Lorenzo's Oil (1992)
Directed by George Miller
Lorenzo Odone, a Virginia 5-year-old, develops a degenerative nerve disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his parents decide to immerse themselves in research and tackle the problem themselves.
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What critics compared Lorenzo's Oil to
There’s even an out-of-nowhere callback to the 1993 Susan Sarandon drama “Lorenzo’s Oil” for no discernible reason.
(Although some of the touchstones — a “Lorenzo’s Oil” nod? — are simply inexplicable.)
The new Pegg-Frost film, like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Spaced, is crammed with gaggy allusions to movies of all kinds, from Capturing the Friedmans to Lorenzo's Oil; but the inexhaustible touchstone is Hollywood sci-fi.
Give "Paul" this much: it holds the unprecedented distinction of being the only mainstream comedy in existence with punchlines referencing the 2003 child molestation documentary "Capturing the Friedmans" and 1992's disease drama "Lorenzo's Oil."
What elevates this material to fanboy porn is the dialogue, which constantly appropriates signature lines from Star Wars, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters...even (huh?) Lorenzo's Oil.
…by Walter Chaw Agreeable, well-meaning horseshit in the Lorenzo's Oil vein (but horseshittier), Jean-Marc Vallée's really bad Dallas Buyers Club is saved to some extent by a couple of fine, showy performances from a skeletal Matthew McConaughey and a skeletal Jared Leto in drag, but ultimately defeated by the standard straw-man activist biopic formula.
Elements of "Lorenzo's Oil," "Erin Brockovich" and "Monster" — for which Charlize Theron underwent a similar transformation and won an Oscar — salt the film by Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée.
It isn’t like, say, Erin Brockovich or Lorenzo’s Oil as it never goes all soft and uplifting.
Miller's métier is stuff like the Mad Max films and Babe 2, not--no matter how grounded in fantasy they might be--Updike adaptations and Lorenzo's Oil.
Think: Michaela Odone wailing over her little boy in Lorenzo’s Oil or the assailing screams of Sarah Palmer in the Twin Peaks pilot episode.
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Cassavetes doesn't provide the passion of say, a Lorenzo's Oil -- instead he gives us pieces of a romance novel (and I don't mean The Notebook itself) minus the steamy parts.
From there Mr. Miller went on to create an eclectic batch of films like The Witches of Eastwick, Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe, and its wildly creative sequel.
Miller has become a giant of big-audience moviemaking, with credits like the freakishly beautiful and original Babe: Pig in the City (98, after producing Babe ), the infectious tap-dancing penguin cartoon Happy Feet (06) , the rigorously veracious medical drama Lorenzo's Oil (92), and a virtuoso remake of “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” in The Twilight Zone—The Movie (83).
Cinematographer John Seale, who previously worked with Miller on his affecting family drama Lorenzo’s Oil (1992) and essentially came out of retirement to lens Fury Road, makes the film look as though it were etched out of rust.
The man made Max Max, The Road Warrior, Lorenzo’s Oil, and especially Babe: Pig in the City, which is like Charlotte’s Web retold by Dickens.
And Miller went on to direct a varied assortment of flicks including "The Witches of Eastwick," "Lorenzo's Oil," "Babe: Pig in the City" and the two recent "Happy Feet" movies.
Now Miller—who went on to produce, write and/or direct other acclaimed films, including Dead Calm , Lorenzo’s Oil , Happy Feet and Babe —has returned to where he started, and this explosively revved-up reboot, epic in every sense of the word, may become the crowning achievement of his already impressive career.