Looks like I haven’t updated my 2013 Movie List in a while. Fear not, there is a new addition: The upcoming adaptation of the bestselling book with the same name, The Book Thief. This past week has been mostly about The Book Thief for me, on Monday there was a pre-release screening as it has not opened yet (next week! or the week after) and then an author event with Markus Zusak, and then a roundtable on Friday with Sophie Nélisse, Geoffrey Rush, Brian Percival and Markus Zusak.
I have ranked it #5, behind Jurassic Park in 3-D. Some people have complained that I have included a twenty year old movie in my list of 2013 films. It also disrupts the ranking as Jurassic Park is my favorite film directed by Spielberg.
Some notes about the movie: I consider it to be family friendly. The film does contain a good amount of german cursing. For the period and setting (Nazi Germany) I think that there is not a lot of violence. I know that in other films it seems that people take delight in shooting Nazis; this film is much more about the pain of loss from death, rather then watching people die.
Many people have confirmed that the film has made them cry.
I have been looping the soundtrack. Music by the great film composer John Williams. At no point have I said “Ah, there is Jurassic Park” or “There is Indiana Jones” or “There is ET” or “Ah yes, Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter.” Which suggests either this score is derivative of works I am not familiar with or perhaps it is time we retire the nasty rumor that all of John Williams work sound alike. Sometimes I think that I have helped perpetuate this thought because of my great admiration for his motifs; when one listens to a theme repeatedly, one can hear it repeated in places it is not. Or at least one could become more sensitive to it.
I intend to write much more on this subject, but most likely in other places.