Tag Archives: Adaptations

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Doubt

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Doubt
Directed by: John Patrick Shanley
Written by: John Patrick Shanley (screenplay & play)
Starring: Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis

Power resonates through every frame of this film.  The themes, the characters, and the film making are all powerful gusts of wind sent forth from the mind of John Patrick Shanley to shake you to your core.  However, it is not without one of the finest ensembles of the past several years that he achieves this.

What’s so great about this movie is that it speaks to something in everyone.  Looking at Doubt as an allegory for our times, when unsubstantiated certainty lands us in an unwinnable war in the Middle East, you see something totally different than if you look at it as a critique on Catholicism’s unwillingness to change.  You have to respect the material’s power to mean so much to so many different perspectives.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: The Ladykillers

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Image courtesy of IMDB

The Ladykillers
Directed by: Joel Coen
Written by: Joel & Ethan Coen (screenplay), William Rose (the original screenplay)
Starring: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, and J.K. Simmons

Adapting one of the most British films of all time for an American audience is no easy task.  Film makers Joel and Ethan Coen attempt the feat here, succeeding sometimes and falling short the rest of it.

The original film was based in post WW II Britain and centered on a group of criminals from different walks of life robbing a bank and hiding out in the home of a suspicious and nosy old woman.  The caper ultimately fails, ending with the fatalistic death of all of the criminals.

In this new 21st century version, there are still a group of different criminals planning a heist, but it’s now in hurricane-devastated Mississippi.  The American melting pot also applies to the criminals, as they all are extremely different.

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