As indie-film pairings go, The Good Heart's reunion of Brian Cox and Paul Dano is a fairly provocative one. A decade after their collaboration in the controversial L.I.E. -- featuring 15-year-old Dano as a disaffected young man who befriends Cox's pedophile Big John Harrigan -- the duo teams again in the tale of gruff bar owner Jacques (Cox) and his accidental protégé Lucas (Dano). They meet in the hospital where Jacques convalesces after his umpteenth heart attack and Lucas recovers from an attempted suicide. As the older man's health deteriorates, Lucas's applies his sensitivity to opening both the bar and its proprietor to a more inclusive manner of existence. Under Icelandic director Dagur Kári (making his American feature debut), Dano and Cox mount funny, bittersweet pas de deux around the clash of new and old, kind and coarse, and a New York City lost and found.
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She may not be a former Canadian pop star in real life, but Cobie Smulders plays one on TV. As Robin Scherbatsky on CBS's Emmy-winning How I Met Your Mother, the Vancouver-born actress plays a morning-news anchor who dabbled in bubblegum pop music in the early '80s under the stage name Robin Sparkles. And while Robin's clique of thirtysomething friends -- played by Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan -- have only uncovered two recordings to date, the music videos have been so popular that they have inspired dozens of fan parodies on YouTube. Aside from being a former pop star though, Smulders' character is also the show's consummate bachelorette who just this season won the heart of Neil Patrick Harris' comically machismo bachelor.
As How I Met Your Mother's fifth season winds down, Cobie Smulders caught Movieline up on her character's lost variety show with Alan Thicke, the scenes she hated filming this season and her favorite guest star to date.
[Spoilerphobes beware: Smulders revealed a few mild plot twists ahead in the series' fifth season.]
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Following a nail-biting finale against competitors Mila Hermanovski and Emilio Sosa, Seth Aaron Henderson was declared Project Runway's season seven champion. His Bryant Park collection comprised the cold and the carnivalesque. Leathers, plaids, Harlequin prints, and military jackets dominated his presentation, adding up to an explosive palette and hell of an opening statement on fashion's biggest stage. Movieline caught up with Seth Aaron this morning to discuss his big win, making Tim Gunn get on a trampoline, and what he's going to do with the strangest part of his earnings.
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If writers historically are counseled to write what they know, then it might not seem so surprising that Jeff Daniels acts what he knows while playing frustrated novelist Richard Dunn in his new film Paper Man. Or maybe only partly knows: There might not be a distant wife (played by Lisa Kudrow) who leaves him in a cold Sag Harbor cabin to finish his second, not-so-highly anticipated second book. There isn't likely the 17-year-old stranger Abby (Emma Stone), roped into the mix as a sort of accidental emotional stabilizer. And there definitely isn't a cape-and-tights-clad imaginary friend named Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds) coaxing Richard's conscience along since childhood. But writer-directors Michele and Kieran Mulroney's curious indie does feature such influences orbiting the solitary, unglamorous head space that Daniels has plenty of familiarity with as the author of 14 plays -- and a 15th in the works.
Movieline recently spoke with the 55-year-old actor-playwright-songwriter about the quirky dynamics of Paper Man, when it's OK to have a voice in your head, and the writing methods that help him pen an entire play in a month or less.
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Over the course of Monica Potter's 15-year acting career, the Cleveland-born actress has divided her time between the big screen, with projects like Con Air and Along Came a Spider, and the small screen, with series Boston Legal and Trust Me. But when executive producer Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights) offered Potter the opportunity to converge mediums with Parenthood, NBC's dramedy based on the 1989 Steve Martin film, the actress hesitated. A mother of three herself, Potter was not sure that she could accurately portray Kristina Braverman, a tightly wound mother trying to raise her autistic son (Max Burkholder) and teenage daughter Haddie (Sarah Ramos) while maintaining her marriage (to Adam, played by Peter Krause) and navigating the many relationships of her her in-laws, the mighty Braverman clan.
