In The Kids are All Right, lesbian moms Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) and their teenage children (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) have to withstand a lot upheaval when the kids' feckless sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) comes back into their lives. For director Lisa Cholodenko, making the movie was just as complicated.
Hot in Cleveland's Wendie Malick knows the art of the sitcom forwards and backwards, but that doesn't mean she overlooks the inspirational perks of working with a bunch of TV veterans. We grill her about playing washed-up actress Victoria Chase, remembering Just Shoot Me, and what she's learned from Betty White.
Characters matter as much as the slickly maneuvered capers and gorgeous Manhattan townhouses in USA's White Collar, which returns tonight for its second season. In the comedy-drama, Tim DeKay stars as brilliant FBI agent Peter Burke, who's responsible for convincing Matthew Bomer's con man character Neal Caffrey to continually use his forging knowledge for good, not evil. Throughout the process, the cop and criminal inevitably learn a lot about themselves, and as DeKay told Movieline last week, he's learned plenty from his cable experience, too -- including a new eye for interior decoration.
DeKay rang us up to discuss the pleasures of guest star work (including his character "Bizarro Jerry" on Seinfeld), his role on the sexually charged Tell Me You Love Me, and the one intimate scene he'd love to share with Matthew Bomer.
Like Pink's Hot Dogs, Pauly Shore is a Los Angeles institution that can attract long lines (Encino Man, Son in Law and Jury Duty), has been accused of questionable taste (Bio-Dome, Junket Whore) and never claims to be good for anyone's health. Two decades after he debuted on MTV as a spacey VJ, the actor and comedian -- whose legendary family founded and continues to run the Comedy Store -- is reinventing himself with Adopted, a mockumentary about adopting an African child, while also working on a new MTV project and a film about a "slut vigilante."
Last week, while waiting for a call from Quentin Tarantino, Shore phoned Movieline to discuss his latest film, his "Bill Murray Strategy" and the Weez's newfound maturity.
Face it: after this summer of crappy post-production 3D, you need a palate cleanser, and you shouldn't have to wait until Christmas for Tron Legacy to do the job. Why not let next month's agreeable Step Up 3D fill the void? Not only was it conceived for and shot by 3D cameras, but it also has a leading lady of just as many dimensions: the free-spirited Australian actress Sharni Vinson. Like Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, and Isla Fisher before her, Vinson got her start on the Aussie soap Home and Away, but none of them ever had to dance their butts off amidst 3D raindrops, so points for Sharni.
How does it feel to be part of Hollywood's recent Australian invasion? Vinson told Movieline about how she managed it, whether she auditions with her natural accent, and what cruel joke she had played on her by Step Up 3D's director, Jon M. Chu.
There wasn't a new episode of True Blood last Sunday, but then again, you probably needed that downtime to decompress from the previous episode's insane final scene. On a show that commingles sex and violence as a general rule, that last encounter between Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Lorena (Mariana Klaveno) may have shredded the envelope: testing the limits of vampire-on-vampire hate-sex, Bill twisted Lorena's head completely around between thrusts -- and true to Lorena's malevolent nature, she loved it.
Did Klaveno feel the same way about having to shoot it, though? With True Blood resuming its run this weekend, she called up Movieline to discuss exactly how they made it work, why Lorena just can't get over Bill, and how J.J. Abrams is inadvertently responsible.
There were all sorts of reasons that Grease shouldn't have worked: it was coming at the tail end of the musical's golden age in 1978, it was a period piece, and its stars were way, way too old to be playing teenagers -- yet something about that perfect lead casting of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and those irresistible songs made it a phenomenon. Now, as Paramount re-releases Grease in a new sing-a-long format, Movieline called up director Randal Kleiser to reminisce and dish.
Want to know what he thinks of Grease 2, modern-day musicals, or his very first role in a student film directed by George Lucas? Read on.
Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. Today we hear from Marshall Curry, whose Racing Dreams opens Friday in New York and July 23 in Los Angeles.
After earning an Oscar nomination for his gripping 2005 political documentary Street Fight, filmmaker Marshall Curry turned to perhaps the last subject anyone would have seen coming: NASCAR. More specifically, the "Little League of NASCAR," where the adolescent subjects of Curry's fine new film Racing Dreams have a lot more at stake than just a trophy at the end of their 20th lap.
