Jul. 14, 2002 - 2:13 am
alright, so the Gwyneth Paltrow themed weekend was pushed aside for a couple of hours this evening when i was invited with friends to see the much-anticipated-by-me Road to Perdition. it's back on tomorrow morning though.
this film was just released this weekend and for some reason is not playing at the "big time" theaters here in town. it's on at the theater that normally shows art and indie films. how odd. with all the advertising that's been going on, i thought for sure it would be playing everywhere. oh well. that'll probably only help its chances for Oscar nominations if it wasn't noticed too much by the public.
it's a great new film starring Tom Hanks, Jude Law, and Paul Newman. it's a period film, taking place in 1931 in the Chicago area. if you're wondering what the word "perdition" means, it's the same as damnation or hell. basically what the film is working towards is that the gangster life style damns all those who get involved. and what you really have to do to "protect" someone in that world is to push them out of it. it also deals a lot with father-son relationships and what it means to successfully follow in your father's footsteps.
this one is the newest film from director Sam Mendes who directed the awesome American Beauty (1999). it also features cinematography by the great Conrad Hall who has been shooting films since 1958. greatest recognized works for him: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), and American Beauty (1999). weird. i was just talking about the lingerie approach to cinematography used in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid a couple of days ago.
it was great to see all of these people working together. and the music was fantastic too. Tom Hanks as always was perfect. there's just no way you can not like Tom Hanks. and it was great to see Jude Law in his dirtiest role to date. great makeup job on him. thinning hair, little yellow (almost nonexistent) teeth, and the long long fingernails. it was weird for me to see Paul Newman though. i haven't seen him in much other than his films of the 60s and early 70s. i have trouble thinking of him as an old man.
so this was a great film. there were a couple of plot elements that i thought were a bit overly predictable, but i won't go into those. other than that it's a beautifully made film. my favorite scene has got to be the scene with all the rain where Michael Sullivan (Hanks) takes out about 7 guys on the street in slow motion. you can't even see him (just as they can't), and there's no noise other than the wonderful music. perfectly shot and edited. go see this one. it's a winner.