Dan’s Papers April 15, 2011 danshamptons.com Page 26
Spielberg
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to this much trouble, you have to do something with it. And so it DID come out, something I only learned when I was researching for this article. They had cobbled a story together WITHOUT Steven Spielberg. The film came out with the title Far Harbor. It appeared in 1996, and it pretty much baffled everybody who saw it. Here is the summary you can read if you want to rent it. “Jennifer Connelly and Marcia Gay Harden costar in this emotional ensemble drama about eight 20-somethings who gather at a beach house for a much-needed getaway, only to discover that they’ll never escape their problems. As the friends are slowly consumed by petty squabbles,
a mysterious yacht looms in the harbor, serving as a constant reminder to them all of the power and greed that drives them.” In the film, the mysterious yacht was now owned by a famous filmmaker named David Speckman. Well, we’ll just leave him alone, the characters say in the film. If you read the filmography of Jennifer Connelly’s career today, you will come upon The Day the Earth Stood Still where she starred opposite Keanu Reeves, The Dilemma by Ron Howard (just out this past January), and A Beautiful Mind, also directed by Howard, in which she won her Academy Award for her performance as the wife of the mathematician John Nash. All are three, four and five star films. Only
one of her films, right at the beginning of her career, Far Harbor, is a two star film. Many of the young actors in the film went on to make films with connections to the Hamptons. Dan Futterman was one. He later wrote the Academy Award-winning film Capote, about the writer who lived his entire adult life in Sagaponack. Marcia Gay Harden played the role of Lee Krasner, the wife of Jackson Pollock, in the film Pollock, starring Ed Harris. For it, Harden received an Academy Award. Pollock lived most of his life and did his best work in Springs. And Connelly was also in Pollock. She played Ruth Kligman, the young ingénue who fell in love with Pollock and who he was with when he crashed his car and died. (She survived). As for the director, John Huddles, this had been his first film. He made one other, Uncorked, starring Minnie Driver in 1999, but never made another one. If Far Harbor got two stars, Uncorked got two and a half. That was as far as he got. Of course, there are those who are not giving up on Far Harbor. One is a blogger named Joe Baltake, “a film fan devoted to movies unknown and misunderstood.” Here was an entry on his blog from two months ago. “There’s a certain subgenre that I’ve dubbed ‘the hanging out movie,’—you know, that film where a group of friends gather together to drink, eat, reminisce, complain and have sex. “One of the least known (of these) is John Huddles’ Far Harbor, a 1996 effort… “The material is underwhelming but the gifted young cast—well, young in 1996—makes for good company and Futterman in particular stands out in a few edgy scenes.” Steven Spielberg’s Boat. Any new young filmmakers out there wanna give it another shot?
Brazil
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America and remember to never go to Brazil. This would not be hard to do. As for the collision, people who investigate these things told the Brazilian government that it makes it very difficult to find out the cause of an accident when you arrest those involved and threaten them with long jail sentences. Those so threatened are less likely to explain exactly what happened. Elsewhere an accident is an accident. The laws of Brazil were counterproductive. And so on Wednesday night and then again on Thursday night, the defendants gave their testimony over a videoconferencing system in Islip with the protestors outside. Reporters who attended the proceedings reported that the videoconferencing system kept malfunctioning, and questions had to be asked over and over again. “Had you thought you had hit another aircraft?” the judge asked. “I wasn’t sure it even involved another aircraft,” Paladino said. “I could not believe that another aircraft would be involved and that we would still be alive.” Paladino is now employed by American Airlines. Lapore declined to tell reporters where he is now working, citing the fact that he is still on trial.