Word: heists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With his new film, The Heist, writer-director David Mamet attempts to recapture the success of his last crime thriller, the elegant and captivating Spanish Prisoner. But in spite of a stellar cast and some exciting set pieces, the movie drags on for too long and ultimately succeeds in stealing little more than the audience’s time...
...audience on this Monday night was certainly receptive to such sentiments and excited to see acting heavyweights interpret new work. Highly anticipated was the appearance of Rebecca Pidgeon, an actress featured in the David Mamet films The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main and his upcoming Heist. Miller praised Pidgeon, the big draw of the evening, for her “fine and subtle touch as an actress...
Reconstruction hinges on an account of the “Ioanid Gang” bank heist of 1959, in which six prominent Jewish intellectuals robbed an armored car with over one million lei on its way to a branch of the Romanian National Bank in Bucharest. The title refers to a propaganda film made by the Romanian Communist Party in 1961 entitled Reconstituirea (Re-Enactment), which was a literal re-enactment of the bank heist using the actual robbers, who by then had been condemned to death by the government. Two of these six were Lusztig’s grandmother...
...propaganda film was shocking for Lusztig, not only because it “starred” her grandmother, but also due to the amount of effort put into its creation, even though its purpose was purely political. It is framed as a contrived detective story, and progresses from the heist itself to an eventual capturing and convicting of the criminals. “It’s a really horrifying film...in a way it reminded me of a porno. You know the purpose, and you wonder what the plot is for. The spectacle it creates made...
...first time in 30 years is one of the film’s highlights, a touching and intensely personal sequence of remembrance that resonates strongly with the historical background given on Romania. Lusztig also showed her mother, who was 17 years old at the time of the bank heist, the original propaganda film, which she had never seen before. “It was harder for her to see her stepfather, Gugu, in the movie than her mother because she had memories of her later in life, while her stepfather was executed,” said Lusztig. This sequence...