Water For Elephants

Water for Elephants is tasteful. Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz are all good actors, Francis Lawrence knows his way around a camera, and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese knows his way around a sentence. It’s an adaptation of a popular novel about a circus show. One of those books that find an audience with women, is often well regarded, but not taken all that seriously.

Robert Pattinson is famous for Twilight. But like any actor he wants to show that he’s not just the captain of Team Edward. Christoph Waltz won an academy award, but he needs to show he can work in Hollywood, so why not play a slightly less evil character than last time? Reese Witherspoon is a bankable actress – or at least used to be – and who else are you going to cast if Angelina Jolie is out of your price range? Francis Lawrence is a director who wants to show he’s not just a genre filmmaker after Constantine and I Am Legend. You can clearly see everyone’s motivations for making the movie. That the end results are half-cooked is also not surprising. Our review of Water for Elephants on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

The film starts in present day with Hal Holbrookplaying the older version of Robert Pattinson’s character. R-Patz stars as Jacob, who sees his whole life ahead of him until a car crash kills his parents and leaves him penniless. He was studying to be a veterinarian, but with no way to finish school he jumps a train. It happens to be a circus train for the Benzini Brothers travelling circus, which is run by August (Waltz). Jacob gets to working, but his skills with animals lead him to a job as the circus’s vet, and that gets him closer to Rosie (Witherspoon), who rides the show horse that Jacob quickly diagnoses as terminal.

Needing a new star attraction, August finds Rosie, the titular elephant. August uses violence to move the mammal, Jacob uses tenderness. Jacob is also attracted to Rosie, and though August courts this attraction by keeping Jacob close, he also doesn’t approve of it. So tensions are rising much like the show’s attendance.

Water for Elephants is beautifully shot, but wounded – if not ruined – by the need for digital effects to compensate for period locations. There are a number of train shots that would have been majestic if they were live action, but digitally enhanced shots have all the romanticism of the 1’s and 0’s they’re made of. There’s no majesty in that sort of substitution when you could watch something like Days of Heaven.

Perhaps with stories like this, the only way to go is to pretend that they’ve never been told before. But that’s not the approach here; it feels like everyone is going through the motions. The film is ultimately undone by its casting, and it’s not Robert Pattinson’s fault – Reese Witherspoon is so painfully wrong for the role. As a performer she’s rarely conveyed much sensuality, and though she’s a fine actress and capable at both heavy drama and light comedy, as the role of the mysterious and sexual woman in the middle of a triangle, she gives off all the heat of a well-used computer. The story might be familiar, but if there was anyone in the role who could project knowing and or sensual it would make this at least something to watch. But with this casting of talents based more on availability and awareness than how they interact, you watch three actors you never believe want to or did have sex with each other.

And that’s the make or break with films like this, and it’s so strange that the system is so backwards that the pieces were put in place without seeing how they fit. You can enjoy watching Waltz have fun with the role, and he’s not close to phoning it in, and Pattinson and Witherspoon are trying, but it’s a nothing film. Something sure to be forgotten but all of the most faithful of readers.

Twentieth Century Fox’s Blu-ray isgorgeous no doubt. The Blu-ray comes with a digital copy, and the film is presented in widescreen (2.35:1) and in 5.1 DTS-HD master audio. The film comes with a commentary by director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Richard LaGravanese, and seven featurettes. “Raising the Tent” (16 min.) is the standard making of with comments from the cast and crew, “Secrets of the Big Top” (12 min.) gets circus historians to talk about the film and circuses, “The Star Attraction” (9 min.) focuses on the film’s elephant and the work that went into getting the elephant into the movie, “The Traveling Show – Page to Screen” (9 min.) puts author Sara Guen and the story in the spotlight, “Working without a Net: Visual Effects for Water for Elephants” (23 min.) shows where all the digital trickery was done. Robert Pattinson (4 min.) and Reese Witherspoon (3 min.) get their own “they were great to work with” featurettes, and the set rounds out with a theatrical trailer.

This Is The Most Honored Film

Ben-Hur (1959) is MGM's three and a half hour, wide-screen epic Technicolor blockbuster - a Biblical tale, subtitled A Tale of the Christ.