Last week, Potter tested out her new hands-free technology by phoning Movieline to explain how she conquered her fear of TV motherhood, reclaimed her Cleveland accent and felt after her favorite character was canceled.
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How's this for an unlikely trajectory: in your late teens, become a Japanese action star, and then, in your late forties, transition into English-language dramas. That's how it's happened for Hiroyuki Sanada, who got his start in Sonny Chiba's action club in Japan but crossed over to Western films with an appearance in 2003's The Last Samurai. Since then, Sanada's worked almost exclusively on American productions, and though he has a few big-budget films under his belt, he's also appeared on Lost (as this season's temple master, Dogen) and in two films directed by James Ivory, The White Countess and this week's The City of Your Final Destination, where he plays the younger lover to Anthony Hopkins.
Sanada called up Movieline last week to chat about the film, what it was like to curl up naked next to the man who played Hannibal Lecter, and the bait-and-switch that happened when Lost producers asked him to join the cast.
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When Lost began, Jorge Garcia's Hurley was mainly used as comic relief, though he's since shown himself to be capable of much more during the show's six seasons. Fortunately for Garcia, he got to flex all of those acquired muscles last night in the show's final, Hurley-centric installment. As he prepares to say goodbye to the series forever, the 36-year-old actor rang up Movieline to discuss last night's episode, the machinations involved in getting guest star Cynthia Watros to return, and the difficult moments yet to come.
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She may be the daughter of legendary Italian director Roberto Rossellini and screen icon Ingrid Bergman, but Isabella Rossellini is not above dressing up in a praying mantis costume and simulating the insect's mating ritual for your amusement. The Wildlife Conservation Network board member has been, ahem, doing it two seasons now on the Sundance Channel's Green Porno series, which the actress also writes and produces. Rossellini's new series Seduce Me premieres April 20 on SundanceChannel.com. The reproductive habits of salmon, bats and bed bugs are the new focus in this round of nature nookie, shot with the same simple comic style that made her first series so successful.
In anticipation of Seduce Me's premiere, Rossellini phoned Movieline to discuss animal mating, recall who was laughing during those sadomasochistic scenes in Blue Velvet, and reveal how she does not plan on celebrating the centennial of her mother.
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Anthony Hopkins may be a knighted, Oscar-winning movie star with over 50 years of acting experience, but in conversation, he's disarmingly down-to-earth. When he called up Movieline last week to chat about his new film, James Ivory's The City of Your Final Destination, there were no publicist go-betweens or assistants rolling the call -- just a ring from an unknown number, and that familiar voice warmly saying, "This is Tony Hopkins." You get the feeling that in his later life, Hopkins has no patience for Hollywood artifice, and it's a mien that makes him well suited to play Destination's Adam Gund, who's convinced that his ex-pat life in Uruguay is so casual and relaxed that his younger lover (Hiroyuki Sanada) will surely leave him at some point for something more exciting.
As Hopkins prepared to wrap his role on Marvel's megabudgeted Thor, he took the time to discuss his work on Ivory's film while extinguishing one rumor (that there's been friction between him and his Thor costar Chris Hemsworth) and fanning the flames of another (that his next film with Woody Allen is headed for a Cannes berth).
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If you're a fan of the Stargate franchise, you've got an inside man in David Blue. The actor doesn't just play Eli on Stargate Universe -- he's also a sci-fi junkie who'd watched every episode of previous Stargate incarnations before he was cast in the part. It's that kind of insider knowledge that leads Blue to say with confidence that the latter half of Universe's season one (which began airing last week after a hiatus) is its best yet.
Now shooting the second season, Blue took some time out to dish on the fanbase he's accrued with past roles (including a stint as Marc's boyfriend on Ugly Betty), whether he reads sci-fi blogs, and a bit of news he read on Movieline that led him to opine on how exactly Universe's Robert Carlyle resembles Alan Rickman.
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Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week, we hear from Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek about the band's new documentary When You're Strange, which opens Friday in limited release.
