Rating: 
Summary: From a true Newf
Review: My family came to Newfoundland over two hundred years ago, I myself am a first generation imigrant from there. In the past ten years I have visited for the first time to discover my roots. And realized I had inheirited some land from my grandparents. I had thought about going up there after finishing school here in Atlanta GA, to spend some time there fixing up the auld place. A cousin recomended I read this book called, "The Shipping News," which I did, and loved it. The story somewhat reminded me of my own journey. Except for the crazed wife, and I don't have any kids. A lot of the locals had warned me that this book was based on a small portion of the populas, and in no way a representation of Newfoundland. Well after spending five summers there, I think it is very close to how it is, but I could never reveal this to the family. Of course I'm looking at it from an outsider from the southern states, but yet me mudder an me fadder we from der. The funny thing is I have such a southern accent, yet I understood every word I heard, even from the most remote parts of the island. All my friends in school would come over to the house, and ask, where are your mother and father from? when I told them, they had never heard of this place. Although it is like a step back in time, I felt as if I belonged there, and from the time I left, I have thought of how I could go back and live. Yes, it can be a harsh place, and ever since I heard that the book was turned into a movie, I have been the biggest advertisement this producer could imagine. I have been waiting eagerly for the movie to come to my area of Austell GA. And I have a lot of friends who want to see it as well, if for no other reason than to see where it is I come from, and the place I talk about all the time. I'm currently working on my own book called, "The Broken Branch," which details my families trail, which originally started out for the states, and were side tracked through Newfoundland from Scotland, and ended up staying there for over two hundred years. eventually they make it to the states. It's going to be a hot ticket, so keep your ears open!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Inspiration in the cold North
Review: This adaptation of an Annie Proulx novel finds Kevin Spacey playing a passive, bewildered man at loose ends after his faithless, self-absorbed wife (Cate Blanchett) is killed running off with a lover, leaving him with their six-year old daughter. His recently deceased father's younger half-sister (Dame Judi Dench) appears on his doorstep and talks him into relocating to Newfoundland, their ancestral home.The bulk of the story takes place on the wild Canadian coast, forming a spectacular backdrop for this tale of wounded souls slowly healing themselves. In a new job as reporter for the tiny community's newspaper, Spacey slowly blossoms as he is drawn to a widow (Julianne Moore) whose husband drowned under mysterious circumstances. The theme of dark past secrets uncovered runs through the various incidents, with Dench confronting her traumatic past as well. The script is well-written and the performances for the most part carefully calibrated, eventually drawing the viewer in. Surprisingly enough, it is Spacey who comes off least well. Quoyle, his character, should be emotionally shell-shocked, not simple-minded, but in the early portion of the film the actor comes off as a first cousin to Forrest Gump, quite overawed by Blanchett, who makes the most of her rather underwritten part. Other supporting roles are strongly cast as well, particularly the durable Scott Glenn as a crusty newspaper editor and fisherman.
Rating:
Summary: A prefect movie for the end of the year
Review: To be honest, I don't think I was expecting all that much at first from "The Shipping News" -- at least not after the week before, when I'd been pretty much wholly underwhelmed by "Vanilla Sky." If anything, I was probably looking forward to the kind of movie that I'd begin to forget about sometime between the walk back to the parking lot and the drive back home, the kind that I could write off to anyone who was interested just by saying, "It was cute." As it happened, though, I got much more than all that from this movie. To me, it felt like ducking into a restaurant alone for a quick bite to eat and getting not only a full meal but a good conversation with the waitress as well. Of course, that could be the case because the idea of getting more nourishment than bargained for is the motif behind this movie, too. Kevin Spacey plays Quoyle, a simple, marginalized man employed as an inksetter for the local paper in Poughkeepsie. He chances to meet Petal (an eye-opening Cate Blanchett), a somewhat slutty type who usurps, seduces and dupes Quoyle into marrying her. Granted, Quoyle is so blindly faithful that Petal doesn't even bother to disguise her own infidelity -- not even after their daughter, Bunny, is born -- so the time inevitably comes when she leaves both of them behind forever. Thrown into a sputter by losing her, as well as both his parents (to suicide), Quoyle relocates with Bunny to his family's ancestral home in Newfoundland on the advice of his largely unknown aunt Agnis (Judi Dench, strong and steely as always), who visits to collect her brother's ashes for her own special memorial.