Director William Wyler's film was a remake of the spectacular silent film of the same name (director Fred Niblo's and MGM's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)). Wyler had been an 'extras' director on the set of DeMille's original film in the silent era. MGM's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), featuring a cast of 125,000, cost about $4 million to make after shooting began on location in Italy, in 1923, and starred silent screen idols Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman. This figure is equivalent to $33 million today - it was the most expensive silent film ever made. Both films were adapted from the novel (first published in 1880) by former Civil War General Lew Wallace.

The colorful 1959 version was the most expensive film ever made up to its time, and the most expensive film of the 50s decade. At $15 million and shot on a grand scale, it was a tremendous make-or-break risk for MGM Studios - and ultimately saved the studio from bankruptcy. [It was a big dual win for MGM, since they had won the Best Picture race the previous year for Gigi (1958).] It took six years to prepare for the film shoot, and over a half year of on-location work in Italy, with thousands of extras. It featured more crew and extras than any other film before it - 15,000 extras alone for the chariot race sequence.

Ben-Hur proved to be an intelligent, exciting, and dramatic piece of film-making unlike so many other vulgar Biblical pageants with Hollywood actors and actresses. Its depiction of the Jesus Christ figure was also extremely subtle and solely as a cameo - it never showed Christ's face but only the reactions of other characters to him.

It was one of the most honored, award-winning films of all time. It was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Actor (Charlton Heston - his sole career Oscar), Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith), Best Director (William Wyler), Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Score, Best Film Editing, Best Color Costume Design, Best Special Effects, and Best Screenplay (sole-credited Karl Tunberg). It was the first film to win eleven Oscars - it lost only in the Screenplay category due to a dispute over screenwriting credits (Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Fry, and Gore Vidal were all uncredited).Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) are the only films to tie this phenomenal record, although unlike this film, they came awaywithout any acting Oscars. Many felt that Heston's performance was inferior to other nominees in the Best Actor category: Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot or Laurence Harvey in Room at the Top, and James Stewart in Anatomy of a Murder.

The top of my list of films

Annie Hall has long been at the top of my list of films. It combines a sense of classic New York, a bonkers Woody Allen and really good clothes. For whatever reason I’ve re-visited Annie Hall several times in the past few weeks, and continually noticed the quality of the wardrobes. It then comes as no surprise that the one and only, Mr. Ralph Lauren (no secret to film fashion fame, see Redford in The Great Gatsby) was behind all the stitches. Firing on all cylinders, Annie Hall is filled with tweed, military jackets, summer whites, Paul Simon, and female neck wear; all paired with narcissism, vintage cars and a complete disdain for Los Angeles.

People are quick to forget Annie Hall, the major turning point in Woody Allen’s long, storied, and ever-growing career. They’re quick to forget that it won four of the big five Oscars (winning best director, actress, writing, and picture), the one loss coming in the best actor category. They’re quick to forget it beat Star Wars for Best Picture. No, not the crappy prequelStar Wars, the freakin’ Star Wars. They’re quick to forget that Allen revolutionized humor, romance, and storytelling in one quirky swoop. But if you actually take the time to sit down and watch this amazing film, you would never be quick to forget it.

It’s honest, it’s depressing, and it’s hilarious. I chose this film as my favorite not just because it’s an outstanding film, but it is largely a representation of Allen’s whole career and what he would do after this. Annie Hall is more than just Annie Hall, it represents films such as the gorgeously shot Manhattan, the character-driven Purple Rose of Cairo, the dark, philosophicalCrimes and Misdemeanors, and the family-drama, Hannah and Her Sisters. You could argue that Woody Allen has done better since Annie Hall, depending on what film you chose to make your case, I might not argue. But there’s no denying that without Annie Hall, we would not have gotten the filmmaker and films we have today and that is why the tie-wearing, naive, arachnophobic, Grammy Hall-loving, Annie Hall tops my list.

The most Adventure and Romance Film In Africa - The African Queen

In The African Queen, you get Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, their little boat, and a very hokey—but very enjoyable—mismatched romance as they careen downriver toward a German gunship. World War I has broken out in Europe, and Hepburn’s spinster is determined to strike a blow for England. Bogart’s drunken river captain wants nothing to do with heroics—he’s like Casablanca’s Rick gone to seed (the part earned him an Oscar). But wouldn’t you know he gradually softens to Hepburn and embraces her cause? Director John Huston shot the 1951 Technicolor picture on location in Africa, where Hepburn got very sick while Huston and Bogart got very drunk.

