MySistersKeeper Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Star Trek
In rebooting the franchise, J.J. Abrams faced the daunting challenge of pleasing long-time Trekkies and roping in new viewers who think 'Live long and prosper' is a slogan for an insurance company. This is not your father's Star Trek, but he'd probably like it too (begrudgingly). Buy it. Also on Blu-ray (see Todd Gilchrist's review for more on that edition.)

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Bruno
I'm not a big fan of the 'ridicule the clueless' school of humor, so I turn to Cinematical's review by Todd Gilchrist: "curiously ineffective, a sort of middling effort that fails to liberate itself from the stereotypes that provide the character's foundations, even if it also doesn't deliberately or harmfully reinforce them." Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

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My Sister's Keeper
Despite a relentless barrage of scenes evidently designed with the sole goal of jerking tears, Nick Cassavetes' My Sister's Keeper did not make me cry. It is, however, one of the most glorious-looking terminal cancer pictures I've ever seen. Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric, Abigail Breslin, and Alec Baldwin star in a film I found entirely unsatisfying. (See my review for more.) In addition, fans of the novel by Jodi Picoult may not appreciate the changed ending. Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Also out: How to Be (with Robert Pattinson), Wild Child (with Emma Roberts).

After the jump: Indies on DVD, more Blu-ray, and Collector's Corner.

One of my absolute least favorite genres is the "disease of the week" movie. There are lots of genres I prefer less than others, but in the case of this one, I can't understand why people like it. Why would anyone want to go see a movie about people getting sick and probably dying? The nearest I can figure is that, for viewers who like to cry, this is an almost certain tearjerker. Otherwise, perhaps it makes viewers feel good about not being sick. Who knows? But this week, fate has handed me an almost perfect example of what I hate about this genre, as well as an alternate example of just how it can work.

My Sister's Keeper (262 screens) is the bad one, though it does begin with a good idea. Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) was created in a test tube essentially to provide "spare parts" for her older sister, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who is stricken with leukemia. When Anna reaches the age of ten, she approaches a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue for the rights to her own body. But rather than following that lead, the movie then spends the bulk of its running time in the hospital with Kate, watching her get sick and throw up while others weep and study test results. She gets a little brief romance, but it ends tragically. The worst thing of all is that, despite all this focus on Kate, she never emerges as a character. She's always good-natured, strong and loving. (We see her dark side only once, in a flashback.) Essentially, she is defined by her disease. She is "cancer girl" and nothing more.

So here we have it, the summer movie season finally winding down, and maybe it's just us, but a couple of peculiar trends have cropped up since May that we thought were worth bringing to light. For starters, we've only further elaborated on Eric's early indicator that puking was 'in' this year (seriously, it's gotten to be a pretty considerable theme), and as for the rest, you can check them out after the jump. Some spoilers follow. And if there are any corrections or additions to be made, please pipe up in the comments, and do so gently.

Well, don't we all feel a little silly. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the movie that received the most hysterically negative reviews of 2009 opened to by far the year's biggest numbers -- $201 million since Wednesday, according to estimates. That's just a couple million shy of the first-five-days-of-release record set by The Dark Knight, though that movie opened on a Thursday. (It's tough to truly compare opening weekends of mega-blockbusters these days, since God knows on what day of the week they all hit theaters.) I hope everyone is looking forward to Transformers 3, where Autobots will discover fart jokes.

The only movie to dare take on Revenge of the Fallen in wide release, was the Nick Cassavetes weepie My Sister's Keeper, which opened to a respectable $12 million -- almost as strong as Cassavetes' The Notebook, though unlikely to be carried to an $80 million cume by good word-of-mouth. Year One took a big tumble, falling off 70% its middling opening; I guess Michael Cera and Jack Black aren't quite the automatic draw that battling cyborgs are. And The Hangover continues to ride a wave of audience goodwill; it will likely have reached $200 million by this time next weekend.