There, Quoyle finds that his name is widely known -- and not necessarily for the most glowing reasons, either. Looking for a production job at the paper in his new town, he instead finds himself hired as a reporter -- covering the shipping news, of course, as well as the car accidents -- and begins the long, difficult process of learning to become a journalist. He warms up to Wavey (an alluring and highly enigmatic Julianne Moore), the town's schoolteacher with a mentally deficient son and a lost spouse of her own. And, in general, the movie follows Quoyle as he attempts to build relationships and find a place for himself in a land where the stories and the legends were being told long before he was born.
Now, I haven't read the book by Proulx (although I definitely plan to read it now), but I imagine that it's somewhat of a saga. There are just so many details in this movie that seem collapsed in order to fit within a certain timeframe. Some of them even could have enough substance on their own to fill the central plot lines of other, more Hollywood-styled movies (including a few graphics depictions of death and dismemberment, although those may be deleted for the commercial release). However, here they're presented as mundane, almost everyday occurrences -- a stance that underscores quite effectively the fact that "The Shipping News" isn't a mundane, everyday movie at all. Lasse Hallström doesn't seem to have directed it so much as just to have let it develop naturally from its own rhythms. Kevin Spacey carries the movie awkwardly at first (I just read an interview with him saying that he began working on it days after "K-Pax" wrapped, so that may be why) but comes to blend into his role as effortlessly as everyone else does. The portrayals of the Newfoundlanders also have a concrete sense of time and place: They made me feel like a latecoming stranger in town during the first scenes, but the end of the movie just sneaked up on me like a good acquaintance suddenly saying good-bye. (And given that most of what I know of Newfoundlanders has come from hearing Canadians tell jokes about their violence, stupidity and incestuousness -- which all apparently have a grain of truth, according to this movie -- I felt a certain sense of admiration for them by the time it was over.)
"The Shipping News" is a movie full of hardship, strife and uncertainty, but it's also a movie about the determination to keep certain traditions alive and even to build upon them. Given the social and political upheaval of 2001, I'd recommend it as a humble way to end off a year that most of us would like to forget but obviously never will. But even in a more personal sense, it's a wonderful movie to watch if you've lost a loved one, gotten laid off from work, have had a birthday that only reminds you of the year older or have plowed into any other kind of brick wall that leaves you reeling and not sure what to do next. As Agnis says when Quoyle tells her that he doesn't want to live in the past, "You're not livin' in the past. . . . You're buildin' a future." Hollywood should take note of that kind of sentiment the next time they green-light a movie script based on a comic book.
Rating:
Summary: Newfoundland on the Silver Screen...
Review: From the music, to the accents, to the absolutely beautiful cinematography, this movie had me travelling to Newfoundland from the moment the characters drove toward it.
Kevin Spacey had very little to work with in a character that was written so very internally, and he brought what little light there was to Quoyle right out through his eyes. The man is the king of the smouldering look, and Moore plays her role with a quiet reserve that likewise is carried mostly by gesture, stance, and expression. This is not a verbal movie, not an audio experience in the slightest: this is a visual experience, where body language usually matters much more than not.
Sets, weather, and the ever-present character of the Ocean itself all stir together in this movie. With fade-ins and flashbacks of skill woven into a theme of regeneration and restoration, there is a thread of humour and kindness to this movie that had more than one person in the audience sniffly, myself included.
The daughter had a real screen presence, and is a child actress with skill I think we'll be seeing more often. If the movie itself has any failings, it's that it tried to stay as wide as the novel, and as such, some minor plotlines got nearly no screen time, where they might have been better removed, allowing more time for more central characters (especially that of Aunt Agnis, played by Judi Dench to perfection).
I highly reccommend the movie, most centrally for its beautiful visual scenery, and gentle handling of nonverbal language to portray the emotions involved. The cast of characters managed a story that wasn't spoken, and the impact wasn't lost at all. Newfoundland has never looked so wonderful on the silver screen.
