According to the website www.boxofficemojo.com, the Mark Ruffalo/Ethan Hawke crime drama earned just $44,872 in the theaters. Even if both its two lead stars plus the talented Amanda Peet (Identity, The Whole Nine Yards) agreed to work for free, this movie still did not come close to earning back what it cost to produce. Usually, when you’ve never heard of a film, especially one in which both its lead stars have each been nominated for an Academy Award before you see it on DVD, it’s because the movie stunk. Most of those involved with the film would rather it go unnoticed. This is probably accurate 90% of the time. What Doesn’t Kill You falls into that other 10%. The story isn’t new. We’ve seen the same story played out hundreds of times on the screen (including even a couple of movies involving Ethan Hawke that fall along those lines). There was nothing that particularly stood out in terms of the plot. Sure, the fact that it was based on a true story strengthens its cause. But still, the old man involved with crime and drugs, trying to turn around his life for his family, but struggling to do so is nothing new. So how does this movie break through that threshold and be one of those movies you remember? It was the acting.
Continue reading What Doesn’t Kill You (2008)
Category Archives: Mark Ruffalo
Reservation Road (2007)
Despite its 37% rating on www.rottentomatoes.com, I found Terry George’s (Hotel Rwanda, The Boxer) to be a thrilling and captivating drama about the loss of family, moral responsibility, and the guilt a human being can become rattled with when committing an unthinkable crime that you become more and more confident that you are going to be able to get away with. While this movie did poorly at the box office (just over $100,000…no, not $100,000,000), it stars three Academy Award nominees, including Jennifer Connelly, who won Best Supporting Actress in 2002 for A Beautiful Mind.
Continue reading Reservation Road (2007)
The Kids Are All Right (2010)
Lisa Cholodenko’s critically acclaimed 2010 film The Kids Are All Right shows that the rawest of human emotions cannot be limited to age, race, gender, disability, social status, or, as is the case in this movie, sexual orientation. In this movie, Nic (Annette Bening – American Beauty, Being Julia) and Jules (Julianne Moore – Still Alice, Far From Heaven) are lifelong partners, raising two children with the same sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher, Spotlight). Joni (Mia Wasikowska – Alice in Wonderland, Crimson Peak) is the 18-year-old daughter whom Nic carried while Jules is the birth mother of 15-year-old son Laser (Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games, Journey to the Center of the Earth).