When Susan Butler found out her son, Collin Butler, was diagnosed with autism, she was heartbroken. The news no parent wants to hear set her on a path to help Collin, as well as other kids like him, achieve what seemed impossible. Susan brought Applied Behavioral Analysis (Aba), an effective way to treat young people with autism, to South Carolina, through the South Carolina Early Autism Project, which she started with Collin's preschool teacher, Ann Eldridge, in 1996. The organization offers individualized research-based treatment to thousands of children and young adults from 20 months to 21 years old. "To see the transformation of...
- 2/6/2015
- by Alexandra Zaslow, @alexandrazaslow
- PEOPLE.com
Amelia would appear to be, on the surface at least, another biopic destined for award buzz. It isn’t. Instead, this aviation movie from director Mira Nair, based on the book East To The Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler, is a shockingly boring and sadly conventional film. I’d use the cliché “paint-by-numbers,” but the word “paint” may lead to “vivid colors” leading into creativity and passion for which Amelia has none.
While movies should appear within the framework of historical accuracy, they shouldn’t be beholden to them, which Amelia clearly is. Unlike Scorsese’s The Aviator, Amelia is a stuffy throwback that may have come straight out of 1950’s Hollywood –an unusual move for the usually neon Nair. Unfortunately, a History Channel special on the American Industrial Revolution has more flare.
Famed pilot and social pioneer, Amelia Earhart is purported to be a larger...
While movies should appear within the framework of historical accuracy, they shouldn’t be beholden to them, which Amelia clearly is. Unlike Scorsese’s The Aviator, Amelia is a stuffy throwback that may have come straight out of 1950’s Hollywood –an unusual move for the usually neon Nair. Unfortunately, a History Channel special on the American Industrial Revolution has more flare.
Famed pilot and social pioneer, Amelia Earhart is purported to be a larger...
- 2/12/2010
- by Erik Buckman
- ReelLoop.com
Love Happens: "Cliché. Studio-manufactured quirky florist (Jennifer Aniston) who scrawls odd words, like "quidnunc," behind paintings in a hotel and keeps customer's love notes. Cliché. Widowed self-help author (Aaron Eckhart), who can't seem to follow his own advice. Platitude. Cliché. Bumper-sticker pop-speak. "A-Okay!" Cliché. Let's pass around the 'candle of truth,' why don't we!
Best friend roles: Dan Fogler as arrogant agent (the best part of the movie, which says most of what you need to know about Love Happens). Judy Greer wasted as Female Best Friend (Joan Cusack™). She spouts poetry. Cliché.
Nice dimples, Eckhart." - Dustin Rowles
Amelia: "Amelia is the least interesting movie ever made about anyone who ever lived. Ever. That's not to say the movie doesn't have some minor technical joys: The set and costume design create an authentic feeling of Depression-era America (the first one), and the cinematography from Stuart Dryburgh...
Best friend roles: Dan Fogler as arrogant agent (the best part of the movie, which says most of what you need to know about Love Happens). Judy Greer wasted as Female Best Friend (Joan Cusack™). She spouts poetry. Cliché.
Nice dimples, Eckhart." - Dustin Rowles
Amelia: "Amelia is the least interesting movie ever made about anyone who ever lived. Ever. That's not to say the movie doesn't have some minor technical joys: The set and costume design create an authentic feeling of Depression-era America (the first one), and the cinematography from Stuart Dryburgh...
- 2/2/2010
- by Intern Rusty
Despite the differences in nationality and era, the main character and the director of the Fox Searchlight biopic "Amelia" share many traits. Indian-born director Mira Nair and world-famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart grew up in rural areas and achieved international fame. Before Earhart mysteriously disappeared on a flight over the Pacific, she captured the imagination of a Depression-ridden world by becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo. Nair is one of the few female directors to maintain a steady international career, with such diverse films as "Salaam Bombay!," "Monsoon Wedding," "Vanity Fair," and "The Namesake."Nair thought Hilary Swank, who won Oscars for her performances in gender-defying roles in "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby," would be ideal for the role of Earhart. "Hilary is an intuitive daredevil," observes Nair. "She loves the roller coaster of life. She would happily jump out in a parachute and come down just like Amelia,...
- 12/8/2009
- backstage.com
Amelia is the much anticipated film of the pioneering aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. This new, historical biopic from director Mira Nair (The Namesake, Vanity Fair), stars two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank as the legendary pilot (she also serves as executive producer), Richard Gere as her husband and agent/publisher, George Putnam, and Ewan McGregor as Twa founder and Earhart’s lover, Gene Vidal (Gore Vidal’s father). From a screenplay by Ronald Bass (Academy Award winner for Rain Man) and Anna Hamilton Phelan, based on the books “East to the Dawn” by Susan Butler and “The Sound of Wings by Mary S. Lovell,” Amelia chronicles the life of Earhart from her early life in Kansas, the first flight across the Atlantic, and Putnam’s attempt to make her a female Lindbergh through product placement. The film also covers her...
- 10/23/2009
- by Michelle
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
It's Oscar contender season, when the studios trot out the films they hope will capture the attention of the bearers of golden statuettes, and the box office revenue those little gold men bring. One has to wonder just what Fox Searchlight was thinking when they chose to release Amelia.
