Oscar Movies Map: "Savage" Theatre, Lame "Rush"
The Oscars are back on, and we're celebrating with a series on the New York City locations you might've seen in this year's nominated films. Our Oscar Movies Map will be your golden statuette.
Today we're going to talk about a great movie and a terrible movie, both of which received Oscar nominations. First, the great one: "The Savages" received nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for leading lady Laura Linney, who plays NYC temp and aspiring playwright Wendy Savage.
Wendy and her brother Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for the movie) travel to Arizona together to get their ailing father and take him upstate to Buffalo, where Jon is a professor. While it's hardly a vacation, the trip gets Wendy out of her dingy East Village apartment for a bit.
While Wendy struggles with her artistic dreams, even lying to her brother about receiving the Guggenheim fellowship, Linney is an accomplished Broadway actress: Her next role on Broadway will be at the American Airlines Theatre (227 W. 42nd St.) in this spring's production of "Les Liasions Dangereuses," costarring Meryl Streep offspring Mamie Gummer. For more information about "The Savages"' out-of-town locations, read our Movie Set Travel guide to Buffalo.
If we tell you not to see "August Rush," will you believe us? It was the worst movie we saw in theaters all year, so this review will spoil the entire film. (You'll thank us.)
Evan Taylor ("Finding Neverland"'s Freddie Highmore) runs away from his orphanage to find his real parents, a cellist (Keri Russell) and a rocker (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who had a one-night stand after his show at Irving Plaza (17 Irving Pl.).
Evan is summarily kidnapped by a scary homeless guy named Mr. Wizard (Robin Williams), who forces him to play in Washington Square Park for money until he gets noticed by a Juilliard professor and becomes the first ten-year-old to have his symphony premiere in Central Park at Summerstage, where his parents magically find him and each other.
Despite the film's Best Original Song nomination and its Truly Moving Picture Award, we still cringe. Travel at your own risk, if for no other reason than that this movie's sense of New York geography is so off. Washington Square Park is not next to Juilliard!
Related Stories:
· Oscar Movies Map [Jaunted]
· Movie Set Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo of "August Rush": media-imdb.com]
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