Hey folks, welcome to this week’s edition of the FOXlight! I’m shining the FOXlight on a FOX project, by 20th Century and FOX 2000. It is fabulous new movie you should rush to go see.
Based on the international best seller by the same name, “The Book Thief” is the powerful story of a girl who has everything going against her in life but finds hope and an escape in the power of words. With the help of her father, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Rush, Liesel [Sophie Nelisse] learns to read. With the encouragement of her friend Max, played by Ben Schnetzer, Liesel is encouraged to write. “If your eyes could speak, tell me what they would say.” And her casting and performance are perfection.
I sat down with of the film’s stars and its director, Brian Percival [“Downtown Abbey”] to get the scoop on the powerful movie. They filled me in on what they want audiences to take away from “The Book Thief.”
Sophie Nelisse: “The power of books. The power of words.”
Geoffrey Rush: “And accordion music. Well it is, look Germany has an amazing heritage of literature and music and great philosophers… and this was a dark chapter where it was going completely off the rails and corrupting a huge percentage of the population, whether it was self-protection or attraction to fanatical ideals or whatever, but if you look at the story its storytelling and literature and poetry and music that becomes the positive generous healing, the hopeful aspects of how people lead their lives.”
Brian Percival: “That we can affect people’s lives as well as just by showing a little bit more care and attention to humanity in the way we approach other people.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself. I am not alone in loving this movie. Actually, I am in pretty good company. Former First Lady Barbara Bush recently hosted a special screening of the film for 200 people in Houston. And they had rave reviews for the film.
Barbara Bush: "I would have loved this incredible film under any circumstance, but the fact that one of the key plot lines involved a caring adult teaching a precious child to read -- well, that was the icing on the cake. What a painful, tender and ultimately rewarding story so very well told by all involved."
President George H. W. Bush: "I was deeply moved by this truly wonderful movie, which dramatized in a powerful way both the horrors of any war but also the abiding humanity that helped to sustain and save so many against a rising tide of evil so many years ago."
So while we are on the topic of reading. What, you ask, is on my night stand? Well, reading has never come easy to me. I have to work at it. Always have. But if the book is right, I can’t think of a better escape. I always try to have two books going at once. One fiction, and another non fiction. Always a hard cover. Never digital. I enjoy the experience of the pages and the smell. Right now, I cannot put down “Johnny Carson” by Henry Bushkin. It’s a great look at old Hollywood and the intricacies, complexities of the man who ruled late night TV. I am also almost done with the second book in the "Hunger Games" series, "Catching Fire." The movie opens up in two weeks and I cannot wait.
Saturday morning we asked you what you all were reading and this is what some of you had to say:
Well that’s it for this edition of the FOXlight, catch ya next week!
Trending
Who's making headlines in television, music, movies and more from Hollywood to the Heartland.