Trailer for 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' goes for mainstream audiences

By Sarah Sluis

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has "prestige Oscar picture" written all over it. Most of the creative team has multiple Oscar nominations under their belt, with a couple wins. That includes director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, three nominations), producer Scott Rudin (four nominations with one win), and screenwriter Eric Roth (four nominations with one win for Forrest Gump). The source material, a novel by literary wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer, has received numerous accolades. Anyone who's into indie, arty films has probably also heard of the book.

Yet the trailer for the movie, which is set for release on Christmas, goes for mainstream audiences, not art-seeking ones. Given the touching subject matter, it's not too much of a surprise. This is a story about a boy mourning his father, who he lost on 9/11. He finds a key in his father's closet and goes on a search for the lock. The book was known for its innovative writing style, use of graphics, photographs, and textual play, but all that subtlety doesn't appear in the trailer. Instead, it goes for tears set to a U2 soundtrack. I wouldn't be surprised if people are heard sniffling after the trailer.

There could be an explanation for the mainstream feel of the trailer. The movie is targeting a wide release come January and certainly Paramount wants as many people as possible to see it. Perhaps they decided to go for the heartfelt bits that would most appeal to audiences unfamiliar with the text, and trust that fans of Foer's book would turn out anyway. Or the movie has been diluted from the book. As someone who isn't the biggest fan of Foer's writing style, I'd rather see the movie. If Daldry ends up with the same comedy-drama tone of his 2000 film Billy Elliot, I will be thrilled--and I won't call it schmaltzy.

Kid 'Jeopardy' contestant lands lead role in 'Extremely Loud'

By Sarah Sluis

In a most creative casting decision, a thirteen-year-old winner of "Jeopardy" will star in Paramount and Warner Bros.' Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Thomas Horn will play a precocious, intelligent boy whose father died on 9/11. After finding a mysterious lock, he searches through New York City for the key, making some memorable encounters along the way. Though the boy is twelve, he can pass for younger, and the role seems quite challenging for such a young actor.

As written in Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, the boy has a college-level vocabulary and the inquiring mind and silly questions of a child. He also is so scientific, so unemotional, he seems like he might have some kind of borderline autism like Asperger's Syndrome. The dialogue is really hard to pull off (check out an excerpt here), and the boy in general (in my opinion) comes off as less than charming, though I'm not part of the majority of people who actually finished the book.

Now that the boy's been cast alongside Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks, it's time to jump the gun: will this movie be groomed for an Oscar pedigree? Given that producer and Oscar winner Scott Rudin will be overseeing, three-time Oscar nominee Stephen Daldry will direct, and the script was penned by Oscar-winning writer Eric Roth, it seems like Extremely Loud wouldn't shoot for anything less. In the project's favor, Daldry directed (but did not write) Billy Elliot, which had a fantastic child actor matched with great dialogue and direction.

Could 9/11 be the new Holocaust, that historical tragedy that has yielded such Oscar winners/nominees as The Reader, Schindler's List, Sophie's Choice, Life is Beautiful, The Pianist, and Defiance? (That's just the shortlist). So far the subject has been rather unexplored, with just fact-based United 93 hitting theatres. They're going to have to start filming soon before this boy hits puberty, so it's only a matter of time before this movie hits theatres and tests audiences' willingness to see a film about our national tragedy.

Sandra Bullock lines up another movie project

By Sarah Sluis

Sandra Bullock may just be one of the most likeable leading ladies in Hollywood. On the heels of her Best Actress win at the Oscars for The Blind Side, she's been circling a number of potential movies.

The latest such project would re-team her with her director on The Proposal, Anne Fletcher, and be produced by Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot. Variety described the project as "An Unmarried Woman meets Saturday Night Fever." So what does that mean? The 1978 movie An Unmarried Woman has been described as a woman's lib-inspired tale of an affluent Upper East Sider whose husband divorces her, leaving her unmoored. She learns to go out on her own and grow as a person. The allusion to Saturday Night Fever makes me think part of her self-discovery in this as-yet untitled film will involve DANCING!

Thoughts:

1) On one level, this project seems like a straight pandering to the "Dancing with the Stars" crowd, the popular reality competition show that has an intense following among middle-aged women: You, too, can redefine yourself after your divorce...through dance! Related: Can Bullock dance?

2) The "women's lib" element in An Unmarried Woman will have to be tweaked. Bullock can't be just a lady-who-lunches. Three decades later, most families have two working parents, and I don't think audiences will have as much sympathy for an rich idle woman in a recession climate. If she were in a situation where she was convinced to give up her career because of her husband's demanding job, for example, that would engender a lot more sympathy for her character.

Bullock has two other projects in the work that are more in the "serious drama" category: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a Scott Rudin-led literary adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel about 9/11, and Gravity, a sci-fi project being helmed by Alfonso Cuarn. I hope Bullock pursues one of these projects as well. Bullock has shown herself as an accomplished actress of comedy (Ms. Congeniality), action thrillers (Speed) and sentimental dramas (The Blind Side). Here's to seeing her in both familiar roles and new ones.