Freedomland

[anna]

longlashes said:

When is someone going to give this man the type of big screen role he deserves, something that will finally showcase his talent?

I think he had that in House of Sand and Fog. What I wonder is why, as far as we know, that did not lead to any other opportunities of the type that you describe?

[bjobsessed]

anna said:

longlashes said:

When is someone going to give this man the type of big screen role he deserves, something that will finally showcase his talent?

I think he had that in House of Sand and Fog. What I wonder is why, as far as we know, that did not lead to any other opportunities of the type that you describe?

I'm really sorry to hear how small Ron's part is in the movie. And, anna, I think you're right about House of Sand and Fog. He was great in that movie. You also raise an interesting question for which I have no answer. He always seems to be one step away from "stardom." Maybe he likes it that way, but still. Why doesn't he get more roles like that of Lester? Maybe he does and he turns them down, although I can't see him doing that. I think those are the kind of roles he enjoys.

[hoosier]

A reviewer in the Chicago paper said that the movie is "redeemed by an all-pro cast that keeps story from stalling". This is by Michael Phillips of the Tribune. "First rate actors bail out second rate directors all the time and Freedomland serves as the latest example." And "the cast saves this movie".

It seems Richard Price had trouble adapting his own work to the screen. The book is superb and I know that it so difficult to decide what should stay and what go but time constraints dictate and unless they wanted to go the route of the old time TV miniseries (which I admit I absolutely loved) you could slash and still keep the main gist of the book. For a long time I thought Edie Falco was to play Jesse Haus and then learned she was Karen. I thought she was a little mature for Jesse (I pictured her as young, my opinion) and to totally cut Jesse from the movie seems a major error to me. She links so many of the characters and is one of the main thrusts of the story. Sorry to hear that RE has a small part but you don't see Danny Martin that often. Drat! I hope to see this movie. I don't care what the critics say--I rarely agree with them anyway. ;D

I concerning Ron's attire at the premiere--I found myself going comfort--style (imagine weighing hands) comfort--style. I would go with comfort. Thursday we had a high of 60 degrees, Thursday night an artic front went through and it dropped to 20. This morning it was 3 when the dog and I went for a walk. Comfort outweighs style--though he did look pretty stylish!

[housemouse]

I saw it this afternoon. Yes, RE's part was quite small, but he made the most of the lines he did have. He more than held his own with Jackson and Moore. It was an interesting, thought provoking movie. Great movie? No. Worth renting? Yes.

BTW, his eyes are blue in this movie.

[bjobsessed]

housemouse said:

I saw it this afternoon. Yes, RE's part was quite small, but he made the most of the lines he did have. He more than held his own with Jackson and Moore. It was an interesting, thought provoking movie. Great movie? No. Worth renting? Yes.

BTW, his eyes are blue in this movie.

I had no Doubt ;D he would make the most of his part. I'm still going to go see it because I don't want to wait that long. Can't go until at least the weekend.

[Deleted]

doobrah said:

Hmm... the premiere was the day after NYC got 27 inches of snow.



Seems appropriate to me. And I kinda like the knit snuggled around his neck!!

Now here's a questionable look for Valentine's Day:



He wore that ill-fitting jacket to the press tour last year in Hollywood. I didn't like it then, and I still don't. The "oatmeal and black" comtination just washes him out.

SNARK!!

Good call on the potato sack jacket! It looks like one of my hideous uniforms from high school!!

[jimi]

I saw the movie last night - and like many people was very disappointed in it ( especially considering I really really liked the novel ). I was not just disappointed by the size of Ron's part BUT by the movie as a whole. The following review pretty much sums up my feelings.

Possible Spoilers Posted Below











Reviewed by Scott Gwin: 2006-02-19



OK. We get it. No really, we do (well, most of us anyway). The world isn’t black and white. It comes in shades of gray, brown, yellow, red, tan, pasty and a host of other shades and hues. If that’s going to be the focus of your movie you’d better be darn sure you’ve done it well. Those who have come before you have set the bar pretty high and it’s a short trip to go from profound to cliché. Personally, I love a good movie that tackles those sorts of issues but only when it handles them well, raising hard questions about my own perspectives on life. Freedomland tries miserably to be just such a film but falls flat on its face in the effort.