As for your weekly Up v. Finding Nemo update -- it's still neck-in-neck, with Nemo ahead by about $3 million after five weeks of release. If this weekend's heftier drop-off for Up is any indication, it may be starting to lose a little steam, which would mean that Nemo would get to hold on to the Pixar crown.

The full top 10 after the jump.

How faithful should film adaptations be? The issue arises both with novels and with films that are remade: fans of the original are none-too-pleased to see the personality of beloved characters changed, settings or time periods moved, or -- horror of horrors! -- the ending changed. Watchmen ignited a mini-firestorm with the decision to alter the ending of the original graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. On a somewhat smaller scale, faithful readers of Jodi Picoult's novel My Sister's Keeper are upset that the ending was changed for Nick Cassavetes' just-released movie version.

Author Picoult disclaims responsibility while trying to be diplomatic. "Yes, I know the ending is different," she writes on her official site. "Yes, I know some of you are very upset. I didn't change it. The author has no control over the movie, and it was hard for me to accept too. However, there's a great deal in the movie that I think is great, and I enjoyed watching it - and I hope you did too." She suggests that her fans let Warner Brothers know how they feel. As a point of interest, four out of five comments on my review for Cinematical have complained about the ending.

It seems foolish to try and establish a hard-and-fast rule that original endings should never be changed -- filmmakers should have the artistic right to exercise dramatic license when adapting a work to a different medium. Yet how often have film versions actually improved endings that they've changed?

I'm not ashamed to say that I cry at the movies. Not frequently, but occasionally a story and its characters will grab hold of me to the extent that I'm completely caught up in the emotions and feelings being expressed. Films as disparate as John Ford's The Searchers and Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express have caused me to weep with joy, relief, and sorrow.

Despite a relentless barrage of scenes evidently designed with the sole goal of jerking tears, Nick Cassavetes' My Sister's Keeper did not make me cry. It is, however, one of the most glorious-looking terminal cancer pictures I've ever seen. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Natural) paints the oft-mundane proceedings in an otherworldly glow, as though the transition to the next life had already begun. That's the guiding principle of the movie as a whole; even though an inflammatory and emotionally wrenching issue serves as the linchpin for the plot, great pains are taken to soften the blows so as not to inflict lasting damage upon the viewer.

Frankly, that latter point, much more than whether I personally shed tears, is what prevents My Sister's Keeper from escaping middlebrow territory. Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric are splendidly noble as Brian and Sara Fitzgerald, whose daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) is diagnosed at a young age with leukemia. Brian and Sara conceive another child with genetic modifications so she can serve as a donor to her sister. Anna (Abigail Breslin) (*) seems fine with all the body part donations until Kate's condition worsens to the point that she needs a kidney transplant. Then 11-year-old Anna marches into the office of well-known lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) and demands medical emancipation from her parents.

I have to imagine Sandra Bullock is in a pretty good mood since The Proposal gave her the strongest opening weekend of her career. Year One got off to a so-so start, with holdovers The Hangover and Up forcing the prehistoric comedy into fourth place. Here's the top five:

1. The Proposal: $33.6 million
2. The Hangover: $26.7 million
3. Up: $23.4 million
4. Year One: $19.6 million
5. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3: $12 million

Two wildly different movie coming out this week:

My Sister's Keeper
What's It All About: When a young girl (Abigail Breslin) learns she was conceived to create a compatible bone marrow donor for her ailing sister she sues her parents for emancipation.
Why It Might Do Well: This is a smart bit of counter programming since the audience for this movie will probably not intersect with the Transformers crowd. Right now there's a 100% rating at Rottentomatoes.com, though only five reviews are in.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The plot seems pretty heavy for a Summer release.
Number of Theaters: 2,600
Prediction: $9 million

