Lately, Wheel Of Fortune fans are beginning to question who is picking the contestants. Not only have the lack of puzzle-solving abilities been in question, but now fans are baffled by an episode that was almost a comedy of errors.
Pat Sajak’s Retirement Is Bringing A Wave Of Change
While the big chief Wheel Of Fortune long-time host, Pat Sajak is zipping toward retirement, the show is seemingly going in a different direction. Some fans have been vocal about the oddity of the puzzles being chosen. However, others feel like the caliber of contestants is going downhill.
Vanna White and Pat Sajak on Wheel of Fortune. Image from ABC Press Site Wheel Of Fortune Contestants Didn’t Quite Understand The Rules
During the May 8 episode of Wheel Of Fortune, fans were undeniably mystified by the elementary errors that the contestants made. Within the Grand Giveaways night, grandparents and their...
Pat Sajak’s Retirement Is Bringing A Wave Of Change
While the big chief Wheel Of Fortune long-time host, Pat Sajak is zipping toward retirement, the show is seemingly going in a different direction. Some fans have been vocal about the oddity of the puzzles being chosen. However, others feel like the caliber of contestants is going downhill.
Vanna White and Pat Sajak on Wheel of Fortune. Image from ABC Press Site Wheel Of Fortune Contestants Didn’t Quite Understand The Rules
During the May 8 episode of Wheel Of Fortune, fans were undeniably mystified by the elementary errors that the contestants made. Within the Grand Giveaways night, grandparents and their...
- 9.5.2024
- von Bonnie Kaiser-Gambill
- TV Shows Ace
Wednesday night’s new episode of Wheel of Fortune has got fans talking — for all the wrong reasons. The newest Grand Giveaways night saw three pairings of young people and their grandparents: Rex and Katherine Wang; Sam Johnson and Linda Vian; and Jovanni White and Joan Bradshaw. Katherine claimed to have been a Wheel watcher since the ’70s, but some fans weren’t convinced that any of the contestants of the night were truly up on the rules of the game. It all started when Sam & Linda couldn’t quite decide if they wanted to solve or request more letters during the first puzzle. Then, Rex and Katherine started spouting off vowel requests without the magic phrase — “I’d like to buy a vowel” — in the second puzzle. (They’d later go on to buy all of the vowels for some reason.) Then, Jiovanni and Joan joined in on the...
- 9.5.2024
- TV Insider
When photo archivist Michael Ochs brokered a deal to offload his sprawling collection of 20th century iconography to Getty Images in 2007, neither seller nor buyer knew absolutely everything that was included in the transaction. Ochs had a decades-long reputation as the ultimate source of rock ‘n’ roll imagery, but his collection, at the time of its sale, included 3 million vintage prints, proof sheets and negatives. Many hadn’t been seen in decades, and others, presumably, never at all — particularly some shots of Old Hollywood, obtained in countless acquisitions over the decades that built up the Michael Ochs Archive.
“The Earl Leaf collection alone was over 100,000 negatives,” Ochs says of the late beatnik photographer, who shot many unknowns (Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood) before they blew up and Leaf went on to become the house photographer for The Beach Boys.
Getty has scanned, edited, captioned and digitized nearly 400,000 images from the collection since the acquisition,...
“The Earl Leaf collection alone was over 100,000 negatives,” Ochs says of the late beatnik photographer, who shot many unknowns (Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood) before they blew up and Leaf went on to become the house photographer for The Beach Boys.
Getty has scanned, edited, captioned and digitized nearly 400,000 images from the collection since the acquisition,...
- 30.4.2024
- von Mikey O'Connell
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Spanglish
James L. Brooks is a humanist before he is a humorist. He is willing to study his characters for as long as it takes before the humor emerges. In "Spanglish", the writer-director takes a very typical Southland situation -- a Latina housekeeper gets hired in a troubled and pampered Anglo household -- then gets past the stereotypes as swiftly as possible to delve into issues of child-rearing and cultural estrangement in a comic take on "family values" that has nothing to do with the hijacking of that term by the radical right.