A white woman shows up in a hospital, her hands covered in blood. A street-wise black detective with deep roots in the community is assigned to her case. She explains how she’s just been carjacked in a low income, mostly black district. Her four year old son was in the back of the car. An almost entirely white police force jumps to the task of sealing off the entire neighborhood, prohibiting its residents from leaving until the crime is solved. Tensions immediately begin mounting while black and white lines are drawn in the grey of broken city asphalt. So begins the movie’s troubling and tiring tale.

Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore throw themselves into the roles of black cop and white victim with the kinds of passion and fury they’ve rarely shown before. This could very well be Jackson’s most emotionally honest performance to date and Moore takes amazing risks with her character, showing sides of the human psyche most of us would probably rather pretend doesn’t exist. I’m sad to say all that incredible dramatic effort is frittered away on a plot riddled with storyline problems and trite emotional baggage. While busying himself with the task of making his movie important, director Joe Roth seems to have forgotten to make it something watchable.

As the story progresses we’re slowly introduced to a widening circle of characters, each in search of a different sort of truth. We meet various members of the black neighborhood struggling against an unjust lockdown. A little further along we meet the white woman’s brother, a cop in search of the black guy he believes killed his nephew. Later still it’s the head of a volunteer group that looks for missing kids who is still coping with the loss of her own child. The cast of characters starts to feel like a Mickey Mouse Club therapy session. “Hi, I’m Billy, and I have rage issues!” Each one seems more two-dimensional than the last, a trend that slowly drags the movie down.

With each new layer of personalities and situations it becomes painfully clear that the person responsible for adapting the screenplay (namely Richard Price, the man who also wrote the novel on which the movie is based) has failed horribly. Instead of picking what was most important and crafting a film around it, he tried to pack in a little bit of everything regardless of whether or not it worked. The end product is the cinematic equivalent of Jungle Juice, complete with dizziness, exhaustion, and a draining hangover.

Worst of all, Roth and Price have completely abandoned the one element that makes this kind of touchy-subject movie bearable: humor. It’s one thing to make us think, another to withhold any chance for laughter. Amongst life’s harshest realities there’s always a bit of amusement or fleeting delight and to forget such a crucial element entirely rings false and smacks of self-importance. Hey, if Spielberg can find a way to weave a smile into Schindler’s List it can be done in any story.

There are some redeeming qualities to Freedomland beyond its wasted performances. Peppered throughout the meandering plotline are scenes of gut wrenching honesty and powerful revelations. Jackson’s character is particularly profound. As a moral rock and voice of reason he offers up sage words of wisdom that would seem to be a good starting place for an ending to society’s various cycle of violence. Those erudite footnotes are likely to fall on deaf ears though; the audience will likely have fallen asleep by the time he gets around to sharing them.

For all its potential, Freedomland simply does not make the grade, a real shame given the importance of the issues it addresses. You know you’re in trouble when you honestly start expecting Rodney King and John Walsh to show up, imploring us to all just get along so that we can bring the kids home. In a time when Hollywood desperately needs quality, original films to counterbalance the mindless march of sequels and remakes, it’s a tragedy to see this kind of project go so horribly astray.


********************************************
I know its a very harsh review - But Joe Roth and Richard Price - really really did waste so much in this film - a wonderful cast being just one of them.

The extremely compelling and important issues of Racial inequality and family relations ( thru Brenda and Danny ) are barely touched upon.

I thought that Jackson did wonders with the role and script he was given. But I found Julianna Moore to have overacted for my taste. Ron's scenes though short - were very good - he made the best of what he was given. At times though it really did seem as if they were just parading people in letting them do their parts and then marching them out of there again - We never really got to know anybody and therefore it was very hard to connect with them as characters.

[housemouse]

!!!MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

jimi said:

I saw the movie last night - and like many people was very disappointed in it ( especially considering I really really liked the novel ). I was not just disappointed by the size of Ron's part BUT by the movie as a whole. The following review pretty much sums up my feelings.

I know its a very harsh review - But Joe Roth and Richard Price - really really did waste so much in this film - a wonderful cast being just one of them.

The extremely compelling and important issues of Racial inequality and family relations ( thru Brenda and Danny ) are barely touched upon.

I thought that Jackson did wonders with the role and script he was given. But I found Julianna Moore to have overacted for my taste. Ron's scenes though short - were very good - he made the best of what he was given. At times though it really did seem as if they were just parading people in letting them do their parts and then marching them out of there again - We never really got to know anybody and therefore it was very hard to connect with them as characters.

