Lucas Continued from Page 8 to build the museum, called The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, for nearly a decade, and is financing the project by himself with plans to spend over $1 billion. It will house an extensive personal collection that includes 40,000 paintings, illustrations
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‘Live By Night’
and film-related items. The project became the subject of a rivalry between the two California cities, with San Francisco offering Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay as a home for the new museum. “We have been humbled by the overwhelmingly positive support we received from both San Francisco and Los Angeles during our selection process,” the organizers
said in a statement. Lucas has ties to both areas, and good reason to choose either. He is an alumnus of the film school at the University of Southern California, which is right across the street from the museum site, but he also has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of his life. LA Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement after the decision that “mil-
lions of Angelenos and visitors will enjoy an extraordinary collection anchored in storytelling — an art that carries so much meaning in the history and legacy of Los Angeles.” The museum gets its pick from about 30,000 film-related pieces including storyboards and costumes from “The Wizard of Oz,” ‘’Casablanca” and of course “Star Wars.”
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The Herald Journal, Logan, Utah, Friday, January 13, 2017
to its bare essentials. They meet, fall in love, and that’s that. There’s no buildup to it. Like everything else in the movie it feels rushed. It’s so worried about getting to where it’s intending to go that it doesn’t take its time to show us how it got there. There are certain things from Lehane’s book that would be downright difficult, or impossible, to Affleck’s version of accurately portray in Coughlin’s life feels hola two-hour movie. low. It’s well-directed, well-shot and the produc- In all honesty, Joe Coughlin’s life story tion values are stunning, AP Photo but so much of the best would’ve been right at Ben Affeck, left, and Sienna Miller share a scene in “Live By Night.” stuff from Lehane’s origi- home as a mini-series on HBO. The story is nal story were seemingly wonder how Joe and his episodic in such a way left on the cutting-room dad can even stand talking floor. that a movie simply to each other. In the movie Chief among the probcannot adequately fit it’s simplified. It loses its everything in. lems is Joe’s relationship mystery and impact. Director // Ben Affleck Now don’t get me with a beautiful Cuban The novel has an epic Starring // Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Brendan wrong, it’s not a reqwoman named Grafeel to it, covering mulGleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Clark Gregg, uisite that filmmakers ciela (Zoe Saldana). It’s tiple years as Joe rises Anthony Michael Hall, Chris Cooper, Zoe Saldana, include everything a romance in the book from a low-life thug pullRated // R for strong violence, language that catches the reader by included in the novel ing small-time jobs to one surprise. You don’t expect in the movie. “Live By throughout, and some sexuality/nudity of the richest gangsters in such affecting romance to Night” simply casts Florida. There’s a fascinathis book counterpart. gold, and a father (Brenaside the best stuff, be found in a story about Coughlin is the main dan Gleeson) who happens ing subplot with him facand in doing so fails to mobsters, guns and bootcharacter. He doesn’t like to be high up in the Boston ing down the KKK in the enlighten us as to what leg rum. Deep South and becoming to think of himself as a Police Department. The a strange purveyor of civil Here, however, the love really motivates these criminal. No, he’s an out- two of them don’t see story is whittled down characters. rights in the Tampa area, law. At least that’s what quite eye to eye. he tells himself to assuage This is a relationship in but the movie ignores the his conscience. Joe is a the book that drives much gravitas that Lehane’s mobster with a heart of of the narrative as we story possesses.
The Reel Place Aaron Peck
Movies adapted from novels will, most of the time, be found lacking. There’s only so much you can fit into a featurelength movie, whereas novels have room to breathe and expound. It’s unrealistic to expect an adaption to meet all our expectations, but Ben Affleck’s treatment of Dennis Lehane’s novel feels even more hamstrung than most lackluster adaptions. Lehane’s novel paints a vivid picture of the Prohibition Era, and the gangsters who ran things during that time. He peppers his world with deep, vibrant characters who have real, honest interactions. The novel isn’t so much a mob story as it is a story about fascinating characters who just so happen to be engaging in organized crime. Affleck’s screenplay, instead, strips away the deep layers of character and puts forth a straightforward tale about the mafia and bad men who do bad things. He extracts the motivation of characters like Joe Coughlin (Affleck) and distills them down to bland archetypes. Coughlin is a lot less tortured soul, and that makes him less thought-provoking than
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‘Live By Night’ falls far short of book