Marrying Swiftian satire with hi-tech saboteurship and the good ol' art of the con, The Yes Men are an infamous group of agitprop pranksters who've emerged as cable news darlings and mini movie stars in their own right. Just mild-mannered and vaguely authoritative enough in demeanor to slip through security cracks, The Yes Men -- aka Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno -- assume the identities of everyone from big oil and chemical execs to World Trade Organization officials to representatives of the U.S. Government, mounting bogus press conferences and lecture appearances to make their point. (At a Canadian oil conference, for example, they posed as ExxonMobil reps, telling 20,000 industry workers they've devised a new technique that would turn the human victims of their irresponsible practices into an oil substitute called "Vivoleum.") It's all part of their all-out, highly entertaining battle against what they finger as the U.S.'s most dangerous enemy: disaster capitalism. Their second film, The Yes Men Fix the World, expanded its release last week -- a full list of theaters showing the movie is here. Movieline chatted with Bichlbaum recently about his life's mission of punking with a purpose.
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When you think "Roland Emmerich disaster-film leading man," the image of John Cusack probably isn't the one that leaps straight to mind. But that's who Emmerich specifically sought for this week's epic 2012, which, for all of its floods, volcanoes and California-collapsing temblors, is something of a classically Cusackian tale of underdog romance and wry grace under pressure. The actor plays Jackson Curtis, a failed writer, husband and father who accidentally encounters word of a world-ending series of natural disasters. Jackson manages to land squarely in the middle of all of them with his estranged family, resulting in the slow correction of perhaps 2012's biggest disaster -- himself.
Cusack spoke to Movieline last week about his unlikely-ish collaboration with Hollywood's modern cataclysm kingpin, the public's love of disaster, and his own favorite classics of the genre.
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When Hollywood casting directors have to cast the school nerd, they'll usually pick an actor who was the jock in real life and slap a pair of glasses on him. Ashley Springer is much closer to the real deal: though initially shy and self-effacing, he's thoughtful, quick, and possessed of an interesting backstory once you get to know him (as a teen, he was a professional magician). Springer first gained notice as one of Jess Weixler's victims in the Sundance-minted horror comedy Teeth, but he has his largest role to date in the new film Dare, where his geeky Ben comes alive when both he and best friend Alexa (Emmy Rossum) pursue the sexually confused Johnny (Zach Gilford).
On the verge of Dare's release this week, I talked to Springer about the film's adventurous nature, the unique way he snagged the role, and his magical past.
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In his new thriller The Box, director Richard Kelly puts forth a thirtysomething couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) with a spiritual crossroads to consider: accept a significant financial upgrade from mysterious benefactor Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) with the tiny catch that a stranger will die for it, or continue eking out a meager existence but do so with the knowledge that there are no favors owed or strings attached. It's a conundrum that the 34-year-old Kelly himself might be familiar with, since he rose to fame on the utterly independent, inevitably dystopic visions of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, yet a financial lifeline is being dangled by a studio system (in the form of Warner Bros, which financed The Box) that can pad his future stories with budget, comfort, and potential compromise.
I talked to the writer/director last night about formulating his next move, his uneasy détente with the present day (and the influence of the Internet), and the unexpected side effects of being a creative person with biceps.
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Samantha Morton planted her flag stateside towards the end of the last decade, with an impeccable breakout performance as the mute ingenue of Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown -- a part for which she was nominated for her first Academy Award. In the years following, she emerged as a dependable powerhouse, imparting her gifts for nuance and emotional veracity to everything from period dramas like In America (which earned her her second Oscar nomination), to Hollywood blockbusters like Minority Report, to prestigious independent fare like Control and Synecdoche, New York. In her latest film, Oren Moverman's beautiful and difficult The Messenger, Morton plays a newly notified Iraq War widow who begins an affair with the soldier assigned with breaking the news. (He's played by one of the few young actors who could match her quiet intensity beat for beat: Ben Foster.) Movieline talked to Morton about the madness of her craft, the perils of buying burning homes, and her return to sci-fi in Andrew Stanton's much-anticipated John Carter of Mars.
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Actor Alessandro Nivola has something he'd like people to know: He's not British. Nor French, Italian, Irish, or Australian. As he told me last week, he'd forgive you for thinking otherwise, but in real life, Nivola's just a regular old Boston native who speaks with an utterly neutral voice.
Of course, Nivola himself would be the first to admit he's made things difficult for people. In his biggest roles, he's employed some sort of odd voice or accent (typically a British one, as in Laurel Canyon or Mansfield Park) and he shows off two more in theaters now: In the new film Turning Green, he's an Irish thug, and in Coco Before Chanel, he plays a Brit who speaks in fluent French throughout the picture. Do people in the industry ever forget that he's an American? "American?" laughed the affable actor. "When have people ever thought that about me?"
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Since Craig Ferguson took the helm of CBS's Late Late Show in 2005, the Scottish American comedian has steered late night into uncharted talk show waters full of inanimate sharks and Tim Gunn Aquaman skits. Dispensing the standard monologue jokes for afro wigs and the kind of Britney Spears lip-synch routines you used to practice in the mirror, Ferguson has reinvigorated the late-night format and deposited some much-needed silliness into the Tiffany Network. Two weeks ago (before that Alicia Silverstone power outage), Movieline sought out the Late Late Show's producer Michael Naidus, who kindly discussed Ferguson-behind-the-scenes and the refreshingly relaxed, puppet-punctuated talk show.