'Nathan
Rating: 
Summary: I hope this move does good but...........
Review: We were at the LA premier and my lack of enthusiasm pains me. I am a HUGE Kevin Spacey fan, but his Quoyle was lackluster. There didn't seem to be much chemistry between him and Moore. Dame Judi it seemed to me sleepwalked through the movie. The film seemed choppy and didn't flow at all. I really want this movie to succeed and bring Oscar nods. Maybe my review is based on the fact that Kevin himself was sitting only a few rows behind us and I couldn't concentrate. I will see this again at least twice when it's released.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-See!
Review: A struggling newspaper writer, Quoyle returns to the small fishing town in newfoundland his family has long lived in, after their mother, petal bear, ran off with her daughter and sold her. Though he's had little success thus far in life, his shipping news column finds an audience, and his experiences in the town change his life. "The Shipping News" is really a masterpiece.O.K.,this word is overused and Lasse Hallstrom's previous movies weren't that great(just my opinion),but this guy does a marvellous job here. From story-telling to cinematography everthing is perfect.I also thought that the screenplay by Jacobs did justice to Proulx' book,although I would have liked to see some more of Agnis and Bunny. The acting... Call me crazy,but I think this is the best cast since Godfather Part 2!Spacey,Moore,Blanchett and Dench show why they're considered as acting heavyweights.And because this ain't just a drama[it has comedy and mystery elements in it],I think this film is appealing to everyone with interest in entertaiment and film-making.
Rating:
Summary: Slightly Recommended
Review: A struggling newspaper writer, Quoyle (Kevin Spacey) returns to his family's longtime home, a small fishing town in Newfoundland, with his young daughter, after a traumatizing experience with her mother, Petal, who sold her to an illegal adoption agency. Though Quoyle has had little success thus far in life, his shipping news column in the newspaper "The Gammy Bird" finds an audience, and his experiences in the town change his life. Then he meets the widow Wavey... Spacey should be strongly considered for a best leading man nom for the shipping news or k-pax. I felt that this film is watered down though, and considering the fact that it was directed by Lasse Hallstrom (2 best picture noms in a row: cider house, chocolat, this might be the third due to Miramax), it will be sure to please the audiences. Bottom line: Only see this if you have interest in the trailers, Kevin Spacey, or Hallstrom. The cast is great, but the film is not; worth a matinee.
Rating:
Summary: The Shipping News
Review: The Shipping News DVD ~ Kevin Spacey is a very good movie. Spacey is amazing as usual and should have been nominated for best actor award. An awesome movie indeed. 5/5.
Rating:
Summary: Lasse Hallström Scores For Me Yet Again
Review: I've been watching this director's films since when he was a European film director, starting with his wonderful "My Life As A Dog." I was worried when he started making American films because I thought he'd turn into another action adventure director, which is what we tend to do with Europe's best directing talent. However, Hallström has continued to make serious, artistic films in the ensuing years and I, for one, am grateful. I've never seen a film of his that didn't totally engross me and this one is no exception. I tried reading the novel upon which this is based and I put it down time and time again. Finally, I gave up on it as too literary. So I was very happy that I could watch the movie straight through without any hangups from its source Pulitzer prize winning novel. Kevin Spacey is the main character and we follow his life from being a nerd in New York with a wife (Cate Blanchett) who is gorgeous but a real low life. When she dies in a car wreck, his aunt (Judi Densch) talks him into moving to Newfoundland with her and his daughter to reinvent his life. He does so as a newspaper reporter there. There is also a lot of magical realism and mysticism going on in this movie, which I found very absorbing, plus humor. Scott Glenn plays one of his best roles ever as the irascible newspaper owner, Jack, and he provides great comic relief for the film. Every actor in this film gives an A performance. It is a dream cast and I can't imagine casting it differently. If you are not already a fan of Hallström's work, you should be. I bought this movie the instant I saw his name on it.
Rating:
Summary: Shipping News
Review: Incredible (as usual) performance by Kevin Spacey as the goofy but lovable dork Quoyle. I would highly recommend reading the book as well.
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