 12
I’m a sucker for a good sports story and how could the story of Jackie Robinson (played by Chadwick Boseman) not be any good? Directed by Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale, Payback) and co-starring Harrison Ford as Dodger’s general manager Branch Rickey, I’m not expecting this to be an out-of-the-park home run, but it can’t be any worse than a double… can it?
#46
Labor Day
TBA
We haven’t seen or heard much about Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day, based on Joyce Maynard’s novel of the same name, but seeing how I expect Paramount to hold off and release it in September this year I guess there is still time as a Toronto or Telluride premiere would seem about right.
The story centers on a depressed single mom Adele (Kate Winslet) and her son Henry offer a wounded, fearsome man a ride. As police search the town for the escaped convict, the mother and son gradually learn his true story as their options become increasingly limited over the course of a long Labor Day weekend.
Along with Winslet, the film co-stars Josh Brolin, James Van Der Beek, Gattlin Griffith, Brighid Fleming, Tom Lipinski, Maika Monroe, Clark Gregg, Alexie Gilmore, Brooke Smith and Tobey Maguire.
Reitman has delivered an interesting collection of films over the course of the last seven years, some better than others with Thank You for Smoking and last year’s Young Adult serving as my favorites while I respect films such as Juno and Up in the Air even if they don’t resonate with me as much as they do others. Nevertheless, he’s a talent worth anticipating and I’m curious to see how his directorial voice has developed since Up in the Air, the last time Reitman adapted a popular novel for the screen.
#45
The Great Gatsby
May 10
I have a feeling this could be a train wreck or it could be just as dazzling as Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! Either way, I want to see it. If anything, my chief concern is the use of 3-D, not because I care about it being in 3-D, but because Luhrmann can let his visual style get in the way of the story and if this becomes too visually busy it could become that train wreck many assume it will be.
