{"id":11480,"date":"2011-04-06T00:13:39","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T23:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=11480"},"modified":"2011-04-06T00:23:15","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T23:23:15","slug":"the-heart-specialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/04\/06\/the-heart-specialist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heart Specialist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11481\" title=\"The Heart Specialist\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/The-Heart-Specialist.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/p>\n<p>How did a film over 5 years old eventually get a theatrical release back in January of this year?<\/p>\n<p>And why do the IMDb list it under the title <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0455841\/\">Ways of the Flesh<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Heart Specialist<\/strong> is an independent comedy that was reportedly completed in 2006, about a group of young medical residents at a Florida hospital starring Wood Harris, Brian White and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0757855\/\">Zoe Saldana<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But a five year wait seems excessive and places this firmly in the realm of Kenneth Lonergan&#8217;s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2009\/apr\/26\/entertainment\/ca-margaret26\">Margaret<\/a><\/strong> (although that long-delayed film has more pedigree behind the camera).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Xux1lwchgzg?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It opened in the US in January and the verdict from the trades was pretty brutal.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Leydon of Variety <a href=\"http:\/\/www.variety.com\/review\/VE1117944295\">said<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The Heart Specialist&#8221; is DOA. A ploddingly paced and tonally dissonant mix of broadly played sitcom-style humor and shameless heartstring-yanking, this long-shelved indie has been dropped into a limited theatrical run much like a terminally ill patient might be checked into a hospice. After its inevitable B.O. flatline, expect a quick transfer to Redbox kiosks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter was also less than enthusiastic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Filmed in 2006 but only now receiving a limited theatrical release no doubt thanks to the presence of rising star Zoe Saldana (Avatar), the African-American, medical-themed The Heart Specialist plays like a poorly written episode of Gray&#8217;s Anatomy. This awkward, amateurish blend of comedy and melodrama will need life support stat to prevent it from immediately disappearing from theaters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But this begs the question as to why it got a theatrical release at all. Did investors in the film have a legal clause demanding a theatrical release?<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/boxofficemojo.com\/movies\/?id=heartspecialist.htm\">Box Office Mojo<\/a> it has so far grossed $1,103,037.<\/p>\n<p>> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0455841\/\">The Heart Specialist<\/a> at the IMDb<br \/>\n> <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2009\/apr\/26\/entertainment\/ca-margaret26\">LA Times on the troubled production of Margaret<\/a>  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How did a film over 5 years old eventually get a theatrical release back in January of this year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1970,1971],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}