Ghost Ship (2002) or, Turkey Ship

♥

 

A super-imposed human skull underlines the ominous prospects on this poster for Steve Beck's Ghost Ship

A group of daredevils, who salvage shipwrecks for money, get a tip about a large ship, which has been missing for 40 years...

 

Ghost Ship is written by Mark Hanlon (Buddy Boy (1999)) and John Pogue (The Skulls (2000)) and directed by Steve Beck (Thirteen Ghosts (2001)).

A confusion of styles and silly cardboard-like characters mar this producers' conceptualized, special effects-driven horror adventure, done with a typical credo of its time that exhausting cross-cutting will in itself magically produce excitement, (not true.)

The plot gets increasingly jumbled and strange, and not even the cast, which has several capable actors, resembles a resource in this studio-molded nightmare of a turkey.

 

Related post:

 

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

 

Watch a 3-minute scene from the film here

 

Cost: 20 mil. $

Box office: 68.3 mil. $ 

= Box office success (returned 3.41 times its cost)

[Ghost Ship premiered 22 October (California) and runs 90 minutes. Hanlon's 1996 spec script Chimera was the basis of the film. Shooting took place from January - April 2002 in Australia, Nova Scotia and Vancouver, British Columbia. The film opened #3, behind fellow new release Jackass: The Movie and holdover hit The Ring, to an 11.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 30.1 mil. $ (44.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 6.2 mil. $ (9.1 %) and Japan with 3.8 mil. $ (5.6 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Beck left filmmaking after Ghost Ship. Gabriel Byrne (Capital (2012)) returned in Shade (2003); Julianna Margulies (The Sopranos (2006-07)) in 3 TV credits prior to her theatrical return in Slingshot (2005). Ghost Ship is rotten at 16 % with a 3.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ghost Ship?

City Island (2009) - Felitta's dramedy masterpiece

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best New York Movie of the Year

A neat mix of photography and drawing that gives hints to the secrets of the characters in Raymond De Felitta's City Island

QUICK REVIEW:

Outside of New York City, on City Island, lives a family of convinced liars. The father hides his secret son in a shed and secretly attends acting classes in the city. The mother flirts with infidelity. The daughter strips. And the son has a kink. - And they all secretly smoke.

City Island is a wonderfully written gem of coming clean and finding a way to come together. Importantly, it never becomes viscid in any way, but retains realism throughout. It is incredibly well-acted: Particularly by Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife (2009-15)), Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)), Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine (2006)) and Andy Garcia (Rob The Mob (2014)) as the film's super-involved dream leader, who shows the way for the rest of the cast without shaking for a millisecond.
City Island is a highly engaging, funny, exciting modern dramedy classic. - Don't miss this masterpiece!
It is written and directed by New York-born filmmaker Raymond De Felitta, who debuted in 1995 with Cafe Society, after being Oscar-nominated for his short Bronx Cheers (1990). He has made other features and a couple of documentaries since, and most recently Rob the Mob, (regrettably) still to be found high on Film Excess' watch list.
Film Excess favorite Miller's turn in the long-awaited Madame Bovary (2014) has been released last year, but only very limited so far. This year he will be seen in Judd Apatow's much-anticipated Trainwreck (2015), - again  alongside Tilda Swinton, - and in the eerily sounding The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015), alongside a slew of other young, happening actors. - Exciting!

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Andy Garcia brought down in Raymond De Felitta's City Island

The lovely Ezra Miller in Raymond De Felitta's City Island

Andy Garcia studies Brando on this character poster for Raymond De Felitta's City Island

Julianna Margulies raises her glass on this character poster for Raymod De Felitta's City Island

Watch the great trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 7.8 mil. $
= Big flop
[The film won the Audience Award at New York's Tribeca Film Festival, but, unfortunately, it wasn't able to broaden its success out much. It made 6.6 mil. $ (85 % of the total gross) in the States.]

What do you think of City Island?
Have you seen other films by Raymond De Felitta? 
If so, tell about it/them