Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Into the Wild (2007) - Penn and Co. triumph with true-story, American odyssey

7/19/2018

Into the Wild (2007) - Penn and Co. triumph with true-story, American odyssey

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Movie of the Year
+ Best American Movie of the Year + Best Adventure Movie of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year + Best Road Movie of the Year

Emile Hirsch sits on the roof of an abandoned bus in Alaska and ponders existence on this serene poster for Sean Penn's Into the Wild

Into the Wild is the true story of Christopher McCandless, who as a young man in May 1990 breaks radically with his parents' suburban life and cuts himself off from everything and every one he knows to go on an American adventure as a 'Alexander Supertramp.'

Into the Wild is the 4th feature written and directed by Californian master filmmaker Sean Penn (The Crossing Guard (1995)), based on the same-titled 1996 nonfiction book of McCandless' life and journey by Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air (1997)).
Rarely does a film touch people the way that Into the Wild does, and certainly does touch me when I watch it. It gets to you like a sharp, pointed arrow with a vivacity, a fullness of life, a formidable drive and a devastating but also enormously beautiful end. This film is an absolute masterpiece.
Emile Hirsch (Killer Joe (2011)) is a star and a generational hero for his towering performance here, and his scenes with Hal Holbrook (Innocent Victims (1996, TV movie)) are among the most moving that I can recollect ever having seen in a motion picture.
The music in the film, made up of monumental, howling, acoustic and beautiful songs by Eddie Vedder (The Namesake (2006), song) and a strong score by Michael Brook (The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)) and Kaki King (How I Got Lost (2009)), is forceful, as is the exceptional cinematography by Eric Gautier (Clean (2004)). Into the Wild is a visual cornucopia of the majestic sights in America's Godly nature.
As a film about a young radical idealist and explorer, Into the Wild is out of this world, and with the release of this masterpiece and his outstanding performance in Gus Van Sant's masterpiece Milk (2008), Penn touched a height in movies that is only afforded very few certified greats.

Related posts:

Sean Penn: Gangster Squad (2013) or, Good Men vs. Bad Men! (actor)
This Must Be the Place (2011) - Sorrentino's Nazi-hunting stoner cracker (actor)
The Tree of Life (2011) or, Mother, Father, Sharks, Dinosaurs, My Brothers, Sunflowers, the Desert, the Wind and Me (actor)
Fair Game (2010) or, The Intelligence War (actor)
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life (actor)
The Pledge (2001) - Maddening, realistic, unpleasant child-killer story (director)
The Crossing Guard (1995) - Penn's great, downbeat Jack Nicholson-starring drama thriller (writer/co-producer/director)
Carlito's Way (1993) - De Palma's best gangster movie (actor)

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 15 mil. $
Box office: 56.2 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 3.74 times the cost)
[Into the Wild premiered 1 September (Telluride Film Festival, Colorado, USA) and runs 148 minutes. Shooting took place in Washington, including Seattle, Oregon, including Portland, Arizona, Alaska, South Dakota, California, Atlanta, Georgia, Nevada and in Mexico from April - November 2006. SPOILER The final bus section of the film was shot in Alaska about 50 miles (80 km) from the actual site, using a replica of the real bus. The film opened #33 to a 212k $ first weekend in 4 theaters, a huge 53k $ cinema average, and widened to peak at #14 and in 660 cinemas in North America, where it grossed 18.3 mil. $ (32.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 13.5 mil. $ (24 %) and Italy with 8 mil. $ (14.2 %). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Supporting Actor (Holbrook), lost to Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, and Best Editing, lost to The Bourne Ultimatum. The film won 1/2 Golden Globe nominations, an AFI award, was nominated for a César award and a David di Donatello award, a Grammy, won two National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, equal to its rating here. It is currently #181 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250 list, sitting between Wild Tales (2014) and Life of Brian (1979). Penn as filmmaker returned with the ridiculed The Last Face (2016). Hirsch returned in Speed Racer (2008). Into the Wild is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Into the Wild?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

7/19/2018

Into the Wild (2007) - Penn and Co. triumph with true-story, American odyssey

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