Kristen Wiig realizes that not everyone is going to universally love every single character that she creates on Saturday Night Live. It's not that she spends a lot of time (or any time, for that matter) thinking about what the overall consensus will be, but it's kind of hard to ignore when her own mother calls to voice disapproval over a new character.
After departing the phenomenally successful Twilight franchise that launched star Kristen Stewart into the stratosphere along with then-unknowns Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, director Catherine Hardwicke set her sights on another supernatural teen romance: Red Riding Hood. Starring Amanda Seyfried as the titular heroine, Hardwicke's take on the age-old fairytale becomes a medieval murder-mystery with a current of seething sensuality bubbling beneath the surface -- just one of many subjects the director discussed in a frank conversation with Movieline about Red Riding Hood, post-Twilight pressure, her critics, and more.
Following a stellar year in which she starred in two Oscar-nominated films (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right), Australian actress Mia Wasikowska continues to impress in Jane Eyre, a moody and gorgeously haunting adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë classic helmed by director Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre). The 21-year-old commands the screen as the titular heroine, an unloved orphan-turned-headstrong young governess who falls for her employer (Michael Fassbender) as sordid secrets threaten to destroy her chance at happiness. Challenging material for most young actresses, but what did you expect from a girl who grew up watching Kieślowski?
Juliette Binoche's latest film, Certified Copy, offers a bit of everything for the discriminating cinemagoer: the famously exact and entrancing mise en scene of Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami; the sanguine folkways of Tuscany; humor, sophistication and not just a little mindbending heartbreak in the tale of an Englishman (opera veteran and film newcomer WIlliam Shimell) and Frenchwoman (Binoche) meeting for the first time (or are they old lovers finally dissolving?); and of course Binoche herself, an international icon who nevertheless needed nearly 15 years to fulfill her goal of working with Kiarostami.
The last time I spoke to Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother was in that strange bubble of being a cult favorite, but the cast was left biting their nails every every year waiting to learn if CBS had picked the series up for another season. Times have changed: Not that Radnor doesn't still have strong feelings for the show on which playing Ted Mosby -- the "I" in the title -- made him a recognizable face. But it's apparent that the energy and passion once exclusively set aside for the hit comedy has been firmly reassigned to his film career -- namely the new movie Happythankyoumoreplease, which Radnor wrote, directed and stars in.
Back in 2006, Topher Grace wrapped production on That '70s Show and transitioned seamlessly into the '80s. That is, the Connecticut-raised actor starred in (and executive produced) an '80s romantic comedy opposite Teresa Palmer, Anna Faris and Dan Fogler called Take Me Home Tonight. And this weekend, after a few years and a few distribution switch-ups, the film is finally being released.
The great tragedy in Drive Angry 3D's lackluster opening last weekend isn't that the B-movie homage didn't make more money, but that more people didn't get to see William Fichtner steal the show as The Accountant, the no-nonsense supernatural CPA from hell doggedly tracking Nic Cage's every move on earth. Fichtner, one of Hollywood's most beloved character actors, gives a master class in added-value acting in the film, which he discussed with Movieline last week before musing further on muscle cars, The Godfather Part II, and his soap opera beginnings.
It's already shaping up to be a huge year for Teresa Palmer. Last month, the Australian actress kicked serious alien ass as a mystery assassin in the Michael Bay-produced I Am Number Four, and was rumored to be dating Zac Efron. This weekend, Palmer officially emerges from the shadows of her Twilight doppelgänger Kristen Stewart with her leading role in the 80's romantic comedy Take Me Home Tonight co-starring Topher Grace.
The Oscars are over and we are collectively in the early 2011 humdrum of banal, Nicolas Cage is Number Four's Unknown Roommate-type movies. Rango may or may not be on your radar -- for reference, it's not the one with the birds; that's Rio -- but what it brings is a break from the predictability of not only the movies that are usually released around this time of the year, but of recent animation movies in general. Directed by Gore Verbinski (the Pirates of the Caribbean films), Rango is a gritty surprise, and not just because it seamlessly weaves in a Hunter S. Thompson reference.
One of the few (if not the only) widely held highlights of Oscar night arrived at the beginning: The short film featuring hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco bouncing from dream to dream, Inception-style, eventually burrowing into Alec Baldwin's subconscious and inhabiting sequences from Best Picture nominees like True Grit, The Fighter, The King's Speech and Inception itself. The film set a near-perfect tone for light irony and even lighter hosts that the show would not sustain, but at least we have filmmaker Troy Miller to thank in part for getting the broadcast off on the right foot.
Reason #1 why we love Lea Thompson, who just landed a new ABC Family pilot, Switched at Birth: She's the girl we all wanted to be in the '80s. Reason #2: She's like the estimable honey badger when it comes to real talk about her old Red Dawn co-star turned Qaddafi of Hollywood, Charlie Sheen.
A wise man once said that the road to the Academy Awards goes through Movieline HQ. Or something. For a healthy number of this year's higher profile nominees, anyway, that was indeed that case: From Annette Bening to Jesse Eisenberg to Hailee Steinfeld to Geoffrey Rush among numerous others, it was our pleasure to rendezvous with some of the year's most acclaimed actors, directors, and craftspeople. Read on for our comprehensive collection of Movieline Interviews with this year's Oscar nominees.
If you ever fantasized about stealing a car without consequences, having a threesome with a supermodel, or competing in a coked-up dance-off in an 80s movie, talk to Dan Fogler. The Brooklyn-born Tony winner gets to do all of those things and land the best lines in next week's 80's movie extravaganza Take Me Home Tonight starring Topher Grace and Anna Faris.
If you thought you'd seen the last of pop phenom Justin Bieber (well, for a while) after his rocku-biopic Never Say Never opened two weeks ago, his Rolling Stone interview hit, he died in a hail of gunfire on CSI, and he cut that magical hair, think again: In an unprecedented move by Paramount and director Jon M. Chu, a new cut of the film is being re-released to theaters this Friday for a limited one-week run. So why the Bieber Redux? And why are non-Beliebers buzzing about the impact Never Say Never: The Director's Fan Cut could have on the future of filmmaking?
Whatever you do, don't think Peter and Bobby Farrelly are only interested in bodily functions. After all, their films -- from Dumb & Dumber to There's Something About Mary to Stuck on You -- are often built on misguided-but-sweet men that get involved in situations beyond their control. If there's some actual toilet humor involved -- as in the case of their new film Hall Pass -- that just goes with the territory of being misguided.
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