One fascinating aspect is the ripples of war that have touched even the shores of Africa after the outbreak of World War One. The central premise of the plot - at least the part that will contain more action than character interplay - involves traveling the river into its mouth, a large African lake. Charlie has told Rose about a German warship, the Louisa, which has been carried overland in sections and assembled, and now with its big gun controls the region. Quickly Rose questions "Mr. Allnut" about the supplies aboard his own craft, and arrives at a scheme in which they will do their part for the crown, and sink the German gunboat! This serves as a singular goal for the plot, and assists in highlighting the development of the love story: after all, Charlie and Rose are alone for most of the film, going through their ups and downs. A reminder of the importance of the romance is the motivation it supplies to Charlie. Would he have straightened the shaft and rebuilt the propeller, had it not been for his love of "Rosie"? Would he have shot rapids and braved rifle fire?

Much has been written about the making of The African Queen, the seeming high adventure and romance of Huston and Bogart and Hepburn filming in Africa. The whole shooting smacks of the hyped atmosphere of a Hemingway safari. But judged purely by what we see on the film that's been passed down to us, the story holds up well and the acting holds up as almost flawless. Perhaps the far ending is a bit abrupt, but the climax has been reached, and the viewer has a good idea where the characters are headed. After watching Bogart and Hepburn, it is hard to disagree with the 1999 American Film Institute poll that placed them as the number one male and female actor in the first fifty years of film history.

I Like The Movie Kung Fu Panda

Did you see the movie Kung Fu Panda? I can honestly say that I have yet to see the movie. I don’t know why. It looked really cute and I think Jack Black is funny. For some odd reason I never got the chance to see it, until now. My family has the DVD and I was able to watch it. I’m glad I had the opportunity. It wasn’t a type of movie I would normally go for but it was a lot of fun.

Soon Kung Fu Panda 2 will be in theaters across the country. To celebrate the movie’s release General Mills is offering a Kung Fu related toy in specially marked packages of cereals including Cocoa Puffs (11.8 oz.), Trix (10.7 oz.), Golden Grahams (12 oz.), Reese’s Puffs (13 oz.), Cheerios (14 oz.), Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (12.9 oz.), Cookie Crisp (11.25 oz.), Lucky Charms (11.5 oz.), Cinnamon Toast Crunch (12.8 oz.) and Honey Nut Cheerios (12.25 oz.). We ♥ Honey Nut Cheerios and regular Cheerios. I love Lucky Charms too. I love to pick out the marshmallows and eat them first, then the cereal.

Kung Fu Panda (Gongfuxiongmao, Gongfu Xiongmao, is an animated film about a panda Po who is a kung fu fanatic whose shape doesn't exactly lend itself to kung fu fighting. In fact, Po's defining characteristic appears to be that he is the laziest of all the animals in ancient China. That's a problem because an evil Warrior named Tai Lung has escaped from his prison, and all hopes have been pinned on a prophesy naming Po as the "Chosen One" to save the day. A group of martial arts masters are going to need a black belt in patience if they are going to turn this slacker panda into a kung fu fighter before it's too late. The film stars the voices of, among others, Jack Black as Giant Panda Po, Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress,Dustin Hoffman as shifu,Jackie Chan as Master Monkey, Lucy Liu as Master Viper. Kung Fu Panda is directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne and produced by Melissa Cobb. The idea for the film was conceived by Michael Lachance, a DreamWorks. Animation executive. The film is due for release on.

The spin fighter actually spins in the air. I’m not sure how you get it to hit the targets from the General Mills cereal boxes. We had a hard enough time trying to get the spin fighter from not hitting the ceiling fan.

Who Is Hollywood's Highest-Paid Actor

From Johnny Depp to Ben Stiller, the stars who command a couple more zeroes than everyone else in Tinseltown.
Before 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean, no one would have pegged Johnny Depp to become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. The quirky leading man was best known for starring in offbeat movies like Tim Burton's Ed Wood and the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

But it turns out mixing Depp's oddball performance tendencies with a big-budget Disney ( DIS - news - people ) concept is a recipe for success. The first Pirates movie earned $654 million at the global box office. The franchise has gone on to earn a total of $2.7 billion, and a fourth film is slated for 2011 (in 3-D, natch). Depp's most recent star turn for the studio, a 3-D update of Alice in Wonderland, has brought in $1 billion at the box office.
His ability to almost guarantee a big box office (even Public Enemies earned $214 million) means studios are willing to pay whatever it takes to get a bit of the Depp magic. Between June 2009 and June 2010, Depp was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, earning a total $75 million.
This year's top 10 highest-paid actors banked a total of $349 million between June 2009 and June 2010. To figure out earnings, we talked to agents, managers, producers and lawyers to determine what the stars earned as upfront pay on movies they are currently shooting, as well as back-end pay earned after a movie hit theaters. We also looked at any money actors might have earned from doing ads.