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Opens Wednesday)
What's It All About: Michael Bay directs this big budget special effects sequel about giant alien robots using Earth as their battlefield. Much of the original cast returns including Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox.
Why It Might Do Well: In addition to having all the effects, action and explosions a Summer blockbuster requires, the first film in the franchise had a $70 million opening weekend and went on to gross $319 million domestically.
Why It Might Not Do Well: A lowly 22% at Rottentomatoes.com.
Number of Theaters: 4,000
Prediction: $98 million

As 2009 approaches its halfway mark, it's a good time to reflect on the cinematic themes we've seen represented so far. Given the current economy, it's no surprise that banks and financiers have been villainized in movies such as Drag Me to Hell and The International. Perhaps we're tired of babies, too, as infants have been harmed or endangered for comic effect in Dance Flick and The Hangover. But the most prevalent theme in all of Hollywood this year? Vomit. Chunky, steamy vomit.

I don't know if so many movies with puke scenes have ever appeared in one year. And I'm not talking about where a character is seen discreetly from behind, kneeling over a toilet and ralphing, with no barf actually visible. That sort of thing is relatively common. No, I'm talking about scenes where we actually see the vomit as it's spewed from the person's mouth, graphically and in color. That's a lot rarer. Yet so far in 2009 it's happened in Adventureland, The Haunting in Connecticut, Drag Me to Hell, Observe and Report, The Hangover, Year One, and My Sister's Keeper. And wow, the first four of those seven all played at South By Southwest. Fixated much, SXSW programmers??

The causes of the chundering vary from film to film. In My Sister's Keeper and The Haunting in Connecticut, it's cancer-stricken teenagers suffering from nausea. Year One has its heroes afflicted with motion sickness (eating the poop didn't bother them at all), and I believe that's what makes an amusement-park customer hurl in Adventureland, too. Drag Me to Hell has a woman (possibly a hallucination) vomiting maggots on somebody. In the other movies, it's good ol' drunkenness or hungoverness.

Armored
A group of armored car guards plan to swipe several million dollars that have been left in their care. The presence of Laurence Fishburne and Matt Dillon offers some hope, but the basic premise recalls everything from Reservoir Dogs to the Oceans' series. When the youngest member of the gang makes Matt Dillon promise that no one will get hurt I cringed a little. This one hits theaters on September 18.

The Skeptic
I'm torn about how I feel about this one. In the plus column this haunted house flick seems to have some real creep out moments and reminds me a bit of The Changeling. On the other hand I've never seen Tim Daly carry a feature before and the rest of the cast, which includes Tom Arnold, makes me feel like this is a TV movie. For those less skeptical (d'oh!) it hits theaters on May 1.

The Countess
The Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) has been the subject of more horror films than I can count thanks to her habit of bathing in the blood of virgins in hopes of preserving her own youth. This film aims, presumably, at a more historically accurate portrayal of the Countess, making this a period costume drama with a grisly edge. No U.S. release date just yet.

'Tear-jerker' is a loaded term; I'll admit as much. Like any number of other labels, it's largely used in a dismissive regard, but I could either tell you that My Sister's Keeper is about a precocious girl (Abigail Breslin, clearly changing things up) who decides to sue her parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) for having been grown in the name of organ transplants for their ailing oldest daughter (Sofia Vassilieva), or I could tell you that My Sister's Keeper is the latest tear-jerker from the director of The Notebook. You get the idea.

Either way, the trailer is up at Yahoo! Movies (or watch it below), and it sells exactly the type of weepie that I predicted in a piece last February regarding some of Warners' upcoming releases. The film is still scheduled to contend with indie drama Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and while it makes sense on paper as ideal counter-programming, I'd still argue that if the star-packed Evening couldn't rake in much at all against that film's predecessor, what chance does something like this stand?

As I admitted in another piece from late last year, I'm not completely immune to the occasional tear, and I honestly won't be above watching this when it does come out in late June, but am I the only one put off by the sheer treacle on display here? On the flip side, can any of you vouch for the Jodi Picoult novel of the same name?