August: Osage County aka a family comes together, and a lot of shit happens.

Originally a Tony-winning play, John Wells' film revival of August: Osage County fails on many parts, especially with such potential, stemming from its collaboration of world-class actors and a original, well-written play in its hands.

Having Letts adapt his play onto the screen is Wells' first mistake, resulting in the film being dreadfully overlong and uneven. The simple fact is, we are watching a play being filmed as a movie. Even a film amateur as myself understands the different technical mediums essential to transition a stage play to the screen -- having melodramatic scenes are great for drama/conflict, but when it becomes filled with overdrawn, repetitive…

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY by Tracy Letts was an extremely successful play that opened in 2007 and I had a chance to see it with the original cast. It was an epic three-hour look at a dysfunctional family that was on Broadway, won the Tony, won the Pulitzer, won almost everything! When you hear this is getting turned into a movie with an all-star cast, plus Letts himself is writing the screenplay, you'd think it would be a guaranteed hit. So what went wrong?

I saw the movie when it came out and thought it was okay. I could tell some material had been cut, as the movie was trimmed down to two hours with the character of Jean (Abigail Breslin)…

A stunning example of just how badly subpar direction can fuck up a film that has everything else going for it. Tracy Letts' script deserved its Pulitzer, and the cutting ain't half bad. The casting is obviously great (with the exception of Benedict Cumberbatch, whose performance as Little Charles is only slightly better than his Oklahoma accent), and even the cinematography is decent. Not the most creatively shot play adaptation (or even Tracy Letts adaptation) I've seen, but it gets the job done.

Damn, though, is this direction awful or what? John Wells stages these scenes without rhyme or reason, his only justification for his directorial choices seeming to be "other stage adaptations do this, so mine should too". In…