Ranking second behind Depp is Ben Stiller with $53 million. The comedian earns big bucks for films like Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and the upcoming third installment in the Meet the Parents franchise because those films pay out at the box office. But Stiller has also started doing smaller, more personal films. This year's Greenberg, about a lonely man rapidly approaching middle age, earned only $6 million.
In third place: Tom Hanks. Between June 2009 and June 2010 the actor earned $45 million. Much of that came from movies like Angels & Demons and the upcoming Larry Crowne, which co-stars Julia Roberts. But Hanks also earns from films and TV shows he produces. He was behind HBO's recent mini-series The Pacific and produced 2009's Where The Wild Things Are.
Adam Sandler ranks fourth with $40 million. His most recent film, Grown Ups, started slow but is now Sandler's third-highest-grossing film of all time at the box office with $230 million in ticket sales worldwide. The fact that his humor can bring in fans over time, in the U.S. and abroad, means studios are willing to pay him a hefty salary.

Leonardo DiCaprio ranks fifth with $28 million. The star went through a period with underperforming films like Body of Lies and Blood Diamond, making it increasingly difficult for DiCaprio to justify his large payday.
But he's recently turned that around with Shutter Island and Inception. The latter (which hit theaters after our June deadline) is now DiCaprio's second highest grossing film, behind Titanic, with $700 million so far. DiCaprio will end up making at least $50 million from the film, which should rank him much higher on next year's list.

Roland Topor's Three Favorite Reasons to Endit

Before anyone out there begins to worry: a little back story. I was tooling around the Web site of the Dalkey Archive Press, a great, tiny nonprofit press, and found the new issue of their literary review, “Context.” One of the articles has the too-good-not-to-click-on-it title “100 Good Reasons to Kill Myself Right Now.”
Here are my three favorite from the list:
2) It’ll throw off the last census.
78) To watch the movie of my life at a very exclusive screening.
89) Because I’ve read all the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The author is Roland Topor, a French writer and illustrator I’d never heard of. (I was reassured that I am not alone in this by his appearance on the Tumblr blog, “Writers No One Reads.”) Apparently, Topor helped found something called the Panic Movement in the 1960s. According to the British blogger Jonathan McCalmont, the Panickers were famous for “slitting the throats of geese, covering naked women with honey, attaching snakes to their chests and, most famously, re-staging the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish using toads and lizards for Jodorowsky’s film ‘The Holy Mountain’ (1973).”
Personally, I prefer the lighter stuff. Read the rest of Topor’s reasons to end it all here. I’m not sure if he was riffing on Camus, but his list certainly reminded me of that famous line from “The Stranger”: “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”

Film producer Gest promises fresh take on Jackson

　　Reality TV star and concert promoter David Gest​ has promised fans a fresh insight into Michael Jackson in his documentary about the late "king of pop" which has its premiere in London on Wednesday.

