One Chance (2013) - Cynics not allowed for this lovable underdog winner

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+ Best Feel-Good Movie of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year

 

 

With a chipped front tooth and a lovable grin, co-star James Corden invites on this poster for David Frankel's One Chance

In the heavy mining environment of Wales, Paul Potts grows up an overweight boy with a heart that beats strongly for opera. Despite setbacks Potts breaks through.

 

One Chance is written by Justin Zackham (The Bucket List (2007)) and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker David Frankel (Miami Rhapsody (1995)), whose 6th feature it is. It is the real-life story of Britain's Got Talent singer sensation Paul Potts.

It is a classical underdog story, served with British humor and sweet romance on the side. James Corden (Cats (2019)) is impossible not to like, despite his character's periodic self-pity, and he beats the basically formulaic film into the ventricles of the heart. He gets good support from Alexandra Roach (The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)) as his good girlfriend and later wife and Mackenzie Crook (Ironclad (2011)) as his mobile salesman manager/friend. Julie Walters' (Calendar Girls (2003)) co-starring turn brings back memories of her performance in the fantastic Billy Elliott (2000), a film whose heights One Chance never gets near to matching.

Colm Meaney (Alan Partridge (2013)) is fair as Potts' opponent father. One Chance is full-throttle sentimental feel-good.

 

Related posts:

Dave Frankel: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Exces [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2012 in films - according to Film Excess  

Hope Springs (2012) - Making an old marriage work, peppered with Streep at her best and top-grade talent all-around

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) - Frankel's crowd-pleasing fashion romcom 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 12 mil. $

Box office: 10.9 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.90 times its cost)

[One Chance premiered 9 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 103 minutes. Frankel reportedly took a diminished salary (1.2 mil. $ reduced from 6 mil. $) in return for a profit participation percentage. Shooting took place around October 2012 in Wales and England, including London, and in Italy. The film opened #55 to a 33k $ first weekend in 43 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #46 the following week in the same amount of theaters and grossed 101k $ (0.9 % of the total gross). The film's biggest markets were the UK with 3.8 mil. $ (34.9 %), Australia with 1.8 mil. $ (16.5 %) and Denmark with 614k $ (5.6 %). The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, among other honors. Frankel returned with The King of 7B (2015, TV movie), OneRepublic: Let's Hurt Tonight (2016, music video) and theatrically with Collateral Beauty (2016). Corden returned in a music video, a short and a TV movie prior to his theatrical return in Into the Woods (2014); Walters with a voice performance in Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013) and physically in The Harry Hill Movie (2013). One Chance is fresh at 63 % with a 5.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of One Chance?

EDtv (1999) - Phenomenal cast shine in Howard's witty mega-flop

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+ Best Mega-Flop Movie of the Year + Best Satire of the Year

This eye-catching poster for Ron Howard's EDtv conveys the intrusiveness of cameras that the plot centers around

A major reality TV channel launch their new venture: 24 hour a day covering of one person's life. That person is 30 year-old Ed, who works in a video store and is falling for his brother's girlfriend.

EDtv is written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Robots (2005), both) and directed by great Oklahoman filmmaker Ron Howard (Cocoon (1985)), based on the Canadian film Louis, 19, King of the Airwaves/ Louis 19, le Roi des Ondes (1994).  Howard plays the material broadly, and he continually brings us audiences into Ed's drama along with the TV audiences by their screens, which is a little unengaging and a bit depressing as well, because it puts us in the same boat with the TV audiences who are content to completely pause their own lives in order to follow Ed's...
Luckily, EDtv has some really funny lines and situations, and the cast is phenomenal, filled with endearing personalities: Ellen DeGeneres (Finding Dory (2016)), Woody Harrelson (After the Sunset (2004)), Matthew McConaughey (Fool's Gold (2008)) and Jenna Elfman (Damages (2012), TV-series) are good in big parts, engaging and funny; Rob Reiner (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) as the cynical TV channel boss and Martin Landau (Firehead (1991)) as the wheelchair-bound stepfather are both perfect. Dennis Hopper (River's Edge (1986)) is icing on the cake in some of the more emotional scenes.
EDtv is a good movie that seems in some way to participate in the reality TV wave of the late 1990s while also criticizing it some.

Related posts:

Ron Howard: Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)
The Da Vinci Code (2006) - Howard's first Brown adaptation is a popcorn thriller hoot
Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
A Beautiful Mind (2001) - John Nash given the Epic Treatment  

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Backdraft (1991) - Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie 
American Graffiti (1973) or, Cruisin' Modesto '62 (actor) 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 80 mil. $
Box office: 35.2 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[EDtv  was released 26 March (USA) and runs 123 minutes. Shooting took place from March - July 1998 in California and Florida. The film opened #3 behind hold-over hits Forces of Nature and Analyze This to an 8.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its second week and grossed a paltry 22.4 mil. $ (63.6 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5/4 stars, translating to a notch harder than this review. The film bears a striking resemblance in plot to Peter Weir's highly successful The Truman Show (1998), starring Jim Carrey, which revolves around a reality TV show about one person's life, lived in an artificial world only he doesn't know is a huge set. While Howard's career could take a hit and was fast back on track, (with How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), starring Carrey, and possibly his career's best, Oscar-winner A Beautiful Mind (2001)) the incredibly over-budgeted, hugely expense flop EDtv marked a more severe downwards turn career-wise for McConaughey, who mostly starred in smaller and lower quality films for the following decade before beginning his come-back to form in 2011 with Bernie and Killer Joe. EDtv is fresh at 63 % with a 6.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of EDtv?

