Summer movies rarely celebrate individual actors as much as they do big budgets, expensive explosions and popcorn plots. As such, it takes an especially powerful performance for an actor to stand out at the multiplex during the warmer months. Thanks to a front-and-center role in The Hangover Part II's marketing campaign, however, one unknown is already getting that rare summer superstar treatment: Crystal, the Capuchin monkey.
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Despite neither adaptation having yet reached multiplexes, last week's revelation by Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige that both Thor and Captain America would receive sequels came as a surprise to no one. But when brought to Thor director Kenneth Branagh's attention today by Movieline, the disclosure did cause a start. "Do you know, if that is true, that is literally the first I've heard of it?" Branagh said. "You are telling me news."
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The 3-D movie renaissance receives a rare art-house shot in the arm this week thanks to none other than Werner Herzog, the prolific, eminently curious filmmaker who gets stereoscopic with his new movie Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog takes viewers on a rare journey inside France's dank, dark Chauvet cave, where 30,000-year-old wall paintings -- the oldest known to civilization -- relate an ancient culture's stirring visions of art and nature.
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Two years after The Hangover became one of the most unexpected summer blockbusters of the last decade, director Todd Phillips reunites with his original cast (and introduces a monkey that is not -- repeat, not -- addicted to cigarettes) in Bangkok for the hotly anticipated sequel The Hangover Part II. It was a long way to go for their art, but that's the price you pay when things need to go a little... well, darker.
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Ostensibly, the Tribeca Film Festival is about New Yorkers -- after all, it was started in the wreckage of 9/11 to bring a modicum of healing to lower Manhattan. With that in mind, what better place for a film like Roadie to premiere? If only because the film oozes with New York authenticity and attitude like a fresh out of the oven pizza slice.
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UK actors, comics and longtime pals Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan (pictured L-R) last week paid a visit to the Tribeca Film Festival, which hosted the American premiere of their new road movie The Trip. But that didn't mean they weren't game for a lightning round of summer-movie first impressions.
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What better way to kick off the summer than with the hero whose mighty hammer is set to swing down and launch the biggest movie season of the year? Movieline spoke with Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth -- Australian actor, costume-ripper, and onetime Verge designee -- about his career-changing turn as Marvel Studios' God of Thunder, how he's currently preparing to resume the role in Joss Whedon's upcoming Avengers film -- or films -- and more. By Odin's beard, dive in!
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In Disney's high school dramedy Prom, newcomer Thomas McDonell plays an archetypal bad boy straight out of a John Hughes flick -- sensitive, rebellious, and enticingly misunderstood. In real life, the 24-year-old former art student seems such the antithesis of the typical teen idol that you could call him the Judd Nelson of the Tiger Beat set. (His follow-up to Prom: Playing the young Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows.) Surely, McDonell's the only Disney star in history that can make legions of tween girls scream with one brooding glance and say he's performed Ionesco on stage in Scotland. So how did McDonell shoot into the spotlight so quickly -- and what's Jackie Chan got to do with it?
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In a few short months, moviegoers will get to see Chris Evans fight the evil Red Skull in the big-budget franchise starter Captain America: First Avenger. Before he bursts into the superhero stratosphere, however, Evans has to fight some equally imposing foes in Puncture, a film about drug addiction and health care group purchasing organizations that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.
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There's a heartbreaking relevance to this week's historical drama The Bang Bang Club, based on the true story of four photographers who risked their lives to cover the brutalities of civil war in apartheid-era South Africa; like photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, both tragically killed this week in Libya, two of the four founding members of the so-called club fell victim to the violence they fought to bring to the world's attention. Days before Hetherington and Hondros died, Movieline spoke with actor Taylor Kitsch about the responsibility of portraying real-life South African photojournalist Kevin Carter and the risks Carter and his colleagues took, emotionally and physically, in the line of duty.
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Zach Braff returns to the big screen this week -- sort of -- in the new drama The High Cost of Living. Technically it's a VOD release (premiering this week via Tribeca Film) that will make its way to select theaters next month, but that's all the better for audiences, really -- any opportunity to check out its dark, romantic, gritty charm is one worth taking advantage of.
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Though it may not look like it outside our windows at the moment, it's that time of year again in New York -- when the birds chirp, the flowers blossom and the international film community descends for the 10th annual Tribeca Film Festival. Among the visitors set to attend: Adrien Brody, a native New Yorker returning to the festival with the much-anticipated Detachment.
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Judging from his press conference for this week's Madea's Big Happy Family, Tyler Perry hasn't yet received a fruit basket of peace from famous detractor Spike Lee. "I'm so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee," Perry announced to press Monday. "Spike can go straight to hell!" Tell us how you really feel, Tyler!
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The forthcoming romantic comedy Something Borrowed, based on Emily Giffin's bestselling novel, has more at stake than just living up to the expectations of book's devoted fan base. It's also the long-awaited first completed effort by the producing team at 2S Films -- an upstart shingle co-founded by a certain double-Oscar winner you may have heard of. No pressure!
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Of the handful of up-and-comers rumored to be in contention for Tony Gilroy's upcoming spy spin-off The Bourne Legacy, 30-year-old Taylor Kitsch's name was frequently bandied about as a potential front-runner for the action franchise. Speaking with Movieline over the weekend while discussing his upcoming film The Bang Bang Club, Kitsch hinted that his turn in Oliver Stone's Savages might make a Bourne outing impossible.
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