Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) or, The Boy Who Lost His Father

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Non-adult Actor: Thomas Horn (lost to Amara Miller for The Descendants)

An extremely clear image of Thomas Horn on the poster for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

QUICK REVIEW:

An extremely intelligent boy loses his father in 9/11, and a year later he ventures out on what he perceives as his father's last expedition for him, with a key in his hand.

Young Thomas Horn (Space Warriors (2013)) is exceptional and a joy to see act and charm us in this really sweet film, which is about something very sad: Settling with a grief and a loss that seems senseless.
Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan (1998)) and Sandra Bullock (Gravity (2013)) play the sweetest and best father and mother in the world here, it seems, respectively.
The scene with Jeffrey Wright (Broken Flowers (2005)) is too long, (the movie runs 129 minutes), and there are other minor flaws, but Extremely Loud is still a humorous, touching film.
It is an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's (Tree of Codes (2010)) 2005 novel by Eric Roth (The Insider (1999)), and the film is directed by English master filmmaker Stephen Daldry (The Hours (2002)). His latest work is the Brazilian-set Trash (2014).

Related posts:

Stephen Daldry: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
The Reader (2008) or, Guilt, Words and Love

Watch the official trailer for the film here, - and note that although James Gandolfini is credited in it, his scenes were ultimately cut from the film (due to test audiences responding negative to the scenes of him and Bullock's romance)

Cost: 40 mil. $
Box office. 55.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[Extremely Loud garnered lukewarm reviews in the US, where it made 31.8 mil. $ (58 % of the total gross.) When it was Oscar-nominated as Best Film and Best Supporting Actor (Max Von Sydow (Pelle the Conqueror/Pelle Erobreren (1987))), several critics lambasted the Academy for their nominations of it. However, those critics were wrong: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a good film.]

What do you think of Extremely Close & Incredibly Loud?
If you've seen Daldry's latest, Trash, please, let us know how it was

25th Hour (2002) or, Taking a Second Chance

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+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best New York Movie of the Year

The simple, elegant poster for Spike Lee's 25th Hour

Monty (Edward Norton (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014))), a New York drug dealer, says goodbye to his girlfriend, friends, family and 'colleagues' on the last day before he has to do 7 years of jail time. 

The first New York City-set movie post 9/11, 25th Hour incorporates the tragedy into its story and is among great New Yorker filmmaker Spike Lee's (She's Gotta Have It (1986)) best films. Writer David Benioff's (When the Nines Roll Over (and Other Stories) (2004)) script, an adaptation of his own same-titled 2002 novel, is fresh and full of flesh-and-blood characters and substance. - There's lots of things going on in this great drama.
The superb ensemble cast elevates the already fine material; especially Norton and in supporting roles, Anna Paquin (The Piano (1993)), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Mission: Impossible III (2006)) and Brian Cox (L.I.E. (2001)) are uniformly strong. Ironically, since that seems to be the guiding theme of so many of Lee's films, this fine film of his lives fine without any significant racial themes.

 

Related post:

 

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

In lieu of a trailer for the film, not currently on Youtube, here's a video of Lee and his stars talking of the film and its director

Cost: 5-15 mil. $ (different sources)
Box office: 23.9 mil. $
= Uncertainty (co-star Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan (1998)) cites a 15 mil. $ in the above video, which seems likely, and the film should therefore most likely count as a big flop)
[25th Hour premiered 16 December (New York) and runs 135 minutes. It opened #38 to a 108k $ first weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #10 and in 495 theaters (different weeks), grossing 13 mil. $ (54.4 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Italy with 4 mil. $ (16.7 %) and France with 1.9 mil. $ (7.9 %). San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle called the film "an urban historical document as Rosselini's Open City", and A. O. Scott, Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert placed the film on their best of the decade lists: Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Lee returned with She Hate Me (2004). Norton returned in The Italian Job (2003). 25th Hour is certified fresh at 78 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of 25th Hour?