The Failure Of The ALL THE KING'S MEN Remake

The IMDB reported this the other day -

"Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Steve Zaillian was clearly stunned by the critical and box-office failure of his latest film, ALL THE KING'S MEN, which opened with only $3.8 million in its debut and fell out of the top-ten in its second weekend. Zaillian told the Los Angeles Times that it was "like getting hit by a truck. ... I don't know what to make of it. Maybe down the road I'll figure it out".

Well maybe I can help figure it out - Since it is leaving my home town theater after a barely attended 2 ween run I decided to see the movie last night and it is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen!! Not since I almost went into a coma watching HOFFA has my time in the theater been so deadly dull. Hard to say exactly where Zaillian and crew went wrong - it is well photographed, the screenplay hits the right points, and the cast is A-list (Sean Penn, Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Patricia Clarkson, etc.) - it just doesn't work. Most critics have blamed Sean Penn's overwrought performance and yes it is true he does deserve to be one of the patients in Monty Python's Hospital For The Over-Acting sketch but the blame lies elsewhere I believe.

I got the original 1949 version of ALL THE KING'S MEN (Dir. Robert Rossen) from Netflix and watched it this morning. It had won the best picture Oscar and for good reason - it is a good well crafted interesting exercise in good taste and restraint. Everything the re-make tries in vain for the original accomplishes with much more class. I'll take Broderick Crawford's believably flawed Willie Stark over Sean Penn's wretched over-the-top spastic Willie Stark any day.

So it was just another unnecessary remake. I can't think of one worthwhile remake that has been produced lately. Can you?

More later...

DVD Review: THE INTERPRETER

Now out on DVD:



THE INTERPRETER (Dir. Sydney Pollack)






This came out last summer and failed to make a splash. I watched it on DVD this last week and could see why. Not that it is outright horrible just pretty bad. Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn (once again humorless as Hell) aren’t convincing as their characters, particularly not with Kidman’s accent or always perfect hair. 



Catherine Keener as Penn’s Secret Service partner has very little to do. There are so many lamely plotted sequences and laughable conveniences that any element of suspense or actual sentiment is in vain. Pity too.

Pollack has made a number of fine films, a much better example of a political thriller of his was THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975). 



Honestly though, Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway looked like just like the big name movie stars they were in that too, but they sure sold it better than Penn and Kidman here. Maybe the only thing worth seeing on the DVD is a bonus feature about Pollack's choice of the widescreen format over full frame: "I'm making a plea for my colleagues and myself who spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to tell you the story in the best possible way visually and then someone else has to come in and cut the edges off of all of that and pan and scan it so you're not seeing what story we tried to tell you." 



Pollack once brought a lawsuit on a Danish TV station for how they pan and scanned one of his films, "mutilated it" he said. To fight to preserve the full visual imagery of one's art is a pretty cool stance - too bad THE INTERPRETER is not. 



Special Features: Audio Commentary by Director Sydney Pollack, alternate ending, deleted scenes, featurettes: "Sydney Pollack at Work: From Concept to Cutting Room," "Interpreting Pan & Scan vs. Widescreen," "A Day in the Life of Real Interpreters," and "The Ultimate Movie Set: The United Nations."



More later...