Movie producers routinely say they're about artistic integrity, but Metalwork Pictures' Andrew Levitas finds himself in the unique position of actually being an artist himself, having come up through the New York City art scene as a heralded painter, sculptor, and photographer. So when he speaks of box office potential as being almost incidental to a film as work of art, he's the rare producer who actually sounds genuinely unconcerned with financial returns.
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Bad Teacher presents both good news and bad news for fans of Jason Segel. Your favorite Apatow repertory player is quite hilarious in the film as a gym teacher hot for teacher (Cameron Diaz's titular poor educator), but he's decidedly a supporting player. Which actually isn't that bad for Segel when you think about it -- especially since he's spent the last two years working on How I Met Your Mother and writing a pair of highly anticipated films: the upcoming rom-com Five-Year Engagement and a little thing called The Muppets.
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About three years ago, in the same year he landed the gig directing the second film in the Twilight film franchise, Chris Weitz fell in love with a script about a poor illegal immigrant and single father chasing the American dream in East Los Angeles. Entitled The Gardener, the project would feature no stars, shoot on location in gang-affiliated L.A., and would never in a million years enjoy a hundred million dollar opening weekend. Weitz had to do it.
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As evidenced by dozens of E! True Hollywood Stories, it is rare for a child actor to gracefully make the leap into a successful adult acting career. Yet Sara Paxton, the California-raised blonde who stars in Ti West's horror film The Innkeepers, has done just that, beginning with a role as "Child at Party" in 1997's Liar, Liar and continuing today with at least seven projects in various stages of production according to her IMDB page.
This week, Paxton took a break from the Los Angeles Film Festival excitement to discuss her creepy experience on the set of The Innkeepers, her seamless transition from child to adult actress and the death-defying underwater stunts required of her on Shark Night 3-D.
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If, as some have suggested, we are inhabiting a new golden age of documentaries, then it will be necessary at some point to determine its standard bearers. There's Errol Morris, the Twitter-friendly elder statesman. There's Ondi Timoner, the culture-watching, footage-hoarding obsessive. There's Morgan Spurlock, the avatar of self-regard. There's Daniel Kraus, the vocation-spying heir to Frederick Wiseman. There's Charles Ferguson, the bone-dry think-tanker whose Wall Street wonkery eclipsed Banksy at this year's Oscars. (Oh, did I mention there's Banksy?) And among a handful of others, there's Marshall Curry -- you know, the humane one.
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Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino (Alias, LOST, Star Trek, Up, Super 8) has created some of the most memorable aural film and television moments in the last decade, notably working time and time again with a chosen few close collaborators including J.J. Abrams and the folks at Pixar. So on the eve of his latest film, the globe-trotting sequel Cars 2 (his fourth Pixar score since 2004's The Incredibles), Movieline asked Giacchino to share his pro tips for mastering the film-scoring game.
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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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The new trailer for Craig Brewer's Footloose remake debuted today, offering your first sneak peek at the contemporized, MTV-friendly update of the 1984 Kevin Bacon classic. To learn more about Brewer's fresh-but-faithful take on the trailblazing dance pic, Movieline spoke with star and award-winning dancer Kenny Wormald, your new Ren McCormack. (To answer your first question: Yes, he's a fan of the original, even though it came out the year he was born.)
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Liv Tyler's latest film, The Ledge, features the actress as a woman mired in a love triangle with her fundamentalist Christian husband (played by Patrick Wilson) and the more secular-minded hunk next door (Charlie Hunnam) -- a scenario that ultimately plays out with the neighbor contemplating suicide on a building ledge high above Baton Rouge. There's a lot to dig into there -- which Movieline will do closer to The Ledge's July 8 theatrical release (it's currently available on VOD) -- but for now let's reflect elsewhere in the latest round of My Favorite Scene.
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Of all the people milling around downtown Los Angeles this week for the city's 17th annual film festival, the last person you might expect to see is a profane rapper known as much for his diamond grill as his tendency to title albums around the word "crunk." Like Lil Jon, the rapper/producer/entrepreneur who was inexplicably "hosting" last night's screening of The Devil's Double, Lee Tamahori's acclaimed drama about the bodyguard of Saddam Hussein's vicious son, Uday.
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Writer-director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean makes his feature debut with the L.A. Film Fest entry On the Ice, a character tale about two Alaskan teenagers wrestling with guilt after the accidental murder of a friend. With its isolated setting, cast of non-actors, and rollercoaster ride of a Sundance premiere, the indie drama isn't the easiest sell for mainstream America, but it's a film that deserves to find an audience -- a window into a generation of Alaskan teens balancing native culture with hip-hop, at a unique crossroads between community traditions and the volatile influence of urban culture.
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David Hyde Pierce returns to cinemas next week as the title character in The Perfect Host, a psychological thriller meets cat-and-mouse mystery meets dark, dark comedy about a fugitive bank robber (Clayne Crawford) who takes refuge at what soon becomes the dinner party from hell. The less said about that, the better (for now, anyway; we'll hear further from Pierce when Host lands in theaters), but there's certainly no harm in playing a round of My Favorite Scene with the beloved Emmy- and Tony-winner. And it is a doozy -- maybe our best to date.
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Along with the likes of Sir Michael Caine and Eddie Izzard, actress Emily Mortimer gives voice to one of the new additions to the Cars universe across the pond: British intelligence agent Holley Shiftwell, a smart and confident paper-pushing analyst who gets thrust into the field (and into the life and heart of Radiator Springs tow truck Mater) in John Lasseter's globe-trotting Cars 2. For Mortimer, a self-avowed Pixar nut, it was an offer she couldn't refuse. And she's definitely now drinking the Pixar Kool-Aid.
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This summer's most unlikely super hero may well be Tom Hanks' titular everyman in Larry Crowne, an unsinkable Navy veteran who loses his job and decides to bounce back by going to college. Star Hanks, who co-writes and directs for the first time since 1996's That Thing You Do!, was taken by the idea of a tale about re-invention, loss, and bouncing back, and reminisced with co-star Julia Roberts about the moment in his life when things looked so dire he wasn't sure a Hollywood career was in the cards.
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In their new film The Art of Getting By (nee Homework, an alum of this year's Sundance film Festival), Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts play George and Sally, a pair of New York City high-schoolers brought together by George's prodigious senior-year slacking and Sally's... well, she's not sure. Their attempts to figure each other out result in a cascade of revelations, misunderstandings, an especially drunken New Year's Eve, awkward sleepovers, love triangles and will-they-or-won't-they scenarios anchored in George's endangered graduation plans. Roberts and Highmore spoke with Movieline this week about all of it, plus Roberts's summer reading regimen to date and what adults apparently don't know about modern teen drinking.
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