Oscar Nominees Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis lead a stellar cast in this empowering drama inspired by actual events Won.t Back Down . on Blu-ray and DVD January 15th from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. M&C is giving away two copies of the Blu-ray edition of the film! Hard-working single mom Jamie Fitzpatrick (Gyllenhaal) is concerned that John Adams Elementary is letting her daughter down. Teaming with a caring teacher (Davis) who wants the best future for her own son, she sets out to improve attitudes and elevate the school.s academic standards. Despite the odds, with courage, hope and persistence, the women just might prevail in this uplifting film that also stars Rosie Perez and Academy Award...
- 1/13/2013
- by Patrick Luce
- Monsters and Critics
Title: Won’t back Down Director: Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Holly Hunter and Marianne Jean-Baptiste Parents will often do whatever it takes to protect their children and ensure they’ll have a promising future, even when others try to discourage them. That’s certainly the case in the new drama ‘Won’t Back Down,’ which shows the tribulations parents go through to ensure their children have the best education they can. Single mother Jamie Fitzpatrick relentlessly enlists the help of one of the teachers in her daughter’s school to overturn the current, failing administration, despite the objections of teachers who fear the loss of their union will threaten their job. ‘Won’t Back Down’ [ Read More ]
The post Won’t Back Down Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Won’t Back Down Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 9/28/2012
- by Karen Benardello
- ShockYa
Chicago – There is an interesting trend in the financing of films, actual partisan organizations are fostering their points-of-view through the movies. This is nothing new in documentaries, but now it appears in a fictional film called “Won’t Back Down,” featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
Walden Media partially funded the film, and they are part of the Anschutz Film Group, owned by a conservative activist named Phillip Anschutz. His goal is public school reform, and in doing so also is taking on the teacher’s unions, who are blamed in part for the poor performance of the fictional Pittsburgh school in the film. Cranky Phil might have started with a decent or even plausible script, because everything presented in “Won’t Back Down” severely tests reality. If Anschutz wants the audience on his side, make a better movie.
Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a lower income, single mother...
Rating: 2.0/5.0
Walden Media partially funded the film, and they are part of the Anschutz Film Group, owned by a conservative activist named Phillip Anschutz. His goal is public school reform, and in doing so also is taking on the teacher’s unions, who are blamed in part for the poor performance of the fictional Pittsburgh school in the film. Cranky Phil might have started with a decent or even plausible script, because everything presented in “Won’t Back Down” severely tests reality. If Anschutz wants the audience on his side, make a better movie.
Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a lower income, single mother...
- 9/28/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Won’t Back Down opens on close-ups of a terrified young girl in a dingy classroom struggling to read the word “story” while classmates goof off with video games and a teacher checks her cellphone and shops for shoes. The film presents the modern public education experience as a ghastly nightmare, a meat-grinder with our children as its central victims. And in its (loosely) fact-based narrative of a mother and a teacher attempting to take over their failing Pittsburgh school, it takes square aim at teachers’ unions as the boogeymen who manage and maintain the nightmare. Which means it comes pre-loaded with political explosives; the issue of school choice is one that bitterly divides today’s American Left. But if you want your movie to blow up the right way, you have to do better than the paint-by-numbers story and characters presented here.As Jamie Fitzpatrick, a harried working-class single...
- 9/28/2012
- by Bilge Ebiri
- Vulture
I can't remember the last time I saw two performances this good, wasted in such a substandard film. Won't Back Down is a softball feature trying to play hardball as it tackles the issues facing public schools, refuses to leave any stone unturned and sabotages its own story as a result. Unsure of what he wants to focus on specifically, director and co-writer Daniel Barnz is addressing motivated teachers versus those skating by, upset parents, disadvantaged kids, charter schools with limited space, uncaring unions and private schools that cost too much money. And those are just the surface level issues before you bring in the actual characters. First we have Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal). She's a single mother, working two jobs. Her daughter is dyslexic and they can't afford private school, they missed out on the charter school lottery and her daughter's teacher is lazy and uncaring. The system is...
- 9/28/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Won’t Back Down
Directed by: Daniel Barnz
Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Holly Hunter, Oscar Isaac
Running Time: 2 hrs 1 min
Rating: PG
Release Date: September 28, 2012
Plot: A single mother (Gyllenhaal) teams up with a teacher (Davis) to take over their local elementary school and save it from its failing conditions.
Who’S It For? This is for parents who want sterilized entertainment about something they may or may not be experiencing in part themselves. Don’t bring kids to this movie, unless you want to spend the entirety of Won’t Back Down explaining to the young ones what “tenure” means, and why the “bad” people of this movie are “bad.”
