Readers of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books know what happens at the end of Breaking Dawn... or do they? Movieline sat down with director Bill Condon for an all-out, no-holds-barred, spoilery chat about the shocking changes at the end of Breaking Dawn Part II that had fans gasping in theaters around the globe over the weekend — including how the filmmakers decided who lived and who died, and why if you blinked you may have missed the most earth-shattering character fates of them all.
more »
The tumultuous America of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln was undoubtedly a man's world, but behind the legendary 16th President of the United States — one of the greatest figures in American history — stood a fascinatingly complex, shrewd, and passionate woman: Mary Todd Lincoln. "Without a Mary Todd," asserts Oscar-winner Sally Field, who portrays the paradoxical First Lady opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, "there would not have been an Abraham Lincoln."
more »
Oscar-nominated actor Jude Law plays a pious aristocrat in director Joe Wright's sumptuous big screen adaptation of Anna Karenina. Almost unrecognizable behind a steely exterior, Law's Karenin is Anna's spurned husband in the film, which begins its roll out Friday and is a possible awards season heavyweight. Law seamlessly pulls off playing the high-ranking nobleman whose position at the heights of Imperial Russian society is rocked when his wife embarks on an affair with a dashing young soldier. Speaking about his role, Law, who turns 40 next month, said that he doesn't think he could have played the character when he was younger — but he certainly would have given it a go.
more »
After spending four years and five movies playing Bella Swan's vampire sister-in-law Rosalie Hale in the Twilight series, Nikki Reed understandably has a bittersweet perspective on the billion-dollar franchise coming to a close in this week's Breaking Dawn Part 2. On the one hand, she won't miss the hate mail from fans who have taken her character's onscreen iciness to Kristen Stewart's heroine to heart for four films. But few of Twilight's central figures have been as close to the saga as long as Reed has, dating back to even before director Catherine Hardwicke had cast Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the roles that would skyrocket them, the films, and all of their cast, to global fame.
more »
James Bond veteran and BAFTA-nominated director Danny Kleinman has crafted all but one of 007's title sequences since taking over from Maurice Binder, the creator of Bond's iconic gun barrel shot, with 1995's GoldenEye. For Skyfall Kleinman created a moody, inky death dream of a title sequence powered by Adele's "Skyfall" theme song — a reflection, he explains, of the MI6 agent's dark emotional state as Bond's 23rd EON outing unfolds.
more »
At a time when General David Petraeus' affair with his biographer has become a media obsession, Leo Tolstoy's 19th-century tale of love, adultery and aristocratic downfall, Anna Karenina, is more relevant than ever. And yet, with more than two-dozen film and TV adaptations of the novel in existence, director Joe Wright faced a daunting challenge: bringing a fresh perspective to the classic story. The gamble is whether its unique twist will translate into Oscar nominations. more »
If you weren't one of the scores of moviegoers who contributed to Skyfall's $90 million box office take this past weekend and you're still in spoiler-avoidance mode, then you should stop reading right here. If you did see the movie over the weekend, then you're probably still thinking about the surprises that Skyfall holds for James Bond fans. more »
As far as underdog success stories go, no film this year holds a candle to the crazy true resurrection of the obscure Florida-set 1987 rock 'n' roll martial arts pic Miami Connection. A totally '80s actioner shot independently by Korean-born Tae Kwon Do expert and future Grandmaster Y.K. Kim, the film tanked so hard upon initial release (in just eight theaters in Central Florida) that it sat languishing in obscurity for decades... until the maverick visionaries at Drafthouse Films discovered the gloriously cheesy and infectiously sincere tale, about five orphaned Tae Kwon Do black belts who face off against biker ninjas while moonlighting as a synth rock band.
more »
Introspective masculinity, women on top, cross-dressing PSAs, gay undertones — the James Bond franchise has come a long way in 50 years, most notably during the current era built around Daniel Craig’s serious Blond Bond with the icy blue eyes. Behind the scenes, producers Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson set the record straight on recent Idris Elba-as-Bond rumors and pointed to the post-9/11 shift that spurred them to take Bond from the slick reign of Pierce Brosnan to the morally-complex brand of progressive contemporary heroism embodied in this week’s Skyfall.
more »
Bérénice Marlohe moves through Skyfall with the beauty and grace of a panther, and there's a reason for that. In an interview with Movieline, the 33-year-old French-Chinese-Cambodian actress, who plays the femme fatale Sévérine in Skyfall, says she based her character, in part, on a mythical creature that was part-snake, part-dragon and part-jungle cat. more »
To cast Sergeant Calhoun, the no-nonsense video game heroine with a heart in Wreck-It Ralph, director Rich Moore looked no further than Hollywood's favorite ball-busting dynamite gal: Jane Lynch. Alongside John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer and a cast of fellow character actors and comic veterans, Lynch brings Calhoun to life with pathos and dimension, not to mention a burning passion for blasting evil space bugs into pixelated oblivion.
more »
Oscar winner Melissa Leo has always been one to keep busy, and in Robert Zemeckis's Flight she fills her dance card with yet another brief but potent supporting turn. "'There are no small parts, only small actors,'" she quoted to Movieline as we sat to discuss her Ellen Block, the key investigator and the lone figure standing between alcoholic pilot-hero Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) and a prison sentence in the addiction drama. "Sometimes there are small parts, actually," she laughed, "but this was no small part." more »
If you weren't around for the premiere of Late Night with David Letterman in 1982, then chances are you're not aware how much he — and the team of writers, producers and comic talent that put on the show five nights a week — changed the face of late-night TV. Dave challenged, and in some cases, blew up the conventions of the talk-show genre and rewrote the playbook that Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson and the Jimmys — Kimmel and Fallon — are using today. more »
Is Wreck-It Ralph a video game flick for kids, or the saga of a destructive 30-year-old loner on an existential journey of rediscovery? We put the bigger questions to John C. Reilly, whose smash-happy villain Wreck-It Ralph goes game-jumping through his arcade world in search of his inner hero — crashing a first-person shooter and a candy-colored racing game in the process — in the Disney animated adventure.
more »
"I consider myself the Bo Jackson of entertainment." Martial arts cinema and actual mixed martial arts collide in the form of pro fighter/actor Cung Le, who continues his rising Hollywood action career with a furious turn as Bronze Lion in RZA's The Man With The Iron Fists. But his wild-maned, lethal work as the Lion clan henchman (who finds his toughest opponent in Lucy Liu's Madam Blossom) is just Le's "part time" job, of course; on November 10, a week after Iron Fists debuts in theaters, Le will face off against UFC fighter Rich Franklin in one of the biggest fights of his career.
more »
