Since being plucked from obscurity in the early 1970s by Factory filmmaker Paul Morrissey to star in a pair of avant garde monster flicks, German actor Udo Kier has evolved into a full-fledged cult icon. Oscillating comfortably between the art house and grindhouse, Kier's hypnotic and menacing ice-blue gaze has peered out from the dark corners of a vast number of low-budget horror films, countless indies -- including several by longtime friend and collaborator Lars von Trier -- and even the occasional Hollywood blockbuster. His current output is no exception: In the so-bad-it's-amazing Christmas Eve slasher Fall Down Dead, Kier plays The Picasso Killer, for whom murder is delicious kunst. (It just had a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run, but several high-visibility L.A. billboards suggests a The Room - style afterlife might await it.) He follows that with a turn as a non-murderous acting teacher in Werner Herzog's true-crime drama, My Son My Son What Have Ye Done. We spoke with the actor about everything from playing the original sparklepire, to his infamous collaborations with people like Andy Warhol and Madonna, to the true, gardening- and cooking-loving Udo the public rarely gets to see.
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At least until the Weinstein Company moved its terrific comedy Youth in Revolt to Jan. 8, Portia Doubleday was shaping up to be have one of the biggest breakthroughs of 2009. That's fine, though -- now she can have 2010 to herself for a while. Adapted from novelist CD Payne's cult classic about the mischievous misadventures of Nick Twisp (played here by Michael Cera), the film features Doubleday as Sheeni Saunders, the captivating Francophile object of Nick's geek lust. Shielded from Nick's advances by fundamentalist parents who dispatch her to school or anywhere else her paramour (and his wicked alter ego Francois) can't track her down, Sheeni represents both a bad influence and perfect muse. In her first feature film role, Doubleday demonstrates a knack for merging those qualities; Sheeni's kittenish warmth radiates even when she wields her sex appeal and unattainability like the weapon it is. It's a neat trick Doubleday attributes in large part to the guidance of Cera and director Miguel Arteta; the 21-year-old actress sat down with Movieline a while back to discuss their crash course in acting and her road to Revolt.
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One of your five favorite pop culture moments this year may have been HBO's remake of Grey Gardens, so who better to share his own Fave Five than the film's director, Michael Sucsy? Sucsy's 2010 will be spent guiding Jennifer Aniston to hit those high notes, but here were his high notes from 2009:
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Having a conversation with Terry Gilliam is not unlike watching one of his films: In either medium, he likes to throw a lot of ideas out there, and he'll even recreate his trademark fisheye lensing for you by leaning forward to whisper something he knows he shouldn't. In short, it's an experience, as is Gilliam's latest effort, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The onscreen story involves a mad doctor (Christopher Plummer), a devilish antagonist (Tom Waits), and a mysterious amnesiac (Heath Ledger); the offscreen story was dominated by Ledger's death midway into production, which resulted in a rewrite that finds Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell subbing in for the character in scenes Ledger had yet to shoot.
In a wide-ranging, cuss-heavy, finger-pointing discussion with Movieline, Gilliam opened up about Ledger, his problems with Hollywood, the Oscars, Fox Searchlight, The Departed...well, let's just say that there were few topics that went untouched. Enjoy!
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The year-end Fave Five brigade continues with director Nicholas Jasenovec, who picked up a screenwriting award at Sundance this year for the comedy Paper Heart, starring Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera. The 30-year-old director will return to Park City in January to debut his short film Para Fuera, a documentary portrait of noted cardiologist Dr. Richard J. Bing on his 100th birthday. So what were Nicholas's five favorites of 2009? Read on!
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As you settle in for a nice week full of hot chocolate and year-end best-of lists, how about another Fave Five? We already brought you the 2009 pop-culture favorites of Modern Family star Jesse Tyler Ferguson; now, let's check in with actor Zach Roerig. The 24-year-old currently stars on the CW smash The Vampire Diaries, though you may have caught him before that on As the World Turns or during his stint as Tyra's rodeo beau on Friday Night Lights. Zach celebrated 2009 by collecting his five favorite movie quotes. Enjoy!
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Believe Zoe Kazan when she says she didn't mean to be so prolific. After first gaining notice last year in Revolutionary Road, the 26-year-old actress has appeared in film after film (after film!) this year, and this holiday season most of all. Kazan spent the early part of 2009 in I Hate Valentine's Day and the Tribeca entry The Exploding Girl, then sparked to Zac Efron in Me and Orson Welles and sparred with Robin Wright in Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. She'll next be seen as the youngest daughter of exes Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in the Nancy Meyers comedy It's Complicated.
In the meantime, Kazan is busy writing and trying to line up her next theater role while scheduling a trip to Sundance in January to support another film she appears in. With all that on her plate, it's a miracle that she carved out twenty minutes to talk to Movieline about Meryl, mandalas, and female directors.
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With awards season in full swing, Movieline has launched a new recurring feature called "For Your Reconsideration," where we speak to the talented people whose contributions to the year in film are worthy of a second look. This week: Ben Foster from The Messenger.
For years, directors have counted on Ben Foster to add verve and nerve to a host of supporting parts in films like 3:10 to Yuma, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Alpha Dog, but Oren Moverman's The Messenger affords him a different opportunity: the chance to harness all of his skill and become a leading man. As Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery, Foster expertly illustrates a man who's unmoored upon his return from the war, yet pulled into the gravity of two very different people: his new partner in a casualty notification unit (Woody Harrelson), and a young widow (Samantha Morton) who Will becomes consumed with after being forced to give her the bad news.
