So, what's a cinematic shorthand to wring the waterworks out of your audience? Take America's everyman Tom Hanks, put in the Twin Towers and then dial the calendar back to 9/11. Break out your Hankies folks (get it!?).
The new trailer for Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" has arrived and it's aiming straight for your mom's emotional center. Based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer, the story focuses on Oskar Schell (played by newcomer Thomas Horn), a nine-year-old boy from Manhattan whose father (Hanks) dies on 9/11. Two years later, the boy discovers a key belonging to his father, which sends him on a search through the city, believing it will lead to a final message from his deceased parent. And this is all well and good, but this plays out like a quirk fest with Oskar enlisting the help of a mute Max Von Sydow and a variety of great actors including Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright and John Goodman. And something tells us he will change their lives forever.
Yeah, this is as cloying as the U2–powered trailer that debuted earlier this fall and doesn't inspire much confidence. But we're hoping that the cast perhaps gives the some layers we're not expected. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" opens on Christmas Day. Watch below. [Apple]
Max von Sydow aside, Kevin is absolutely right about this one, it looks like Stephen Daldry's really outdone himself, and he's done some really crude stuff since Billy Elliot
It comes off as heavy handed and manipulative. Everyone in the movie is apparently gifted with some new fortune cookie insight by virtue of their 9/11 experience and reads it out loud, through the tears, like it's a revelation that will change the world.
Regardless of the quality of the actual product, a more restrained trailer would have served them better. This just looks desperate.
I often describe my man's late night gas as extremely loud and incredibly close. Ba-dum-pttz! Can a girl get a blog post up in here?
Kids in American movies always have perfectly art directed bedrooms 😀
let's face it. without blogs and the new age critic, why else should we make movies. honestly, the only reason anybody makes a film, jack and jill or the artist, is so kevin and his minions can sit on their high throne of thought and ridicule every movement filmmakers make. becuase that's what sells clicks? whatever happened to critics actually being educated in film history?
in the production world, you have your p.o.c. and then your film critics. two people that should be integral parts to the process, but due to their own short-sightedness and begrudging attitude toward everyone else born with an ounce of creativity, they make the process seem like nothing more than a day of selling health insurance.
thanks for being grumpy. oh yeah, max von sydow and christopher plummer, two totally different old white dudes. i get it, "they" all look the same to you… because you're young and on the cutting edge of typos and theatrical misanthropy.
in case anyone cares, the book is about the care bears. in it, there is no mention of 9/11. everyone craps rainbows. and no one has to deal with anything that the playlist doesn't deem significant in your otherwise insignificant life. don't agree, just read their piece on terry gilliam. in the last 24 hours, the playlist went from pseudo respectable online rag, to just simple click porn. goodbye assholes.
Shame on you for posting anonymously. Have conviction in your words.
Hugo + 9/11 ÷ awful = this movie.
Yo Fam, Kevin works really hard on this site. Ease up.
You mean Max Von Sydow? Remarkably snarky post from someone who can't bother to straighten out the name of one of the greatest living actors (who happens to be the only actor getting any oscar attention from this movie).
WOW how about if you write a review you get the names of the actors right… No Christopher Plummer in this one.
A mute Christopher Plummer? I didn't realize Max von Sydow was going by Christopher Plummer now. Interesting…
Why don't you hire one of those 99%ers to proof-read your articles.