Joshua Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Vera Farmiga must be one of our great actresses -- for the first two-thirds of Joshua, she not only kept me enraptured by her performance, but also made me think I was watching a good movie. She plays the wife of a go-getter investment banker (Sam Rockwell), and the two of them share a lavish apartment in way-upscale Manhattan -- the kind of place where only the most abnormal problems are able to slip through the net. And so one does, in the form of the title character, the couple's bizarre nine year-old son who vomits at hearing Christmas carols, embalms his stuffed animal -- "this will guarantee him a glorious afterlife," he tells his father -- and sends off such an utterly emotionless, unlovable vibe that his parents huddle close together whenever conversing with him, like two lawyers who need to consult during a tricky business meeting. Anyone reading this script would be dead certain by page ten that they were in for a re-tread of The Omen, but it's thanks to Farmiga that the movie keeps you guessing, for a while.

It's made clear early on that her character suffered some kind of off-the-charts post-partum depression after the birth of Joshua (Jacob Kogan), and as the film opens, she's just given birth to a second child, one that mom and dad silently hope will not grow to have the demeanor of an adolescent Jeffrey Dahmer, like Joshua does. Joshua is never really a mystery to us -- he's consistently weird, but Farmiga frequently interrupts the story of his weirdness with her own story, one that's brimming with possibilities and wild misdirection. Her flat, spongy face is inexplicably swelled up with tears for much of the film, making us ask questions like: Is post-partum depression driving her mad? Did it also drive her mad nine years ago, during the Joshua pregnancy? Is Joshua's odd behavior somehow connected to that? There's one brief scene that nearly stands the movie on its head, when, in a quiet moment, Farmiga's character begins to talk to Joshua in a way that mothers do not talk to their nine year-old sons. It sends chills.

Fox Searchlight sent over their summer preview today; there are stills for several of their upcoming films, including Day Watch, the highly-anticipated follow-up to the 2004 Russian horror film Night Watch and Waitress, the Keri Russell-starring romantic comedy that's most known so far for being the last project of filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, who was, sadly, murdered late last year. There are also some pics from Once, an Irish musical that made waves at Sundance 2007 and Joshua, a psychological thriller starring Vera Farmiga and Sam Rockwell. Fox threw in a couple of pics and notes from Sunshine as well, but they were so well known that I didn't bother including them. When Sunshine is finally released in this country, how are they going to market it to U.S. moviephiles that have already seen all the promotional material and read the reviews of the film in British and Aussie pubs? They better put their thinking caps on. After the pics, you can read some press notes for each film.

• Clubland -- Warner Independent Pictures -- $4,000,000
• Crazy Love -- Magnolia Pictures -- n/a
  
• Grace is Gone -- The Weinstein Co. -- $4,000,000
• How She Move -- Paramount Vantage -- $4,000,000
• In the Shadow of the Moon -- ThinkFilm -- $2,500,000
• Joshua -- Fox Searchlight -- $4,000,000
• King of California -- First Look Pictures -- $3,000,000
• La Misma Luna (The Same Moon) -- The Weinstein Co. & Fox Searchlight -- $5,000,000
• My Kid Could Paint That -- Sony Pictures Classics -- $1,500,000
• Nanking -- Fortissimo Films -- n/a
  
• Once -- Summit Entertainment -- n/a
  
• Protagonist -- IFC & Netflix -- Under $1,000,000
• The Signal -- Magnolia Pictures -- $2,300,000
• Son of Rambow -- Paramount Vantage -- $8,500,000 (some say even higher)
• Teeth -- The Weinstein Co. & Lionsgate -- $1,000,000
• The Ten -- ThinkFilm & City Lights Home Entertainment -- $4,500,000
• Waitress -- Fox Searchlight -- $4,500,000
• Weapons -- After Dark Films -- $1,000,000

Last year, a "motley group of techie folks" came together and used Bayesian analysis (don't worry, I'm not smart enough to figure it out either) to predict which films at Sundance would win the four major awards. Part of their process includes gathering 11 years worth of festival guides, information off IMDb and an assortment of film reviews, throwing it all in some sort of virtual whiz-kid blender and, apparently, out spits which films are most likely to finish on top. It sounds pretty nutty, but in 2006 they accurately predicted all four winners. Yes, I'm serious.

Since the big Sundance awards are being handed out tomorrow -- we're talking the Dramatic Competition Audience Award, the Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize, the Documentary Competition Audience Award and the Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize -- we decided to check back in with Deconstructing Sundance to see what their picks for 2007 are. Basically, they break it down into three hilariously-named categories: Films under the Timberlake Britney category are the best, Federline Britney lists those in the middle and Pantiless Britney, well, you get the drift. Beside each film is a percentage level which is supposed to represent how confident they are in their decision to place a film in a certain category.

So ... you probably want to know which films they picked, huh? Well, according to their 2007 predictions list (and hopefully I'm reading it correctly), The Good Life (98.76%) and Joshua (99.27%) are the two favorites in dramatic competition, followed somewhat closely behind by Grace is Gone (89.13%), Four Sheets to the Wind (86.69%) and Hounddog (66.81%). And the worst film in dramatic competition? Adrift in Manhattan wound up in the Pantiless Britney category with 83.76%.

Sunday was a jam-packed day in the Moviefone Unscripted studio on Main, where you couldn't turn around with bumping into a celeb. Lucky for me, I was hanging out there at just the right time to catch the exquisite Vera Farmiga, who was there to promote the film 'Joshua' with her director, George Ratliff.

Up until this past fall, Farmiga wasn't particularly well known despite having drawn universal raves for her work in 'Down to the Bone.' (For my part, I'd seen in last year's 'Running Scared,' and she was by far the best thing about that movie.) Then came 'The Departed,' and now she's finally in a position to bring attention to smaller films like 'Joshua,' a psychological thriller about a mother who discovers that her son's a "bad seed." (Rumor has it, by the way, that there's a bidding war afoot for this film, with Fox Searchlight currently in the lead. Updated: Fox Searchlight nabbed the film today.)

Farmiga looked lovely as she walked into the studio for the interview -- great jeans, cute little blazer, blond shoulder-length hair -- and I'm such a huge admirer that I made up an excuse to talk to her, like the dork that I am. (Me: "You want some water?" Her: "Yeah, that'd be great, thanks!") The interview itself, in which she and Ratliff chatted with each other about the film, went great. She very openly and easily talked about her desire to have a child of her own, and about the ways in which she and her siblings (she's the second-oldest of seven kids) used to torture each other growing up. It involved long streams of drool. They also talked so much about 'Down to the Bone,' which Ratliff and Scorsese both love and used as their basis for casting Farmiga, that I resolved to rent it the second I get back to New York.

When she introduced herself on-camera, incidentally, I learned that I'd been pronouncing her name wrong this whole time. It's Far-MI-ga, not FAR-miga. I can't quite get used to the proper pronunciation. Sounds a little too much like "formica" -- and Farmiga's way too cool to be associated with fake kitchen countertop material. But maybe that's just me.