Word: film
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...decades later, Hyde has figured out how to "pay it forward" big time. This weekend (Oct. 20), her novel Pay It Forward becomes a major film starring Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, as well as nominee Haley Joel Osment. Hyde's book, published early this year, is just out in paperback. And across the U.S., kids and some adults are adopting the pay-it-forward philosophy, performing random acts of kindness. "Grownups have a tendency to talk themselves out of things, saying it will never work, but kids are fabulously optimistic," says Hyde, who has watched the ideas...
...liberals got the movies. It may not be fair, but that's the way it is. GARY OLDMAN apparently had no idea. The British star of The Contender says he signed on believing that his character, G.O.P. congressional inquisitor Shelly Runyon, was "the only true patriot in the film." Three guys, named Katzenberg, Spielberg and Geffen--who happen to be distributing The Contender--as well as director Rod Lurie, a self-proclaimed "die-hard liberal," saw it differently. The result is a predictably left-leaning movie that has Oldman and manager Douglas Urbanski seething. Urbanski, who has a producer credit...
...timing of Pay It Forward's release is certainly serendipitous, given the current acrimony between Washington and Hollywood over content. The folks behind the film are eager to do their bit. J.P. ("Rick") Guerin, chairman of Tapestry Films, which produced the movie, helped Hyde set up the nonprofit Pay It Forward Foundation to make sure the idea (which he calls a "chain letter of kindness") survived beyond the theater. "Most movies leave you laughing or happy or excited," he says, "but few send you out feeling like you want to do something. Hollywood could use a few more movies like...
...girl he left behind is Charlize Theron. But he and the movie do lack drama. This all-star study in blue-collar venality (remember Cop Land?) is both speech- and sight-impaired: the dialogue is all mumbles and whispers; the palette dabbles in blacks and dark browns. The film is so muted it disappears from your view even before it recedes from your memory...
...supposed to feel sorry for these people, and be inspired by their brave struggles to recover from all those wounds. But some of us are bound to take umbrage at the film's vulgar manipulations. Set in terminally tacky Las Vegas, Pay It Forward is as rigged as a casino slot machine, preying on people's hopes but paying off only for the house...