From: Adam Kempenaar
To: Sam Hallgren; Eric Baker
Subject: Which one is Casey Affleck?
Eric promises to deliver a post sometime this afternoon, which will be nice because the two of us have probably taken this discussion as far as it can go. It is refreshing though to see that we're no longer sharing a brain after agreeing on 'The Good Girl', 'Roger Dodger' and 'Punch-Drunk Love'. You say '8 Mile' felt "inevitable," and it definitely did -- from most of the characters (each one of Rabbit's friends could be substituted in for Will's friends in 'Good Will Hunting'; try it, it works), to the plot (the movie opens with him choking badly on stage at the battle; it doesn't take Syd Field to figure out how the movie is going to end). But despite its familiarity and predictability, '8 Mile' never felt too Hollywood to me. Hanson doesn't bludgeon us with the movie's 'believe in yourself and you shall overcome' theme, and, as I mentioned before, the somewhat ambiguous ending keeps it from being too uplifting. Two other minor points of contention: Other than sexually, you don't see why Rabbit is attracted to Alex, played with perfect trashiness by Brittany Murphy. You mean, other than the fact that they both have big dreams and want to get out of Detroit? I thought the "7:30 in the morning" line worked in that moment because that particular line of dialogue always seemed to me from the trailers to be the kind of thing nobody in real life says, but sounds great in a movie. So to soften the blow a bit, Silver decided to add some levity. It worked for me, anyway. I saw 'Femme Fatale' last night and plan to have some comments soon. I also still need to discuss the last three movies I saw at the Chicago Film Fest -- the music documentaries 'Tribute' and 'Only The Strong Survive' and Philip Noyce's 'Rabbit-Proof Fence', a movie I actually forgot that I had seen until I drove by a theater the other day and saw the poster. Crazy, too, considering how fascinating the story is.
-CS
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