The Reader Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's a slow, post-Easter release week...

The Reader
Older woman meets much younger man. They have an affair, years go by, and then they meet again when she's brought to court with Nazi war crime charges. The film earned Kate Winslet an Academy Award for her performance while also grabbing four other nominations. But is The Reader worth it? In her review, Jette said that the "structure of The Reader is rambling and hard to follow," but "like many end-of-year films, the performances are what makes the film most worth watching." Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

The Spirit
It whipped up enough buzz, but unfortunately, the eager excitement just wasn't there -- both before and after release. As Scott said: "The Spirit is simply an empty vessel. It's a bunch of cool-looking visuals that should be looking for a half-decent plot, but are just too damn happy being cool-looking visuals." Need you hear more unhappiness? Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Also out: Bled, Splinter, Irreconcilable Differences, Decameron '69, Hiding Out

New Line insists on "reimagining," but from reading the reviews I take it nobody's buying.

Anyway. Friday the 13th set a horror remake opening weekend record, grossing $40.7 million over the three days and $45.2 including President's Day Monday. That beats Marcus Nispel's Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake by more than $12 million. It's also roughly the second best President's Day weekend opening ever, behind only Ghost Rider and just about tied with 50 First Dates and Daredevil.

Confessions of a Shopaholic opened to a halfway decent $17.3 million, while The International more or less flopped with $10.7 million; the marketing for the latter really pushed the evil bank concept, complete with a shot of an ATM offering "murder" "corruption" and "extortion" as options instead of "withdrawal" "deposit" and "check balance." Maybe people thought it was a comedy.

It was another good weekend for holdovers, with Taken, Coraline and -- once again -- Paul Blart: Mall Cop all doing well. Taken's $81-million-and-counting is really remarkable. $120 million is assured at this point, with more possible. "Sleek, preposterous and breathlessly entertaining" appears to be a good formula. Meanwhile, maybe if I stop mentioning Paul Blart in these posts, it'll go away? Seems unlikely.

Leading up to the Oscars, Slumdog Millionare should be close to $100 million by the big night. The Reader also saw a late bump this weekend; a Kate Winslet win on Sunday can't hurt.

The full 4-day top 10 after the jump.

Which year-end lists are really worth caring about? What films got a boost from the Broadcast Film Critics and Golden Globe nominations, like Happy-Go-Lucky, and which ones got lost in the shuffle? What's Iron Man doing on the AFI Top Ten Films List, anyhow? And what long, epic films are perfect for enjoying with a turkey sandwich on Boxing Day? Joining James this week to talk about all these topics and more is Kris Tapley of the weblog In Contention. You can listen to the podcast here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

After a distinguished career as a stage director, Stephen Daldry debuted as a film director with Billy Elliot; after that film's rave reviews and warm reception, his follow-up was The Hours, an ambitious adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel that earned Daldry an Oscar nomination for Best Director. Daldry's new film The Reader, adapted from the German novel by Bernhard Schlink, tells the story of Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes), a lawyer who looks back at his youth (with David Kross playing the young Berg) and his fierce sexual affair with a much older woman, Hanna (Kate Winslet) in post-war Germany and the secrets and truths that come to light years after their affair ends.

Speaking with Cinematical in Los Angeles, Daldry talked about nudity, morality and the perils of adaptation: "We didn't want to make a film that reminded us of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader; we wanted to make a film based on Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. ..."

Cinematical: What was the prime source of appeal for you in adapting The Reader?

Stephen Daldry: The subject. I spent a lot of time, as a schoolboy, in Germany, learning German; as an adult, I spent a lot of time in Berlin when I was running the Royal Court Theater, working with a theater in Berlin. So it's a country that I know well, that for all its contradictions and shadows, always fascinates me. And Berlin has always seemed to be on the fault line of the 20th Century. And how that country has always, from generation to generation, and continues to -- (had) to struggle with the fact that they invented Auschwitz ...it's not just interesting, it's also important.

The weekend's sole big-budget multiplex offering -- the sappy alien-invasion remake The Day the Earth Stood Still -- opened well with $31 million. But the bigger news lies under the top 10. This was the weekend that Doubt and Gran Torino began their elaborate platform releases, which Miramax and Warner Bros. (respectively) hope will result in multiple Oscar nominations. Doubt opened on 15 screens and grossed $525,000 for a $35,000 per-screen average. Gran Torino -- a goofy, entertaining little movie that's only an awards contender because of Clint Eastwood's involvement -- opened to $284,000 on 6 screens for $47,333 per screen.

Another piece of Oscar bait, The Reader, opened with marginally less fanfare, ending up with $170,000 on 8 screens ($21,250 per screen).

These sets of numbers are promising, but the real test for these movies is what happens once they expand beyond their ultra-limited initial releases. Slumdog Millionare, for example, is handling its slow expansion very well, with $13,000 per-screen on 170 screens, after five weeks.

There's not much to say about the other wide new releases. Nothing Like the Holidays, Overture's niche-y Christmas offering, was predictably lackluster, opening to $3.5 million. The computer-animated Delgo was another flop for Freestyle Releasing (which, as a commenter helpfully pointed out last week, is a for-hire distributor that has nothing to do with the production of its films) with less than $1 million on over 2000 screens.

The only other thing I want to point out this week is that Quantum of Solace may have trouble setting the all-time Bond franchise record I had expected it to set handily. It has not held up well after a strong opening, and is now $10 million shy of Casino Royale's $167 million. Its weekend gross was $3.8 million, so it's going to be close.

The full top 10 -- and then some -- is under the jump.

