Daily Archives: April 14, 2007

Happy Birthday, Adrien Brody

Amusements, Birthdays

It’s a happy birthday to Adrien Brody, who turns 34 today. When I think of Brody, I always fondly recall the intimate press day roundtables in New York City for The Pianist, long before his Oscar victory for the movie, during which an amusingly clueless college journalist asked Brody why director Roman Polanski wasn’t there as well, to discuss his film. To his credit, Brody didn’t belittle the guy by asking, “Are you serious?”

At the press day for Hollywoodland, meanwhile, Brody had some interesting things to say about an actor’s
connection with his audience, and the (false) sense of familiarity that
breeds. For that tidbit, click here.

Perfect Stranger

Film Reviews

Perfect Stranger is one of those utterly anonymous film titles,
lightly evocative in its own way and yet suitable enough to be applied
to any number of situations or genres. It feels like a relic of the 1980s, an
indie flick title designed to conjure up an association with some
bigger hit.

Starring Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, and evincing a style that might best be described as deliciously retarded, Perfect Stranger is an overloaded, under-reasoned thriller that’s wholly engineered in reverse. It culminates in one of
those chunky scenes wherein a potential victim laboriously explains a
murderer’s entire convoluted plot directly to said person. Except in Perfect Stranger,
that scene is actually spread out over three different locations, and
includes the killer and deductive explicator snuggling up together on a
couch. Yes, seriously. A single graspable tone is the film’s greatest mystery; file this one under “comedy, unintentional.” For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.