Boy from the wrong side of the tracks (played at varying ages by Luke Bracey and James Marsden) falls for rich man’s daughter (Liana Liberato/Michelle Monaghan). An inability to divine where this timeworn premise might lead makes you the perfect audience demographic. Nicholas Sparks’ notion of destiny is two different cars breaking down on two different days bringing two different people together. (The only thing Nicholas sparks is a primer on romantic cliches for infertile teenage imaginations.) It’s a case of writer-as-auteur-as-director. Michael Hoffman does what he’s told, jumping willy-nilly between time-frames, desperately striving to make perfectly clear Sparks’ myopic vision. Liberato comes off best, while vacant-eyed Bracey emotes only when removing his shirt. I went in hoping for something bad-great along the lines of Sparks’ stupendously imbecilic <em>Safe Harbor</em>. What unraveled was simply grating. Strictly for spiteful teenage girls desiring to cinematically waterboard their boyfriends.
This space was originally slated for a 750-word interview with Michelle Monaghan, star of The Best of Me, the new Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker opening wide this weekend. We met last month when Michelle was in town for the San Diego Film Festival, and she promised to arrange an interview.
True to her word, a time was set aside, and for ten minutes, the lovely Ms. Monaghan regaled me with tales of how she skillfully alternates roles in smaller, independent films (Trucker, Fort Bliss) with commercial blockbusters (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Source Code, The Best of Me).
I finally got around to trashing my 8-track player late last year, but my addiction to audiotape is such that all of my interviews are recorded on micro-cassette. Something tells me the time is right to upgrade to a digital recorder, because two minutes into my transcription, the tape snapped.
My movieheimers memory being what it is, it is impossible for me to reconstitute the interview. But I do recall my killer of a closing question. Michelle co-starred opposite Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey on the TV crime series True Detective. When asked which of the two smoked a higher-grade pot, Michelle burst out laughing, shifting gears long enough to coolly reply, “I was pregnant at the time and wouldn’t know.”
Boy from the wrong side of the tracks (played at varying ages by Luke Bracey and James Marsden) falls for rich man’s daughter (Liana Liberato/Michelle Monaghan). An inability to divine where this timeworn premise might lead makes you the perfect audience demographic. Nicholas Sparks’ notion of destiny is two different cars breaking down on two different days bringing two different people together. (The only thing Nicholas sparks is a primer on romantic cliches for infertile teenage imaginations.) It’s a case of writer-as-auteur-as-director. Michael Hoffman does what he’s told, jumping willy-nilly between time-frames, desperately striving to make perfectly clear Sparks’ myopic vision. Liberato comes off best, while vacant-eyed Bracey emotes only when removing his shirt. I went in hoping for something bad-great along the lines of Sparks’ stupendously imbecilic <em>Safe Harbor</em>. What unraveled was simply grating. Strictly for spiteful teenage girls desiring to cinematically waterboard their boyfriends.
This space was originally slated for a 750-word interview with Michelle Monaghan, star of The Best of Me, the new Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker opening wide this weekend. We met last month when Michelle was in town for the San Diego Film Festival, and she promised to arrange an interview.
True to her word, a time was set aside, and for ten minutes, the lovely Ms. Monaghan regaled me with tales of how she skillfully alternates roles in smaller, independent films (Trucker, Fort Bliss) with commercial blockbusters (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Source Code, The Best of Me).
I finally got around to trashing my 8-track player late last year, but my addiction to audiotape is such that all of my interviews are recorded on micro-cassette. Something tells me the time is right to upgrade to a digital recorder, because two minutes into my transcription, the tape snapped.
My movieheimers memory being what it is, it is impossible for me to reconstitute the interview. But I do recall my killer of a closing question. Michelle co-starred opposite Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey on the TV crime series True Detective. When asked which of the two smoked a higher-grade pot, Michelle burst out laughing, shifting gears long enough to coolly reply, “I was pregnant at the time and wouldn’t know.”
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