Gest has teamed up with Universal Pictures​ to make "Michael Jackson: The Life of an Icon," released this week on Blu-ray and DVD with the blessing of Jackson's mother Katherine.
"This is not a rehashed story," Gest told Reuters in a recent interview to promote the picture. "It's totally new in what you learn."
The producer, a long-time friend of the "Thriller" singer, is also involved in a singing and spoken-world tribute tour to Jackson which kicks off in Britain next spring.
His projects are part of a series of Jackson-related events that have been staged, screened or planned since the star died in June 2009.
"Michael Jackson's This Is It," a 2009 documentary film about rehearsals for his comeback tour which never took place, made more than $260 million at the global box office.
A posthumous album entitled "Immortal" is due out this month, a $60 million Cirque du Soleil extravaganza recently launched in Canada and Wales hosted a tribute gig last month attended by Jackson's mother and three children.
Jackson, who was 50 when he died of an overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol which he used as a sleep aid, was one of the most successful recording artists of all time.
Asked if he felt such projects were merely attempts to cash in on the singer's name, Gest replied:
"There's a place if it tells a story that nobody knows and you enlighten the public (as) to who he is.
"I think if a project is interesting and new and different people are fascinated by Michael Jackson," the American added.
"I think the Cirque du Soleil (show) is brilliant. I think people will by entertained (by my film). This film is so different because I would say 90 percent of it is new information you have never heard.
"You see who the man was behind the music."
The Life of an Icon features interviews with Katherine Jackson, the singer's siblings Tito and Rebbie and friends and colleagues including Smokey Robinson​, Dionne Warwick​ and Whitney Houston​.
Tito discusses what the family went through during the child molestation trial in 2005 where his brother was eventually acquitted on all counts.
The film traces Jackson from his breakthrough in the Jackson 5​ to his rise to fame as a solo artist through to his sudden death in Los Angeles.
"You see Katherine Jackson in a totally different light," said Gest. "She's very honest and she's very open and you really feel for her, especially when you see her talking about his death and how it affected her."
Gest promised amusing anecdotes as well as moving recollections.
One, he said, involved Houston recalling a visit she made to Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California where she was involved in an embarrassing mealtime mix-up between Jackson and his pet chimpanzee Bubbles.

Singer Andy Williams says he has bladder cancer

BRANSON, Mo. (AP) — Singer Andy Williams told the crowd at his Christmas show Saturday night that he has bladder cancer.
The Tri-Lakes News reports the 83-year-old Williams appeared early in the show at the Moon River Theatre and vowed to return next year to celebrate his 75th year in show business (http://bit.ly/uaedcs).
"I do have cancer of the bladder," Williams said. "But that is no longer a death sentence. People with cancer are getting through this thing. They're kicking it, and they're winning more and more every year. And I'm going to be one of them."
The silver-haired "Moon River" singer missed planned performances this fall with an undisclosed medical condition and the theater announced recently that he would likely miss his holiday schedule as well because of the condition. The newspaper reported he has not started treatment, though it did not identify the person who provided that information.
Williams' appearance Saturday was a surprise and brought a standing ovation from a nearly full house. The golden-voiced singer had a string of hits in the 1950s and '60s, including "Can't Get Used to Losing You" and "Butterfly, but he is best known for his version of "Moon River." He earned 18 gold and three platinum albums in his career.
Williams hosted annual Christmas specials on television and performed Christmas shows on the road for many years. His 1963 recording, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," is a Christmas standard.
The Iowa native also hosted an Emmy-winning variety television program "The Andy Williams Show​," from 1962-71. He published an autobiography, "Moon River and Me: A Memoir," in 2009.
Williams sang "The Christmas Song" (known as "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") at the theater he started in 1992 and said he would be back next September and October to celebrate.
"I'm going to do the shows I've planned to do," he said.

Comic Actor Sid Melton Dies at 94

Sid Melton, a comic character actor best known for his work on three shows starring Danny Thomas, died of pneumonia Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was 94.
During a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Melton appeared in about 140 television and film projects. They included the 1951 films Lost Continent with Cesar Romero and Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet and Diana Ross starrer Lady Sings the Blues (1972).
On the 1950s TV show Captain Midnight, Melton co-starred as the hero’s sidekick, Ichabod Mudd. His signature line was, “That’s Mudd with two D’s.”
On The Danny Thomas Show (aka Make Room for Daddy), The Danny Thomas Hour and Make Room for Granddaddy that spanned 1959 to 1971, Melton played Uncle Charley Halper, the owner of the Copa Club where Thomas performed.
Melton also had a recurring role in the late 1960s on the sitcom Green Acres as Alf Monroe, half of an inept brother-sister carpenter team. (Mary Grace Canfield played his sister, Ralph.)
The Brooklyn native also appeared in flashbacks as the husband of Estelle Getty’s widowed character on The Golden Girls and on such other shows as Peter Gunn, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Munsters, Love American Style, Hunter, Empty Nest and Dave’s World.
The son of Isidor Meltzer, a comedian in Yiddish theater, Melton made his acting debut in 1939 in a touring production of See My Lawyer and appeared in 1947 on Broadway in The Magic Touch.
Melton also appeared in Shadow of a Thin Man (1941) and directed two films, Bad Girls Do Cry (1965) and … And Call Me in the Morning (1999), in which he also starred opposite Frank Sinatra Jr.
Melton’s older brother was Lewis Meltzer, a screenwriter who worked on Golden Boy (1939) starring William Holden, The Jazz Singer (1952) starring Thomas and Man With the Golden Arm (1955) starring Frank Sinatra.