The picture belongs to Spanish actress Paz Vega, as dazzling as she is improbable as the poor Mexican maid. Yet there is genuinely fine acting -- yes, acting -- from Adam Sandler to go along with terrific supporting turns by Tea Leoni and Cloris Leachman. No doubt about it, Brooks is solidly in charge of this feel-good fairy tale as he gets terrific performances from everyone including two super-talented child actors. "Spanglish" looks like a holiday hit for Sony.
The film doesn't act like a fairy tale, but how else to explain the frequent suspension of reality? Take the simple matter of language -- which, as the title indicates, is the basis for much of the confusion, comedy and cultural clashes. Flor (Vega), an illegal immigrant, speaks not a word of English, yet is hired on the spot by Deborah Clasky (Leoni) to take care of the family's Bel-Air home and two young children.
One can at least ascribe this implausible hiring to the whims of an insecure wife going through a nutty stage of life. But what explains her husband, John (Sandler), a top chef in New York and now L.A., speaking no Spanish? No chef can operate in restaurant kitchens in either city without a working knowledge of Spanish.
Yet unless Brooks turns a blind eye to reality, he will lose the movie's funniest and most touching scene: A heated argument erupts between John and Flor, which her daughter, Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), must rapidly translate back and forth with the skill of a U.N. translator along with the abrupt gesture and attitudes of each adult.
The film is told in flashback by Cristina, a narration (delivered by Aimee Garcia) supposedly lifted from her admission letter for a scholarship to Princeton. She tells of her mother's determination not to get involved with the lives of her employers, a resolution eroded by time. When Deborah, suffering from low self-esteem after losing her job, deliberately buys clothes a size too small for her slightly overweight daughter Bernice (Sarah Steele), Flor is appalled and quickly alters the clothes so they fit.
When the Claskys rent a beach house in Malibu for the summer, Deborah demands that Flor move in. Learning for the first time that Flor has a daughter, she insists that Cristina move in, too. The minute Cristina, as gorgeous as her mother, walks into the house, a competition for her affection erupts between Deborah and Flor. When Deborah takes her shopping, Cristina declares that Deborah is "the most amazing white woman" she has ever met. Meanwhile, Flor is furious because Deborah never asked permission to take her daughter.
John intervenes, which causes Flor to see a side in a male she has never seen before. Here is a man comfortable with his own emotions and compassion for others. "To someone with firsthand knowledge of Latin machismo," says the narrator, "he seemed to have the emotions of a Mexican ... woman."
Observing all of this like a witty Greek chorus is Deborah's mom Evelyn (Leachman), who drinks all day but carefully disguises her inebriation. Alcohol does not cloud her eyes or judgment, though, as she sees trouble in the family with more clarity than anyone else. Her daughter, suffering from a weird combination of narcissism and self-loathing, is a Loose Cannon about to sabotage her own marriage.
Pressure builds when a New York restaurant critic drops by John's establishment and commits the foul deed of declaring in his review that John is the best chef in America. Suddenly, the demand for tables and John's time grows exponentially. He resists though, forking over 20% of his restaurant to his sous chef to keep time for his family.
Brooks lets these conflicts and competing desires play out without pushing things. While dealing with serious themes, the movie seems almost easygoing. Ultimately, the film is about how two culturally different families approach parenting, and the discovery that here there is no language barrier. Along the way, the movie explores the problem of assimilation. Does one fit in by becoming a Latin version of an Anglo? Or does one embrace parts of an alien culture while maintaining a hold on one's own?
As a writer, Brooks has never fully escaped his TV sitcom background. But the situations and comedy are fresh enough here that this is a most forgivable sin. The crisis, where Deborah's self-destructive behavior momentarily frees John to give into in his growing affection for Flor, arrives logically without artifice or fake melodrama.
All tech credits are top notch, especially Ida Random's production design and Hans Zimmer's music, both of which incorporate Mexican and American influences.