For a rock band whose filmed legacy includes at least a dozen concert and video compilations -- not to mention a full-scale Hollywood biopic -- it's not just a little bizarre that The Doors were never the subject of a feature documentary until now. Enter When You're Strange, director Tom DiCillo's fairly straightforward doc (narrated by Johnny Depp) interweaving archival performance and interview footage with extended, never-before-seen footage of late vocalist Jim Morrison's own experimental film, HWY: An American Pastoral. Some of it looks like it was shot yesterday, reinforcing Morrison's enduring mythology as a half-martyr, half-ghost whose mission is carried forward here by surviving members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. In a candid, freewheeling discussion recently with Movieline, Manzarek explained the film's mission, the Doors' cinematic influences, Oliver Stone's blundering and how making a movie is like "World War III."
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Carson Daly is a rarity among late-night hosts. The Santa Monica native broke into the afterhours landscape following a successful career in music, not comedy, and has spent the past eight years peacefully hosting NBC's late-night (or early morning) program Last Call with Carson Daly. When ConanGate threatened the 1:30 A.M. time slot that Daly had civilly occupied since 2002, the host stayed respectfully quiet about his network's late-night war (even as his peers took swings at him) and focused on transforming his program. After stripping away his desk, his tie and his live audience, Daly has finally found a documentary style that suits him. And even better, he can still spotlight the bands he loves and covers on his KAMP-FM morning radio show.
Daly recently phoned Movieline to explain why he holds no ill will toward NBC, how he embraces his early-morning time slot and what bands he was most excited to fight for during his days at MTV.
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Expect to see a few new sides of Thomas Haden Church as the title character of Don McKay, a wildly genre-hopping indie featuring the actor as a Boston janitor summoned home after 25 years by his high-school sweetheart Sonny (Elisabeth Shue). Terminally ill and under the care of a brusque, officious nurse (Melissa Leo), Sonny wants to spent the rest of her short life with Don -- who wouldn't mind that himself if not for the mounting levels of suspicion and secrets towering around them. Rookie writer-director Jake Goldberger cites Blood Simple as a seminal influence, but the film draws its primary energy from Church's strapping, coiled reticence -- not to mention the star's leadership behind the scenes, where he labored for four years in the afterglow of his Oscar-nominated Sideways role to help bring Don McKay to fruition.
Church recently spoke with Movieline about building McKay from scratch, wearing his producer hat, the backlash to last year's loathed All About Steve, and what it was like going to work with Marlon Brando and Charlie Sheen (at the same time!)
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Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week we hear from Oscar-winner Michel Gondry, whose documentary Thorn in the Heart _opens Friday in limited release.-
Michel Gondry is known to make warm, densely tricky and unfailingly personal films; one can even imagine him subverting the superhero genre with his forthcoming big-budget adaptation of The Green Hornet. But what might Gondry do with a documentary? His new film Thorn in the Heart delivers the answer, training his camera on his own family -- his aunt Suzette in particular, whose decades of success as an educator are starkly contrasted against the more haunting pitfalls and woes of matrimony and motherhood. It's an unsparing yet sensitive approach for the first-time docmaker, whose most probing inquiries are woven into animation and vintage home movies until a typically handmade Gondrian tapestry results. In the same candid spirit in which he dismissed Lady Gaga to Movieline a few weeks ago, Gondry he shared his take on nonfiction, grilling one's own family and the thrill of confronting failure.
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In Shana Feste's new drama The Greatest, Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon play parents who are grieving the car accident death of their teenage son (Aaron Johnson) in wildly different ways: he's buttoned-up and avoiding the issue, while she lashes out at others, including their younger child (Johnny Simmons) and the woman (Carey Mulligan) who's pregnant with their late son's baby. It's heavy material, and Brosnan was originally reluctant to sign on: the 56-year-old actor has dealt with his own fair share of grief in real life -- his first wife Cassandra died of ovarian cancer in 1991, and his son Sean was almost killed in a car accident in 2000 -- and Brosnan was unsure if he wanted to go to those emotional places while filming.
In an interview with Movieline, Brosnan discussed how he changed his mind, the guilt he feels over using his personal experiences as an actor, and his take on the evolution of the suddenly white-hot Mulligan.
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