AUGUST 26TH 2005

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In "Proof," Gwyneth Paltrow gives one of the best performances of her career in playing a woman of contradictions.

Catherine, the depressed daughter of a once brilliant Chicago mathematician, is emotionally fragile yet a tower of strength, hesitant yet resolute, insecure yet determined, impetuous yet shy. She's a woman who has sacrificed a lot for family, even though she doesn't seem to like what family has done to her. She appears mentally stable yet sends mixed signals. After all, her dad was a genius and a nut.

"Proof" has contradictions of its own: It often feels derivative -- an insane mathematician ("A Beautiful Mind"), a genius living a life of low ambition ("Good Will Hunting"), the world of academic mentorship (such plays as Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" or Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen"). Yet it explores issues of love, trust and family wonderfully through the inner life and ironic wit of Paltrow's character.

"Proof" needs careful handling, but with a cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal and Hope Davis and the reteaming of Paltrow with her "Shakespeare in Love" director John Madden, Miramax has plenty of promotional hooks. The film is based on a Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Auburn (who wrote the screenplay with Rebecca Miller). It still feels like a play with talky, static scenes. Performed by actors of this caliber, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but "Proof" probably will not venture far from art house venues.

The film is not above toying with its audience as exposition gets revealed in a way to keep one guessing or in suspense. In the first major scene, a friendly conversation between Catherine and her father, Robert (Hopkins), it's not clear until the end that her father is dead and that she is, well, talking to herself.

Catherine has cared for her dad for several years before his death. As the funeral approaches, the house gets invaded by two not-always-welcome intruders. Hal (Gyllenhaal), a former student of her father, searches through dozens of Robert's notebooks in hopes of finding proof that the great mind produced at least one final mathematical breakthrough. All he reads, though, is gibberish. Catherine's sister, the heartless and precise Claire (Davis), breezes in, declaring her intent to sell the house and pack Catherine off to New York where "I can take care of you."

There is much bitterness between these two. Claire remained in New York and never lifted a finger to help out with Dad. Yet Claire paid off the mortgage on the house and wishes Catherine had put their father in an institution, where professionals might have been able to help him.

Hal's attraction to Catherine is obvious, and he finally wins her trust. When she gives him a notebook that does contain a brilliant new radical theory, which Catherine claims she wrote, doubts surface. Claire immediately believes their father was the author, but Hal is torn.

The question hovering over this quandary is whether mental illness, like talent, can be inherited. Claire, who gave up math studies to care for her beloved father, shows signs of both. The film also dips into several of the provocative myths about math. Is it really a young man's profession? Few females have ever achieved great original breakthroughs. Are mathematicians predisposed to mental instability? Is mathematical life really all over at age 26, after which it's all a "downward slope?"

Paltrow, who played this role at London's Donmar Warehouse under Madden's direction, makes the film feel meatier than it is. The explanation of who wrote the proof seems obvious if somewhat improbable. But this issue is really a misdirection. The story is really about Catherine's love for her father, a love that overwhelms her sense of self. And Paltrow makes you feel that love in quiet moments when she looks at her dad in flashbacks or when she thinks about him abstractly after his death.

Hopkins as the deluded dad, Davis as the control-freak sister and Gyllenhaal as the passionate but unpredictable Hal offer fine supporting performances. But Paltrow, in the one great part Auburn has written here, achieves a kind of transcendence as the saintly but shaky Catherine.

Technical credits on a film, shot largely on London soundstages, are fine, with Stephen Warbeck supplying decent imitation of a Phillip Glass score and Alice Normington's design and Alwin H. Kuchler's cinematography giving us a comfy family home.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Yahoo! News
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 AUGUST 22ND 2005

Fall is to the specialty film distributors what summer is to the studios: It's the make-or-break season. And with adult-oriented fare lining up like planes at LaGuardia from Labor Day through Christmas, if you don't pick the right date to open -- even if it's in only a few key cities -- you won't achieve take off.

And there's another factor: the tantalizing possibility of entering the Oscar race. Every amateur Oscar-watcher knows that the later a movie is released in the fall season, the better its shot at an Oscar. So choosing an early fall date for a would-be Oscar contender can be perilous.

This year, as it contemplates the fall lineup and the Oscar heats, Focus Features, NBC Universal's specialty film label, faces a dilemma that only Miramax's Harvey Weinstein could love: It has four films all worthy of an Oscar campaign. The first was launched to much acclaim at Cannes in May -- Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers," starring "Lost in Translation" Oscar also-ran Bill Murray. Also vying for fall slots are "The Constant Gardener," from "City of God" director Fernando Meirelles, which stars Ralph Fiennes, best known as the lead in the Oscar-winning "The English Patient"; Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as closeted gay cowboys in love; and the latest adaptation of Jane Austen's classic "Pride and Prejudice," starring It girl Keira Knightley.

What's so awful about having multiple Oscar possibilities? The challenge for Focus has been to find just the right approach for each film. "It's a burden of responsibility," says Focus distribution chief Jack Foley, who has been debating release strategy with co-presidents James Schamus and David Linde and marketing head David Brooks since May. "It's a big, big season. You're going to compete on the merits of the film itself. You have to be damned careful out there. You're up against Steven Spielberg's 'Munich,' for God's sake!"

Focus finally decided on an unorthodox solution: Release two films during the dog days of August and push out the others with a more conventional launch at next month's Toronto International Film Festival. Opting not to squander its valuable momentum from Cannes, Focus opened "Broken Flowers" on August 5, when there was limited competition for the smart-house audience.

