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GOSFORD PARK
Something different from quintessentially American
filmmaker Robert Altman--a starry ensemble of British players in
a 1930's drawing-room murder mystery
(Now in stores)
CAST: Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban, Alan Bates, Charles Dance, Stephen
Fry, Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Tom Hollander, Derek Jacobi,
Kelly Macdonald, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Northam, Clive Owen, Ryan
Phillippe, Camilla Rutherford, Maggie Smith, Geraldine Somerville,
Kristin Scott Thomas, Sophie Thompson, Emily Watson, James Wilby
DIRECTOR: Robert Altman
"... a melt-in-your-mouth hunk of 12-layer English spice cake that
will appeal to anyone who feels a nostalgic pang for the long-running
British television series 'Upstairs Downstairs, or for the cozy
whodunits of Agatha Christie...a virtuoso ensemble piece to rival
the director's 'Nashville' and 'Short Cuts' in its masterly interweaving
of multiple characters and subplots... The performances, for the
most part, are so pitch-perfect that you needn't pay close attention
to the film's complicated plot to have fun... The vision of Maggie
Smith as Constance, the Countess of Trentham, peering down her nose
while dispensing barbed little pearls of imperious condescension
and cruelty to one and all is almost sinfully delicious." --Stephen
Holden, The New York Times
'''Gosford Park'' is Altman's 'Masterpiece Theatre' movie, all right,
but it's an elegantly topsy-turvy one--a succulent and devious drawing-room
mystery that, in its panoramic way, takes a puckish pleasure in
scrambling and reshuffling the worlds of upstairs and downstairs...'Gosford
Park,' seductive as it is, isn't finally one of the great Altman
films. It never approaches the visionary passion of 'Nashville,'
the scalding satirical audacity of 'The Player.' Yet it's full of
moments to savor." --Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"Some advance talk has compared this Robert Altman movie to Jean
Renoir's classic 'Rules of the Game,' and it does bear a resemblance
to that work...But there's a world of difference between Renoir's
generous humanism and Altman's crabbed misanthropy; between Renolir's
seamless structures and Altman's slapdash splatter; between Renoir's
coherence and Altman's smugness." --Glenn Kenny, Premiere
" As with many of Altman's large-scale ensemble pieces, 'Gosford
Park' is a love affair between performer and filmmaker. The director
shows off his ardor by eliciting from his actors aspects of their
gifts that they themselves may not have known they had...Altman
is a supreme artist-joker, and the jest this time is that the most
American of film directors has given us a finely wrought British
whodunit with the emotional layering of a first-rate novel." --Peter
Rainer, New York
"... a bit like a ponderously elaborate game of Clue...Throughout
the first 80-something minutes of this 137-minute movie, Altman
interweaves interconnections among two dozen or so characters, employing
short, vaguely portentous scenes and snippets of overlapping dialogue
to indirectly provide nuggets of expository and biographical detail...You
have to be attentive to every word, every gesture, while registering
the headlong rush of information. And to be honest, I still can't
figure out the whys and wherefores of some characters, even after
two viewings of the film." --Joe Leydon, San Francisco Examiner
"Robert Altman's 'Gosford Park' isn't much more than marvelous entertainment--but
then, that's a lot right there ... it's great fun to find yourself
plunked into the middle of a party, one at which anything might
happen...'Gosford Park' is filled with small but splendid performances,
like miniatures painted on ivory...although Altman is a great filmmaker,
this movie doesn't have the feel of a grand and imposing work of
art being handed down to the little people. It's more like a sly
wink between the filmmaker and his audience." --Stephanie Zacharek,
Salon.com
"Though Altman is more interested in the servants than in the aristocrats
of 'Gosford Park,' he deftly sketches an entire social panorama,
capturing the complexities of both classes in this upstairs-downstairs
universe. The troubled marriages of the lords and ladies, the sexual
secrets of the servants and the insecurities on both sides of the
social divide all come through potently...'Gosford Park' has perhaps
the most dazzling cast that Altman has ever assembled... Maggie
Smith is gloriously funny... Emily Watson and Helen Mirren bring
touching dignity to their roles... Clive Owen conveys tension and
smoldering sexuality, and Kelly Macdonald is endearing... Only one
actor seems out of place in the ensemble, and that's vapid pretty
boy Ryan Phillippe, but Altman cleverly uses his amateurishness
as part of the plot." --Stephen Farber, Movieline
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