{"id":1856,"date":"2011-09-27T05:45:26","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T12:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2011-09-27T05:45:27","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T12:45:27","slug":"daily-dose-a-look-at-crowes-we-bought-a-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1856","title":{"rendered":"Daily Dose: A look at Crowe’s WE BOUGHT A ZOO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Although he\u2019s got two music documentaries either in release or coming, Cameron Crowe hasn\u2019t made a narrative feature film since 2005\u2019s \u201cElizabethtown.\u201d I remember the mixed reaction that film got at Toronto when I saw it there in its longer cut glory. But the chilly reception Crowe received then probably had little to do with the delay between his latest narrative project, \u201cWe Bought a Zoo,\u201d and his last. After all, some 4 years passed between \u201cVanilla Sky\u201d released in 2001 and \u201cElizabethtown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below is the trailer for \u201cWe Bought a Zoo\u201d Crowe\u2019s adaptation along with Aline Brosh McKenna (\u201cThe Devil Wears Prada\u201d) of a book by Benjamin Mee. The remarkable story is based on Mee\u2019s real life experiences in purchasing and reopening a wildlife preserve also referred to as a zoo. Mee\u2019s wife, who had fought against cancer for some time prior to the family\u2019s move to the zoo, passed away some months after taking over the property. This left Mee with his children to tend and operate the wildlife preserve. Below I\u2019ve included a video interview with Mee, from BookLounge, in which he talks about the therapeutic benefits of owning a zoo. Certainly if Crowe\u2019s movie was not inspired by a true story, no one would ever had believed it, and the film would have been compared to \u201cDoctor Dolittle\u201d and \u201cEvan Almighty.\u201d Frankly, such comparisons are inevitable. <\/p>\n

From the trailer, you can see shades of \u201cJerry Maguire\u201d as the character named after the writer Benjamin Mee and played by Matt Damon quits his job to purchase the zoo. From what I can glean, in the movie, Mee\u2019s wife has passed prior to the purchase of the property and Mee\u2019s character decides to radically move his family to move on with his life. It looks like Mee\u2019s brother is played by Thomas Haden Church and a potential love interest is played by Scarlett Johansson. Ms. Johansson is still too young to play a mother of two, I suppose. <\/p>\n

Crowe\u2019s films are always a bit soapy but uniformly manage to wring out goofy tingly feelings that big tough guys probably only admit to their wives and girlfriends behind closed doors. And \u201cZoo\u201d will probably have lots of introspective moments and incredibly cheesy but memorable lines of dialogue as its message is hammered home repeatedly. \u201cYou had me at the zoo!\u201d \u201cYou complete me with the circle of life!\u201d The cheap sentimentalist that I am at my core is looking forward to absorbing every single moment when it is released around Christmas this year.<\/p>\n