Bill Condon rang Movieline today for a special early chat about The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One, and while the full interview will post soon, we've got a snippet to whet your appetite. Between talk of vampire weddings and critical expectations and such, Condon shared a particularly fond memory of the time when, during filming of an epic battle scene from the simultaneously-filmed Breaking Dawn Part Two, the guy from The Fall led his entire cast in an impromptu flash mob dance-off to the sounds of the Eurythmics. Hear the tale after the jump!
more »
"They've given us a special dispensation... to have lung cancer." So quipped director Bruce Robinson, joining Johnny Depp and the assembled cast of this weekend's Hunter S. Thompson adaptation The Rum Diary for a late morning presser the other week at the swanky Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Things kicked things off, appropriately enough, with a cloud of cigar smoke that hung in the air like the ghost of Thompson himself -- whom Robinson insisted was in the room, watching the entire proceedings.
more »
I interview a lot of people at this job -- many talented artists on an intellectual spectrum so wide and sometimes with personas so canned and specific that you rarely know from one chat to the next who you're going to get, or if they'll even be the same person the next time you meet. That's not a problem with Roland Emmerich, which is why he might be my favorite interview going right now.
more »
In the upcoming political thriller The Double, Topher Grace and Richard Gere star as an unlikely duo of intelligence agents paired to solve the mystery of a senator's murder. The twisty plot leads them through a trail involving a psychopathic Soviet assassin (Stephen Moyer), Shakespearean code names and one double (get it) identity that culminates with a surprising ending in screenwriter Michael Brandt's (3:10 to Yuma, Wanted) directorial debut.
more »
If there's anyone who knows about breaking barriers in the visual effects industry, it's Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett and John Rosengrant, whose computer-generated dinosaur effects on Jurassic Park forever changed the FX landscape, earned them Academy Awards and famously caused George Lucas to tear up with joy. But their work pioneering new technologies did not begin or end with Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic. The artists have worked on some of Hollywood's most technologically innovative titles including Star Wars, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Predator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Avatar.
more »
Quite likely cinema's first Shakespearean conspiracy thriller-meets-royal romance fable, Anonymous features Rhys Ifans as Edward De Vere -- the Duke of Oxford long considered a front-runner for having authored many (if not all) of the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. It's a role that even the charismatic Welsh actor wasn't sure he would lock down before encountering director Roland Emmerich, the erstwhile apocalypse visionary whose boldness made a fine complement to Ifans's own.
more »
It's every young filmmaker's dream scenario: Break through and sell your film at Sundance before making the rounds at not one, not two, not three, but four major international festivals. Then bring it home and watch it open strong in limited release ahead of a likely awards campaign that will find you back in the spotlight while developing your eagerly anticipated follow-up. Think it's too good to be true? Meet Sean Durkin.
more »
Fifteen-year-old Abigail Breslin, America's erstwhile Little Miss Sunshine, is growing up -- not too fast, like some of her Hollywood peers and predecessors seem to be, but in her own time. Still: In the upcoming New Year's Eve, she'll share her first movie kiss; next year, she takes on the role of a real life teen killer. To kick off this new phase in her career, Breslin plays her first official teenage role in this week's music-themed Janie Jones, starring (and performing her own vocals) as a capable young girl forced on a road trip with the rock star father she never knew.
more »
One of the biggest discoveries you'll make this year -- and one of this fall's class of neophyte Oscar contenders -- is 22-year-old Elizabeth Olsen. The younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley may have earned her first credits as a child actor in her siblings' tween franchise-building movies, but she launches her very serious film career this October in the Sundance award-winning Martha Marcy May Marlene, Sean Durkin's deeply observed drama-thriller about a shell-shocked young woman (Olsen) who reunites with her family after spending years under the influence of a sexually abusive cult.
more »
It's been a hell of an autumn so far for Zachary Quinto, who has followed his appearance in last month's Anna Faris comedy What's Your Number? with a forthcoming role in the FX hit American Horror Story and the lead in writer-director J.C. Chandor's superb economic-meltdown drama Margin Call. And he dominated headlines last weekend after officially coming out as gay.
more »
Ten years after working as a director and consulting producer on Freaks and Geeks, the heartwarming television series about a few misunderstood high school troublemakers (and their more wholesome peers), Jake Kasdan found his biggest box office success this summer with Bad Teacher, another project profiling a misunderstood hallway troublemaker. Starring Cameron Diaz as an English teacher more interested in smoking pot and procuring breast implants than molding the the minds of her middle school students, Bad Teacher earned over $200 million worldwide, establishing Kasdan -- son of The Big Chill and Accidental Tourist filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan -- as a heavyweight comedic director and rounding out a summer known for it's R-rated, female-led comedies.
more »
Writer-director J.C. Chandor isn't traditional Verge material -- a 15-year veteran of commercials, documentaries and short films whose dramatic feature debut, Margin Call features a eye-popping ensemble cast of Oscar winners (Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons), seasoned pros (Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker) and next-generation standouts (Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley) taking on the tale of a New York City investment bank flirting with oblivion at the dawn of the ongoing financial crisis. And thanks to both the cast and his own formidable chops, Chandor pulls it off with impressive aplomb.
more »
As noted earlier, Emily Browning was among the squad of young talent to storm this year's Hamptons International Film Festival. The Australian actress best known for Hollywood efforts Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events and this year's Sucker Punch dropped by this time around for something completely different: Sleeping Beauty, writer-director Julia Leigh's disturbing dive into the realm of somnambulistic sex work.
more »
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.
more »
"Usually when I hear the words 'family drama,' I run," said Willem Dafoe, who nevertheless found something to savor in writer-director Dennis Lee's Fireflies in the Garden. Little did Dafoe or his castmates Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson, Hayden Panettiere and least of all Lee himself know that their particular family drama wouldn't make it to American theaters only today -- nearly four years after its Berlin Film Festival premiere in 2008.
more »