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It took a momentary fluke for Kyle Patrick Alvarez to discover the idea that would set him on his first filmmaking journey, and three years to arrive at AFI Fest tonight with the finished product. Perhaps fittingly, then, his debut Easier With Practice (which already won Best Feature prizes from juries at both CineVegas and the Edinburgh Film Festival) reflects an uncanny blend of fortune, intuition and assuredness that defies the customary rookie jitters. Not that his phone-sex-and-identity-crisis drama didn't give him pause to begin with, as he told Movieline.
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Every other year or so, film editor Dana E. Glauberman gets The Call. The tradition began quietly enough in 2005 with an indie adaptation of the novel Thank You For Smoking. Yet by last spring, as the first of Jason Reitman's footage from the set of Up in the Air arrived in Glauberman's editing suite, the duo's meticulous shaping and storytelling process began anew on their biggest project to date. Expectations run high after their previous collaboration Juno became an Oscar-winning box-office smash, and indeed Up in the Air is already showing similar promise after its Toronto Film Festival premiere. But to hear Glauberman tell it when Movieline caught up with her this week, that's just another day at the office.
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Last weekend, Movieline bumped into Alan Cumming at the Savannah Film Festival. He's not only on the festival's advisory board, he gave a master class to students at Savannah College of Art and Design (which hosts the festival), advising them to, among other things, "always wear a condom." And then he imparted his favorite movie scene:
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In March of this year, Xavier Dolan was still a teenager, but in May, he was a 20-year-old with one of the most awarded Cannes Film Festival debuts ever. Dolan wrote, acted in, and directed I Killed My Mother (screening at the AFI Fest today), the story of a temperamental gay teen (Dolan) thrashing to get out from under the thumb of his tacky mom (Anne Dorval). The film virtually swept the Directors Fortnight program at Cannes, winning three of the biggest awards, yet Dolan's attempts to mount his next directorial project (the transsexual love story Laurence Anyways) have been thwarted, so the Quebec native has returned to acting for the time being.
Still, it's hard to believe we won't be seeing more of Dolan soon, as he's a handsome triple threat who boasts the ambition of a director, the playful narcissism of an actor, and the self-effacement (bordering on self-flagellation) of a writer. In a talk about his whirlwind year, Dolan discussed the perils of making an independent film in Canada, his love for Kate Winslet, and his unlikely standing in the Twilight franchise as a card-carrying member of Team Jacob.
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At the Savannah Film Festival Monday, larger-than-life Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley was on hand -- wearing an enormous Ralph Rucci-designed kimono whose color Talley described as "aubergine" -- to join a discussion of Valentino: The Last Emperor with the acclaimed doc's director, Matt Tyrnauer. Talley is quite a friend of Savannah College of Art and Design, which hosts the festival and more or less is the biggest business in this charming but sleepy town. "You can get a bachelor's of art degree in luxury management!" Talley raved about SCAD. "You can go work at Vuitton, Cartier, a chocolatier, a spa, a restaurant. It means you can handle luxury concerns."
A more pressing concern to Movieline, however, was a cryptic assertion in the New York Times Magazine that Talley declined a small role in this week's Precious after seeing a clip of star Gabourey Sidibe. Care to elaborate, Mr. Talley?
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Some of us at Movieline tried something a little different this year for Halloween: We found our inner Mariah, our outer Galifianakis, or we just traveled down as ourselves to the Savannah Film Festival. As hipsters from the nearby Savannah College of Art and Design swarmed the streets with go-cups and costumes of their own, the 12th annual event opened with a screening of The Messenger featuring stars Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in attendance. Oren Moverman's drama (opening Nov. 20) chronicles the homefront grief of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the relationship of two Army casualty-notification officers -- heart-hardened Tony Stone (Harrelson) and sensitive Iraq veteran Will Montogomery (Foster) -- as they stoically alert people that their sons, daughters, husbands and wives have died overseas.
It was sobering, intense stuff for the holiday, lightened up a bit afterward by a Harrelson/Foster Q&A-session, complete with a hand-mic sword fight. I had a chance to talk with Harrelson about The Messenger's politics (or lack thereof), Zombieland's vegan Twinkies, and why Foster reminds him of a young Marlon Brando.
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You're busy, you've got eighty-three calls to return, and your second assistant is late with your Apple Tea Latte from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Gower. (It has to be the Gower location. You can't go back to the one on La Brea ever since you ruthlessly poached your barista's pitch for a big-screen Teddy Ruxpin.) With so little time in your day, has anything ever seemed more appealing than Movieline's One-Page Screenplay project? Finally, a bite-sized task that won't siphon time away from your already harried development hell.
Today's One-Page Screenplay was contributed by comedic renaissance man David Wain, whose "best known for" can comprise any number of credits, depending on who you're talking to. There's his participation in seminal sketch comedy troupe The State, his shorts like Wainy Days and Stella (the latter of which became a Comedy Central series), or the films he's directed, including Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models. David's One-Page Screenplay contribution is entitled Queen Anne's Lace. Enjoy!
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