Factory Girl (2006) - Miller is great in Hickenlooper's wronged cultural reprimand

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+ Shooting Star Actress of the Year: Sienna Miller

Imitating Andy Warhol's pop-art-style, this is an intriguing poster for George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl

Edie Sedgwick is an extraordinarily beautiful, wealthy young woman, who comes to New York in the mid-1960s and gains the interest of the city's leading artist Andy Warhol, whose 'Factory' she becomes a part of, and which ends up causing her early demise.

Factory Girl is written by Captain Mauzner (Wonderland (2003)), with story elements from Simon Monjack (Two Days, Nine Lives (2001)) and Aaron Richard Golub (Proud Iza, short (2008, executive producer)), and directed by George Hickenlooper (Grey Knight (1993)).
It is a tragic story of 'damaged goods' from out west, in the form of Sedgwick, who could not live with the great pressure of the big city jungle and who, moreover, was exploited by superficial, egocentric Factory 'artists'. The story is brought to vivid life with flashbacks to her sexual abuse-shaped childhood and an outstanding performance by Sienna Miller (American Sniper (2014)) in the title role. Guy Pearce (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010)) is also good as the coolly distanced Warhol, who was a real prick towards Sedgwick. Hayden Christensen (Free Fall (1999)) is snugly to look at as the obviously Bob Dylan-shaped character; who makes love to Sedgwick before a fireplace in the film's only clichéd scene.
Factory Girl also has good supporting performances from Mena Suvari (Apparition (2019)), Beth Grant (Natural Disasters (2008)) and more. It is a small, sad and fine film.

 

Related posts:

 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Miller reminisces with fellow Factory Girl cast member Jimmy Fallon about the film many years later on his talkshow in a video here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 3.5 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.5 times its cost)
[Factory Girl premiered 29 December (USA) and runs 99 minutes. Katie Holmes was set to star as Sedgwick but got pregnant and dropped out. Shooting took place in Toronto, Ontario, in New York, Connecticut and Louisiana from December 2005 - February 2006. Lou Reed and Bob Dylan were incensed with the film. It opened #46 to an 87k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #23 and in 336 theaters and grossed 1.6 mil. $ (45.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 964k $ (27.5 %) and Italy with 225k $ (6.4 %). Hickenlooper uploaded a director's cut of the film on Youtube in the fall of 2008, which was taken down due to The Weinstein Company's ownership of the footage. Hickenlooper returned with 3 documentary projects before his last feature Casino Jack (2010), the last film he made before his premature death caused by a drug overdose at age 47 in 2010. Miller returned in Interview (2007); Pearce in Death Defying Acts (2007); and Christensen in Awake (2007). Factory Girl is rotten at 20 % with a 4.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Factory Girl?

American Reunion/American Pie: Reunion (2012) - Another chapter in the odyssey of the sex pie

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Everyone is back for Jon Hurwitz and Haydn Schlossberg's American Reunion

QUICK REVIEW:

High school reunion # 13 is the one that the guys will reunite at.  And preferably without Stifler. They are in very different places in their lives, but are all very nostalgic about the reassembly.
Reunion doesn't invent anything novel, but continues in the same popular vein as the earlier films about the group of sex-obsessed characters. This is the fourth film in the theatrical series and the 8th in the franchise overall, (4 have been made without the major stars as straight-to-video movies.)
Some moments fall to the ground, (not least towards the end), and some of Reunion is too low-brow and exaggerated. But at other times it manages to amuse, - often also with its reliance on exaggerated situations. As when SPOILER Stifler drives with jet-skis after his four-wheel drive; or when Jim tries to sneak a dead-drunk and nude 18 year-old into the house next door; or some of Stifler's unwelcome surprises at the reunion.
Particularly Jason Biggs (Anything Else (2003)) and Sean William Scott (Role Models (2008)), - who are also executive producers this time around (meaning first of all that they earned a lot more money from Reunion than the earlier movies), - are good.
American Reunion keeps the form of the earlier, beloved Pie-sex comedies without ever striking up anything wildly imaginative.
The co-writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg has previously graced the world with their writing or/and directing of four Harold & Kumar movies, and they are now preparing a movie with the title Cherries, about three fathers that try to keep their daughters from having sex at Prom night.