SPANGLISH
Columbia Pictures
Gracie Films
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: James L. Brooks
Producers: James L. Brooks, Richard Sakai, Julie Ansell
Executive producer: Joan Bradshaw, Christy Haubegger
Director of photography: John Seale
Production designer: Ida Random
Music: Hans Zimmer
Costume designer: Shay Cunliffe, Louise Mingenbach
Editor: Richard Marks
Cast:
John Clasky: Adam Sandler
Deborah Clasky: Tea Leoni
Flor: Paz Vega
Evelyn: Cloris Leachman
Cristina: Shelbie Bruce
Bernice: Sarah Steele
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time --131 minutes...
The picture belongs to Spanish actress Paz Vega, as dazzling as she is improbable as the poor Mexican maid. Yet there is genuinely fine acting -- yes, acting -- from Adam Sandler to go along with terrific supporting turns by Tea Leoni and Cloris Leachman. No doubt about it, Brooks is solidly in charge of this feel-good fairy tale as he gets terrific performances from everyone including two super-talented child actors. "Spanglish" looks like a holiday hit for Sony.
The film doesn't act like a fairy tale, but how else to explain the frequent suspension of reality? Take the simple matter of language -- which, as the title indicates, is the basis for much of the confusion, comedy and cultural clashes. Flor (Vega), an illegal immigrant, speaks not a word of English, yet is hired on the spot by Deborah Clasky (Leoni) to take care of the family's Bel-Air home and two young children.
One can at least ascribe this implausible hiring to the whims of an insecure wife going through a nutty stage of life. But what explains her husband, John (Sandler), a top chef in New York and now L.A., speaking no Spanish? No chef can operate in restaurant kitchens in either city without a working knowledge of Spanish.
Yet unless Brooks turns a blind eye to reality, he will lose the movie's funniest and most touching scene: A heated argument erupts between John and Flor, which her daughter, Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), must rapidly translate back and forth with the skill of a U.N. translator along with the abrupt gesture and attitudes of each adult.
The film is told in flashback by Cristina, a narration (delivered by Aimee Garcia) supposedly lifted from her admission letter for a scholarship to Princeton. She tells of her mother's determination not to get involved with the lives of her employers, a resolution eroded by time. When Deborah, suffering from low self-esteem after losing her job, deliberately buys clothes a size too small for her slightly overweight daughter Bernice (Sarah Steele), Flor is appalled and quickly alters the clothes so they fit.
When the Claskys rent a beach house in Malibu for the summer, Deborah demands that Flor move in. Learning for the first time that Flor has a daughter, she insists that Cristina move in, too. The minute Cristina, as gorgeous as her mother, walks into the house, a competition for her affection erupts between Deborah and Flor. When Deborah takes her shopping, Cristina declares that Deborah is "the most amazing white woman" she has ever met. Meanwhile, Flor is furious because Deborah never asked permission to take her daughter.
John intervenes, which causes Flor to see a side in a male she has never seen before. Here is a man comfortable with his own emotions and compassion for others. "To someone with firsthand knowledge of Latin machismo," says the narrator, "he seemed to have the emotions of a Mexican ... woman."
Observing all of this like a witty Greek chorus is Deborah's mom Evelyn (Leachman), who drinks all day but carefully disguises her inebriation. Alcohol does not cloud her eyes or judgment, though, as she sees trouble in the family with more clarity than anyone else. Her daughter, suffering from a weird combination of narcissism and self-loathing, is a Loose Cannon about to sabotage her own marriage.
Pressure builds when a New York restaurant critic drops by John's establishment and commits the foul deed of declaring in his review that John is the best chef in America. Suddenly, the demand for tables and John's time grows exponentially. He resists though, forking over 20% of his restaurant to his sous chef to keep time for his family.
Brooks lets these conflicts and competing desires play out without pushing things. While dealing with serious themes, the movie seems almost easygoing. Ultimately, the film is about how two culturally different families approach parenting, and the discovery that here there is no language barrier. Along the way, the movie explores the problem of assimilation. Does one fit in by becoming a Latin version of an Anglo? Or does one embrace parts of an alien culture while maintaining a hold on one's own?
