Christina Hendricks' Mad Men character Joan Holloway, who is still the most likable figure at Sterling Cooper three seasons in, has endured some of the show's diciest travails. She was overlooked by her misogynist superiors, raped in the office by her now-husband, and pimped for her accordion skills at her own household party. With Joan Holloway's Power Ranking stagnating this week at #7, Movieline caught up with Hendricks at the West Hollywood opening of the new Tacori jewelry line to discuss Joan, Mad Men's on-set dynamic, and Hendricks' upcoming first foray into bigtime feature film.
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The Topp Twins are more than just New Zealand's most famous yodeling, protesting, joke-cracking lesbian-sister musical export. They're now the subjects of their own oddly fascinating documentary at the Toronto Film Festival. Appropriately enough titled The Topp Twins, director Leanne Pooley's doc profiles the irrepressible Lynda and Jools Topp from their bucolic Kiwi upbringings to their development of a populist blend of folk, protest and comic songwriting that made them worldwide cult sensations. Or maybe "cult" is misrepresenting things -- especially when their immensely popular street performances require their own laws on the books in Auckland.
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Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Hader makes his leading-man debut at the movies this week in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs -- sort of. Sony's 3-D adaptation of the illustrated kids' classic features Hader's voice as that of Flint Lockwood, a young scientist who invents a machine capable of creating rather delicious meteorological phenomena. Complications naturally ensue in Flint's tiny island town, including hassles by the local cop (voiced by Mr. T) and romantic palpitations brought on by a visit from aspiring TV weathergirl Sam Sparks (Anna Faris). It's a fun, great-looking film with a bit of a cheeky streak (Neil Patrick Harris actually provides the "voice" of Flint's monkey Steve) and a showcase for Hader in a genre at which he's quietly excelled below the radar for several years now.
But there's way more back story that Movieline wanted to hear, including his days P.A.-ing for James Franco, his accidental film debut in Collateral Damage and his credo for getting ahead in Hollywood -- or anywhere else for that matter. Hader obliges us after the jump.
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You may find the roots of the global economic meltdown on Wall Street, but Marc Levin might suggest looking further uptown in Manhattan for the most dramatic microcosm of the ongoing crisis: The Garment District. The prolific director Levin (Slam, Mr. Untouchable) was in Toronto on this week for the debut of his new docuementary Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags (premiering Oct. 19 on HBO), which outlines both the history and demise of famous manufacturing zone over the last century -- and, more specifically, the last decade of outsourcing, layoffs and other industry devastation. According to Levin, you need look no further than the New York's recently completed Fashion Week for the first hints.
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Atom Egoyan's superb melodrama-thriller Chloe seems to have accrued enough critical steam and word-of-mouth to be a front-runner for distribution out of Toronto. Its lesbian love scene between Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried won't hurt matters, though it certainly didn't help keep the all-around lovely actress in the her seat for Sunday's packed premiere. Joined by her director in a chat today with Movieline and other festival press, Moore didn't specifically address that element of her nerves, but at least her alternate reasoning was a good one.
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As one of Movieline's inaugural interviewees upon our relaunch last April, Brett Ratner shared his love of literature -- especially that of his own Rat Press -- with our new readership. Five months later, his further adventures in moguldom have piqued our interest once more. His new venture The Shooter Series compiles hits, swings and admittedly a few misses from his nearly 20 years of work, from his music videos for Madonna, Wu-Tang Clan, Mariah Carey and others to his rather staggering short film documenting Mickey Rourke's transition into boxing.
It's both hubristic (a short doc about himself, with all-star endorsees like Robert Evans and Russell Simmons) and self-effacing (rawer-than-raw NYU student films), and not just a little revelatory in its charting of how a hyperactive home-moviemaker from Miami became a reliable captain of Hollywood blockbusters. Ratner spoke recently with Movieline about The Shooter Series, Madonna before megastardom and coming to terms with mass appeal.
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One of those pleasant gems you hope to stumble upon at any film festival, The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a wonderfully entertaining little thriller from British screenwriter and first-time director, J Blakeson. Set almost entirely in an enclosed apartment, Blakeson's story takes a simple premise -- "So you've kidnapped a beautiful heiress. Now what?" -- and wrings out of it a darkly humorous and utterly unpredictable tale of greed gone wrong, with shades of Rope, Shallow Grave and Deathtrap. The titular heiress is played by Quantum of Solace star Gemma Arterton, who squeezed in this film between her two upcoming blockbusters, Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans. Rounding out the triangle are the two kidnappers, the elder and more volatile man played by Eddie Marsan -- star of Mike Leigh's Vera Drake and Happy-Go-Lucky and Will Smith's super-nemesis in Hancock -- and the younger played by Martin Compston, a Scottish actor discovered by Ken Loach (who gave him the lead in Sweet Sixteen). Both are superb in their roles. Movieline spoke to Marsan and Compston this morning at TIFF, for what it turns out was their first official interview in support of the film.
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Amid the roar of hype, gossip and Michael Bay takedowns surrounding Jennifer's Body, listen for the sound of a star being born. Or maybe not "born"; Johnny Simmons is 22, after all, and has already played the son of Steve Carell (Evan Almighty) and Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan (The Greatest) in the four years since he moved to Hollywood from his hometown of Dallas. But those and his other major parts in Hotel for Dogs and The Spirit didn't quite prepare him for the spotlight that is Jennifer's Body. He co-stars as Chip Dove, the boyfriend of Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) and putative prey of Needy's demon-possessed BFF Jennifer Check (Megan Fox).