It seems like a perfect match: Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) directing a cast of heavyweights, including Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston. Stuart Dryburgh had an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography for The Piano amongst his list of nominations and wins. Both editors, Allyson C. Johnson and Lee Percy, are seasoned professionals, and Johnson has worked on several Nair projects. The writers, Ron Bass (Rain Man, The Joy Luck Club) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted, Mask) each have an Oscar nod. Two books about Earhart are used, including Susan Butler's East to the Dawn and...
It seems like a perfect match: Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) directing a cast of heavyweights, including Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston. Stuart Dryburgh had an Oscar nod for Best Cinematography for The Piano amongst his list of nominations and wins. Both editors, Allyson C. Johnson and Lee Percy, are seasoned professionals, and Johnson has worked on several Nair projects. The writers, Ron Bass (Rain Man, The Joy Luck Club) and Anna Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted, Mask) each have an Oscar nod. Two books about Earhart are used, including Susan Butler's East to the Dawn and...
- 10/22/2009
- by Jenn Brown
- Slackerwood
Check out twelve new stunt tape clips and new film clips from Fox Searchlight Pictures' "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Joe Anderson, Cherry Jones and Mia Wasikowska. Mira Nair directs. Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan wrote the screenplay based on the book "East to the Dawn" by Susan Butler and "The Sound of Wings" by Mary S. Lovell. Visionary. Lover. Dreamer. Fighter. Legend. Icon. Amelia. An extraordinary life of adventure, celebrity and continuing mystery comes to light in Amelia, a vast, thrilling account of legendary aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (two time Academy Award® winner Hilary Swank). After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America's sweetheart - the legendary "goddess of light," known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own,...
- 10/21/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
From left, Hilary Swank in Amelia and the actual Amelia Earhart in 1928.
Photo: New York Times Update: I have now been informed Seattle will have an earlier screening on Wednesday morning. So I will have a chance to see it before Thursday night, which will certainly help in putting together a more thoughtful review.
Last week I got my last second invite to see Amelia this Thursday, one day before it hits theaters. Considering it's a film many are looking at as an easy choice for Oscar with Hilary Swank in the lead role as aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the fact Fox Searchlight has only held a couple of screenings to this point and is showing it to critics so late in the game typically doesn't bode well. However, there are a few in the tank for the film sight-unseen and the first reviews arrived just today.
In the worst...
Photo: New York Times Update: I have now been informed Seattle will have an earlier screening on Wednesday morning. So I will have a chance to see it before Thursday night, which will certainly help in putting together a more thoughtful review.
Last week I got my last second invite to see Amelia this Thursday, one day before it hits theaters. Considering it's a film many are looking at as an easy choice for Oscar with Hilary Swank in the lead role as aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, the fact Fox Searchlight has only held a couple of screenings to this point and is showing it to critics so late in the game typically doesn't bode well. However, there are a few in the tank for the film sight-unseen and the first reviews arrived just today.
In the worst...
- 10/19/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
In a hangar in Fairfield, New Jersey’s Essex County Airport, two-time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank and director Mira Nair (The Namesake; Monsoon Wedding) recently joined historical authors Elgen Long and Susan Butler and the President of the 99s, a women’s aviation organization, to discuss the making of Amelia, a biopic about Amelia Earhart, the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and who pioneered the way for other women to break into aviation and aeronautics.
Aboard her Lockheed Electra airplane (reproduction from the film pictured above) Earhart disappeared in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean in her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Her body was never recovered.
Amelia is already garnering attention as a Best Actress frontrunner for Swank’s performance. Swank dedicated weeks to refining Earhart’s speech pattern and spent months gaining a better understanding of the freckle-faced, gung-ho adventurer and legendary international icon.
Richard Gere plays George Putnam,...
Aboard her Lockheed Electra airplane (reproduction from the film pictured above) Earhart disappeared in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean in her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Her body was never recovered.
Amelia is already garnering attention as a Best Actress frontrunner for Swank’s performance. Swank dedicated weeks to refining Earhart’s speech pattern and spent months gaining a better understanding of the freckle-faced, gung-ho adventurer and legendary international icon.
Richard Gere plays George Putnam,...
- 10/19/2009
- CinemaSpy
As Sneak Peek first reported October 2007, Amelia is the Canadian-lensed feature, based on the life of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, starring actors Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor and Virginia Madsen, directed by Mira Nair based on a screenplay by Ronald Bass. Bass wrote the script using several books on Earhart as source material including author Susan Butler's East to the Dawn, Mary S. Lovell's The Sound of the Wings and Elgin Long's Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved. The new film chronicles Earhart's rise to fame and her relationship with husband 'George Putnam'. Earhart was noted as the first woman to receive the 'Distinguished Flying Cross' for flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean, authored best-selling novels about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of 'The Ninety-Nines' organization for women pilots. Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island during an attempt to make a...
- 8/12/2009
- HollywoodNorthReport.com
A new poster for the upcoming biopic Amelia has hit the web. Starring Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Virginia Madsen, Christopher Eccleston, Mia Wasikowska and Joe Anderson, the film was directed by Mira Nair (The Namesake, Vanity Fair) and hits theaters October 23. The film chronicles the life of the legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart (Swank), who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world. It was adapted from two books, Susan Butler’s East to the Dawn and Mary Lovell’s The Sound of Wings.
- 8/12/2009
- by James Cook
- TheMovingPicture.net
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.