After approximately eighty roles in television and film, four Emmy awards, two Tony nominations and countless Kaiser Permanente ads, the inimitable Allison Janney has certainly earned her place among Hollywood's best character actresses. In her most recent film, the Civil Rights-era comedy-drama The Help -- Tate Taylor's adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel -- the Ohio-bred thesp channeled her own mother to play the worrisome mama bear to Emma Stone's boundary-pushing protagonist. In lesser hands, Charlotte Phelan could have been a thin character -- a Southern woman more concerned with her daughter's marital prospects than her happiness -- but Janney summoned fear, humor and subtlety for a fully-fleshed and fully-flawed character who earns her personal growth.
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Patton Oswalt is hardly a screen rookie, having starred in various TV series, films, comedy specials; he's not even a stranger to awards season, having voiced the lead in Pixar's Oscar-winning Ratatouille. But there's an unmistakable milestone quality to this week's Young Adult, which places the actor and comic opposite Charlize Theron in a bitter stew of generational angst, woe and futility topped with a hint -- but just barely a hint -- of optimism.
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Mark Pellington's bromantic thriller I Melt With You made quite the splash at Sundance, just not the kind a filmmaker necessarily wants to make: Critics walked out of the film, recoiling at the bleakness on display in the tale of four former college friends (Jeremy Piven, Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, and Christian McKay), reuniting for a weekend bender, who confront their collective middle-aged disillusionment with increasingly violent ends. Co-star Piven knew from the start it would be a polarizing project to take on.
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As befits one of the contemporary stage and screen's more intense, challenging actors, Ralph Fiennes didn't make his directorial debut easy on himself. His adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus (opening today in limited release) studies the vicissitudes of political pride, corruption and revenge -- an unflinching stare into a familiar powder keg that looks and feels increasingly like an abyss.
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Emily Browning, the Australian actress best known for Hollywood efforts Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events and this year's Sucker Punch, hits the art house this week for something completely different: Sleeping Beauty, writer-director Julia Leigh's disturbing dive into the realm of somnambulistic sex work.
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Whether or not you buy into Dane Cook's brand of humor, you must acknowledge that the Boston-born stand-up has cornered a sizable comedy market and successfully infiltrated the movie business. Up next, Cook attempts to make the most challenging transition of his career -- from dependable funnyman to respected actor.
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Another year, another blisteringly grand performance from Tilda Swinton: After a run that commenced with her Oscar-winning role in Michael Clayton and continued with her underseen creative triumphs Julia and I Am Love, Swinton arrives in theaters next week as the haunted lead in We Need to Talk About Kevin. If there is any justice in the Oscar cosmos, she'll be back in the Kodak Theater as at least a nominee come February.
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He's won a Tony Award (for Red) and held his own onscreen opposite everyone from Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon (The Good Shepherd) to Julianne Moore (Savage Grace) to Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age). But there's something about Eddie Redmayne's role in My Week With Marilyn -- as Colin Clark, a glorified film-set gofer mediating the relationship between Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) and her Prince and the Showgirl co-star and director Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) -- that hints at just the right screen role at just the right time.
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Even Bérénice Bejo acknowledges there's not a lot left to say about The Artist, the heavily acclaimed silent-film throwback that has been on the awards (and thus the media) warpath since debuting at Cannes last May. But the Argentine-born, French-raised actress also knows full well what a good problem that is to have -- even it means wondering how to follow up the role of a lifetime.
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It was probably just a matter of time before French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius broke through in the United States: His OSS 117 diptych of spy spoofs had already acquired something of an international audience, and his curiosity about Hollywood has grown alongside his reputation. But no one -- least of all Hazanavicius himself -- likely foresaw him breaking through with The Artist.
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As arguably the film world's closest contemporary equivalent to Sir Laurence Olivier, the classically trained, commercially adventurous actor/filmmaker Kenneth Branagh makes an ideal candidate to play the great man in this week's My Week With Marilyn.
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Throughout the Twilight franchise, one screenwriter has adapted author Stephenie Meyer's bestselling book series about a teenager and her love for a vampire for the screen: Melissa Rosenberg. It's a tricky job, balancing the desire to satisfy fans with the need to make Meyer's 500+ page-novels cinematic, all while transforming heroine Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) from unsteady teen to self-possessed woman. But in Breaking Dawn - Part 1 Bella finally is an agent of her own destiny, her senses awakened, and her choices confident. Was she, as Rosenberg insists, an active heroine under the surface just waiting to spring into action all along?
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A little over six months ago, before The Artist premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, it might have been unthinkable to foresee what has since evolved into a very real possibility: Jean Dujardin, a bona fide movie star in his native France but relative unknown in the United States, is as likely as any contender to date to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. Which would be surprising enough without The Artist being a black-and-white French import -- a silent black-and-white French import.
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Jason Segel claims he cried when "meeting" Kermit the Frog for the first time, but the self-declared Muppets purist does not sound like a lachrymose superfan when explaining his update of Jim Henson's brand. As the co-writer and star of The Muppets (out Nov. 23), Segel proves his Muppet mettle with a slick, but classically jovial take on the old troupe. Its swiftness is reminiscent of charming '90s efforts like A Muppet Christmas Carol while Amy Adams and Chris Cooper's performances smack of the original Muppet trilogy's celebrity gusto; the Muppets themselves even conjure the old-school showmanship of the immortal The Muppet Show.
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Jackson Rathbone says he has felt right at home playing Jasper in the Twilight films, though the vampire's quiet, reserved nature contrasts with the actor's other identity: as the leader of L.A. funk rock band 100 Monkeys, who kick off their first European tour this month. Rathbone, who was strumming a guitar between interviews at the recent junket for this week's Breaking Dawn - Part 1, spoke with Movieline about balancing film and music, Twilight's effect on his success as a musician, and moving on from the series after Breaking Dawn - Part 2 hits theaters next year.
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