Adaptation
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Cage, Streep
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By Dave DePino
There are a lot of things going on in writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze's follow-up to their oddball hit, "Being John Malkovich." It is as difficult to dissect or try to critique their new work as it was - apparently, excruciatingly painful - for the writer (Kaufman) to adapt a rather uneventful book. His assignment was to write a screenplay of New Yorker writer and novelist, Susan Orlean's, non-fiction bestseller "The Orchid Thief."
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Roger Dodger
By Dave DePino
Perhaps the new film, "Roger Dodger," will make the industry wake up to the outstanding talents of Campbell Scott. Scott has played some interesting roles, but either the films or his performances always seem to be overlooked. Here, he manages to stretch in all directions as he carves, out of thick stone, the hard head of his character, Roger.
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The Pianist
By Dave DePino
Roman Polanski, a survivor of the Nazi occupation of Poland himself, chose to adapt the novel "Death of a City," written by famed composer, pianist and fellow survivor, Wladyslaw Szpilman, as the film which brought the director back to his native Poland. The film is "The Pianist" which won last year's Palme d'Or at Cannes. Unfortunately, Szpilman never got to see this film. He died in 2000, at the age of eighty-eight.
It is so difficult to view a film about the holocaust without agonizing and questioning how this could have really happened in a civilized world. The answer is simple. Our world is not now, nor has it ever been, civilized. Just listen to the news or open up a newspaper. We've learned little, it seems.
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