As a writer, Brooks has never fully escaped his TV sitcom background. But the situations and comedy are fresh enough here that this is a most forgivable sin. The crisis, where Deborah's self-destructive behavior momentarily frees John to give into in his growing affection for Flor, arrives logically without artifice or fake melodrama.
All tech credits are top notch, especially Ida Random's production design and Hans Zimmer's music, both of which incorporate Mexican and American influences.
SPANGLISH
Columbia Pictures
Gracie Films
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: James L. Brooks
Producers: James L. Brooks, Richard Sakai, Julie Ansell
Executive producer: Joan Bradshaw, Christy Haubegger
Director of photography: John Seale
Production designer: Ida Random
Music: Hans Zimmer
Costume designer: Shay Cunliffe, Louise Mingenbach
Editor: Richard Marks
Cast:
John Clasky: Adam Sandler
Deborah Clasky: Tea Leoni
Flor: Paz Vega
Evelyn: Cloris Leachman
Cristina: Shelbie Bruce
Bernice: Sarah Steele
MPAA rating PG-13
Running time --131 minutes...
- 30.12.2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'What Lies Beneath'
Director Robert Zemeckis pulls out all of the stops in his edge-of-your-seat thriller "What Lies Beneath". He deploys every scare tactic -- any plot twist, music cue, creepy sound, dark shadow, special effect and camera movement imaginable -- to keep audiences in a state of elevated tension. His success, however, must be weighed against the physical and mental exhaustion such relentless manipulation brings about in a viewer.
Many will giggle and scream their way through the 130-minute creep-athon. Others may weary of the shameless milking of suspense gimmicks nearly as old as cinema itself. By making continual references to Hitchcock and other masters of terror, Zemeckis by implication shuns any claim to originality here; "What Lies Beneath" is simply an affectionate, tongue-in-cheek tribute to movie trickery.
Haunted-house movies generally play to younger audiences, but Zemeckis' older stars, Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, should significantly broaden those demographics. Critics will likely be divided: One may see cunning artifice, while another will find only tired cliches. Audiences and critics alike, however, will be amazed at the filmmakers' willingness to, in the name of suspense, return over and over to an image or location, especially an upstairs bathroom that gets a greater workout than the shower in "Psycho" and the bathtub in "Diabolique" combined.
Zemeckis' approach to Clark Gregg's screenplay is to incorporate unmistakable elements from Hitchcock's films, most notably "Psycho", "Rear Window" and "Vertigo". Alan Silvestri's music underlines these borrowings with its expert imitation of a Bernard Herrmann score.
But what gets created is less an homage to Hitchcock than to early Brian De Palma. Only De Palma at least strove to reignite Hitchcock's magic by employing the master's theories on suspense within the structure of his stories. Zemeckis is content to quote Hitchcock without putting any of his ideas to work.
Pfeiffer and Ford play a happily married couple, living a seemingly placid if not idyllic life in a picturesque Vermont lakeside home. She's a retired musician, and he's a genetics researcher. When her daughter by a previous marriage (Katharine Towne) leaves for college, Ford says, "It's just us now".
Well, not exactly. It's just them plus the troubled spirit of a young woman. Strange noises and terrifying visions plague Pfeiffer to the point that she goes to shrink Joe Morton. She fears that these events have something to do with the new couple next door, a perpetually scowling professor (James Remar) and his frightened wife (Miranda Otto), who has suddenly disappeared.
But audiences know this "Rear Window" bit is a red herring because the movie's own ad campaign -- "He was the perfect husband, until his one mistake followed them home" -- tips you off that she is sleeping with the enemy.
As her visions, repressed memory and more back story gradually make clear, this unearthly visitor is connected to the disappearance of a young college student a year earlier, just about the time of Pfeiffer's mysterious auto accident.
The story and its escalating tension play out in a setting -- the lakeside home and its rustic surroundings -- beset by wind, rain, fog, telekinesis, eerie sounds and seemingly malevolent household objects. There is never a calm moment.
