RobertPennWarren Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: All the King's Men -- James' Take
Filed under: Classics », Drama », Sony », Theatrical Reviews », Politics », Remakes and Sequels »
Based on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer-prize winning novel -- previously filmed in 1949 in a triple-Oscar-winning adaptation -- All the King's Men follows a small-town Louisiana man from the dirt roads of post-war poverty to the Governor's statehouse. Based on the rise and fall of the real Huey P. Long, All the King's Men turns Long into Willie Stark (Sean Penn), who originally gets involved in politics for the best of reasons and winds up engaged in the worst of practices.
The problem with Steven Zallian's script and direction in this new version of All the King's Men is that it's a political movie where we never really get a sense of politics. We see how Willie originally gets drafted as a machination to split 'the ick vote' in a race to the benefit of the city-based incumbent, but after that, the film droops and slides into a sort of Southern Gothic melodrama -- especially as reporter Jack Burden (Jude Law, woefully miscast) follows and then joins the Stark machine. This takes the focus of the story away from Stark and follows Jack -- in his relationship with Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins) and his now-grown childhood friends, Anne (Kate Winslet) and Adam (Mark Ruffalo) Stanton. Willie wants the Judge to stop backing an impeachment campaign; he wants Adam to head a new medical center; Anne, Willie simply wants -- and vice-versa, even as Jack looks on sadly.
All The Kings Men Trailer
Filed under: Drama », Movie Marketing »
At long (long, long) last, All the King's Men is due to hit theaters this September, and Columbia has finally made the trailer available in a watchable format (as opposed to the tiny, jittery option that made the rounds last spring).Though the massive delay (you may recall it was due for release last December, but was pulled because it allegedly wasn't done) in getting this one into theaters -- not to mention the shift from a "We Want Oscars!" December slot to the new "Please Don't look At Us" September date -- makes me deeply suspicious about its quality, I gotta say that I really like the trailer. Sean Penn (sporting his We're No Angels haircut, and looking impossibly young) is working the charisma like we haven't seen from him in a while, Anthony Hopkins is nice and calm for a change, and Jude Law is, well, his normal pretty self. And he's reviving the drawl that worked so well for him in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which is unlikely to be a bad thing. I have to admit, though, that I've never read the Robert Penn Warren novel on which this film is based, so I'm not equipped to comment on its fidelity to its source. What do you guys think?
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