Bret Easton Ellis has written six books (his seventh, Imperial Bedrooms, comes out next month), and all six have been optioned by Hollywood. Of those six, four were made into movies, and they run the gamut from iconic to underseen, acclaimed to lambasted. Each day this week, Ellis will tackle a different adaptation of his books for Movieline, giving his take on what worked, what didn't, and what went on behind the scenes.
As a property, Less Than Zero heralded the arrival of two major talents: Bret Easton Ellis, the young author who had written the novel while in college, and Robert Downey Jr., who co-starred in the 1987 film adaptation as the wily junkie Julian. Still, while the Marek Kanievska-directed movie had style to burn and gorgeous production design (by Barbara Ling) and cinematography (by Ed Lachman), it softened and moralized Ellis's sex-drugs-and-violence tale by considerable amounts.
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There's a bit of cognitive dissonance that happens when you watch Imogen Poots in Solitary Man: she's utterly convincing as a confident Manhattan teenager who sexually entangles herself with the boyfriend (Michael Douglas) of her wealthy mother (Mary-Louise Parker), but with a name like "Imogen Poots," there's no way she's actually American. In fact, the 20-year-old Poots is British and, until now, best known for playing one of the young leads in 28 Weeks Later. That should change after the one-two-three punch Poots has coming in Solitary Man, the Cannes drama Chatroom, and the Cary Fukunaga-directed Jane Eyre, where she plays rival to Mia Wasikowska.
As Solitary Man sees release this week, Poots called up Movieline to discuss the sitcom that helped her with an American accent, the perils of technology, and the pleasures of working twice opposite Michael Fassbender.
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After a relatively quiet decade spent dabbling in TV, studio comedies and a few underperforming indies, Michael Douglas is taking no prisoners in 2010. Currently in Cannes promoting Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps -- in which he reprises his Oscar-winning role as treacherous capitalist baron Gordon Gekko -- Douglas spent the earlier part of this week in New York talking to Movieline about his other cutthroat comeback kid in Solitary Man.
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Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. Today we hear from Daniel Kraus, whose superb Work Series gets a showcase this weekend in Chicago.
Remember those seven masterpieces of the '00s you've likely never seen? Hopefully you have checked out at least some of them by now -- particularly the endlessly intriguing work of Chicago filmmaker Daniel Kraus. Since 2004, the documentarian has delivered three films chronicling ordinary Americans at their rather extraordinary jobs. Their tiles are self-explanatory and deceptively simple -- Sheriff, Musician and Kraus's latest, Professor. The films, meanwhile, are anything but.
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Any 10-year-old's life would probably change when cast as the young lead in a horror film. But Michael Paul Stephenson wasn't cast in just any horror film back in 1989. He whimpered and winced through Troll 2, which has since earned a rarified cult-classic distinction as the worst movie ever made. And now, having lived to tell, Stevenson will this weekend unveil Best Worst Movie, his new documentary about living to tell.
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The Saturday Night Live process can take a lot out of a person, as Movieline found out last week while speaking with Kenan Thompson in between rehearsals for the now legendary Betty White episode. In fact, the actor -- whose skilled impressions (Al Roker, Whoopi, Tiger Woods) and inventive characters (Deandre Cole, Jean K. Jean) have made him the hardest-working male cast member this season -- was so busy writing and rehearsing that he had no idea that Alec Baldwin had been confirmed as the season's finale host. In spite of Kenan's grueling schedule, he still found the energy to tell Movieline about the sketch he is dying to get on the air and the actors he would love to see host the show next season.
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It's purely accidental that Jesse Eisenberg should have three movies opening in theaters in the next 10 days. Still, it's all the reminder you need that the 26-year-old New Yorker is as in demand as virtually any young actor in the business. Coming off 2009's mainstream tandem of Zombieland and Adventureland, Eisenberg begins an all indie May this Friday in New York with the microbudget marvel The Living Wake. He follows that next week with the drug-running drama Holy Rollers and the Michael Douglas showcase Solitary Man (as well as Wake's L.A. opening). And then there's David Fincher's The Social Network, which he just completed as well. Needless to say, we had plenty to catch up on recently when Eisenberg called Movieline HQ.
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Laura Harring can't help it: Mystery just follows her wherever she goes. It's what made her perfect for the alluring amnesiac in David Lynch's masterpiece Mulholland Drive, and the ideal candidate to play Chuck Bass's engimatic mother this season on Gossip Girl. Even in her real life, Harring can get people speculating with little more than a tossed-off comment, as she did when she hinted recently that there might be more Mulholland left in her future.
