pulitzer prize Tagged Articles at Cinematical
'Beautiful Girl' Horror From Pulitzer Prize Winner?
Filed under: Horror », Deals », Scripts »
Whenever I hear about esteemed literary or cinematic figures dipping their toes into horror waters, I always picture them holding their noses as they're running to the bank to cash their checks. They know horror sells (as long as it's decent), and they know horror fans are uncommonly broadminded, so I always feel like they're invading our territory just to try and take advantage of us and make a buck. On the other hand, who'd think that a high-minded director like Stanley Kubrick could make a spooky picture, or that Martin Stinkin' Scorsese might have made a ghost story out of Shutter Island?
All that to say, I'm keeping an open mind about Michael Cunningham's original script for Beautiful Girl, "a scary genre thriller," according to Variety, about a "shy but brainy high school girl who returns for senior year after having slimmed down six dress sizes. She finds herself flirting with the handsome English lit teacher, but the mutual crush turns deadly when the teacher's obsession with the student compels him to exact maniacal revenge on everyone who was cruel to her." Screen Gems bought the rights to the script.
More at Horror Squad!
Philip Seymour Hoffman Defends the Titular Notion of 'Doubt'
Filed under: Drama », Oscar Watch », Miramax »
Having just seen the film version of Doubt, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, I was encouraged to dig up this Defamer post in which Philip Seymour Hoffman goes off on a junket journalist who couldn't help but ask whether or not his priest character had indeed done the dirty with a young boy at his Catholic school.Don't worry, there aren't any spoilers to be heard there or read here, but believe me when I say that whether or not Hoffman knows the truth is more important than whether or not we, the audience, know. To a greater point, such an admission would dilute only the whole purpose of the film and play, the relentless ambiguity of the story at hand, and Hoffman -- surely having feared this inquiry, and perhaps already having tackled it elsewhere -- clearly suffers no fools.
For my money, though, that still has nothing on this bout of humiliation.
Pulitzer-Winning 'Osage County' Will Be a Movie -- But Will It Be Good?
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Deals », Fandom », The Weinstein Co. »
One of Broadway's biggest non-musical hits this year has been August: Osage County, a 3 1/2-hour comic drama about an appallingly dysfunctional family that completely falls apart when its patriarch goes missing. (The photo represents a typical moment.) It inspired rapturous reviews, won five Tonys (including best play), and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. I saw it when I was in New York in May and can attest to its caustic, dark hilarity and its vividly realistic characters.
It's been known since at least March (thanks, Jeff Wells) that a film version was in the works, but now that Harvey Weinstein has signed on as co-producer, with The Weinstein Company taking worldwide distribution rights, things have heated up. (Not that this was a surprise, considering The Weinstein Co. co-produced the Broadway version, too.) And now the inevitable problems with a stage-to-screen translation become apparent.
First of all, there's the length. The playwright, Tracy Letts (who also wrote Bug, recently made into a weird Ashley Judd movie), is doing the adaptation. Surely Weinstein will pressure him to trim it down. Plays are allowed to run that long; movies usually aren't unless they're big, sweeping epics. Osage County takes place entirely in one house and spans only a couple days of time.
Then there is casting. The Broadway production had no major stars, no big names. The temptation would be to cast someone like Meryl Streep as the acerbic, pill-popping matriarch, Violet. But Deanna Dunagan won a Tony for playing the role, and while she may not be a marquee name, her performance is so brilliantly feisty and malevolent that she should be allowed to replicate it onscreen. She's earned it.
NYX Puts Dargis Up for a Pulitzer
Filed under: Awards », Newsstand »
The New York Times has submitted film
critic Manohla
Dargis for a Pulitzer Prize, and the move has caused something of a stir, both because she's new to the paper and
well, some people just don't really like her reviews. Me, I enjoy her writing because it's never boring: you can count
on Dargis to be frank, sometimes funny, and often a bit political; even when you disagree with her, at least you're
interested. Others, however, find her opinions grating (A critic with opinions? The nerve!), and she's apparently
criticized by some colleagues for her tendency to summarize plots. According to one former Times employee,
"You're not supposed to read her if you don't want to know what's going to happen."However, since the last Times critic to win a Pulitzer was the often vicious book critic Michiko Kakutani, it's clear that controversy isn't going to hurt Dargis' nomination. If she happens to win, she'll be in some pretty good company: over the past 36 years, only two film critics - Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal and some guy named Roger Ebert - have received a Pulitzer.
Edited to add that a third film critic - Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post - also won the Pulitzer in the time frame mentioned. Thanks for James for the correction.
[via RiskyBiz Blog]
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