I'll say two things about Marc Jacobs. He designs beautiful clothes, and he has real screen presence in Henry Alex Rubin's engrossing Disconnect. I'm going to stop short of saying the fashion designer can act because he wasn't on screen long enough for me to reach any real conclusion. But...when he was on screen at an early preview that I saw, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. more »
One of my favorite Sundance Film Festival movies has gotten a name change and a May 31 release date, and you should see it for a lot of reasons, the primary one being 18-year-old Moises Arias' breakout performance. He's the kid dancing on the pipe in this teaser trailer for The Kings of Summer — previously Toy's House — and he had me and a lot of other audience members laughing out loud at the Park City screening I saw in January. more »
Twenty-two-year-old Samantha Barks may have been destined to play Eponine in Tom Hooper's ambitious Les Miserables film adaptation, given that she'd warble the iconic character's songs into the mirror at age six and, years later, would go on to earn acclaim playing the tragic innkeepers' daughter in London's West End and in Les Miz's 25th Anniversary concert. But Barks really knew she'd made it when she found herself sparring with onscreen dad Sacha Baron Cohen on the Les Miserables set: "I can’t believe I actually spat in Ali G’s face!"
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If you'd like one good reason to see Killing Them Softly in spite of its "F" Cinemascore and anemic opening box-office numbers, I'll give you a great one: Scoot McNairy's portrayal of the tragi-comic hood Frankie in Andrew Dominik's contemporary film noir is the kind of breakthrough performance that will stick with you long after the financials are forgotten. more »
"It’s not just another movie about drugs and gangsters," British model-turned-actress Agyness Deyn says of Pusher, Luis Prieto's London-set remake of Nicolas Winding Refn's 1996 Danish crime drama, about a drug dealer named Frank (Richard Coyle) who's about to have the worst week of his life. In her second feature film credit Deyn plays Frank's heroin-addicted girlfriend Flo, radiating with a unique combination of sensual maturity and naivete that makes Flo's devotion, and Frank's downward spiral, all the more tragic.
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You'll hear much of the movie stars and familiar faces that pop up again and again in Tom Tykwer and Lana and Andy Wachowski's sprawling, ambitious Cloud Atlas, from Tom Hanks to Halle Berry to frequent Wachowski Starship performer Hugo Weaving. But the beating heart of the film belongs to Korean actress Doona Bae, who makes her English language debut as the luminous Sonmi-451, a genetically-engineered "fabricant" whose fierce humanity and love for a freedom fighter (Jim Sturgess) will change the future.
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If there's a case to be made that turning one's dark, twisted fantasies into plays and movies is good for the soul, Martin McDonagh is Exhibit A. The platinum-haired Irishman has given the world some breathtakingly black comedy, such as his 2003 play about a child serial killer The Pillowman and, as of Friday, the slightly lighter Seven Psychopaths. But if he's nursing a tortured soul, there was very little evidence of it when I interviewed him at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. more »
In the cinematic world of Rian Johnson, where friends are collaborators and cast and crew a part of a close-knit filmmaking "family," actor Noah Segan is a constant. But after appearing in Johnson's debut film Brick and his follow-up, The Brothers Bloom, Segan received what he calls a "gift" from Johnson — one of the smartest rising writer-directors of his generation — in the form of what's sure to be his breakout role: The finely-tuned, gun-obsessed futuristic cowboy Kid Blue in Looper, a "gat man" eagerly hunting down rival Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who's so fraught with seriocomic human frailty he only grows more sympathetic as he becomes increasingly unhinged.
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Max Thieriot began his career opposite Twilight's Kristen Stewart (in 2004's Catch That Kid), and this week he finds himself romancing Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen herself, Jennifer Lawrence — albeit against the advice of her mother, the neighborhood, their classmates and, perhaps, insidious forces that linger in secrets and shadows in The House at the End of the Street.
In recent years the former child actor has navigated his way toward increasingly interesting projects (Atom Egoyan's Chloe, Nick Cassavetes' Yellow, the Toronto entry Disconnect, and the upcoming Bates Motel series on A&E) — and one thing that helped was making a conscious decision to live outside of Hollywood, as Thieriot told Movieline recently.
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I slid into a booth at the Four Seasons recently to chat with Rebel Wilson, the comedienne and rising scene-stealer of this week's Bachelorette and the upcoming toe-tapper Pitch Perfect, smitten with her work in Bridesmaids, in which she turned a brief turn as Kristen Wiig's terrible British roommate into one of the more indelible comic Hollywood debuts in recent memory. Over the course of our conversation about everything — her dog show past, her law degree, gangsta rap, reality TV, her Bring It On obsession, WWII-era international relations, and why she considered The Grove her "happy place" when she moved from her native Australia to L.A. two years ago — I realized that Rebel Wilson is, indeed, the most interesting woman in Hollywood.
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Worlds collide in the raunchy comedy For A Good Time, Call..., the sweet and salty tale of two reluctant roommates (Ari Graynor and Lauren Anne Miller) tentatively building a friendship as they embark on a phone sex business venture together. It's a long-awaited starring vehicle for Graynor and Miller and a warmly funny offering in the current wave of raunchy R-rated female-driven comedies - and For A Good Time, Call... also marks the anticipated debut of shorts filmmaker Jamie Travis (The Patterns Trilogy, The Saddest Boy in the World), who here earns the distinction of inspiring Justin Long's performance in the film and getting to direct Kevin Smith jerking off in his feature debut.
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In the latest installment of ARRIVALS, spotlighting breakthrough performers, Movieline chats with Dania Ramirez, who cycles to stardom opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon in this week's Premium Rush.
As Vanessa, the tough bicycling beauty of David Koepp's adrenaline-fueled Premium Rush, Dominican-born Dania Ramirez (X-Men: The Last Stand, Entourage, Heroes) bursts onto the screen with such vitality that it's no wonder director Spike Lee gave Ramirez her big break, years ago, after recognizing her as a former extra on one of his shoots.
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Introducing Movieline's ARRIVALS series, spotlighting breakthrough performers enjoying a bit of a "moment." Today meet British actress Carmen Ejogo, whose scene-stealing performance in Sparkle kicks off a big year in film and TV.
As much as Sparkle is about well, Sparkle (Jordin Sparks), the shy young singer who learns to come into her own in this weekend's R&B remake (not to mention Whitney Houston in what might have been her comeback), it's Carmen Ejogo's scene-stealing Sister — sultry, ambitious, and tragically doomed — who brings the film's cautionary lessons crashing home. Ejogo's offscreen story is even more intriguing: the MENSA member and one-time backing singer for Tricky (she does her own vocals in the film) got her start in the 1986 David Bowie musical Absolute Beginners and tried the leading lady route in her first crossover roles (Metro, What's the Worst That Could Happen), before earning notice in Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, HBO's Boycott, Lackawanna Blues, and last year's Away We Go.
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