"It's been a tough summer for the adult audience," Brooks says. "They're champing at the bit to find something fresh. This was a great opportunity to kick off for a couple of weeks with no competition."

"Flowers" reaped the benefits with $3 million so far (mainly in major cities), Jarmusch's highest grosses to date. As for Murray's Oscar chances, Brooks believes his performance will "stand the test of time."

Focus also chose the August downtime for the more commercial "Constant Gardener." Instead of opening the John le Carre thriller in October against such first-weekend studio competition as Curtis Hanson's "In Her Shoes," starring Cameron Diaz, Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown," starring Orlando Bloom, and "Shopgirl," starring Steve Martin, Focus moved the movie back to a spot where it had no competition. First, it chose August 24, and when Miramax Films' "Brothers Grimm," opening August 26, started tracking strongly, it moved it to August 31. "Why be in a place where you're endangering yourself?" Foley asks. "I'll change my mind at every moment. You have to do the right thing."

Industry wisdom has long decreed that the two weeks before Labor Day are a studio dumping ground. "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy," Foley says. "You create your own dynamic. A bad film makes a bad play time."

But opening a movie in August makes it even harder to outlast all the other Oscar competition all the way through Oscar night March 5. Nevertheless, Foley believes firmly in establishing a film as a commercial success first and worrying about Oscar chances later. "First and foremost above everything comes the business that film can generate," he says. "Achieving success at the box office helps you gain recognition during the year-end awards season. Success breeds success."

Focus is opening "Gardener" with 1,300 prints across North America, blanketing big and small towns alike. "We want to get open as big as we can," Foley says. "Based on the performance of 'The Interpreter' and 'Crash,' we think the movie will be working through September and will eventually whittle down naturally to the core art houses." There the movie will hang, with luck, through Oscar season.

Yet, while a few studio films such as "Gladiator," "Braveheart" and "Seabiscuit" have opened in the summer and then made Oscar comebacks, even a September opening is considered early for a specialty film. "American Beauty" and "Lost in Translation" managed to hang out in theaters all the way to the Oscars. So did "Boys Don't Cry," an October release. But it's a long, expensive, hazardous slog.

"If there's a giant cabal of important films in October, there will be a bottleneck of major titles difficult to play through," says Landmark Theatres marketing chief Ray Price. "They'll lose steam just as other films are demanding screens. If the fall is a disaster, then everything will play longer."

So far, "Gardener" has all the earmarks of an Oscar picture: serious subject matter (drug company misbehavior in Africa), epic scope (Meirelles uses Kenya's exotic locations to excellent advantage) and a romantic love story well acted by British actors Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.

As for its other two would-be contenders, Focus decided that "Brokeback Mountain" and "Pride and Prejudice" needed the extra care and attention of a holiday release. Because of "Brokeback's" challenging subject matter -- "Alexander" demonstrated that mainstream audiences can be resistant to gay themes -- it was decided that the film needs the credibility boost that a fall film festival's media coverage can provide. So "Brokeback" will be unveiled at the Toronto fest before opening December 9 on just four screens in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. It will then move into 10 or 12 more markets by year's end and go wider in January.

As a family film with strong female appeal, "Pride and Prejudice" also will play Toronto before rolling out November 18, much the way "Finding Neverland" did last year. By year's end it will reach about 500 screens, Foley predicts.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Yahoo! News
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 AUGUST 13TH 2005

Esquire Magazine's Best Dressed List

1. Pharrell Williams
2. Jake Gyllenhaal
3. Kanye West
4. Jude Law
5. Andre 3000
6. George Clooney
7. Matt Lauer
8. Josh Lucas
9. Rocker Alex Kapranos
10. Jay-Z
11. New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady
12. Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
13. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
14. Southern rockers My Morning Jacket
15. Luke Wilson
16. New York Jets Runningback Curtis Martin
17. Paul Bettany
18. Bill Clinton
19. Chris Martin
20. Golf's Adam Scott
21. Donald Trump

Esquire's list of the best-dressed men in the world this year hits stands Monday. And while it is Hollywood-heavy, the magazine's second such list sends a message to young hunks to wake up and dress up. 

Hitmaker Pharrell Williams, 32, tops the 2005 list because of the way he infuses high-end haberdashery into today's baggy hip-hop craze, says David Granger, the magazine's editor in chief.

"Really, it's mostly confidence. He has a way of mixing fine tailoring with clothes that are relaxed, so he looks equally put-together and casual at the same time," Granger says.

But Williams says he is not trying that hard to have a "killer" style. "I just dress how I feel, so I always look comfortable. That's the only way to look good," the music producer says.

Granger says today's well-dressed man must have a "balance between dressing professionally and appearing to be totally relaxed." But, men's fashion is sliding toward a dressier look.

"That whole Armani jacket with blue jeans is getting clichéd," he says.

Notable among the list:

New this year. At No. 2, Jake Gyllenhaal, 24, stands out among today's trendy young stars, Granger says. "It's great to see a young man in Hollywood who actually cares about what he looks like." No. 4 Jude Law, 32, "looks so natural" when he mixes refined British tailoring with casual clothes.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: USA Today
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 AUGUST 4TH 2005

The Jarhead Trailer will be shown in theaters on these dates and movies.

      8/12 - The Great Raid/Four Brothers
                          8/26 - The Constant Gardener
                          9/9 - The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
                          9/16 - Proof
                          9/30 - A History of Violence/Lord Of War
                          10/7 - Good Night And Good Luck
                          10/14 - Domino
                          10/28 - The Weather Man

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Imdb Message Board
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