Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly showcase of up-and-coming nonfiction cinema. Usually each installment features one new film and filmmaker, but hey: It's Oscars Weekend! This calls for an exception. As such, Movieline reached out to this year's nominees for Best Documentary Feature, hosting a virtual roundtable including:
· Rebecca Cammisa (Which Way Home, about Latin American child migrants to the U.S.)
· Judith Erlich and Rick Goldsmith (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, about the famous Vietnam War-era whistleblower)
· Robert Kenner (Food Inc., about the grave implications of U.S. food production)
· Anders Østergaard (Burma VJ, about citizen journalists documenting uprisings in Burma)
· Louie Psihoyos (The Cove, about the secret slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan)
Congrats to them! But now we have some questions. Take a moment to get to know them, their stories, their takes on the race, and, of course, their respective Oscar-night dates.
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Kelly Killoren Bensimon has been a lot of things in her life -- model, magazine editor, author, jewelry designer, self-proclaimed equestrian, and the former wife of famous photographer Gilles Bensimon -- but within the past year, her reputation has exploded thanks to her newest and most sinister role (and landmark fight with Bethenny Frankel) on The Real Housewives of New York City, Bravo's reality show dedicated to the women of Manhattan's upper crust. Just ahead tonight's third season premiere, Bensimon talked with Movieline about fashion industry events, the intentions of Ms. Frankel, and the camera's ability to lie.
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After each Winter Olympics, American athletes typically get two weeks of residual attention before they disappear back into obscurity. That is not the case for Johnny Weir, the flashy figure skater from Coatesville, Penn., whose star has only grown brighter since the games ended on Sunday. Weir's docuseries, Be Good Johnny Weir is just over halfway through its first season on the Sundance Channel, and the skater, whose disappointing sixth place finish last week was largely believed to be political, is busy planning his future in skating, fashion and television.
Moveline caught up with the Olympian after a whirlwind day of press to discuss his experience with reality television, his friendship with Lady Gaga and the one clichéd performance that he still wants to try.
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If it's Oscar spoilers you want, the internet abounds -- but why rely on rumor and hearsay, when you can go directly to the Psychic Source for your 2010 Academy Awards predictions? An e-mail from the friendly, telepathic tarot readers at "the nation's most respected psychic service" arrived in the Movieline inbox today, and its longshot picks raised more than a few eyebrows around HQ. Among them: Morgan Freeman for Best Actor, Woody Harrelson for Best Supporting Actor, and Harvey Weinstein's best Purim-hijacking efforts would be richly rewarded, as Inglourious Basterds was pegged to take the top trophy. We were intrigued, and immediately arranged for a consultation with Maxine, their resident Oscars expert. Come now as we gaze into her crystal ball and the near, Shankman-colored future comes into focus.
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There are good years for a filmmaker, and then there are great years. Sophie Barthes' 2009 was an all-out great year, beginning with the premiere and acquisition of her feature debut Cold Souls at Sundance, followed by the critical acclaim that greeted her Paul Giamatti-plays-himself dark comedy upon its release last summer. Add a new baby and three Spirit Award nominations (including Best First Screenplay) to the mix, and Barthes has a considerably tough act to follow. But as she told Movieline in the days leading up to the Spirits, she's ready to get back to work -- even if it means contending with awards madness.
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Most people still associate Patrick Warburton with his recurring role on Seinfeld as David Puddy. But these days, Warburton can be heard on Fox's Family Guy, where he voices Joe Swanson, the show's paraplegic cop, and seen on CBS's mid-season sitcom Rules of Engagement, where the square-jawed actor matches his co-star David Spade laugh-for-laugh. Tonight, Rules premieres its fourth season, which Warburton eagerly discussed with Movieline last week.
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Robert Pattinson probably didn't want to spend his Saturday at a press junket any more than the journalists who greeted him there, but we're all professionals here. Especially Pattinson, whose new film Remember Me features the young megastar in a searching departure from his Twilight turn as Edward Cullen. There's still the young torment, the dilemma of first love (with a fellow NYU student played by Emilie De Ravin) and, well, that awe-inspiring hair. But in determining what makes his character Tyler Hawkins tick, there's also a somewhat shocking awareness of mortality beneath all that gorgeous sulking. Between his aloof father (Pierce Brosnan), his compassionate mother (Lena Olin), his confidante little sister (Ruby Jerins) and the ghost of his dead older brother, Tyler is always just on the verge of some discovery -- and despite what Pattinson's fans may crave, it's not quite catharsis.
I'd love to be more specific, and I will be as Remember Me's review embargo drops prior to its March 12 opening. Until then, Pattinson helped Movieline make at least a little sense of it all at last week's press gathering in New York:
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35-year-old Rian Johnson exploded onto the indie film scene in 2005 with his feature debut, Brick -- a captivating noir that both honored the form and subverted it by setting the mystery at a suburban California high school.
