In April, when David O. Russell signed on to direct Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg in the boxer biopic The Fighter, Hollywood did a bit of a double take. Russell and Bale were both coming off of leaked, angry tirades that had become YouTube sensations, and Russell's last film, the Jake Gyllenhaal/Jessica Biel comedy Nailed, fell apart without having been completed. How would all these talented hotheads get along?
Yesterday, Movieline spoke to Melissa Leo (who plays the mother of Bale and Wahlberg) at Sundance, and she opened up about the difficult shoot.
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Just got out of the Sundance press screening of Twelve, Joel Schumacher's attempt to fill the niche carved out last year at the fest by The Informers. The most notable part of the movie (apart from the critical laughter that greeted the closing credit quote from Albert Camus)? That'd be the first act presence of NYC Prep's ambiguously gay PC Peterson, who gets no lines but is nevertheless a heavily featured extra, playing a partying prep schooler (no!) who makes out with and feels up a girl (no?) and then prematurely ejaculates (oh). Camille is going to be irate about this for some reason!
At Sundance, you can pretty much count on the fact that you will overhear two types of things: people having articulate, passionate conversations about film, and people just straight-up being kinda dumb. We'd like to thank the latter for their continued contributions to Overheard at Sundance. So, who was talking a little too loudly yesterday in Park City, and what former Sundance starlet felt the dent in her cachet?
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We've been rocking naked and unblinking on the floor of a scalding shower since experiencing Michael Winterbottom's heinously brutal adaptation of The Killer Inside Me, aka The Untitled Jessica Alba Hamburger-Face Project. In Movieline's report following its Saturday premiere, we mentioned Alba had greeted the audience before the screening, but was nowhere to be found during the polarized Q&A portion that came immediately after. Had she fled in embarrassment? Not at all, says a rep, who sent us this clarification:
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If Jonah Hill could tell you one thing, it would be this: You don't know Jonah Hill. That was a point the star of Superbad and Funny People couldn't emphasize enough when I met with him in Park City yesterday to discuss his hilarious and affecting work in Cyrus. In Jay and Mark Duplass's first foray into the semi-big leagues, Hill plays the title character -- a devious, passive-aggressive man-child who makes John C. Reilly's life a living hell when he starts to infringe upon the cozy domestic arrangement Cyrus shares with his young mom, played by Marisa Tomei. We spoke with Hill about the fun of showing fans some creepy new colors, the horrors of Twitter identity-theft, and what is shaping up to be the "proudest year" of his life.
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The Extra Man premiered Monday night at Sundance, featuring Paul Dano as an aspiring writer who makes a new life in Manhattan with his artistic dreams and a mild crossdressing fetish. Helping out is Henry Harrison (Kevin Kline), the eccentric, reactionary "extra man" of the title whose job is to accompany older women to social events around New York City. Adapting a novel by Jonathan Ames, directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini make a triumphant return to the character-driven comedy that won them a Grand Jury Prize here in 2003 with American Splendor yet painfully eluded their 2007 adaptation of The Nanny Diaries; they draw one of Dano's best, most nuanced performances to date, yet can't quite get the same out of Katie Holmes, who co-stars as the object of the young man's affection at his magazine job. Which might not have been their fault; even at Monday's premiere, Holmes wasn't about to join in the jokey mood Dano and Kline engaged with their inquisitive first audience.
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Among the most anticipated titles of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival -- as well as one of its most haunted, troubled productions -- the Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams relationship saga Blue Valentine finally reached the screen at Sunday afternoon's world premiere. Twelve years in the making, director Derek Cianfrance's film endured more stops, starts and development hiccups than perhaps any other in the festival competition. I desperately wanted to like it. Alas, there could be no more screeching halt than the plotless, indulgent, grueling, indier-than-thou melodrama that ensued after the lights went down.
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The last year's been good to Anthony Mackie. Not only did he star in one of the most acclaimed and awarded movies of 2008, Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War thriller The Hurt Locker, but he's got Night Catches Us at Sundance, where he acts opposite Kerry Washington as a former Black Panther.
Mackie's always a fun, candid interview subject, and when Movieline spoke to him just before the festival began, the 30-year-old actor opened up about his new film, his bold Bigelow prediction, and the problems he's faced lately in Hollywood.
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The Runaways tore through Sundance on Saturday night, and I'm pleased to report veteran music video director Floria Sigismondi's feature debut did anything but ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb. (Sorry.) Skating just along the candy-colored edge of retro kitsch without ever crossing the line into self-parody, Sigismondi is incapable of framing an unattractive shot.
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The snow has receded and the sun has come out at the Sundance Film Festival, which means that the fine art of poster promotion isn't just reserved for ardent Charlotte Gainsbourg fans anymore. Some old favorites (12th & Delaware, Secrets of the Tribe) are making repeat appearances, but which new films won the poster war yesterday?
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· Theater critics all over this great nation want you to know that Scarlett Johansson is better than Katie Holmes when it comes to honoring Arthur Miller's work. Don't be discouraged, Holmes fanatics! I sense Tom Cruise's vindicating, all-too-believable performance as Willy Loman in our near future.
· Your Independent Spirit Awards host is the decadent Eddie Izzard. He captures the essence of this year's award season, as he features the dry delivery of A Single Man's Colin Firth and the slight mustache of Precious's Mariah Carey.
· Speaking of facial hair, did you know that Sundance is your one-stop shop for slovenly beards?
· Alexander Skarsgard isn't shy about intensifying the artistic integrity of True Blood -- with lots of nudity.
· Somehow, Andy Dick's latest crime is more embarrassing than his fight with Jon Lovitz.
On Conan O'Brien's final Tonight Show, he earned one of his biggest laughs when he said that if HBO decided to make a movie about the recent late-night fiasco, he'd "like to be played by Academy Award-winner Tilda Swinton." I just finished interviewing Swinton at Sundance to promote her new film I Am Love, and I decided (without any authorization from HBO whatsoever) to make her a formal offer for the red-headed role. Do we have a rare bit of good news for the beleaguered O'Brien?
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The first weekend of Park City is always the most crowded, and with those crowds, the ante is considerably upped for people giving choice overheard quotes. Here were some of our favorites from Friday to Sunday. Enjoy!
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Jennifer Lawrence isn't the only actor to make an impression in Winter's Bone -- as her terrifying, tattooed uncle Teardrop, John Hawkes (Deadwood, Me and You and Everyone We Know) goes from antagonist to unlikely ally in a riveting arc. Movieline sat down with Hawkes and several others from Winter's Bone yesterday and we'll have more from that chat soon, but until then, Hawkes was happy to talk about another recent arc he's done on the upcoming sixth season of Lost.
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Over the weekend, Don Julio Tequila and Moveline co-hosted a dandy little Sundance party celebrating the Duplass Brothers' latest film Cyrus. In addition to rubbing elbows with the filmmakers and their Cyrus stars John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill, your intrepid Movieline editors rubbed elbows with the likes of our resident DJ ?uestlove, Hill comrade Danny McBride, directors David Gordon Green and Jody Hill and myriad other festival luminaries. And now that the film is finally back from the lab (memo to selves: Never again entrust the Park Avenue 7-Eleven with our one-hour photo needs), we thought it's high time to share a few snapshots from the evening. Click through for a glimpse.
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