As Harring prepared for her Screen Actors Guild Conversation Forum tonight in Los Angeles, Movieline spoke to the actress to see what she meant about a return to the world of David Lynch, and how her own ties to royalty helped prepare her for her plunge into Gossip Girl.
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Last week's pivotal episode of Lost brought with it many casualties, and though Jin, Sun, and Sayid all got their due, we at Movieline would like to sing a ballad for Frank Lapidus. Over the last three seasons of Lost, Jeff Fahey has managed to make his errant pilot character one of the show's most-liked with little more than a pocketful of one-liners in his arsenal. He may never have gotten his own flashback episode, but damn if we didn't love him all the same.
Last week was a big one for Fahey, between that nutso Lost episode and the trailer for Machete, where he reprises his Grindhouse role for director Robert Rodriguez. I called him up yesterday to chat about both.
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In Hollywood, Justin Theroux puts most other multi-hyphenates to shame. The 38-year-old actor is already well-known for roles in film (Mulholland Drive, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle) and TV (Six Feet Under), and he even directed the Sundance entry Dedication, but after co-writing the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder, he's suddenly become the town's most in-demand screenwriter. Iron Man 2 is his latest credit, though Theroux's got many more scripts on his plate, including Space Invader, Chief Ron, and Zoolander 2, the latter of which he'll direct. (If you'd rather see him in front of a camera, never fear: he'll play the villain in next year's James Franco/Danny McBride stoner comedy Your Highness).
Movieline already teased a little bit of our interview with Theroux; now, here's the rest, where he describes his unlikely career shift, the unorthodox Iron Man 2 writing process, and what he's got planned for the Zoolander franchise.
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Just when you thought you had a handle on HBO's WWII miniseries The Pacific, along came Rami Malek to mess with your expectations. As the war-ravaged Merriell "Snafu" Shelton, Malek is haunting and morally ambiguous, with a Cajun drawl that's creepy one moment and heartbreaking the next. It isn't just the character, though; Malek seems to operate on an entirely different wavelength from the other actors, with an interest in discovering unique cadences and behavior that has helped to make his past roles as a suicide bomber on this season of 24 and a gay teen in The War at Home just as memorable.
As The Pacific draws to a close, Movieline spoke to the 28-year-old actor about how difficult the miniseries has been to shake, and what's next for him in the Tom Hanks-directed Larry Crowne.
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In many ways, Jackie Earle Haley's new status as a fanboy icon is as unlikely as the actor's comeback itself. After success as a child actor and then a long hiatus from the industry, Haley was enticed back into work through two stately dramas, All the King's Men and Little Children. Still, it's his work in Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the TV series Human Target -- not to mention that variable voice -- that have quickly given Haley his bona fides in the Comic-Con community.
Haley rang up Movieline this week to talk about that evolution, what he thinks of the newly announced Elm Street sequel, and what recent film gave him a "nerdgasm."
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Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week we hear from Oscar-nominee Laura Poitras about her new documentary The Oath, which arrives this weekend in limited release.
The oath referred to in the title of Laura Poitras's latest doc is a fairly simple, straightforward one -- a brief pledge sworn by new members upon their induction into al-Qaeda. That's about all that's simple about The Oath, however, which tracks two of those members who've since moved on: Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard Abu Jandal, and his brother-in-law (and bin Laden's former driver) Salim Hamdan.
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In Nicole Holofcener's new film Please Give, there's always a catch. Catherine Keener's character is empathetic and intelligent, but she's the vintage furniture store equivalent of an ambulance chaser, while Oliver Platt plays a dad who's soft and accommodating, but he's also carrying on an affair. As Rebecca Hall's boyfriend, Thomas Ian Nicholas comes with his own catch -- he's adorable, but his lack of height is constantly harped upon by Hall's grandmother -- yet Nicholas so sunny that he's like a life preserver in a sea of neuroses.
As reports circulate that about the revival of the American Pie franchise that Nicholas hails from, the actor called up Movieline to discuss Holfocener, height, and whether he'd be willing to return for more Pie.
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If ever there were a year for Annette Bening to have "Her Year," 2010 might be it. The 51-year-old actress has a relative windfall of projects arriving in theaters, starting Friday with the drama Mother and Child and continuing this summer with the Sundance darling The Kids Are All Right. But one thing at a time: Mother features Bening as Karen, a nurse haunted by her decision as a teenager to give up her baby for adoption.
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