Romola Garai

Graced with a classic, timeless beauty and equally adept at both high drama and low comedy, British actress Romola Garai had long drawn the admiration of film critics, although early in her career that had not been entirely advantageous to her. Born and raised throughout Asia and southeast England, Garai was first spotted by a casting director while performing in a school play in London. Cast in a small role as the young Judi Dench in the ITV teleplay "Last of the Blonde Bombshells," the 17-year-old soon was soon inundated with offers for more work. Skewered by the British critics for her early starring role in the BBC miniseries "Daniel Deronda" (2002), Garai dove into subsequent assignments with a greater sense of purpose and was soon winning raves for her performances in the feature films "I Capture the Castle" (2003) and "Vanity Fair" (2004), as well as for her work in the made-for-TV movie "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant" (2005) and the miniseries "Emma" (2009). Losing several plum roles to rising star Kiera Knightley did not deter Garai from persevering and the actress soon found herself collaborating with such internationally renowned filmmakers as Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh and Joe Wright, scooping up critical accolades along the way and becoming a talent to be reckoned with.

Romola Sadie Garai was born on July 1, 1982 in Hong Kong, then a British crown colony. Her given name - a female variation of the Italian Romulus, after one of the mythical founders of Rome - Garai grew up in the Far East, relocating with her family to Singapore when she was five. Of Hungarian-Jewish descent on her father's side, Garai's great-grandfather, Bert Garai, founded the Keystone Press Agency in London in 1924. At the age of eight, Garai was brought to the United Kingdom by her banker father, Adrian, and mother Janet, a journalist. The third of four children, Garai spent the remainder of her childhood in the southeastern county of Wiltshire, England. At the age of 16, she went to live in London with her older, adopted sister Rosie, and enrolled in the City of London's School for Girls. She continued her studies at London University, majoring in English. While performing in a school play, Garai was spotted by a casting director seeking a fresh face to play a young Judi Dench in the ITV teleplay, "Last of the Blonde Bombshells" (2000). In short order, the then 17-year-old landed the job, hired an agent, and began her life as a professional actress.


After appearances on the BBC drama "Attachments" (2000-02) and in the ITV teleplay "Perfect" (2001), Garai made her feature film debut as the beleaguered younger sister of "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002) in Douglas McGrath's adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel. That same year, she enjoyed a starring role as the aristocratic Gwendolen Harleth in "Daniel Deronda" (2002), based on the final novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). Although the two-part BBC miniseries received mostly negative reviews - with Garai herself singled out for a critical barracking - the Victorian romance solidified the actress' standing as a talent to watch. Garai fared better in her second feature film, "I Capture the Castle" (2003), heading a cast of British and American actors in the whimsical tale of an eccentric but impoverished novelist who moves his family into a tumbledown Suffolk mansion. Seen in limited release outside of the United Kingdom, "I Capture the Castle" won critical kudos in America, where critic Roger Ebert singled out Garai for particular praise.

Garai traveled to Puerto Rico for "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" (2004), a belated follow-up to the 1987 sleeper hit; this time, set in Cuba during the tense days before Fidel Castro's Communist takeover. Based on the Havana childhood of choreographer-executive producer JoAnn Fregalette Jansen, the film attended the social/sexual awakening of Garai's transplanted Midwestern teenager as she becomes the after hours dance partner of hotel waiter Diego Luna. The filmmakers had originally wanted Natalie Portman and singer Ricky Martin in the leads but settled on Garai and Luna despite the fact that neither had any dance experience. Ten weeks of intensive training in San Juan (subbing for Havana) was required to bring Garai and Luna up to speed. Critics were unanimous in their disdain for the sequel, although Roger Ebert again showered praise on Garai that he could not spare for the film itself. The actress was more in her element playing the gentle Amelia Sedley to Reese Witherspoon's ambitious Becky Sharp in Mira Nair's "Vanity Fair" (2004), a brisk but lavish abridgement of William Makepeace Thackeray's 700-page satirical novel.

