Word: berendt
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Weeks that John Berendt's hardcover Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has been on the New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list, tying the longest-lasting title in history, the 1950s book The Power of Positive Thinking...
Drag is the hallmark of this unwieldy film, and we're not talking about Lady Chablis. Clint Eastwood's lumbering adaptation of John Berendt's bestseller falls short of expectations, rendering the unique pantheon of Savannah personalities as mere cartoons and focusing too much on a long, drawn-out murder trial. John Cusack fumbles through the role of the script's too-young, too-straight stand-in for Berendt's narrator. But despite these flaws, Kevin Spacey shines as Jim Williams, the enigmatic gay antiques dealer who kills his lover in what may or may not have been self-defense...
Drag is the hallmark of this unwieldy film, and we're not talking about Lady Chablis. Clint Eastwood's lumbering adaptation of John Berendt's bestseller falls short of expectations, rendering the unique pantheon of Savannah personalities as mere cartoons and focusing too much on a long, drawn-out murder trial. John Cusack fumbles through the role of the script's too-young, too-straight stand-in for Berendt's narrator. But despite these flaws, Kevin Spacey shines as Jim Williams, the enigmatic gay antiques dealer who kills his lover in what may or may not have been selfdefense...
...John Berendt's nonfiction best seller has yet to appear between soft covers. So the film, directed by Clint Eastwood, serves as the audiovisual paperback version. It is likely to disappoint the book's acolytes and tax the patience of newcomers...
...these, not to mention the beautiful footage of Savannah, the uncredited star of the show. Best to sit back and soak up the Southern sun (which Eastwood manages to capture quite beautifully), then steadily tune out everything Cusack says and does. What will emerge is the real spirit of Berendt's Savannah, simultaneously anarchic and genteel--a cocktail potent enough to survive even the worst ravages of Hollywood hackery...