film Blind Date
| Film | Blind Date IMDb, IMDb Discussion board |
| Code | BLIND |
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| Genre | Drama |
| Director | Stanley Tucci IMDb |
| Actors | Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Thijs Romer |
| Cat | Spectrum |
| Year | 2007 |
| Release | 2008 |
| Country | USA |
| Runtime | 80 min |
| Format | Color, 35mm |
| Dynamic | |
| Synopses |
Don and Janna are a married couple struggling to reconnect after the death of their daughter. They answer each other’s phony classified ads and begin an elaborate game of pretend on a series of blind dates, hoping that this ruse will allow them finally to talk openly about the demise of their relationship in the wake of tragedy. In playing out their various roles— such as a blind man in search of a sighted woman, a woman in search of a dance partner, and a reporter in search of an aggressive female interviewee—Don and Janna feel free to ask each other probing questions, explore the meaning of humor after calamity, and nearly fall in love. However, when their conversations can’t seem to break out of a circular pattern, never transcending the wall between them, they face the reality that perhaps overcoming heartbreak is not in the cards for them.
Although the material is sometimes dark, Stanley Tucci’s filmmaking is infused with humor, and Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are a pleasure to watch as Don and Janna. They give shaded, compelling performances as real, tragic characters attempting to fake their way through unfamiliar emotional territory. |
| Links | FilmThreat |
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| Misc Info |
ExP: Nick Stiliadis |
| Fri. January 18, 8:30pm, Holiday Village Cinema II, Park City Sat. January 19, 8:30am, Prospector Square Theatre, Park City Sat. January 19, 10:30pm, Broadway Centre Cinemas VI, SLC Wed. January 23, 5:30pm, Library Center Theatre, Park City |
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| from Salt Lake Trib: site |
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Good Wine, Fancy Hotels and a "Blind Date"
Stanley Tucci ("Big Night," "The Devil Wears Prada") and Patricia Clarkson ("The Station Agent," "Far From Heaven") were the guests of honor at a Park City reception Friday evening sponsored by the St. Regis luxury resort opening at Deer Valley in early 2009. Guests sipped $150-per-bottle cabernet, courtesy of co-sponsor Staglin Family Vineyards of Napa Valley, Calif., and checked out a swag lounge filled with designer boots. The reception also served as a pre-screening party for Friday night's premiere of "Blind Date," which stars Tucci and Clarkson as a married couple who go on a series of role-playing "blind dates" with each other to help them reconnect after the death of their daughter. "To explore grief through identity -- I found that fascinating," said Tucci, who also directed. Asked about the challenge of playing several roles-within-a-role, Tucci said, "It's an actor's dream, and an actor's nightmare." The film is the second in an unlinked trilogy of remakes of movies by the late Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, great-nephew of the famous painter, who was slain in 2004. The first film in the trilogy, Steve Buscemi's "Interview," played at Sundance last year; the third film, John Turturro's "1-900," about a couple who meet on a phone sex line, will begin shooting later this year. Maybe we'll see it at Sundance 2009. --Brandon Griggs posted by Brandon Griggs |
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| from FirstShowing.net: link |
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Sundance Review: Blind Date
January 19, 2008 
At Sundance last year, Steve Buscemi took Theo van Gogh's 2003 film Interview and remade it into a 90-minute drama about only two people, and pulled off a great movie. This year the second Theo van Gogh film in the series of three being remade also debuted, and it wasn't nearly as grand of a spectacle. Blind Date, starring and directed by Stanley Tucci, is an utter disaster in comparison to Interview. It was as dry as the martini that Tucci drinks in almost every scene and nothing more than a boring waste of time. Blind Date is about a married couple, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, who attempt to reignite their love by setting up a series of thematic blind dates, from an actual blind man seeking a woman to a father seeking a daughter and so on. There is no introductory setup and it hurts the film's progress, even though the story later reveals the explanation behind their relationship problems. This entire concept of a couple talking about love and life was flimsy and uneventful and it's set entirely in one bar, give or take a scene in a connected bumper car arena. Tucci is actually not that bad as an actor in Blind Date, but that doesn't do anything to helping save this film. This is entirely much better suited as a theatrical play, and it's as if Tucci set it up to be just that. Like Sleuth from last year as well, this just isn't a great conversion from theater to cinema. Only Theo van Gogh himself could pull that off, and even Buscemi came quite close as well. While I might say there is a lot to interpret and gain from seeing this story played out, the only way to see it is on a stage, not in a theater. |
