Bennett Miller Movies
Few directors have shown the patience that Bennett Miller has in waiting for the perfect script with which to make his feature film debut. Miller completed The Cruise in 1998, a documentary about Tim "Speed" Levitch, a double-decker bus tour guide with Manhattan's Gray Line who enraptured audiences with his lust for life and his city. The obscure film won an Emmy and was praised by critics, though it wasn't exposed to a large number of moviegoers. Miller would take his time in finding the film through which he would approach a larger audience, and paid his bills for the next seven years by directing commercials. It was Dan Futterman, a friend that Miller had kept in touch with since they met in middle school, who eventually brought him the script he'd been waiting for. Based on Gerald Clarke's biography of infamous '50s author Truman Capote, Capote was a sharp, ambitious psychological profile that would require the most competent of actors to carry it to fruition. The first name on Miller and Futterman's list was Philip Seymour Hoffman, a highly respected actor with an incredibly impressive resumé. The three had met at a summer theater camp in Saratoga Springs when they were 16, and the two implicitly trusted Hoffman to bring their vision to life.When Capote was released in 2005, it was everything that its producers had hoped. The film received accolades from the critical community and was honored with Oscar nominations in the categories of Best Director, Motion Picture of the Year, Best Adapted Screenplay, a Best Actress nomination for Catherine Keener, and a Best Actor nomination for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman also took home a Golden Globe Award for his performance. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
- 2008
The true story of John E. du Pont, heir to the DuPont fortune, is brought to the big screen in Foxcatcher, director Bennett Miller's (Capote) retelling of the tragic events that led to du Pont being convicted of killing Olympic wrestler David Schultz. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- 2008
Capote director Bennett Miller turns his attentions away from the classic literature of the past and toward the life-extension phenomenon of the present in this contemporary, character-driven drama penned by Dante Harper. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
The creation of one of the most memorable books of the 1960s -- and the impact the writing and research would have on its author -- is explored in this drama based on a true story. In 1959, Truman Capote (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a critically acclaimed novelist who had earned a small degree of celebrity for his work when he read a short newspaper item about a multiple murder in a small Kansas town. For some reason, the story fascinated Capote, and he asked William Shawn (Bob Balaban), his editor at The New Yorker, to let him write a piece about the case. Capote had long believed that in the right hands, a true story could be molded into a tale as compelling as any fiction, and he believed this event, in which the brutal and unimaginable was visited upon a community where it was least expected, could be just the right material. Capote traveled to Kansas with his close friend Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), herself becoming a major literary figure with the success of To Kill a Mockingbird, and while Capote's effete and mannered personal style stuck out like a sore thumb in Kansas, in time he gained the trust of Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the murder of the Clutter family, and with his help Capote's magazine piece grew into a full-length book. Capote also became familiar with the petty criminals who killed the Clutter family, Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) and Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), and in Smith he found a troubling kindred spirit more like himself than he wanted to admit. After attaining a sort of friendship with Smith under the assumption that the man would be executed before the book was ever published, Capote finds himself forced to directly confront the moral implications of his actions with regards to both his role in the man's death, and the way that he would be remembered. Capote also co-stars Bruce Greenwood as Capote's longtime companion Jack Dunphy, and Amy Ryan as Mary Dewey, Alvin's wife who became a confidante of Capote's. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, (more)
This black-and-white low-budget documentary focuses on garrulous guide Timothy "Speed" Levitch, who talks to tourists traveling on the Gray Line's double-decker Manhattan tour buses. Getting to the core of the Big Apple, the loquacious Levitch is a font of factoids, noting the residences of such past famed figures as Henry Miller, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, John Reed, and Edith Wharton) as he delivers diatribes, spouts quotes, and offers opinions, revealing his love-hate relationship with New York City. Shot in video with a blow-up to 35mm, The Cruise was shown at the 1998 L.A. Independent Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy (Speed) Levitch