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In the new film She's Out of My League, actress Alice Eve's looks are evaluated on a ten-point scale, and they almost break the system. Certainly, Eve is a blond bombshell in the Christie Brinkley mold, but there's more to her than just that; for starters, the 28-year-old actress has a lovely British accent in real life (and among Brits attempting to emulate a sun-kissed blonde aesthetic, she's unique in her ability to not resemble an orange gorgon). She plays American in League, and she'll play Irish in the upcoming Sex and the City 2, where her pretty nanny has the potential to play spoiler in Charlotte's marriage.
So how does Eve feel about her coronation as one of the most beautiful starlets in Hollywood? Conflicted, as she told Movieline.
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In The One-Page Screenplay. we approach screenwriters we like and ask them to compose a script that exists on a single page -- a sort of movieku. We then scan the page and share it with all of you. It's a pretty simple but challenging format (imagine asking P.T. Anderson to boil his vision down to one page), but it also offers limitless creative possibilities. And what better way to illustrate that than with the sprawling space opera Attempt #3, by the filthy and hilarious members of anonymous screenwriting collective The Robotard 8000?
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It's a little strange to talk to Brian Geraghty over the phone after watching his new film, the indie gem Easier with Practice. In the movie, Geraghty (best known for playing the tremulous Eldridge in The Hurt Locker) plays Davy Mitchell, an insecure writer who blossoms after a random call from a strange woman turns into phone sex and then, something even more unusual and unexpected. Luckily, the film is based on a true story written by Found magazine creator Davy Rothbaart (and directed by newcomer Kyle Patrick Alvarez), so no matter how much Geraghty and I got along on the phone, the words "What are you wearing?" would probably never be uttered.
Still, the two of us found plenty of other things to talk about, whether it was the best way to shoot some hot and heavy phone sex, his thoughts on The Hurt Locker's Oscar chances, or his candid admission about The Subject was Roses, the play he's currently starring in opposite Martin Sheen and Frances Conroy in Los Angeles.
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Well, here's a pleasant surprise: a horror remake that's actually good. I'm speaking of The Crazies, the updating of the 1973 George Romero film about a biological weapons spill that turns the population of a rural town into remorseless killers. For director Breck Eisner, son of controversial former Disney czar Michael Eisner, it's his first feature since 2005's epic dud Sahara disappeared into a sandstorm of legal filings. The Crazies brings a measure of redemption -- it's a taut and beautifully shot horror film that manages to both honor and embellish upon the classic '70s exploitation genre to which it pays homage. We spoke this week with Eisner about staying true to the spirit of Romero, what he learned from Sahara, and the status of his dream project: a huge-budget version of Flash Gordon, based on the original Alex Raymond comic strips.
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Irish actor Ciarán Hinds has been in roughly 47 percent of the film and television shows produced in the last decade or so, most notably in key supporting roles from There Will Be Blood to Margot at the Wedding to the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and as Julius Caesar on HBO's Rome. But only now are American audiences seeing him carry a feature film, and what a doozy: Straight outta Ireland, the tiny drama/ghost story/romantic potboiler The Eclipse mashes genres and scares with literally shocking ease. You'll be hearing more about the film here in Hinds's own words when it opens next month, but for now, let's steal a few minutes from one of the hardest working men in show business to play My Favorite Scene!
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In The Yellow Handkerchief, Maria Bello plays May, a woman who has to be willing to give out second chances in order to make her relationship work with the conflicted Brett (William Hurt). In real life, Bello's more used to taking chances; after rising to fame on ER, she turned down a lucrative contract to pursue a career that's mixed studio fare with daring independent films, and her passionate advocacy has taken her to places like the devastated Haiti, where she just spent a month on behalf of Artists for Peace and Justice.
Last week, Movieline sat down with the actress for a wide-ranging conversation that touched on controversial Sundance film The Killer Inside Me, the role that reawakened Bello's passion as an actress, and the Best Picture candidate that made her cry.
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Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's new weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week, we hear from the director of The Art of the Steal, opening Friday in New York and Philadelphia, March 12 in Los Angeles and currently available for on-demand viewing via Sundance Selects, iTunes and Netflix.
If, as its subject has said, the tightrope-walking exploits detailed in Man on Wire were the "artistic crime of the century," then the skulduggery reported in Don Argott's new documentary The Art of the Steal might be the artistic crime of the 21st century. The film orbits around the Barnes Foundation, a venerated 90-year-old arts repository and educational center just outside Philadelphia, and the home of billions of dollars worth of post-impressionist and early-Modern work by Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne and other masters. Before dying in 1951, its founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, left a will explicitly stating the collection was not to tour, be relocated or sold by the Foundation. In comprehensive and wholly entertaining terms, Art of the Steal shows how Philadelphia's art establishment and political leadership colluded to vanquish that dying wish and take control of a world treasure. Argott (who previously had doc hits with Rock School and Two Days in April) talked to Movieline about following the money, the trick(s) to making an exposé and relearning how to look at art.
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