Foster had some bad news of his own to report when he called me last week to discuss the role. Once we'd gotten past that, the 29-year-old actor opened up about the effect of playing so many emotional parts, the way he reconciles his tattoos with his character, and how his feelings on the war are forever changed.
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After his 2005 film C.R.A.Z.Y. swept the Genie Awards and became an international hit, Montreal filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée had Hollywood's red carpet laid out in front of him. He chose, instead, to make the last sort of movie he expected: a traditional costume drama exploring the romance between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Martin Scorsese-produced, Jullian Fellowes-scripted The Young Victoria is the result, and in addition to attracting buzz for leads Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend, it landed Vallée an upcoming assignment directing Kate Bosworth in Lost Girls and Love Hotels.
So how did the irreverent filmmaker end up here? Vallée spoke to Movieline about how he brought his slightly anarchic touch to a staid genre, and how important two very unlikely influences -- Sigur Ros and Fergie -- were to getting it made.
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"Blink and you'll miss me," said Matthew Goode, describing his ill-fated, longtime partner of Colin Firth's devastated college professor in A Single Man. On the one hand, Goode does occupy a minimum of screen time in Tom Ford's directorial debut, a stirring '60s-set drama currently in the awards-season hunt. On the other, the striking, versatile 31-year-old Brit is pretty hard to miss in any of his films, from a romantic lead in Chasing Liberty to an ambitious Midwestern cutthroat in The Lookout to the social-climbing confidante of Brideshead Revisited. Single Man is Goode's return to indies after his bewigged antiheroics as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias in last spring's Watchmen; he'll be back to the majors next year opposite Amy Adams in Leap Year. He spoke recently to Movieline about discovering A Single Man for himself, what scared him about Tom Ford, and how a small part can sometimes make all the difference.
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Reader, I'm not sure how your 2009 has been going, but you certainly can't have had a better year than Stephen Lang. The Tony-nominated character actor has had one plum part after another, beginning the year in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, then kick-starting The Men Who Stare at Goats by running full-force into a wall. Still, each of those parts was a mere prelude to his role as the fearsome Quaritch in James Cameron's Avatar, who wreaks vengeance on the Na'vi forest with little more than a coffee mug and a smile.
As much fun as Lang has been on-screen this year, he's even more fun off it. I talked to the buff 57-year-old about his remarkable run of roles and the two things James Cameron can't do, and the erudite Lang was happy to oblige.
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One of the true treasures among American actresses, Ellen Burstyn returns to theaters this week in Tennessee Williams's The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. Based on a 1957 script long thought lost, the film stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Fisher Willow, a headstrong young woman looking for a little more excitement than staid upper-class Memphis is ready to provide just before the Depression. Fisher becomes involved with sharecropper Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans), who escorts her to a Halloween party where all kinds of Williams-esque drama breaks loose. Director Jodie Markell parses the material with care and reverence, rarely more evident than in the long scenes Burstyn shares with Howard as Miss Addie, a bedridden stroke victim who asks Fisher for a favor highly likely to crimp the holiday festivities downstairs.
Three days after celebrating her 77th birthday, the Oscar-winner talked to Movieline about finally getting a crack at Tennessee Williams, her own days of being wild, and why she hopes to have another look soon at her classic The Last Picture Show.
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When the 12-year-old Nicholas Hoult first made an impression in 2002's About a Boy, Hugh Grant was playing opposite him as an overgrown adolescent living off his family's residuals -- basically, the nightmare of any child actor. Hoult's own coming-of-age has been the furthest thing from lazy, and after recapturing attention two years ago in the rude UK teen soap Skins, he landed the role of Kenny, who admires and longs for Colin Firth in Tom Ford's A Single Man.
Newly twenty and on the cusp of more adult roles (he'll next be seen in Louis Leterrier's remake of Clash of the Titans), Hoult talked to Movieline about navigating that transition, learning how to swing a sword, and that angora sweater from A Single Man.
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On Monday night, Rudy Pauls set a Biggest Loser record for the most amount of weight lost in a single season of the NBC reality series -- 234 pounds -- for about thirty seconds, before Danny Cahill edged him out with a 239 pound loss. Although Pauls lost out on the $250,000 grand prize, he still left less than half of the size of his original frame and with a consolation prize of $50,000. Not bad for the eastern Connecticut engineer, who at 6'4 was the first player this season to lose 100 pounds. This afternoon, Movieline caught up with Pauls as he readjusted to a 70-hour work week to discuss his plans to gain back some weight (the healthy way), the other trainers he bonded with and those sadistic producers who snacked on cookies a few feet away from him.
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With awards season in full swing, Movieline is launching a new recurring feature called "For Your Reconsideration," where we speak to the talented people whose contributions to the year in film are worthy of a second look. First up: Abbie Cornish from Bright Star.
There's something about the women in Jane Campion's films: They can say so much without saying anything at all. Bright Star's Abbie Cornish certainly gets to talk more than Holly Hunter did in The Piano, but as her Fanny Brawne falls in love with Ben Whishaw's John Keats, her quiet fortitude conveys intelligence, emotion, and deep passion. It's one of the year's most striking performances.
Now that Cornish has been able to carve out some spare time from shooting Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, the actress talked to Movieline about clothes, chemistry, and the one thing Campion and Snyder have in common.
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