Expectations: Any movie has the chance to be good, even if it is directed by the same guy who did Beastly … or has a cheesy poster …
Scorecard (0-10)
Actors:
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jamie Fitzpatrick: When we first meet her character,...
Directed by: Daniel Barnz
Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Holly Hunter, Oscar Isaac
Running Time: 2 hrs 1 min
Rating: PG
Release Date: September 28, 2012
Plot: A single mother (Gyllenhaal) teams up with a teacher (Davis) to take over their local elementary school and save it from its failing conditions.
Who’S It For? This is for parents who want sterilized entertainment about something they may or may not be experiencing in part themselves. Don’t bring kids to this movie, unless you want to spend the entirety of Won’t Back Down explaining to the young ones what “tenure” means, and why the “bad” people of this movie are “bad.”
Expectations: Any movie has the chance to be good, even if it is directed by the same guy who did Beastly … or has a cheesy poster …
Scorecard (0-10)
Actors:
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jamie Fitzpatrick: When we first meet her character,...
- 9/28/2012
- by Nick Allen
- The Scorecard Review
Review by Barbara Snitzer
I don’t go to movies to be told what to think. Even if I agree with what I’m being told is right, I am offended by the arrogance of having that decided for me.
This is a movie about kids who can’t read for adults who can’t think. My logline for this movie would be: it’s the opposite of Stand And Deliver (stupid students and incompetent teachers) crossed with Not Without My Daughter; reduce and simmer mixture until you reach lowest common denominator.
The movie opens with the superimposed text “inspired by actual events.” That’s quite a suspicious redundancy. My personal opinion (sic) is that all events are actual by definition, unless someone else sees them differently. I presume this is the case as there is no prologue nor epilogue after the film to that describes the “actual events” the film inspired.
I don’t go to movies to be told what to think. Even if I agree with what I’m being told is right, I am offended by the arrogance of having that decided for me.
This is a movie about kids who can’t read for adults who can’t think. My logline for this movie would be: it’s the opposite of Stand And Deliver (stupid students and incompetent teachers) crossed with Not Without My Daughter; reduce and simmer mixture until you reach lowest common denominator.
The movie opens with the superimposed text “inspired by actual events.” That’s quite a suspicious redundancy. My personal opinion (sic) is that all events are actual by definition, unless someone else sees them differently. I presume this is the case as there is no prologue nor epilogue after the film to that describes the “actual events” the film inspired.
- 9/28/2012
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Won’t Back Down
Directed by Daniel Barnz
Written by Brin Hill and Daniel Barnz
USA, 2012
The modern educational system is full of corporate bureaucracy, personal frustrations, and district-, state-, and nationwide complications. In short, the system is labyrinthine at best, broken at worst. And as much as we try to think of education in a general sense, it’s immensely personal to each of us. You may not have kids, but you may have brothers or sisters who do, or young nieces and nephews, or a set of horror stories from your classroom experience. Each of us brings something unique to our beliefs about what’s right and wrong about education today, and what needs to be done to fix it—or, in fact, if it needs to be fixed. Making a fictional movie highlighting perceived flaws inherent in the system is admirable and full of good intentions, but...
Directed by Daniel Barnz
Written by Brin Hill and Daniel Barnz
USA, 2012
The modern educational system is full of corporate bureaucracy, personal frustrations, and district-, state-, and nationwide complications. In short, the system is labyrinthine at best, broken at worst. And as much as we try to think of education in a general sense, it’s immensely personal to each of us. You may not have kids, but you may have brothers or sisters who do, or young nieces and nephews, or a set of horror stories from your classroom experience. Each of us brings something unique to our beliefs about what’s right and wrong about education today, and what needs to be done to fix it—or, in fact, if it needs to be fixed. Making a fictional movie highlighting perceived flaws inherent in the system is admirable and full of good intentions, but...
- 9/28/2012
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
Filmmaker Daniel Barnz first got attention with his Sundance movie Phoebe in Wonderland , starring Elle Fanning as a young girl with Tourette's trying to navigate school by escaping into a dark fantasy world. Barnz's next movie Beastly was an adaptation of a novel that put a modern spin on the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast," and that also dealt with school dynamics. With his third feature film, Won't Back Down , Barnz sets aside the fantasy and fairy tale elements to direct a movie set within the realities of the public school system and the problems inherent with it. The movie stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jamie Fitzpatrick, a hard-working single parent of a dyslexic girl having problems in class who comes to school and is shocked how little the teachers seem to care....
- 9/26/2012
- Comingsoon.net
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