Related review:

American Pie (1999) or, Losing It Before Prom 

Jennifer Coolidge and Eugene Levy in Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg's American Reunion

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 50 mil. $
Box office: 234.7 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of American Reunion and the other Pie-movies?
Looking forward to Cherries?

American Beauty (1999) or, Escape by Death

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+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year

+ Best Debut of the Year + Best Drama of the Year + Best Mega-Hit Movie of the Year + Biggest Moneymaker of the Year: 127.48 mil. $ range

The iconic poster for Sam Mendes' American Beauty with its ingeniously simple tagline, 'Look closer'

Lester Burnham is a middle-aged father and husband, who is numbed to a zombie-like-state in an American suburb with his 9-5 job, his real estate-pushing wife and angry teenage daughter. just as some unpredicted things start to happen to him...

At first glance the characters of American Beauty might seem a bit psychologically sketchy, but then the plot takes them to new places: And although everything which takes place in some ways couldn't be more banal, yet they all still feels perfectly real and plausible.
American Beauty is written by Alan Ball (True Blood (2008-14), creator) and directed by debuting English master filmmaker Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road (2008)). It is Ball's thematically heavy script, above all, which has been studied over and over again since 1999. - What is the film saying exactly? And how does it say it? People obsess over American Beauty as few other films. And pairing it with Mendes' sensitive, keen direction is a perfect match.
Kevin Spacey (Margin Call (2011)) arguably has the role of his career here as Lester, SPOILER who liberates himself (and pays for it.) Spacey shines brightly here, and will always be remembered for his time as Lester, a great character that really strikes up the audiences' imagination. In other parts co-starring Annette Bening (The Siege (1998)) and supporting actors Mena Suvari (Psych (2010), TV-series), Thora Birch (Winter of Frozen Dreams (2009)) and Chris Cooper (Great Expectations (1998)) are all remarkable.
American Beauty is an incredibly powerful film, SPOILER and I wish I could believe in the final thoughts from Lester in the film, while instead it just makes me sad.To understand and make up your own mind, you will have to watch the film.

Related posts:

Sam Mendes: Spectre (2015) - Mendes' second Bond delivers
Skyfall (2012) - Overly celebrated third pout from Daniel Craig as Bond in slick production
Away We Go (2009) or, Where Do We Start This Family?

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 356.2 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[American Beauty premiered 8 September (Los Angeles) and runs 122 minutes. Ball had developed his idea for the film as a play in the early 1990s. He sold the script as his first movie script in 1997 to DreamWorks for 250k $. Reportedly 20 big filmmakers were approached to direct, before Mendes was hired from the directing stage successes, working for scale, he reportedly finally only made about 38k $ on the job. Shooting lasted 50 days from December 1998 - February 1999 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #11 in 16 theaters to an impressive 816k $ first weekend (a 53k $ average). It spent 7 weeks in the top 5 in an unusual release that saw the film boom and decline, only to boom and enter the top 5 again for another 2 weeks months later following its Oscar wins: Its placements were #4-#3-#4-#5-#X-#4, followed in March with 2 weeks in #5. The film played a very long 38 weeks in North America, where it grossed 130 mil. $ ( 36.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 34.6 mil. $ (9.7 %) and Germany with 24.1 mil. $ (6.8 %). The film was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning 5: For Best Picture, Director, Leading Actor, Script and Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall (Divorce American Style (1967))). It lost Actress to Hillary Swank for Boys Don't Cry, Editing to The Wachowski Brothers' masterpiece The Matrix and Best Score (Thomas Newman (Skyfall (2012))) to John Corigliano for The Red Violin/Le Violon Rouge. It also won 3/6 Golden Globe noms, 6/14 BAFTAs, a Grammy, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other awards and honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this review. IMDb users have ranked it #65 on the site's Top 250 list, sitting between Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece Princess Mononoke/Mononoke-Hime (1997) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Mendes returned with the great Road to Perdition (2002). Spacey returned in The Big Kahuna (1999) and Bening in What Planet Are You From? (2000). American Beauty is certified fresh at 88 % with an 8.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of American Beauty?