Nor is any moment wasted in the entire movie. Every idle conversation or scrap of information will eventually play its role. The danger here is that an audience will quickly catch on and start to spot plot twists before they
happen.
But the greater problem with such an intricate and artificial plot construction is that it leaves no room for its characters to live and breathe. Pfeiffer, the movie's central figure, is so buffeted by waves of cinematic effects and placed in such a reactive position that one struggles to understand what kind of a person she would be under normal circumstances.
And Ford's scientist makes little sense except as a fictional character marching to the orders of a manipulative screenwriter. Gregg (working from his and Sarah Kernochan's story) takes a stab at explaining his alarming behavior in the third act in terms of a long festering rivalry with his late father, a brilliant research scientist. But it's too lame to have any impact.
Cinematographer Don Burgess' smooth-as-silk camera plays peekaboo with mirrors and other objects in Rick Carter and Jim Teegarden's lovingly detailed set, turning a beautiful home into a house of horrors. Visual effects supervisor Robert Legato, second unit director Steve Starkey and underwater unit director Max Kleven do their damndest to give the audience the willies. And editor Arthur Schmidt makes certain there is no letup.
WHAT LIES BENEATH
DreamWorks Pictures
and 20th Century Fox
An Imagemovers Production
Producers: Steve Starkey,
Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriter: Clark Gregg
Story by: Sarah Kernochan, Clark Gregg
Executive producers: Joan Bradshaw,
Mark Johnson
Director of photography: Don Burgess
Production designers: Rick Carter,
Jim Teegarden
Music: Alan Silvestri
Costume designer: Susie DeSanto
Editor: Arthur Schmidt
Color/stereo
Cast:
Norman Spencer: Harrison Ford
Claire Spencer: Michelle Pfeiffer
Jody: Diana Scarwid
Dr. Drayton: Joe Morton
Warren Feur: James Remar
Mary Feur: Miranda Otto
Madison Elizabeth Frank: Amber Valletta
Running time -- 130 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Many will giggle and scream their way through the 130-minute creep-athon. Others may weary of the shameless milking of suspense gimmicks nearly as old as cinema itself. By making continual references to Hitchcock and other masters of terror, Zemeckis by implication shuns any claim to originality here; "What Lies Beneath" is simply an affectionate, tongue-in-cheek tribute to movie trickery.
Haunted-house movies generally play to younger audiences, but Zemeckis' older stars, Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, should significantly broaden those demographics. Critics will likely be divided: One may see cunning artifice, while another will find only tired cliches. Audiences and critics alike, however, will be amazed at the filmmakers' willingness to, in the name of suspense, return over and over to an image or location, especially an upstairs bathroom that gets a greater workout than the shower in "Psycho" and the bathtub in "Diabolique" combined.
Zemeckis' approach to Clark Gregg's screenplay is to incorporate unmistakable elements from Hitchcock's films, most notably "Psycho", "Rear Window" and "Vertigo". Alan Silvestri's music underlines these borrowings with its expert imitation of a Bernard Herrmann score.
But what gets created is less an homage to Hitchcock than to early Brian De Palma. Only De Palma at least strove to reignite Hitchcock's magic by employing the master's theories on suspense within the structure of his stories. Zemeckis is content to quote Hitchcock without putting any of his ideas to work.
Pfeiffer and Ford play a happily married couple, living a seemingly placid if not idyllic life in a picturesque Vermont lakeside home. She's a retired musician, and he's a genetics researcher. When her daughter by a previous marriage (Katharine Towne) leaves for college, Ford says, "It's just us now".
Well, not exactly. It's just them plus the troubled spirit of a young woman. Strange noises and terrifying visions plague Pfeiffer to the point that she goes to shrink Joe Morton. She fears that these events have something to do with the new couple next door, a perpetually scowling professor (James Remar) and his frightened wife (Miranda Otto), who has suddenly disappeared.
But audiences know this "Rear Window" bit is a red herring because the movie's own ad campaign -- "He was the perfect husband, until his one mistake followed them home" -- tips you off that she is sleeping with the enemy.