Next up, Garai scored the title role in the "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant" (2005), based on the true story of a Cornish peasant convicted of petty theft and exiled to Australia's Botany Bay penal colony in 1787. This coproduction of Great Britain's Granada Television and Australia's Network Ten was the most ambitious and expensive miniseries in the history of Australian television, realized at a budget of $15 million. Garai drew respectful critical notices for her performance as the uneducated but resolute heroine, who engineered a daring ocean escape from the brutal prison, but in the process loses her entire family. In a lighter vein was Garai's cameo in Woody Allen's comic murder mystery "Scoop" (2006), as a helpful friend to Allen's cut rate magician-turned-sleuth and leading lady, Scarlett Johansson. The actress was back in period costume for "Amazing Grace" (2006), playing the wife of 18th Century British social reformer William Wilberforce, who lobbied to bring about an end to the slave trade. For Kenneth Branagh, Garai was Celia in a film adaptation of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" (2006) set in 19th Century Japan.

Early in her career, Garai had twice lost prestigious roles to younger actress Keira Knightley - in Granada Television's three-part miniseries "Dr. Zhivago" (ITV, 2002) and in Joe Wright's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" (2005). Despite their unintentional professional rivalry, Garai and Knightley remained friendly and had the chance to appear onscreen together in "Atonement" (2007), Joe Wright's Academy Award-winning adaptation of the 2001 novel by Ian McEwan. In the film, Garai played the older, wiser and contrite Briony Tallis, a once precocious 13-year-old girl (played in her youth by Saoirse Ronan) who wrongly accuses an innocent boy of rape and in doing so, ruins several lives, including that of older sister Knightley (who was initially offered the role of the teenaged Briony but settled for the older Celia). Joining the production later than her co-stars, Garai had to mesh her performance to match that of the younger Saoirse Ronan and also Vanessa Redgrave, who played Briony at the end of her life in the film's bittersweet coda.

After appearing as the embittered daughter of cuckolded software designer Liam Neeson in Richard Eyre's infidelity drama "The Other Man" (2008), Garai was offered a lead role in Stephen Poliakoff's conspiracy thriller "Glorious 39" (2009), set in England at the tail end of the edgy interregnum between world wars. As the plucky daughter of Tory cabinet minister Bill Nighy, Garai shouldered more than her share of the expository heavy lifting as her character sussed out a plot among British aristocrats to help overthrow incoming prime minister Winston Churchill rather than fight a war with Germany that they feel they cannot win. Poliakoff's first theatrical film in over a decade was savaged by the British critics, most of whom retained a kind word for Garai and a supporting cast that included the veteran likes of Julie Christie and Christopher Lee. The actress was back in Jane Austen country that same year, taking the leading role in the four-part BBC miniseries "Emma" (2009), for which she received a 2010 Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

In Time

　　Writer and sometimes-director Andrew Niccol

　　fixates on the future and doesn’t offer a sunny outlook, whether it’s in Gattaca, The Truman Show, or S1m0ne. It should come as no surprise, then, that In Time is yet another trip into the dystopian world of tomorrow, where lifespan has replaced money as the commodity of choice, and people stop aging when they reach 25. If they’re lucky—or well-off—they can earn or exchange days, weeks, months, and even years, thereby extending their time on earth.
Yes, this is a story of haves and have-nots. Justin Timberlake plays one of the latter, who ekes out an existence from day to day until he chances to meet—
—a wealthy man who feels he’s lived too long, and transfers more than a century’s worth of life to his new acquaintance. This harvest of “time” enables Timberlake to buy his way out of the ghetto and visit the wealthy part of town to see how the other half lives. It’s there that he meets time-mogul (and hoarder) Vincent Kartheiser and his beautiful daughter, Amanda Seyfried, who has no idea how difficult life is for poor buggers like Timberlake.

　　The concept is mildly interesting at first—even the cops are called timekeepers—but the novelty wears off pretty fast, and In Time becomes a dreary exercise in which the central metaphor is both obvious and heavy-handed. (Rich people exploit the poor, you see.) The characters are one-dimensional, leaving the actors with no place to go.
Future worlds can be fascinating, funny, or thought-provoking. This film is none of the above.