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For filmmakers as preoccupied as they are with the starchy social fabric of 20th-century America, it's really kind of amazing that Joel and Ethan Coen hadn't addressed Jewish culture before A Serious Man. They came sort of close with Barton Fink, circumscribing their writer's-block psychodrama with the subtext of a New York Jew rendered impotent against his megalomaniac Hollywood tribesmen -- itself a flash of semi-autobiography, a quality rare to Coen brothers films, yet revived for Serious Man. Not that they'd ever admit to any connection -- at least not while discussing it with Movieline earlier today.
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It's been a long journey for The Road, the adaptation of the bestselling Cormac McCarthy novel about a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) eking out a desperate existence in a treacherous American landscape after an unspecified cataclysm wipes out nearly all traces of vegetation, wildlife and the human race. Rights were snapped up before its first 2006 printing, and director John Hillcoat, on the strength of his brutal and unflinching Australian western, The Proposition, was tasked with bringing its colorless nightmare to life. A seemingly endless game of scheduling roulette followed -- first the Weinsteins pushed it ahead a full year, then gave it incremental nudges, until it finally landed a release date of November 25th. The final insult? A trailer that played up the story's end-of-the-world appeal, "enhanced" with the kind of stock disaster footage you imagine Roland Emmerich using as a MacBook screensaver.
I saw The Road at a TIFF screening this morning (a review is forthcoming). Still shaken and slightly pallid from having spent my breakfast hour with a lovely gang of roving cannibals, I chatted with the actually quite affable Hillcoat about the unyielding material, his young acting discovery, and those unforeseen film biz hiccups that can get in the way.
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Go ahead and add Perrier's Bounty to the films that could spark heated market interest in Toronto this year. The dark-comic Irish crime thriller premieres tonight and features Cillian Murphy as Michael McCrae, a ne'er-do-well whose outstanding debt to gangster Darren Perrier (Brendan Gleeson) becomes the common interest of half the Dublin underworld after an unexpected visit one night from his estranged, dying father Jim (Jim Broadbent). Joined by Michael's heartbroken (and possibly fugitive) downstairs neighbor Brenda, the duo's race from imminent death both threatens and fuels their reconciliation. The violence, twists and even the philosophy of Mark O'Rowe's cracker-jack screenplay explode and illuminate one scene after another, sharpened to raw, laugh-out-loud set pieces by sophomore director Ian FitzGibbon. All its characters need is one flash of luck that always seems just around the corner; here's hoping whatever eludes them finds its way to you in the way of an American deal -- and soon.
Murphy sat down with Movieline today to discuss the pleasures of pitch-black comedy, working with his heroes, and how one gets "movie-fit."
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The Hills star Audrina Patridge is hoping that tomorrow's release of Sorority Row can help pave the way for bigscreen stardom, but before her thriller debuts, Movieline decided to test the ingenue's cinematic bona fides by inviting her to play everyone's favorite game, "My Favorite Scene"! Would Patridge's pick surprise us? Hey, she lives in LA, right? Maybe Justin Bobby dragged her to an intriguing New Beverly double-feature once on a date! Maybe, sometime in 2007, Lauren Conrad accidentally Netflixed a DVD from the Criterion Collection that both ladies watched and enjoyed! Let's find out.
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When browsing the program for this year's Toronto International Film Festival -- the 34th edition of which opens Thursday night -- one name pops up unusually often. Or at least four films at one fest might seem unusual for the majority of actors, filmmakers and other talent on the scene. But not so much for Willem Dafoe, the durable stage and screen figure whose notorious Cannes alum Antichrist joins Werner Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, the indie vampire thriller Daybreakers, and the Cold War-era drama L'Affaire Farewell to unspool within the next 10 days up north. If only Wes Anderson had The Fantastic Mr. Fox ready for early fall, Dafoe could have made it an even five.
But his Canadian itinerary should keep him busy enough for now. Movieline laced up its running shoes last week for a chat with the veteran actor about the outlook for Toronto, his role-selecting process, the appeal of maverick filmmakers, and how and when he takes vacations.
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In Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Taraji P. Hinson's character isn't by herself for long. After some prodding from Madea, she takes in her sister's troubled children, including Jennifer, played by newcomer Hope Olaide Wilson. Wilson's own story could teach a Perry heroine a thing or two about overcoming adversity: She grew up between England and Nigeria and sold eggs to help her family stay afloat until a green card lottery gave them all the opportunity to move to the United States. Compounding the culture shock was Wilson's graduation from high school at age 15 and subsequent decision to move to California to pursue acting, but as she told Movieline last week, neither of those events seem as scary as watching herself perform on a 40-foot-high movie screen.
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The superlative "breakout star" gets thrown around a lot these days, and The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons has seen that appellation more than his fair share of times, especially since he received his first Emmy nomination in July. Movieline caught up with the lanky Texan at the Television Critics Association's CBS event last month, where he had just won the critics' award for "Individual Achievement in Comedy." Parsons was quick to share his memorization techniques for Sheldon's dialogue, his viciously competitive nature on set, and his constant fear for Chuck Lorre's life.
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