"Matthew, could you please let us know how you went about meeting your wife?"
"Sure," said Matthew Broderick. "Right after I'm assassinated."
Such was the mood late this afternoon at Guild Hall, where, at arguably the Hamptons Film Festival's most anticipated event, Broderick sat for a conversation with his old friend and peer Alec Baldwin. Or mostly conversation, anyway, until the wild interruption from the balcony that nearly derailed a perfectly delightful chat about humble beginnings, John Hughes. Marlon Brando, Producers-mania, botched films and so much more.
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Youth seized the Hamptons this afternoon, as the ongoing film festival here featured a fun Breakthrough Artists panel comprising actors Anton Yelchin (Like Crazy), Alexander Skarsgård (Melancholia), Emily Browning (Sleeping Beauty), Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin), Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) and Stine Fischer Christensen (Cracks in the Shell). It was a wide-ranging chat veering from the subjects of stage parents to confronting vulnerability, but things didn't really get going until Yelchin and Miller (pictured above) replied to a question about their early influences. Hint: They both involve megastars. And, uh, animated rabbits.
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Greeting from the Hamptons International Film Festival! Located just a two-hour bus jaunt east of New York City, the fest seemed like an ideal place for Movieline to embark on an overnight filmgoing getaway. And just like that, I bumped into Alexander Skarsgård, who's here representing Lars von Trier's spellbinding (if mildly embattled) masterpiece Melancholia.
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The Artist, the silent film that has emerged since Cannes as one of the year's presumptive Oscar front-runners, finally makes landfall in the States this weekend: Following tonight's East Coast premiere at the New York Film Festival, Michel Hazanavicius's tribute to old Hollywood rolls out for audiences at the Hamptons Film Festival. And if today's early reactions at the NYFF press screening were any indication, all signs point to success.
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After a weekend of speculation, guesses and second-guesses about which top-secret "work in progress by a master filmmaker" would in fact screen tonight as a last-minute addition to the New York Film Festival, Martin Scorsese confirmed today's reports by taking the stage at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan and introducing his family-friendly 3-D opus Hugo to a loving hometown crowd.
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The world premiere of your first feature film -- in the hypercritical climes of the New York Film Festival, no less -- would be nerve-wracking for any director. But Simon Curtis isn't any director. He's a BAFTA- and Emmy-nominated television and stage veteran who's worked with a who's who of British acting royalty, a noteworthy group of whom appear in Curtis's feature debut My Week With Marilyn.
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Our sister blog Deadline is reporting that the surprise sneak screening tonight at the New York Film Festival -- showcasing a "work in progress from a master filmmaker" -- will be Martin Scorsese's Hugo. If true, it would be Scorsese's second film to screen at this year's NYFF (after George Harrison: Living in the Material World) and a considerable risk for Paramount, which would be exhibiting the uncompleted 3-D film in one of the tougher filmgoing environments known to man. Movieline will be there in any case; check back with us later on for a report. [via @NikkiFinke]
It almost wouldn't be the New York Film Festival these days without Michelle Williams, whose My Week With Marilyn marks the actress's fourth effort in five years to grace Manhattan's venerated fall-movie showcase. It's inarguably her highest-profile work to splash down here -- a world premiere debuting in the festival's prestigious Centerpiece slot, glowing with awards-season ambition and hinging almost entirely on Williams's risky interpretation of Marilyn Monroe. But come on: We're talking about Michelle Williams here. Of course she pulled it off.
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There was an inkling around town that Fantastic Fest's secret screening Wednesday would turn out to be Paranormal Activity 3, what with the viral VHS tapes surfacing in Austin this week and the seemingly perfect timing for the horror sequel, which hits theaters nationwide on Oct. 21. By the time the surprise world premiere was confirmed to a packed audience at midnight on Wednesday, it was a surprise many folks saw coming. So how did Paranormal Activity 3 measure up to its predecessors -- and what does it mean that it doesn't match up at all with its recent trailer?
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Fantastic Fest's annual Fantastic Debates pit filmmakers, critics, and celebrities against each other in a two-part battle that begins with a podium debate and ends with the ultimate showdown in the boxing ring. This year's Debates, held Saturday night in Austin, Texas, will get even more fantastic than usual as Elijah Wood and Lord of the Rings pal Dominic Monaghan duke it out with some Hobbit vs. Hobbit fisticuffs. Watch their challenge videos after the jump!
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If last year's opening night was a favorite festival memory for AFI Fest director Jacqueline Lyanga, one can only imagine the blast she's going to have on Nov. 3: The 25th annual incarnation of the festival has announced the world premiere of Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio's hugely anticipated biopic J. Edgar as this year's opener.
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Before Sunday night's L.A. Film Fest premiere of the August horror pic Don't Be Afraid of the Dark succumbed to an unfortunate series of annoyances -- a fire alarm temporarily evacuated the theater midway through, while chaos reigned at the post-screening cell phone check -- producer and co-writer Guillermo del Toro emphasized what, hopefully, will make Don't Be Afraid of the Dark memorable: Its "pervasive scariness," so terrifying that the MPAA deemed it too frightening for its intended rating.
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Two upcoming Sony releases scored their first honors Sunday at the 2011 L.A. Film Fest, where Michael Rapaport's Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (Sony Classics) and Joe Cornish's Attack the Block (Screen Gems) won audience awards. Also in the winners' circle: Stephane Lafleur's Canadian comedy Familiar Ground and Wish Me Away, a documentary about country singer Chely Wright's decision to come out of the closet.
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Certain members of legendary NYC hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest had voiced mixed reactions to Michael Rapaport's incisive documentary Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest even before its Sundance debut and subsequent distribution deal. But Friday night in Hollywood, all save one of Tribe's four members came out to support the film, sharing the emotional experience of watching their musical history -- and the complex behind-the-scenes clashes that led to their disbanding -- play out on screen.
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Chris Weitz's L.A.-set drama A Better Life features no stars (well, its lead is 'the George Clooney of Mexico') and no vampires, but it got a profile boost Tuesday night when two of the stars of Weitz's last movie, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, made a red carpet appearance in support of their former director. Fresh off of filming on November's Breaking Dawn, the Twilight duo posed for photos but left the media spotlight to Weitz and Co. to talk up their potential awards contender, about an illegal immigrant father and his teenage son struggling to make it in East L.A.
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