Meet Joe Black (1998) - Radiant filmmaking - and Pitt - in Brest's under-appreciated epic

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+ Best Epic Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year 

 

Claire Forlani is enjoying a close moment with a black tie-wearing Brad Pitt on this smooth, intimate poster for Martin Brest's Meet Joe Black

Bill Parish's 65th birthday is going to be a major celebration, but it happens while his company is getting taken out of his hands, and a mysterious stranger is snatching his youngest daughter's heart away.

 

Meet Joe Black is written by Ron Osborn, Jeff Reno (Moonlighting (1985-89), both) and Kevin Wade (True Colors (1991)) and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Martin Brest (Hot Tomorrows (1977)). The story is loosely based on Death Takes a Holiday (1934) by Mitchell Leisen.

It is an unexpectedly great film with real class, which takes its time, lending the film a meditational quality. Anthony Hopkins (Hearts in Atlantis (2001)) is outstanding as Bill Parish; Claire Forlani (Triggermen (2002)), Jeffrey Tambor (Hellboy (2004)) and Marcia Gay Harden (If I Were You (2012)) are also great; and Brad Pitt (Babel (2006)) is a chapter unto himself here: Angelically blond and strangely sexually electric throughout the film, waif-like and attention-grabbing. Emmanuel Lubezki's (Bandidos (1991)) camera caresses him in fiercely beautiful images. SPOILER He is Death in disguise, - or Death as an inavoidable fact that is not our enemy?

Thomas Newman's (Get on Up (2014)) score adds depth and sounds to the epic romance drama. Meet your mortality in the most delectable Hollywood production on the topic in many years here.

 

Related post:

 

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

 

 

Watch a 3-minute excerpt from the film here

 

Cost: 90 mil. $

Box office: 142.9 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.58 times its cost)

[Meet Joe Black premiered 2 November (USA) and runs 181 minutes. Pitt was paid 17.5 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from June - November 1997 in Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit The Waterboy and fellow new release I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, to a 15 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#4) and grossed 44.6 mil. $ (31.2 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars, translating to a notch under this review. Brest returned with Gigli (2003). Pitt returned with a cameo in Being John Malkovich (1999) and starring in Fight Club (1999); Hopkins in Instinct (1999). Meet Joe Black is rotten at 45 % with a 5.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Meet Joe Black?

Hallam Foe/Mister Foe (2007) - Bell charms again in Mackenzie's flawed romantic drama

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A cutesy, ghastly-yellow poster for David Mackenzie's Hallam Foe that doesn't convey too much about the actual film

Young Hallam is an aimless young man, who turns his rage from his mother's suicide against his father and stepmother and flees to the big city, where he falls in love with a young woman, who looks like his mother.

Hallam Foe is written by Ed Whitmore (Waking the Dead (2002-11)) and co-writer/director David Mackenzie (Starred Up (2013)), based on the same-titled 2001 novel by Peter Jinks. There is something off about the rhythm of the whole film, but Jamie Bell (Snowpiercer (2013)) as the title character is the reason to see it in himself.
Hallam's spying on the other characters, SPOILER and especially his final attack on his stepmother, are so indefensible acts that I was fairly distanced from the grieving protagonist here during the film. Ciarán Hinds (McCanick (2013)) doesn't seem like Bell's father here and may just be miscast, whereas Claire Forlani (Ripley Under Ground (2005)) is fine as the stepmother.
Hallam Foe is mostly for Bell fans, and it seems to have been one of those films that are cheerfully overrated locally (in this case in the UK.)

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 3.8 mil. £, or approximately 5 mil. $
Box office: 2.1 mil. $
= Mega-flop (0.42 times the cost)
[Hallam Foe premiered 16 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in Scotland from March - May 2006. It opened and peaked at #14 in the UK, its home and biggest market, where it grossed 808k $ (38.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 569k $ (27.1 %) and France with 451k $ (21.5 %). The film opened and peaked at #75 in North America in 2 theaters, though it spread to 6 venues, grossing 60k $ (2.9 %) under the title Mister Foe. The film won 1/4 BAFTA Scotland nominations, 2 awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, 6 British Independent Film Award nominations and won a National Board of Review award. Mackenzie returned with Ashton Kutcher-starring Spread (2009). Bell returned in Jumper (2008). Hallam Foe is certified fresh at 72 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hallam Foe?