Director Mikael Hafstrom (1408, Derailed) was initially skeptical of taking on the exorcism thriller The Rite, about a young priest (Colin O'Donoghue) who learns the craft of ghost -- okay, demon -- busting from Sir Anthony Hopkins in Rome. Then he read the non-fiction book which provided the basis for its story based from American priest (and guest Movieline critic) Father Gary Thomas, and found that he could bring more to the table than the schlocky thrills found in most other genre offerings.
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Although it wasn't quite as universally panned as Dito Montiel's Son of No One, and no one lost it and shouted at the filmmakers in a post-screening rant, Mark Pellington's dark bromantic thriller I Melt with You was the most controversially-received film at this year's Sundance Film Festival to land a distribution deal. (Read Movieline's assessment of the film and its disastrous first screening.) Hours after it was announced that Magnolia Pictures would release the polarizing film, Movieline caught up with Pellington and screenwriter Glenn Porter to discuss how they've been processing the negative reviews, how the deal with Magnolia went down, and what kind of tweaks will be made to the film before its theatrical release.
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The second season of Bravo's The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection came to swishy, yet tasteful conclusion on Tuesday. Iman reigned over the final three competitors like her queenly cameo in the "Remember the Time" video never ended, and Isaac Mizrahi helped award his favorite designer a deserving victory. Once again we caught up with Mizrahi to discuss choosing a winner, his feelings about a third season, and what he helped teach Bravo.
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The new Anthony Hopkins exorcism thriller The Rite may be a work of fiction, but it was inspired by the real life experiences of Father Gary Thomas, an American priest who studied under a master exorcist in Rome and became the subject of Matt Baglio's book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist. Naturally, Movieline seized the chance to ask the energetic Father Gary to play film critic and weigh in on eight possession horror classics, from The Exorcist to Paranormal Activity to Tim Burton's classic comedy about a lovable "bio-exorcist."
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If you're a gleebaser like me, you're going through serious withdrawal right about now from Fox's Golden Globe-winning comedy. Because while other network series returned from hiatus last week, Ryan Murphy's cast is waiting until Feb. 6 to bounce back from their long holiday vacation with the wildly anticipated post-Super Bowl episode, "The Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle." To tide you over until Glee's zombie-riffic 2011 premiere, here are a few excerpts from Dianna Agron's leg of the I Am Number Four (the Michael Bay and Stephen Spielberg-produced sci-fi film she stars in with Alex Pettyfer and Timothy Olyphant next month) press junket, in which the actress gamely described her gift to the Glee cast, explained why she won't go to the Super Bowl and recounted her own experience with prejudice back in Texas.
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Donald Glover may play Troy Barnes, the purely emotional (quoth co-star Danny Pudi) ex-quarterback on NBC's Community, but he's a realist when it comes to his show's appeal and fans. We caught up with the 27-year-old actor-writer-comic to discuss his own college experience, the best characters to write for on 30 Rock, and how Community may be a "stepping stone" for a better TV world.
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Vampires seem to be a throughline these days in Rachael Leigh Cook's life; the actress co-starred as the obsessive girlfriend of a serial killer in the Sundance entry Vampire the same week real-life husband Daniel Gillies returns as the ambiguous underboss Elijah on the CW's The Vampire Diaries. But lest you VD-heads get taken in by Gillies charms as Movieline has, Cook has a warning she wants to share.
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Forget Lizzie Olsen; the breakout star of Sundance 2011 is clearly 67-year-old Rutger Hauer, who's taken Park City by storm with his star turn in Jason Eisener's grindhouse homage Hobo with a Shotgun. To celebrate the gory, tongue-in-cheek vigilante tale about -- yes -- a homeless hero with a shotgun, the Hobo folks hosted a thematically relevant Bloody Mary hour this morning where Hauer walked in wielding his titular firearm and regaled Movieline with six important revelations/life lessons:
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It was good to be an American last week. After all, not only did Parks and Recreation return to NBC after eight months on the shelf, but people actually watched -- the season three premiere was Parks and Recreation's highest rated episode yet. That was great news for everyone, but especially Chris Pratt. As you may have noticed, the premiere featured an extended "previously on" clip package to open the show, highlighting the unrequited love between Pratt's Andy and Aubrey Plaza's April. He's rapidly becoming Pawnee's answer to Jim Halpert, with 100 percent more flannel.
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When The Social Network's Jeff Cronenweth was nominated on Tuesday morning for Best Cinematography, he joined a very rare network: Father-son Oscar nominees. His late father, Jordan Cronenweth, had worked on films such as Blade Runner and was among the chosen cinematographers at the 1987 ceremony for his work on Peggy Sue Got Married. Movieline spoke to Cronenweth while he had a rare free moment on the set of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo about his reaction to being nominated (hint: he would like to win, too), his competition, and what it means to be in the same company as his late father.
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One look at the gun-crazy poster for The Mechanic and you know what you're in for with this week's hit-man thriller: Lots and lots of gun porn. Pairing Jason Statham as a calculating, composed assassin and Ben Foster as his boss's loose cannon of a son, director Simon West remakes the original 1972 Charles Bronson flick of the same name with a greater focus on his characters. But the initial appeal, as Foster tells Movieline, was the prospect of getting to "blow sh*t up" with Jason Statham.
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When Lucky McKee's Sundance horror entry The Woman premiered in Park City and promptly elicited walkouts, a panic injury, and one irate moviegoer's infamous YouTubed rant, some -- okay, Movieline -- wondered if it was all a stunt. (For a personal retelling of the shouting match that followed, read Drew McWeeny's firsthand account.) To set the record straight, Movieline went straight to the source for McKee's version of what went down when the credits started rolling.
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Just as The Fighter was a near-lock to earn Oscar nominations today, it's a near-lock to win at least one or two statuettes during the Feb. 27 ceremony. If you had predicted this eventuality six years ago when Todd Lieberman and his producing partner David Hoberman first undertook the project -- a troubled drama amid a development slate that included Beauty Shop and The Shaggy Dog -- the producers might have driven you to the hospital themselves. But those crowd-pleasing roots grew into the film The Fighter is today -- an awards-season juggernaut for Best Picture rookies Lieberman, Hoberman and star/co-producer Mark Wahlberg.
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Hans Zimmer has been here before. His nomination today for Inception marked Zimmer's ninth in the Best Original Score category, an award he's won once before, for The Lion King. But on a day most people are celebrating, Zimmer is lamenting the fact that his director, Christopher Nolan (who Zimmer also worked with on the Batman films and The Prestige), was denied a Best Director nomination once again.
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After winning the Best Original Soundtrack for The Social Network at this year's Golden Globes, composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were still not convinced that they would be recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- so much so that Reznor, the former Nine Inch Nails frontman, nervously parked himself in front of the television this morning after a sleepless night to watch the nominations himself. Alas, technological disaster struck -- an irony, considering that Reznor was being recognized for his work in the most tech-savvy film of the year.
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