I pretty much agree with you. It seemed like they barely touched on the most important issues the film brings up. I got a little tired of Julianne's soliloquies. I see what you mean about her overacting, but I think it might have been more the script than the actress. Samuel Jackson was fabulous. I felt like I could see Edie Falco acting. I would really have liked to see more of RE and more of William Forsythe. They both had tiny roles that were very important to the story, had they been fleshed out a little I think the film would have been better. I might read the book now because I am very curious to hear how Danny reacted when he found out his sister killed the child, I'm thinking Danny had to have played a bigger part in the book.

[jimi]

I generally really like Julianna Moore's acting - and although I did feel some compassion for Brenda's life situation and issues - I often found the character to be quite selfish ( I felt this somewhat less in the Novel ). I don't know - I just found that they went to over the top with the Brenda character - and in my opinion it damaged the film severely. They focused so much energy and attention on Brenda and her neurosis - that pretty much every other character ( with the exception of Lorenzo / and to a small degree Karen ) was ignored and underused.

[inuvik]

I saw this last night and absolutely hated it! There should be a law about portraying a movie as one thing in a preview, and then showing a very different film.

I went to see this because I thought it looked like a mystery/suspense film (not because of Ron, although I did want to see him "see", not knowing Ron before BJ). It turns out to be an incredibly violent film (and I don't mind violent films, so for me to say something is violent it really is!) about race relations. A very unpleasant, disturbing film.

Not that a film examining society is bad, but I would have liked to have been prepared for that in advance, and not thought I was getting a mystery type film.

So, I know it's pointless to say don't go (I see every film with Eric, even crappy ones where he's on screen for less than a minute--REALLY!), but be prepared.

The best thing about this movie was the preview for The DaVinci Code.

[hoosier]

housemouse said:

I pretty much agree with you. It seemed like they barely touched on the most important issues the film brings up. I got a little tired of Julianne's soliloquies. I see what you mean about her overacting, but I think it might have been more the script than the actress. Samuel Jackson was fabulous. I felt like I could see Edie Falco acting. I would really have liked to see more of RE and more of William Forsythe. They both had tiny roles that were very important to the story, had they been fleshed out a little I think the film would have been better. I might read the book now because I am very curious to hear how Danny reacted when he found out his sister killed the child, I'm thinking Danny had to have played a bigger part in the book.

If you do decide to pick up this book I don't think you will be disappointed. It was not a book I would typically have chosen but with the movie coming out I thought I would give it a try and was pleasantly surprised. Well written, compelling, and you never get bogged down, it just carries you along--my personal thing that identifies a good book!

I don't know why it is so hard to translate an excellent book onto film and especially when the author is the screenwriter. Maybe that is the reason--its hard to cut or delete your own work. I find myself usually disappointed when I go to see a film if I have read the book first. One case where it was different was JAWS and Peter Benchley was the screenwriter. The character of Matt Hooper was a real sleeze and when he met his grisly end I could have cared less. I like Richard Dreyfuss and was glad that the movie Matt was a nice guy. I have yet to see Freedomland but if there was ever a poster child for mental health awareness it is definitely the character of Brenda Martin.

[jimi]

I also really enjoyed the novel!!

And like the majority of people - I found the movie very poorly done. Which really suprised me - As Price wrote both the book and the screenplay

[Katryna]

jimi said:

I also really enjoyed the novel!!

And like the majority of people - I found the movie very poorly done. Which really suprised me - As Price wrote both the book and the screenplay

I just saw Freedomland, and call me an idiot - I liked it. I read the book, too - and yeah, it is different than the book, but wasn't the book about 700 pages long? Of course I would like to have seen more of RE, but he put everything into an excellent performance. And those eyes!

[rducasey]

I saw Freedomland this afternoon, (not playing hookey, but school vacation.) and you can put me in the "liked it" column. It would not rank right up there with my top ten movies but I found it compelling and very well acted. I thought Samuel L Jackson was especially powerful in the role of the detective, and Julianna Moore was also very passionate in her portrayal of the mom who claims to have been carjacked. It goes without saying that our Ron, though his scenes were brief, was wonderful. He does not waste one second of his time on screen, portraying her outraged brother. He just does anger and fury like no one else. (and his head 12 feet high is well worth the price of admission, $5.50 matinee.) I know it was a very long book so I am sure much was left out of the movie and occasionally we would get a hint of the relationships and themes that were probably more fully explored in the book. I did find that annoying, like Samuel Jackson's guilt over not being the best father to his son.

[bjobsessed]

Freedomland is out on dvd May 30