As her visions, repressed memory and more back story gradually make clear, this unearthly visitor is connected to the disappearance of a young college student a year earlier, just about the time of Pfeiffer's mysterious auto accident.
The story and its escalating tension play out in a setting -- the lakeside home and its rustic surroundings -- beset by wind, rain, fog, telekinesis, eerie sounds and seemingly malevolent household objects. There is never a calm moment.
Nor is any moment wasted in the entire movie. Every idle conversation or scrap of information will eventually play its role. The danger here is that an audience will quickly catch on and start to spot plot twists before they
happen.
But the greater problem with such an intricate and artificial plot construction is that it leaves no room for its characters to live and breathe. Pfeiffer, the movie's central figure, is so buffeted by waves of cinematic effects and placed in such a reactive position that one struggles to understand what kind of a person she would be under normal circumstances.
And Ford's scientist makes little sense except as a fictional character marching to the orders of a manipulative screenwriter. Gregg (working from his and Sarah Kernochan's story) takes a stab at explaining his alarming behavior in the third act in terms of a long festering rivalry with his late father, a brilliant research scientist. But it's too lame to have any impact.
Cinematographer Don Burgess' smooth-as-silk camera plays peekaboo with mirrors and other objects in Rick Carter and Jim Teegarden's lovingly detailed set, turning a beautiful home into a house of horrors. Visual effects supervisor Robert Legato, second unit director Steve Starkey and underwater unit director Max Kleven do their damndest to give the audience the willies. And editor Arthur Schmidt makes certain there is no letup.
WHAT LIES BENEATH
DreamWorks Pictures
and 20th Century Fox
An Imagemovers Production
Producers: Steve Starkey,
Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriter: Clark Gregg
Story by: Sarah Kernochan, Clark Gregg
Executive producers: Joan Bradshaw,
Mark Johnson
Director of photography: Don Burgess
Production designers: Rick Carter,
Jim Teegarden
Music: Alan Silvestri
Costume designer: Susie DeSanto
Editor: Arthur Schmidt
Color/stereo
Cast:
Norman Spencer: Harrison Ford
Claire Spencer: Michelle Pfeiffer
Jody: Diana Scarwid
Dr. Drayton: Joe Morton
Warren Feur: James Remar
Mary Feur: Miranda Otto
Madison Elizabeth Frank: Amber Valletta
Running time -- 130 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 17.7.2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Contact'
If you build it, they will come. This time we're not talking about ballparks and baseball players, but rather satellite dishes and intelligent extraterrestrial life, as an unconventional astronomer obsesses to connect with other life in the universe.
A distillation of the late Carl Sagan's best seller "Contact", this filmic adaptation is also constructed with generic sci-fi components and characters and draws on blueprints from such filmic predecessors as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." But despite its lineage and some impressive special effects, "Contact" is a disappointingly earthbound production, weighed down by the ballast of talking-heads dramaturgy and bloated storytelling.
At the boxoffice, Warner Bros. has a "tweener" on its hands, a vessel that falls between certain audiences: High schoolers and special-effects buffs will find its thermo-dramatics insufficiently charged, lacking in action and outer-space razzle-dazzle, while intelligent life forms will find its philosophizing a quantum level below expectations, unless one is hoping for an "Oprah"-ish discussion on the science-vs.-religion debate. Look for a big launch based on Jodie Foster's star appeal in the lead role and Sagan's following, but word-of-mouth will soon put this Robert Zemeckis-directed film into a disappointing tailspin, burning out far below boxoffice outer space.
In this ambitious undertaking, Foster stars as Ellie Arroway, a brilliant astronomer who has alienated her mentors by her choice of specialty: Ellie has chosen to dedicate her career to making contact with other intelligent life forms in the universe. After all, as her late father told her, "If we're The Only Ones here, what a waste of space."
