O Box Office, O Box Office: Christmas Releases

By Sarah Sluis

What better holiday gift than a quality, award-baiting film at the box-office? With a Forrest Gump-type storyline and a bang-for-your-buck running time of 167 minutes, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

(2,900 screens) hopes to entice its audience with the special effects of Brad Pitt aging in reverse, the exploitative inclusion of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina (sooo worth the $27 million tax credit), and its "must-see" marketing push. Sifting through the critical responses, it seems tackling the start-to-finish of Button's life forced a Catch-22, where either pacing or length would have to be sacrificed. Many reviewers grumbled about the long length of the film, but, as our Ethan Alter notes, "a shorter cut may have made the studio and theatre owners happier, but it would have robbed Benjamin Button (and those of us in the audience) of a rich, full life."

Tom Cruise wears an eyepatch and attempts to kill Hitler in Valkyrie (2,500 screens). Sure he's a Maverick, but I don't know if I, or anyone else, will be able to sit through one more WWII or Holocaust film. While I can appreciate how the slightly unhinged nature of Cruise's star persona would make him a perfect candidate to portray Colonel von Stauffenberg, I'm just not interested.

In the feel-good section, funnyman Adam Sandler stars in Bedtime Stories (3,500 screens). The "what-if" concept has Sandler's niece and nephew in control of his future: each contribution they make to his bedtime story comes true the next day. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston team up for Marley & Me (3,300 screens), about a couple's adoption of a lovable dog. All the press about the film seems to be

more about the rats the cat dragged in. Wilson--whose agent must have desperately searched for anything lighthearted after his drug overdose--walked out of interviews when the subject was brought up, and Aniston's tie-only GQ photo shoot seemed to be a pointed message toward her ex-husband. Still, despite all this noise about the stars, dog-lovers are a demographic in themselves, and with Beverly Hills Chihuahua a box-office slam-dunk, not one to be underestimated.

Fanboys will have The Spirit (2,400 screens) to watch after they unwrap their video games. Frank Miller wrote and directed the film, but his intensive involvement seems to have worked against him, since our Frank Lovece found him "truly unsuited" to film Will Eisner's comic book. With the crowded market, this film's success will depend on the eagerness of Eisner/Miller fans.

Releasing on 3 screens with an eye to expand, Revolutionary Road opens the day after Christmas. A solid, star-draped film, our Executive Editor Kevin Lally enjoyed watching "two gifted stars surpassing themselves, especially in those fierce scenes of confrontation where their grievances turn corrosive," and noted it offers the chance for the audience to "connect with their failed dreams." Last Chance Harvey, another favorite of Lally, also opens on Christmas on 6 screens. About a couple that finds romance in an airport bar after Dustin Hoffman is snubbed from walking his daughter down the aisle, the hopeful story will offer encouragement for those experiencing even mild familial estrangement.

Waltz with Bashir, an Israeli documentary of remembrance, will also roll out in NY and LA around Christmas, although its guilt-ridden exploration of violence does not make it the best choice for those wanting to remain in the holiday spirit. Happy holidays from the staff of Film Journal, and we'll see you next week!

Kate & Leo's revelations at 'Revolutionary Road' Q&A

By Kevin Lally

Co-stars of the biggest movie of all time, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are also two of the most gifted actors of their generation. DiCaprio, 34, has earned three Oscar nominations, while Winslet, 33, is the youngest actress to have attained five Oscar nods. Each actor gives an exceptionally strong performance in director Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, certain to be recognized by the Academy when nominations are announced on January 22.

DiCaprio, Winslet, Mendes, and supporting actors Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, David Harbour and Zoe Kazan were all on hand for a Q&A session moderated by Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers at a packed Producers Guild screening of Revolutionary Road at the AMC 34th Street Theatre in Manhattan last night. They seemed happy to be there, and justifiably proud of their work.

Based on the celebrated 1961 novel by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a onetime "golden" couple whose marriage and dreams are suffocated by life in suburbia in the 1950s. Their impetuous plan to change their fates and move to Paris merely underscores the fragility of their bond.

Winslet, working for the first time with her director husband Mendes, described the theme of the Yates novel as "the eternal struggle to find happiness." In the search for personal identity, she confided, "we all experience moments of incredible pain." The tragedy of Frank and April is that "they don't even know what they're hoping for anymore."

DiCaprio marveled at the "voyeuristic quality" of the material. "You shouldn't be hearing these conversations," he said, adding that Yates "taps into the unconscious voice we all have."

The two stars were thrilled by the complex emotional demands of their parts, and they each deliver arguably their strongest, rawest performances under Mendes' direction. "I couldn't wait to attack Kate," DiCaprio said of the movie's most ferocious moments opposite his onetime Titanic love and close friend.

Winslet confessed that "I don't switch off" at the end of the shooting day, unlike her husband, which led to a few unwelcome middle-of-the-night pleas to discuss new insights about her character.

Adding some fun to the Q&A were the supporting cast. Bates, who plays an intrusive neighbor, said she lost weight for the role but was distressed to see new wrinkles. "I look exactly like my mother!" she lamented.  Harbour, who plays one of the Wheelers' best friends, joked that his intimate dance scene with Winslet made just the desired impression: "sexy and pathetic."

But the night's scene-stealer, just as in the film, was New York theatre veteran Michael Shannon, who plays Bates' bluntly truthful son, recovering from shock treatments in an insane asylum. "I'm not right for many parts," he gratefully acknowledged about this award-bait role. When Travers asked the panel why modern audiences should relate to a story about a disintegrating marriage in the 1950s, Shannon had a retort worthy of his volatile character: "Not all films can be as contemporary and relevant as vampires and James Bond."