University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 9, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 6, 1996 Page: 5 of 11
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i Arts St Entertainment University News i November 6/1996 5 ^
Anemic King, brilliant Hardy, and a commonplace Thing
By F.S._
Contributing Writer
Thinner (wide release)
It is a modern cinematic axiom
that whenever horrormeister Stephen
King does a cameo in a filmization of
one of his books, the result will be a
movie review
disaster. He plays a pharmacist in this
bloodless adaptation of his potboiler
about a chubby lawyer who wastes
away no matter how much he eats,
courtesy of (no kidding) a gypsy curse.
To be fair, writer-director Tom
Holland does build some atmosphere
in the initial reels, and Robert James
Burke works very hard under tons of
makeup as the variably-sized protago-
nist. But the central story is essential-
ly dumb, and a mafia subplot even
dumber; and Michael Constantine
hams it up so mercilessly as the crotch-
ety King of the Gypsies that it’s sur-
prising any of the New England back-
drops survived his scenery-chewing.
Jude (UA Cine)
Thomas Hardy hasn’t fared too well
with film viewers: John Schlesinger’s
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
and Roman Polanski’s Tess (1979) both
had considerable virtues, but neither
attracted much of an audience. The
same pattern may be repeated with
Michael Winterbottom’s superb new
version of the last—and most bleak
and fatalistic—of the author’s Wessex
novels.
The adaptation is true to the book’s
theme of thwarted ambition in telling
of a stonemason whose desire to be-
come a scholar and to achieve happi-
ness with a highspirited cousin is ulti-
mately dashed. The cinematography
uses earthen tones to splendid effect,
the lead performances by Christopher
Eccleston and Kate Winslet are mas-
terful,«and the direction is assured and
effective; but because of the downbeat
dramatic arc, the picture probably
won’t be embraced, as recent Austen
adaptations have been. It’s a film
that’s easy to respect, but hard to love;
nonetheless, it’s powerful and beauti-
fully crafted.
Beautiful Thing (Landmark’s In-
wood)
Yet another gay-themed coming-
of-age tale, with the now-obligatory
happy ending. The actors are uni-
formly personable and the British low-
er-class setting nicely caught, but by
now this story’s a hopeless cliche.
photo courtesy Gramercy Pictures
Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston share a happy moment in Jude
Directors9 fortnight: an old pro and a newcomer visit Dallas
Contributing Writer
The two sides of Hollywood film-
making were on display in Dallas over
the last couple of weeks, thanks to
visits by directors Garry Marshall and
Doug Liman. The former’s picture is a
studio production budgeted at
$23,000,0.00; the latter’s is an inde-
pendent film made for 1% of that.
Marshall is one of the industry’s
most celebrated writer-producer-di-
rectors. He created such television
classics as The Odd Couple, Happy
Days, Laveme and Shirley and Mork
and Mindy, he’s directed nine fea-
tures, including the world-wide smash
Pretty Woman, which shot Julia Rob-
erts to superstardom; and he’s also
acted occasionally, most notably as
viperish network exec Stan Lansing in
Murphy Brown. He was in town talk-
ing about his new Paramount release,
Dear God, a fantasy-comedy in the
mold of Miracle on 34th Street, star-
ring Greg Kinnear as a lovable con-
man working in the postal dead letter
office who leads some colleagues in
answering missives addressed to the
deity.
photo courtesy Drama Department
Viola, disguised as a page, pines away for Duke Orsino who, in turn, casts
a yearning eye on the Countess Olivia - who gazes on the all-too-
successfully-disguised Viola, in Twelfth Night, showing November 6-9 and
12-16 at 8:00 p.m.; and November 10 at 2:00 p.m. Pictured, from left to
right, are Bryant Mason (Orsino), Norah Swiney (Viola), and Esther Mes
(Olivia)._
photo courtesy Miramax Films
Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn in Doug Liman's Swingers
By current standards, Dear God
was modestly budgeted. “It’s an odd
picture,” Marshall explained, “in that
once we decided not to use big stars, I
said, ‘Let me get one of these new kids
[Kinnear] and I’ll do it.’ And they [the
studio] said, ‘If you bring it in under
$23 million, you won’t hear from us.’
And I didn’t hear from them the whole
shoot.”
The picture’s also unusual in that
it’s what Marshall called “a Frank Ca-
pra-Preston Sturges kind of film,”
which he explained was a hard-sell
nowadays because “this is not a senti-
mental society, it’s a cynical one. ” But
he’s been pleased by the reactions of
preview audiences, which he follows
closely and sometimes bases editing
decsions upon. “I want to do accessi-
ble work,” he said. “I like to know why
something’s working or not.”
On the other hand, Doug Liman, a
young graduate of Brown and USC
who’s been making movies since he
was eight, travelled to Dallas for the
opening of Swingers, a sweet-natured
Miramax release centering on a would-
be comic, recently transplanted from
the East to Hollywood, who’s pining
for the girl he left behind while cruis-
ing the retro-swing clubs with his
friends. Jon Favreau, who also wrote
the witty script, plays the lead, and
Vince Vaughn (the star of Steven Spiel-
berg’s upcoming sequel to Jurassic
Park, The Lost World) is his best bud-
dy-
Originally the picture was budget-
ed at $1.3 million, but whenever stu-
dios showed an interest in the script
they invariably wanted to cast it with
“bankable” stars, although Favreau had
written it, Rocky-style, for himself.
Liman, who’d fallen in love with the
piece and wanted to direct it, agreed
with Favreau. “The very thing that
was causing everybody else to back
away from the project was really what
drew me in—I said to Jon, ‘I’ll direct it,
but only if you star in it,”’ he ex-
plained.
Liman also persuaded the produc-
ers to slash the projected budget by
more than 80% and to let him shoot
the picture in only three weeks, in real
locations (like bars with paying
crowds), using a small, hand-held cam-
era and high-speed film stock which
would permit him to make do with
existing light.
But he emphasizes that the only
reason this guerilla-filmmaking
scheme worked was that months of
pre-production work and storyboard-
ing preceded the shoot. “Every aspect
of our production mirrored a big stu-
dio production, except for what hap-
pened on the set,” he explained. “This
is not a film that should inspire people
just to grab a camera, put it on their
shoulders, go into a bar and make a
movie. This is a film that should
inspire people that if they work and
plan hard enough, they can actually
tell a good story even if they don’t have
a lot of resources.”
Now Liman hopes that he’ll be able
to put his cost-cutting methods to use
on studio productions. Meanwhile
Garry Marshall is already planning his
next project—for Disney. This one, he
notes, will probably have some big
stars—and a bigger budget.
(HIGHEST RATING)
Brilliantly Touching
and Funny!”
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University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 9, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 6, 1996, newspaper, November 6, 1996; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth841496/m1/5/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Dallas.