While gutty little crackpot yarns are always appealing as the renegade thinker takes on the establishment and ultimately wins the day, this scenario is so ponderous and transparently schematic that one only half-heartedly roots for the scrappy scientist to prove her point by connecting with extraterrestrial life and toppling the dunderheaded establishment, herein consisting of not only the scientific-industrial complex but the citadels of organized religion as well.
While one can appreciate the vexing tribulations with cross-wiring Sagan's downbeat novel to popular filmic dimension, screenwriters James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg have programmed a bugged-up format of story viruses and black hole-sized logical voids.
Consisting of dialogue so gratingly expositional that one would have to consult a VCR manual to duplicate its utilitarian dullness, and philosophical debates so turgidly pompous that one would have to fetch an Los Angeles Times Op/Ed page for comparable drivel, the story is woefully dependent on talking-heads newscasters delivering the plot.
Admittedly, we possess a certain perverse admiration for an opus that relies on the likes of "The Larry King Show" for delving into the big issues. Still, even an enthusiastic numbers cruncher would be taxed by tabulating the truly amazing number of times this serioso mind-candy relies on TV talking heads to propel its narrative. So leaden is its dramatic thrust that not even director Robert Zemeckis, whose productions usually travel at the speed of light, can get this one moving faster than a mule train.
The data is not all bad on the writing, however. On the plus side, the science-vs.-religion debates are mercifully short, interrupted, for instance, by a beeper-page from President Clinton. Indeed, Clinton appears in a number of press conference-ish vignettes, delivering wishy-washy blather on the big happenings. In this regard, the screenwriters are to be commended for their deft duplication of Clintonesque platitudinery.
Despite being short-circuited by the dialogue, Foster is commanding as the strong-minded astronomer. Alternately shrill, contentious and self-absorbed, the character is nicely rounded and made sympathetic by Foster's smartly textured portrayal. As the voice of science, she is paired with and against Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a touchy-feely religious type. Unfortunately, this dichotomy is crammed up with an unlikely romance, so bipolar that it defies even the laws-of-opposites attraction.
Under Zemeckis' surprisingly small screen-ish visualization, the technical contributions are a mixed bag. Highest praise to production designer Ed Verreaux and the visual effects team for the brainy look, an inspired mix of Leonardo Da Vinci and Niels Bohr. Most impressively, there's some dazzling sorcery in the opening, big-space sequence -- it's thrilling and humbling, all at once. Along with "2001" and "Star Wars", it's among the best eye-openers for a space-directed movie.
CONTACT
Warner Bros.
A South Side Amusement Co. production
A Robert Zemeckis film
Producers Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey
Director Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriters James V. Hart,
Michael Goldenberg
Based on the novel by Carl Sagan
Based on the story by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
Executive producers Joan Bradshaw,
Lynda Obst
Director of photography Don Burgess
Production designer Ed Verreaux
Editor Arthur Schmidt
Music Alan Silvestri
Costume designer Joanna Johnston
Senior visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston
Casting Victoria Burrows
Co-producers Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
Sound designer Randy Thom
Color/stereo
Cast:
Ellie Arroway Jodie Foster
Palmer Joss Matthew McConaughey
David Drumlin Tom Skerritt
Rachel Constantine Angela Bassett
Michael Kit :James Woods
S.R. Hadden John Hurt
Young Ellie Jena Malone
Ted Arroway David Morse
Fisher Geoffrey Blake
Richard Rank Rob Lowe
Running time -- 150 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
A distillation of the late Carl Sagan's best seller "Contact", this filmic adaptation is also constructed with generic sci-fi components and characters and draws on blueprints from such filmic predecessors as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." But despite its lineage and some impressive special effects, "Contact" is a disappointingly earthbound production, weighed down by the ballast of talking-heads dramaturgy and bloated storytelling.
At the boxoffice, Warner Bros. has a "tweener" on its hands, a vessel that falls between certain audiences: High schoolers and special-effects buffs will find its thermo-dramatics insufficiently charged, lacking in action and outer-space razzle-dazzle, while intelligent life forms will find its philosophizing a quantum level below expectations, unless one is hoping for an "Oprah"-ish discussion on the science-vs.-religion debate. Look for a big launch based on Jodie Foster's star appeal in the lead role and Sagan's following, but word-of-mouth will soon put this Robert Zemeckis-directed film into a disappointing tailspin, burning out far below boxoffice outer space.