What a difference a few months make. When we profiled Josh Hutcherson in The Verge last August, he was a promising young actor in two low-profile films that failed to do much business. This year, though, his career has taken off with a bang: not only was he heavily considered to play the title character in the reboot of Spider-Man, but the 17-year-old has supplanted Brendan Fraser as the star of their franchise, Journey to the Center of the Earth. And then there's Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right: as Laser, the young son who spurs his mothers (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) to meet the sperm donor who fathered him, Hutcherson turns in a winning performance in one of the best films of the year.
Last month, I sat down with the up-and-comer to discuss how shocked he was that people found Kids to be a comedy, what exactly is going on with the troubled remake of Red Dawn, and how he feels when he loses out on a major role (in what turned out to be a prescient conversation).
In his 30 years as a showbiz mainstay, Alan Ruck has starred in movies and TV shows that have come to exemplify their times. The John Hughes movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which Ruck played hooky accomplice Cameron Frye, remains a hallmark for rambunctious '80s teen comedies, while Spin City, where Ruck played the quipping Stuart Bondek, typifies the multicamera sitcom streak of the '90s. Now, his new NBC miniseries Persons Unknown encapsulates the DVD-friendly serializaed appeal of television today, complete with a jigsaw mystery that can please fans of Veronica Mars, Lost, and The Twilight Zone alike.
Ruck phoned Movieline last week to discuss the curious production of Persons Unknown, his disappointment with current TV, and the legacy of John Hughes.
How do you stand out in the ensemble cast of Predators, which features actors like Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, and Topher Grace? Simple: you bring a big freakin' samurai sword. As the Yakuza assassin Hanzo, Louis Ozawa Changchien gets what may be the Nimrod Antal-helmed reboot's most striking scene: a "mano-a-alien" battle royale that draws on Chanchien's years of Kendo experience. Still, while the swordfighting skill is all his, in real life, Changchien couldn't be more different: he's a quick-witted nice guy who's just as excited about his considerably more down-to-earth roles coming up in Fair Game and Kathryn Bigelow's new project.
Last week, Changchien called up Movieline to discuss those parts as well as one of his earliest roles: a Jell-O pudding commercial opposite Bill Cosby himself that left him battle-scarred in a way far worse than any swordfight gone awry.
From time to time, Movieline likes to check in with actor Jeff Fahey. Wouldn't you, if given the opportunity?
Jeff Fahey is many things: an actor, a dancer trained at the Joffrey Ballet, a humanitarian, and (of course) the Lawnmower Man. You can add one more to that list: Jeff Fahey is a damn good liar! Last time we checked in with him, Fahey swore up and down that his Movieline-beloved character Frank Lapidus had been killed off Lost in an ambiguous submarine explosion, so you can imagine our surprise when he popped up in the series finale to fly most of the main cast off the island, once and for all.
Fahey's been out of the country since then, but now that he's back, he called up Movieline to apologize for his ruse, discuss the finale, and exclusively announce two bits of good news: an ambassadorship and a part in a new Gary Oldman film.
After earning an Oscar nomination as the sultry object of a wine aficionado's affection in Sideways, Virginia Madsen realized that there still weren't many good film roles left for actresses. That's why the 80's sex symbol made the transition from the multiplex to mainstream television, and in her second-ever regular role on a network series, Madsen is tackling one of the biggest challenges of her career: balancing her well-honed dramatic talents while discovering comedy. The satisfying role is courtesy of ABC's summer dramedy Scoundrels, where Madsen stars as a headstrong mother of four who is determined to give her family an honest life after her husband (David James Elliott) is sentenced to prison.
Last week, Madsen phoned Movieline to explain why actresses are fleeing to television, the time her brain literally exploded, and her secret to great onscreen (and offscreen) chemistry.
Vinny Guadagnino is the self-touted family man of MTV's reality juggernaut Jersey Shore, the ever-pinchable voice of reason who declares the "GTL" lifestyle a little ridiculous and who tames JWOWW after she punches The Situation in the chest. He's a party guy whose fist-pimping prowess is second to none, though his vainglorious co-stars tend to dwarf him when it comes to rambunctious spectacle and occasional insanity. Luckily, with the premiere of season two less than a month away, Vinny's just as torqued as Snooki or DJ Pauly D for the debauchery to begin anew. But did he thrive away from Seaside Heights in the new ecosystem of Miami? Movieline wanted answers.
We phoned Vinny earlier this week to discuss season two, his artistic (and political!) ambitions, and the rumors that he won't be on board for season three.
Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week we hear from Vikram Jayanti, director of The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector, which is now playing in New York with dates to come in other cities and on TV as well.
Kind of like grieving, there are five stages to viewing Vikram Jayanti's enthralling new documentary The Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector.
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