RICHARD JEWELL: Reviews, interviews, features in the media

[KC]

Richard Jewell premiered at the AFI Fest last Wednesday, so it's time to start this thread!

This will be the "official" thread for media reviews of Richard Jewell and current features about its cast and crew. Please try to keep it to major print, broadcast and online media, not random blog posts or tweets.

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Please read through recent posts before posting new material to make sure someone hasn't already posted the same story or review. And remember that these are frequently reprinted, so try to find the original source if possible.

[KC]

To begin, here is Pete Hammond's story about the premiere from Deadline.com:

https://deadline.com/2019/11/clint-eastwood-oscar-race-richard-jewell-1202792055/

If it is an awards season, the name Clint Eastwood can’t be too far away. And so it is yet again as another Eastwood movie has just thrown its hat in the ring. Richard Jewell had a rousing AFI Fest premiere Wednesday night at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, as well as a SAG Nominating Committee screening at Harmony Gold followed by a Q&A that drew standing ovations for Eastwood and the man he cast as Jewell, Paul Walter Hauser.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the December 13 Warner Bros release in the Best Picture Oscar race, as well as several other categories including Directing for Eastwood — who at 89 could become certainly one of the oldest, if not the oldest Best Director nominee ever. He is astonishing, no other word for it, and all of his actors had nothing but praise for him Wednesday night.

His longtime film editor Joel Cox, who told me Eastwood wants to keep working behind the camera until he is at least 100, said he was hoping to get the filmmaker to agree to let young directors come on their sets and observe, just to get an idea of how moviemaking should be done.

[KC]

The "bottom line" in Todd McCarthy's review in the Hollywood Reporter: "Another fine Eastwood film about a man with greatness thrust upon him."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/richard-jewell-review-1256384

Clint Eastwood is quite partial to accidental real-life heroes these days and he’s found a good, if unprepossessing one, in Richard Jewell, a lively and none-too-flattering look at the “media lynching” of a sad-sack security guard the press decided was responsible for a deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.

In format and focus, the new film emerges as a close sibling to the aviation drama Sully, which also centered on a man who became a hero by doing his job but whose actions were similarly, if less severely, picked apart by the press and authorities. Sully raked in $241 million worldwide and, while its box office might have benefited a bit from a guy named Tom Hanks in the lead role, the new pic’s concern with the vindication of an innocent man provides a similar dramatic trajectory that’s also quite satisfying. The Warner Bros. attraction world-premiered at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, bows nationally on Dec. 13 and should perform well with general audiences everywhere, but perhaps especially in the South.

[KC]

Peter Debruge, chief film critic for Variety, is guardedly positive:

https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/richard-jewell-review-afi-fest-film-review-clint-eastwood-1203411418/

Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell” intends to clear [Jewell's] name once and for all. But “Richard Jewell” is a movie, and movies are notoriously inaccurate, taking what’s euphemistically referred to as “dramatic license” to make stories more entertaining. In this case, at a time when politicians have stoked public distrust of news media, and when news media have punched back by holding politicians to even stricter standards of truthfulness, does anybody want to hear what the “Hollywood elites” have to say about Richard Jewell?

The answer: A good story is a good story, and Eastwood knows how to tell a good story. With “Richard Jewell,” he and screenwriter Billy Ray — drawing from the Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” by Marie Brenner — go about it in a broad and often too-simplistic sort of way, treating the “hero bomber” (played by Paul Walter Hauser in his first starring role) as a lovable loser. Still, the result is undeniably compelling, a kind of modern-day “Ace in the Hole” and a populist reflection of the public’s disdain for journalists and government alike, as told by a filmmaker (and let’s not forget: former mayor of Carmel, Calif.) with his finger on the pulse.

The director is known for tossing less experienced actors in with the professionals — as in “The 15:17 to Paris,” where the trio who thwarted a terrorist attack played themselves, badly. In “Richard Jewell,” it works brilliantly, allowing Hauser to shine in a role movie star Jonah Hill once intended to play (he remains involved as a producer).

[honkytonkman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMhtbv9ecaI
(Jake Hamilton) RICHARD JEWELL Interviews: Clint Eastwood, Paul Walter Hauser, Kathy Bates, Sam Rockwell, Jon Hamm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzXCMgfmqLI
(Warner Bros) RICHARD JEWELL - Making Richard Jewell Featurette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hvn-FDIPmg
(extraTV) Clint Eastwood and the ‘Richard Jewell’ Cast Open Up About the Tragic Story

[honkytonkman]

4 scenes from the film : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbh8UOGMK3Q

[Saman Moradkhani]

4 scenes from the film : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbh8UOGMK3Q

Thank you honkytonkman. videos were great. I really liked the interviews.

[Saman Moradkhani]

Pete Hammond, top critic, from Deadline Hollywood:

Clint Eastwood Still On A Roll With Compelling True Story Of Unjustly Accused Bombing Suspect

At 89, Clint Eastwood might be one of the oldest directors ever to make a major studio movie, much less one that already has made the AFI and National Board of Review Top 10 lists for 2019. But that is the case for this remarkably durable actor, producer, and director who even writes the music score for most of his films (for this one he just wrote a theme that was incorporated throughout Arturo Sandoval’s score)

Hauser, Bates, Hamm, Wilde and a terrific Rockwell are all great in the film, and there’s fine work as well from Nina Arianda as Nadya, Bryant’s legal assistant and now wife. Eastwood has made one of his best films yet. Imagine that. He is simply an extraordinary filmmaker.

and regarding Paul Walter Hauser:

