The Weather Man (2005)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.
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What critics compared The Weather Man to
Not surprisingly, screenwriter Steve Conrad ("The Pursuit of Happyness," "The Weather Man") has again updated the daydreaming elements while maintaining the themes and eventual transition to real-life adventures for the character that occurred in both the story and original cinematic adaptation.
It is a well-intentioned and personal concept undone by a poorly developed script by Steve Conrad (The Weather Man, The Pursuit of Happyness).
The screenplay is by Steve Conrad whose scripts include Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness and Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man .
Ben Stiller, the director-star, has proven he’s capable of more than dumb comedy and the screenwriter, Steve Conrad, has been involved in two of my favorite movies of the past 10 years ( The Promotion , The Weather Man ).
The screenplay is written by Steve Conrad ("The Pursuit of Happyness," "The Weather Man").
The adaptation by Steve Conrad, which went through a claimed sixty drafts, is very much in the league of an earlier Conrad screenplay, “The Weather Man,” which took Chicago as a setting in a way that “Mitty” takes Manhattan and Iceland: Poignancy arises through small details not necessarily observed by an essentially passive milquetoast of a protagonist, but very much seen by the audience.
In hindsight, director Gore Verbinski – a filmmaker who can churn out noisy, gargantuan Hollywood adventures like the Pirates of the Caribbean series as well as a small, stinging comedy like The Weather Man – was a good choice, as Rango is as gloriously cinematic as it is witty and ironic.
The director started out making visually inventive, conceptually risky movies such as The Ring, Mouse Hunt, and The Weather Man before finding commercial success with the mainstream Pirates of the Caribbean pictures.
In a small but quietly poignant role, Gemmenne de la Pena (2005's " The Weather Man ") also marks an impression as Denise, a chatty classmate of Jazira's who tries to be her friend, but is ultimately left out in the cold.
Though Gore Verbinski has made a name for himself with large Hollywood studio pictures like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Lone Ranger," he's always had a weird streak; a "one for them, one for me" mentality, interspersing in films like "The Weather Man" and "Rango."
Gore Verbinski has directed three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies and “The Lone Ranger,” plus “The Ring,” “Rango,” and “Mousehunt,” as well as under-seen gems “The Mexican” and “The Weather Man.”
Verbinski is one of the most versatile and stylish big-ticket filmmakers to make that music video-to-Hollywood leap, never bothering with indie-maverick mode and yet still making strange movies for children and families (Mousehunt and Rango), hard-to-classify dramedies (The Weather Man; The Mexican), horror (The Ring), and fantasy adventures (Pirates and Ranger).
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The film was Based on a True Story, yet, as written by Steven Conrad ( "The Weather Man" ) and directed by Gabriele Muccino (whose excellent "L'Ultimo Bacio" was recently non-excellently remade as "The Last Kiss" ), it avoids being heavy-handed or preachy like so many Based on a True Storys.
Oh, no ” Conrad’s last film, the underrated The Weather Man, was a parade of miseries, too, but the protagonist (Nicolas Cage) didn’t move very fast in the throes of his existential crisis, and the palette (it was Chicago in winter) was glacial.