Domino (2005) - T. Scott's bounty-hunter biopic a complete misfire, mega-flop

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+ Worst Poster of the Year  

Keira Knightley, now obviously a shotgun-toting action heroine, on one of the lazily done and very uninspiring posters for Tony Scott's Domino

QUICK REVIEW:

A cool team of bounty hunters somehow become a reality TV series, but then get mixed up with a Vegas billionaire and a mob boss, SPOILER and everyone dies.

Domino is based on real-life model turned bounty hunter Domino Harvey, but how much of what happens in the film has any connection to reality is unclear. Unfortunately, by the end of the fatiguing, dull film, I didn't care at all.
Because what is Tony Scott's (The Hunger (1983)) Domino, written by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko (2001))? - An action movie? Nah... - A heist movie? Not really... - A thriller? Far from it... The film is like a failed mix of all these things.
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler (2008)) spits out his lines in the film, so that they glimmer of coolness, and the story does take some fun detours, like the bit about The First Ladies and Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green (Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-00), both) playing themselves.
But mostly, Scott's 127 minutes long Domino is a stressful, flashing, music-video-like creation, sure to be counted among the late, English master filmmaker's worst.

Related review:
Tony Scott:  Stoker (2013) - Chan-wook Park's over-styled American debut revolts and bores in turns (producer) 

Déjà Vu (2006) - T. Scott cuts a helluva suspense-cake!

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the horrible trailer for the film here

Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 22.9 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[Fox, who had a refusal deal with Scott, must count themselves lucky that they decided to forgo any involvement in Domino. The real Domino was paid a huge sum for the rights to her story, but as a drug addict, this obviously backfired: Before the film opened, she died from a drug overdose.  Scott has said that the film is among his favorites of his own. He also committed suicide, 7 years after the release, in 2012. Domino's release was delayed several times, and the film eventually opened to bad reviews and a dismal 4.6 mil. $ opening weekend in North America, where it only played for 4 weeks, grossing 10.1 mil. $ (44 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of Domino?

The Method/El Método (2005) - Madrid-set job interview, reality-themed thriller

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The entire cast of Marcelo Piñeyro's The Method

An unusual corporate thriller without any bloodshed, The Method is based on Jordi Galceran's (Dakota (1996)) play The Grönholm Method/El Mètode Grönholm (2003) written by Mateo Gil (The Sea Inside/Mar Adentro (2004), co-writer) and co-writer-director Marcelo Piñeyro (Burnt Money/Plata Quemada (2000)).

7 applicants for a top corporate job meet for an advanced, collective interview that unfolds unpredictably: Following the mysterious 'Grönholm Method', the 7 are set to decimate themselves in order for the winner of the job to be found.

Several scenes play out nicely, with fast, dramatic cutting, and an invitation to guess at hints and choose sides in a reality TV-like fashion. The acting is good, and the characters believable. Without being phenomenal, it is an exciting and highly entertaining film for the most part.
The third act regrettably fumbles some of the nice work, as The Method fizzes out in intrigues and melodrama. SPOILER The woman (Najwa Nimri (Room in Rome/Habitación en Roma (2010))), who seems obviously the most competent and intelligent of the applicants, suddenly gives up and offers her male counterpart (Eduardo Noriega (Beauty and the Beast/La belle et la Bête (2014))) the job. Then she leaves down the street that has been messed up by an angry anti-IMF mob earlier in the day, (and is now seemingly totally abandoned?)
The implication of this last image, and the recurring sounds of the protestors, are very vague. So vague, in fact, as to become an annoyance. Whether they are there to be a symbolic attack on capitalism for the entire movie, or mean something else entirely, perhaps a gender point I am missing, it is too unclear, and it also seems very irrelevant for the practical thriller plot that was built up before it.
Piñeyro does well in adapting this extremely dialog-heavy play to the screen without it feeling heavy or dousing to the senses.The Method mostly plays like an intelligent and unpredictable reality TV-inspired film with good acting and humor as key ingredients.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 3.4 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.13 times the cost)
[The Method premiered 14 September (Toronto International Film Festival, Ontario) and runs 115 minutes.  The film was quite successful in one of its 3 production countries Spain, where it made 2.9 mil. $ (85.3 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Argentina (another production country) with 0.3 mil. $ (8.8 %) and France with 0.1 mil. $ (2.9 %). The US was among the smallest of its 8 markets with a mere 7k $ gross (0.2 %) over the course of 2 weeks in 2 theaters.The film was nominated for 5 Goya Awards and won 2, for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Carmelo Gómez (Tiempo sin Aire (2015)) (the first character to leave in the film.)) Piñeyro returned with Las Viudas de los Jueves (2009). Noreiga returned in Che Guevara (2005), Nimri in Las Vidas de Celia (2006). The Method is fresh at 71 % with a 6.2/10 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Method?