FilmJerk Favorites

A group of unique directors and the essential works that you've got to see.

||| Joseph L. Mankiewicz |||
Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Mankiewicz directed 20 films in a 26-year period, and was very successful at every kind of film, from Shakespeare to western, drama to musical, epics to two-character pictures, and regardless of the genre, he was known as a witty dialogist, a master in the use of flashback and a talented actors' director.

The 1950 Oscar for Best Picture and Screenplay brought Mankiewicz wide recognition as a writer and a director, with his sardonic look at show business glamour and the empty lives behind it. This well orchestrated cast of brilliant and catty character actors is built around veteran actress Bette Davis and Anne Baxter as her understudy desperate for stardom.

One of Mankiewicz’ more intimate films, this highly regarded and major artistic achievement is a spirited romantic comedy set in England of the 1880’s about a widow who moves into a haunted seashore house and resists the attempts of a sea captain specter to scare her away. This is a pleasing and poignant romance that is equally satisfying as a good old ghost story.

Mankiewicz wrote and directed this witty dissection of matrimony that has three women review the ups and downs of their marriages (with all its romance, fears and foibles) after receiving a letter telling them that one of their husbands has been unfaithful. Once again Mankiewicz deftly utilizes the skills of a well-chosen ensemble, which includes a young Kirk Douglas at his dreamiest.

Recommended by CarrieSpecht

Advertisement

Reese Witherspoon delivers a new "Rendition"

By EdwardHavens

September 26th, 2006

Reese Witherspoon, whose portrayal of June Carter Cash won her the coveted Oscar last spring, will team with another of this year's winners, South African director Gavin Hood, on the upcoming New Line production, "Rendition."

Reese Witherspoon delivers a new

Hood, whose "Tsotsi" became the first film from the former Apartheid state to win an Academy Award, will make his Hollywood debut directing first-time screenwriter Kelley Sane's multi-layered story centering on a CIA analyst based in Cairo who finds his world spinning out of control after he witnesses the interrogation of a foreign national by the Egyptian secret police. Witherspoon has been tapped to play Isabella El-Ibrahim, the pregnant American wife of an Egyptian-born chemical engineer whose family emigrated to the States in the mid 1980s, who is shipped off to a third world country for interrogation after he is deemed a political prisoner in our post-9/11 world.

Production is set to begin in late November, with shooting scheduled for Los Angeles, Washington DC, Morocco and Cape Town until the early part of 2007. One can expect "Rendition" to be one of New Line's major Oscar bait films of next year, most likely to be released in November or December 2007.

Witherspoon's next film, the fantasy/comedy "Penelope" also starring Christina Ricci and James McAvoy, which she also produced, is currently making the film festival rounds while searching for an American distributor.

The Scoorecard
Director: Gavin Hood
Producer: Steve Golin
Writer: Kelley Sane
Production Start Date: Late November 2006
Production Locations: Los Angeles, Washington DC, Morocco, Cape Town
US Distributor: New Line Cinema