Here’s the thing about writing news first thing Monday morning: I can understand most of the words I’m reading, but the eyes are always still a little bleary, and mistakes can be made. So imagine my surprise when I started reading about Miramax buying Boy In The Striped Pajamas, a tale of Auschwitz, and that the company had set up Mark Harmon to direct. Ever since his tiny role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I’ve known that Harmon had a soul made of salt, a will of carbon, and the exact mentality to bring to life a story about two boys, a German and a Jew, living on opposide sides of the fence at the concentration camp that most of us can spell. Finally, a chance for him to shatter the confines of Chicago Hope, to tear away the straighjacket of Navy NCIS!
Then I realized that it’s Mark Herman directing. I guess he made Brassed Off! and a few other English movies. Since I only go see revivals of amazing old American/Japanese animation co-productions when I’m over there, I have no idea what sort of jokes to make about Herman being in charge of this sucker.
There is a light at the end of this Holocaust tunnel, however. The Departed‘s hottest and most inconsistently-accented psychologist, Vera Farmiga, will don German duds as the mother of the teutonic boy. Imagine her surprise when she discovers the truth about her husband’s new post at the camp!