Opening in limited release this week with a wider release planned for January, The Reader has "prestigious arthouse drama" written all over it. It's an adaptation of a critically acclaimed German novel by Bernhard Schlink, but translated into English for wider appeal, and features a big dramatic performance from Kate Winslet in which we see her character over the span of decades. It's directed by Stephen Daldry and adapted by David Hare, who collaborated on another prestigious adaptation together, The Hours in 2002. This time, their movie explores German relationships that are affected, even decades later, by the Holocaust.

The movie is told as a flashback from the point of view of a middle-aged lawyer in Berlin, Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes). Back in the late 1950s, 15-year-old Michael (David Kross) falls ill on the way home from school one day, and is comforted and helped by a strange woman (Winslet). When he recuperates and returns to her home to thank her, a sexual spark flares up between them into an inappropriate but sympathetic relationship. They meet every afternoon, not just for sex but for reading -- he starts by reading her the books assigned to him for school, but ends up finding all manner of literature for them to share. However, Hanna is full of secrets -- she is even reluctant to tell Michael her name -- and the effects of her past and her secret-keeping are long-reaching and dramatic.

Here's some stuff (and things) to take with you into the weekend:

-- We'll be highlighting and previewing some of the films from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival real soon, but you horror hounds HAVE to check out this freakishly over-the-top trailer for the German Norwegian flick Dead Snow, which will premiere in the Midnight section in Park City. It's in Norwegian, but I believe some teenagers find Nazi gold during their snowy camping trip and then have to deal with its Nazi owners who rise from the dead ready to kick white-boy ass. That's a photo from the film above. [via Shock, who have more pics)]

-- And, ahem, speaking of Nazis, how would you like to take a trip to New York City with your entire book club? Well, in conjunction with the film The Reader, they're hosting a sweepstakes where the grand prize allows five people (or one book group) roundtrip airfare to NYC, hotel accommodations and lunch with The Reader author Bernhard Schlink. Visit the official website for more details.

-- Back to the living dead, seems like Sigourney Weaver is talking Ghostbusters again -- but, unlike previous times, now she's interested in returning for another go-round. She told MTV that she's "supposed to get in touch with Bill Murray next week" regarding the sequel, and also offered up a potential new character: "I would hope that my little Oscar would be one of the Ghostbusters even if I'm not in it!" Oh, and the Ghostbusters video game is finally coming out this June; check out a trailer for it below.



After the jump ... Shia Labeouf's hand screws up again, Miley Cyrus needs a babysitter and more.

See larger version in gallery below

Cinematical has just received this exclusive final poster for The Reader, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. Directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours) and based on Bernhard Schlink's bestselling novel, The Reader is one of those talked-about flicks currently circling the Oscar pool trying to decide when it should jump in. From the synopsis:

THE READER opens in post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair. Michael discovers that Hanna loves being read to and their physical relationship deepens. Hanna is enthralled as Michael reads to her from "The Odyssey", "Huck Finn", and "The Lady with the Little Dog." Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously disappears one day and Michael is left confused and heartbroken.

Eight years later, while Michael is a law student observing the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to find Hanna back in his life – this time as a defendant in the courtroom. As Hanna's past is revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives. THE READER is a haunting story about truth and reconciliation, about how one generation comes to terms with the crimes of another.

The Reader opens in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on December 10, before expanding on December 25 and opening nationwide on January 9. Check out the film's official website here, the trailer here and a larger version of the poster below.

It's a common experience to read a book slated for a film adaptation and then approach the movie, if at all, with a trepidation bordering on fear. As an optimist who doesn't get too offended when his favorite stories get changed for a different medium, I generally try to minimize that reaction. Yet that is exactly how I feel about Stephen Daldry's imminent adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. A large part of me is convinced that Schlink's lovely, challenging little novel – almost more of an essay than a novel, really – can't possibly survive Daldry's questionable prestige picture instincts. The book demands a small film, melancholy, withdrawn. Can we get that from one of the year's big Oscar hopefuls?

The logline IMDb plot summary [Ed.: corrected upon being informed that this is not the official studio "logline"] is already all wrong: "Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Burk is reunited with his former lover (Winslet) as she defends herself in a war-crime trial." No. I'm loath to give too much away, but "reunited" is not the right word. In fact, the lack of a bona fide reunion between the two is part of what makes the novel so interesting, and the reason for that lack of reunion is at the heart of the moral questions it grapples with.

We've got another bushel or so of trailers for films just over the horizon. How promising are they? You tell us.

Monsters Vs. Aliens
Dreamworks latest animated feature has a group of terrestrial monsters (a blob, a fish man, a giant bug, a human-sized cockroach/mad scientist and a very tall woman named Susan) fighting off an alien attack. This homage to 1950s sci fi features the voices of Seth Rogen, Will Arnet, Paul Rudd, Hugh Laurie, Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert and looks flat out awesome. It opens on March 27 but I really want to see it NOW.

Pink Panther 2
While it's hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for a sequel to a remake I didn't see which was based on a series that had pretty much run out of steam by the end, Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau does have an endearing charm and I found myself hoping the damn fool doesn't get himself killed falling down stairs, impersonating the pope and brawling with eight year old karate students. Also, this time Inspector Dreyfus is played by John Cleese who I think is one of the funniest guys on the planet. Pink Panther 2 hits theaters on February 6.

Cadillac Records
Set in 1950s Chicago, this one follows the lives of musical legends such as Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf and Elvis Presley, with a cast that includes Beyonce Knowles, Adrien Brody and Mos Def. Cadillac Records comes out on December 5.