Word: screens
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Anthony Drazen's Hurlyburly is not another disillusioned vision of Hollywood, nor a freakshow of selfish misogynistic jerks, nor just an ensemble performance showcase. Hollywood's output is its own best indictment, and playwright David Rabe, who adapted his play for this screen version, intended more than just to show what hateful souls guys or these guys can be when being just one of themselves...
...most valuable aspect of the movie is the ontological crisis casting director Eddie (Sean Penn) undergoes. One could argue that you don't need a screen version of this play to figure this out, but really this movie can be seen as another attempt at a definitive stage version: Rabe strongly disagreed with Mike Nicholas' 1984 Broadway version, revised the play after directing it himself in 1988 and now finally takes another crack at it with this screen adaptation of beautiful downtown 1998. Many of Rabe's revisions heightened the themes of destiny and accident (e.g engineered or semi-engineered...
...there's the obligatory we-should-have-sex shtick, though in his state, we wonder why sex is even on his mind. God love Maria Bello, but the whole relationship is unconvincing, the hood and the hooker sitting in a tree... The whole scenario is a waste of screen time that could be put to better use by Lucy Liu, legal eagle by prime time, dial-a-dominatrix in this celluloid romp. She deliciously performs her duties on Porter's ex-partner and is even called upon to give Porter some gun-totin' lovin. As Pearl, she is Gibson...
...character really is--an inexperienced 15-year-old putting on a front of institutional disdain. Whether Schwartzman is really a gifted actor or just a sharp kid playing shades of himself will be determined in future films. For now, it is safe to say that he is a shining screen presence in Rushmore...
...once the camera alighted on Prime, seen previously in both installments of that I Know...Summer series, they simply had to surrender the film to him. He is a magnet in front of the camera. In comparison, Laney Boggs is a mere prop to his masculine narrative. In both screen time and plot weight, Prinze's character receives much more emphasis than any other. The scrawny effort to inflate his persona, with the injection of an overbearing father and the angst of being too overachieving, is pitiful--but Prinze carries it off with a demeanor that cries, "Who needs...