Winner and New Champ: Ron Howard’s “Cinderella Man”
Director of Photography Salvatore Totino uses Cooke S4 Prime lenses to capture the life of legendary boxer Jim Braddock in a rousing, thrilling and inspirational film.
Hollywood, CA (PRWEB) June 16, 2005 — Describing Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man,
Gene Shalit of The Today Show said it plainly: “Absolutely the best movie of the
year so far. By far.”
Academy Award Winner Russell Crowe is reunited with
“A Beautiful Mind” Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer, director Ron
Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman in this story inspired by the life of
legendary athlete Jim Braddock, a once-promising light heavyweight boxer forced
into retirement after a series of losses in the ring. As the nation enters the
darkest years of the Great Depression, Braddock accepts a string of dead-end
jobs to support his wife, Mae – played with stunning realism and heart by Renee
Zellweger – and their children, while never totally abandoning his dream of
boxing again.
Director of Photography Salvatore Totino (The Missing 2003,
Changing Lanes 2002 and Any Given Sunday 1999) uses Cooke S4 Prime lenses to
capture Braddock’s life in a rousing, thrilling and inspirational film that
Peter Travers in Rolling Stone says is “lit with a poet's eye by camera whiz
Salvatore Totino.”
Braddock soon finds himself unable to support his
family, drowning in debt and facing the prospect of a winter without heat in
their drab basement apartment. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “when the
power is cut off in Jim and Mae’s apartment, Salvatore Totino’s ever-probing
camera captures each stifled breath, and thanks to the meticulously re-created
surroundings of the old Madison Square Garden Bowl, you almost can catch a whiff
of the smoke and sweat and desperation.”
Braddock surprises the skeptics
by knocking out his rising-star opponent and finds himself back on track and
carrying the hopes and dreams of millions of struggling average Joes on his
shoulders as he faces off against the world heavyweight champ Max Baer (Craig
Bierko), who already has killed two men in the ring.
Howard elicits
wonderful performances from Crowe, Zellweger and Paul Giamatti (who plays the
role of Braddock’s old, indefatigable manager, Joe Gould, and is an early
favorite for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination), and those performances
are gracefully captured by the artistry of Salvtore Totino and Cooke S4 Prime
lenses. In fact, Travers in Rolling Stone called Cinderella Man “Howard’s best
movie.”
Howard and Totino are currently teaming again in the much-awaited
film version of Dan Brown’s bestseller The Da Vinci Code, which has just begun
production with an all-star cast that includes Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Alfred
Molina and the Charming French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming of this motion
picture will be particularly challenging, in that the very essence of French
Catholicism, with its cathedrals and shrines, not to mention the opening and
closing scenes in The Louvre, will need to be accurately and sensitively
portrayed. It’s no surprise that Totino has once again selected Cooke S4 Prime
lenses to make Howard’s vision a reality.
Cooke is a storied name in both
cinemagraphic and the ultra-high-end professional photography markets. Known
worldwide for their precision, exacting tolerances and superior quality, Cooke
lenses are specified by many of the most renowned directors of photography and
cinematographers in Hollywood. Cooke S4 Prime lenses, acclaimed for their unique
mechanical design and extraordinary photographic qualities, have been used to
shoot several of the most renowned and visually beautiful motion pictures of all
time, both in Hollywood and internationally. Other recent box office releases
shot with Cooke lenses include Ray, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago, Under the
Tuscan Sun, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the extraordinarily
beautiful Girl With a Pearl Earring.
For more information about Cooke
lenses, visit their website at www.cookeoptics.com
Contact:
Kyle
Kappmeier
908-722-5757
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb250781.htm