neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Stolen Summer
	Pete Jones Adi Stein, Aidan Quinn, Bonnie Hunt, Kevin Pollak, Brian Dennehy, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Mike Weinberg 2002		The result of "Project Greenlight" — a script-writing competition and "reality" TV series conceived by actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — has arrived, and it's not bad. Director/screenwriter Pete Jones, the contest winner, earned the right to film his tragicomic coming-of-age story about a precocious 8-year-old in Chicago, circa 1976, his working-class Irish-Catholic family and his camaraderie with a Jewish boy. Pete O'Malley (unaffected urchin Adi Stein) wants to improve his chances of getting into heaven by devoting the summer to converting non-believers to Catholicism. Visiting the local synagogue in search of possible converts, he's befriended by a good-natured rabbi, played with humor and compassion by Kevin Pollak. Soon, Pete is trying to teach the rabbi's son all about Jesus. "Stolen Summer" suffers from conventional storytelling and directorial choices that mark a first film, but the actors, including Aidan Quinn, Bonnie Hunt, Brian Dennehy and Pollak, breathe life into Jones' script.