In this ambitious undertaking, Foster stars as Ellie Arroway, a brilliant astronomer who has alienated her mentors by her choice of specialty: Ellie has chosen to dedicate her career to making contact with other intelligent life forms in the universe. After all, as her late father told her, "If we're The Only Ones here, what a waste of space."
While gutty little crackpot yarns are always appealing as the renegade thinker takes on the establishment and ultimately wins the day, this scenario is so ponderous and transparently schematic that one only half-heartedly roots for the scrappy scientist to prove her point by connecting with extraterrestrial life and toppling the dunderheaded establishment, herein consisting of not only the scientific-industrial complex but the citadels of organized religion as well.
While one can appreciate the vexing tribulations with cross-wiring Sagan's downbeat novel to popular filmic dimension, screenwriters James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg have programmed a bugged-up format of story viruses and black hole-sized logical voids.
Consisting of dialogue so gratingly expositional that one would have to consult a VCR manual to duplicate its utilitarian dullness, and philosophical debates so turgidly pompous that one would have to fetch an Los Angeles Times Op/Ed page for comparable drivel, the story is woefully dependent on talking-heads newscasters delivering the plot.
Admittedly, we possess a certain perverse admiration for an opus that relies on the likes of "The Larry King Show" for delving into the big issues. Still, even an enthusiastic numbers cruncher would be taxed by tabulating the truly amazing number of times this serioso mind-candy relies on TV talking heads to propel its narrative. So leaden is its dramatic thrust that not even director Robert Zemeckis, whose productions usually travel at the speed of light, can get this one moving faster than a mule train.
The data is not all bad on the writing, however. On the plus side, the science-vs.-religion debates are mercifully short, interrupted, for instance, by a beeper-page from President Clinton. Indeed, Clinton appears in a number of press conference-ish vignettes, delivering wishy-washy blather on the big happenings. In this regard, the screenwriters are to be commended for their deft duplication of Clintonesque platitudinery.
Despite being short-circuited by the dialogue, Foster is commanding as the strong-minded astronomer. Alternately shrill, contentious and self-absorbed, the character is nicely rounded and made sympathetic by Foster's smartly textured portrayal. As the voice of science, she is paired with and against Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a touchy-feely religious type. Unfortunately, this dichotomy is crammed up with an unlikely romance, so bipolar that it defies even the laws-of-opposites attraction.
Under Zemeckis' surprisingly small screen-ish visualization, the technical contributions are a mixed bag. Highest praise to production designer Ed Verreaux and the visual effects team for the brainy look, an inspired mix of Leonardo Da Vinci and Niels Bohr. Most impressively, there's some dazzling sorcery in the opening, big-space sequence -- it's thrilling and humbling, all at once. Along with "2001" and "Star Wars", it's among the best eye-openers for a space-directed movie.
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Warner Bros.
A South Side Amusement Co. production
A Robert Zemeckis film
Producers Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey
Director Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriters James V. Hart,
Michael Goldenberg
Based on the novel by Carl Sagan
Based on the story by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
Executive producers Joan Bradshaw,
Lynda Obst
Director of photography Don Burgess
Production designer Ed Verreaux
Editor Arthur Schmidt
Music Alan Silvestri
Costume designer Joanna Johnston
Senior visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston
Casting Victoria Burrows
Co-producers Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
Sound designer Randy Thom
Color/stereo
Cast:
Ellie Arroway Jodie Foster
Palmer Joss Matthew McConaughey
David Drumlin Tom Skerritt
Rachel Constantine Angela Bassett
Michael Kit :James Woods
S.R. Hadden John Hurt
Young Ellie Jena Malone
Ted Arroway David Morse
Fisher Geoffrey Blake
Richard Rank Rob Lowe
Running time -- 150 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 7.7.1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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