Still, this is Jewell’s movie, and Paul Walter Hauser — the actor Eastwood chose for the role — is nothing less than sensational and heartbreaking as a man who did the right thing, only to have the facts turned on him, nearly destroying his life and that of his mother Bobbi (Kathy Bates) in the process.

https://deadline.com/video/richard-jewell-review-clint-eastwood-atlanta-olympics-bombing-suspect/

[honkytonkman]

another one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T2BK4N1Glg
(extraTV) Why 'Richard Jewell' Director Clint Eastwood Has ‘Never Sent an Email’

and the master alone : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvLF7BdPZjQ
(Fab TV)

[AKA23]

A 10 minute interview with Clint and Paul Walter Hauser, who plays Richard Jewell.

https://extratv.com/videos/t2bk4n1glg/

[honkytonkman]

Santa Claus visiting : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wxJgqxijtc
...see also : https://www.dvidshub.net/video/727129/clint-eastwood-visits-mcb-camp-pendleton ...or (longer) https://dod.defense.gov/News/Special-Reports/Videos/?videoid=727133&dvpcc=false#DVIDSVideoPlayer7955

[honkytonkman]

The man is everywhere now ! Today with Ellen DeGeneres : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFZ4YsJbQco  and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmtObeKaUc

[KC]

Warner Bros. Hits Back at Atlanta Paper Over ‘Richard Jewell’ Legal Threat

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/warner-bros-clint-eastwood-richard-jewell-1203430756/

Warner Bros. is standing behind “Richard Jewell,” the Clint Eastwood drama that is the source of controversy over its portrayal of a female journalist trading sex for scoops. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent a legal threat to the filmmakers on Monday asking them to include a disclaimer noting that the film took dramatic license.

In a fiery statement, the studio accused the paper of trying to draw attention away from its own questionable reporting on law enforcement officials’ decision to treat Jewell as a suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Jewell, a security guard who evacuated the area, was ultimately exonerated, but not before his reputation was damaged in the ensuing media circus.

“The film is based on a wide range of highly credible source material,” Warner Bros.’ statement reads. “There is no disputing that Richard Jewell was an innocent man whose reputation and life were shredded by a miscarriage of justice. It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that the Atlanta Journal Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast. ‘Richard Jewell’ focuses on the real victim, seeks to tell his story, confirm his innocence and restore his name. The AJC’s claims are baseless and we will vigorously defend against them.”

[Saman Moradkhani]

Warner Bros. Hits Back at Atlanta Paper Over ‘Richard Jewell’ Legal Threat

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/warner-bros-clint-eastwood-richard-jewell-1203430756/

How low Hollywood have become. there is always something to hammer a clint Eastwood picture with. so desperate.

[AKA23]

This is a baseless lawsuit that won't go anywhere. Movies which depict actual events always incorporate elements which didn't actually occur. The newspaper is just upset that the film is bringing to light the huge mistake that they made in implicating Richard Jewell when he was in fact innocent. However, if it is true that the film implies that Kathy Scruggs slept with a source in order to obtain information for the story, and the facts show that there is in fact no evidence that that happened, that is a grossly inappropriate thing to do and should not have been included in the movie. If I were the Scruggs family, I would be quite upset by that. It seems entirely unnecessary to me. The actual facts are damning enough without having to include such an inflammatory scene. 

[honkytonkman]

Still tireless, here he is in Atlanta for the premiere of the film. His slip with the "city of Carmel" instead of Atlanta (see 1'10 of the first video below), however, betrays a little fatigue completely understandable for a man of this age.
And his response regarding the controversy over Kathy Struggs at 1'34 is simply full of quiet good sense.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0-avA4cLnY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Nhv6O0vls&fbclid=IwAR3O3Hn748xzXaYv1Arb3XWEq1zz9OMxlqj3u3vw DfDh-BFe_DFHO49posU

[honkytonkman]

A little Imdb Interview : https://www.imdb.com/list/ls025720609/videoplayer/vi2752626457?pf_rd_m=A2FGELUUNOQJNL&pf_rd_p=410862b2-b898-4e07-961b-0e19c870b219&pf_rd_r=9Q9G8TFZGD7AGX2HJ9V9&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=15061&pf_rd_i=homepage&ref_=hm_vd_rj_junk_sm

[KC]

"Flawed and fascinating"—A.O. Scott, The New York Times

The movie, based on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner, isn’t about the bomber, but rather about the security guard who found a backpack full of explosives and shrapnel under a bench and sounded the alarm. Nonetheless, the specter of domestic right-wing terrorism haunts the movie, an unseen and unnamed evil tearing at the bright fabric of American optimism.

Eastwood, in nearly half a century as a major filmmaker and even longer as an axiom of popular culture, has chronicled the fraying of that cloth, and also plucked at a thread or two. “Richard Jewell,” with a screenplay by Billy Ray, is one of his more obviously political films, though not always in obvious ways. In spite of some efforts to interpret it as a veiled pro-Trump polemic, the film doesn’t track neatly with our current ideological agitations. The political fractures Eastwood exposes are more elemental than even the most ferocious partisanship. This is a morality tale — in a good way, mostly — about the vulnerability of the individual citizen in the face of state power and about the fate of a private person menaced by the machinery of publicity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/movies/richard-jewell-review.html

[Perry]

           2500 Theatres and a $5,000,000 box office= pretty dismal opening weekend. The worst opening of a Eastwood movie in 40 years...

[exit00]

Not sure where to put this post so I'll put it here.  Here's a Mike Wallace 60 Minutes interview with Jewell back in 1996 that has some footage that is very interesting to watch after seeing the movie.  Anybody that thinks the movie unfairly treats the Atlanta Journal or FBI need to watch this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbx50Gsi9g0&feature=youtu.be