Best of Miramax Part 2

30 June 2008

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In the second part of our Best of Miramax we take at look at the top five movies produced or distributed by the Weinstein's Miramax Films.

5. Shakespeare In Love

It is the summer of 1593, and the rising young star of London's theatre scene, Will Shakespeare, faces a scourge like no other: a paralysing bout of writer's block.

While the great Elizabethan age of entertainment unfolds around him, Will is without inspiration on material. What Will needs is a muse--and in an extraordinary moment in which life imitates art, he finds and falls for a woman who draws him into his own dramatic adventure of star-crossed love.

It all begins when Lady Viola, desperate to become an actor at a time when women were forbidden from such depravity, disguises herself as a man to audition for Will's play. But the guise slips away as their passion ignites.

Now Will's quill again begins to flow, this time turning love into words, as Viola becomes his real-life Juliet and Romeo finds his reason to exist. Yet all is not well in Will's world.

For even as the parchment begins to pile up, he's plagued by the fact that Lady Viola must marry the insufferable Lord Wessex.

Shakespeare In Love was one of Miramax's most successful movies at the box office grossing over $289 million in 1998.

It won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and who could forget that speech from Gwyneth Paltrow?

4. Chicago

Another Best Picture winner next for musical Chicago starring Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones.

Everyone loves a legend--but in Chicago, there's only room for one. Velma Kelly burns in the spotlight as a nightclub sensation.

When she shoots her philandering husband, she lands on Chicago's famed murderess row, retains Chicago's slickest lawyer, Billy Flynn, and becomes the centre of the town's most notorious murder case--only increasing her celebrity.

Roxie Hart, seduced by the city's promise of style and adventure, dreams of singing and dancing her way to stardom. When Roxie's abusive lover tries to walk out on her, she too ends up in prison. The ambitious Billy recognizes another made-for-tabloids story, and postpones Velma's court date to take on Roxie's case.

Infamy is Roxie's ticket to stardom. Billy turns her crime of passion into celebrity headlines, and in this town, where murder is a form of entertainment, she becomes a bona fide star--much to Velma's chagrin.

As Roxie fashions herself out to be America's latest sweetheart, Velma has more than a few surprises in store for her. Tensions climax as the two women stop at nothing to outdo each other in their obsessive pursuit of fame and celebrity.

The film is Miramax's most successful box office hit grossing over $300 million dollars worldwide when it was released in 2002.

3. My Left Foot

The film describes the astounding arc of Brown's life, starting with a childhood in which his debilitating cerebral palsy causes everyone but his mother to believe he is brain-damaged.

Brown begins to shatter this perception by using his left foot and a piece of chalk to scrawl a one-word message on the floor to his mother.

Though Brown's subsequent growth into an artist of great profundity is nothing short of miraculous, he is never presented in the film as anything more nor less than human.

My Left Foot was one of Miramax's early successes as the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, it won only two best Actor for Daniel Day Lewis and Best Supporting Actress for Brenda Fricker.

More Best of Miramax Part 2 on page 2