Aubrey Plaza is taking the summer off from the Pawnee Parks Department to go back in time. In the sci-fi dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed — expanding to new cities this weekend — she keeps her signature scowl (mostly) in check, playing the polar opposite of her Parks and Rec counterpart. As a Seattle Magazine intern, Darius Britt not only takes initiative, but also takes other people’s shit — with half the snark.
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Among the many familiar faces in Disney-Pixar’s Brave – or familiar voices, rather – is actor Kevin McKidd, who joins fellow Scots Kelly MacDonald, Billy Connolly, Craig Ferguson, and Robbie Coltrane in bringing the tale of a 10th century princess to life in colorful detail. Earlier this week, Movieline spoke with the transplanted McKidd about his beloved home country, his Brave brogue, and the breakthrough moments in a career spanning his early turn in Trainspotting to his current gig on Grey’s Anatomy.
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[A version of this interview originally ran as part of Movieline's coverage of Sundance 2012.] It says something about how far Ice-T has come since his gangsta rap days that his directorial debut, the hip-hop documentary Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap, premiered in January at Sundance to a house packed with hip-hop heads and white older moviegoers who likely know Ice better from Law & Order: SVU than “New Jack Hustler.” And it says something about the film itself, which explores the historical landscape of hip-hop in intimate detail with over 40 of Ice-T’s fellow rappers, that even the L&O-watching grandmas in the audience were bopping their heads the whole way through.
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Following a whirlwind rise to fame in his native Sweden, actor Joel Kinnaman is beginning to make his mark on American audiences thanks to a breakout turn as Detective Holder on AMC’s The Killing and his high-profile casting in the upcoming RoboCop remake. For the Stockholm-born 32-year-old, who breaks Greta Gerwig’s heart at the start of this week’s Lola Versus (but manages to remain sympathetic — a rarity in romantic comedies), setting out for Hollywood couldn’t have come at a better time. And according to him, taking risks — in work and beyond — is what living is all about: “Nothing is more important than the choices we make and the life we choose to live.”
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Most actors might think twice about playing dark and depressed versions of themselves on the big screen, parodying their most cringe-worthy moments of cheeseburger-craving internet fame for all to see in movies — like this week’s Piranha 3DD — more concerned with seeing big-bosomed babes being eaten by fish than with exploring the existential pains of celebrity. But then most actors don’t refer to themselves in the third-person with nicknames like “The Hoff” ™, a la David Hasselhoff, who spoke with Movieline last week about his Piranha 3DD cameo, that one time Leonardo DiCaprio went out for Baywatch, and how he’s learned to just “get on the Hoff train and ride.”
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Director Barry Sonnenfeld exudes a nervy confidence that extends from his blithe dismissal of reported troubles in the making of Men in Black 3 (“The story is if the movie works when it’s finished…”) to the navy blue stingray leather cowboy boots he rocked as he sat with Movieline for a chat (“They’re fish. Feel ‘em!”). And with the sci-fi comedy threequel earning pleasing grades from critics, marking box office titan Will Smith’s return to the screen, Sonnenfeld is already basking in another coup — his first, effective, foray into 3-D filmmaking: “I think this is — I’ll just say it — the best use of 3-D.”
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If you were a movie-watching child of the '90s (or, shall we say, an adolescent girl with a pulse) you knew Devon Sawa as a teen idol golden boy of the decade. But after a little more than a dozen years as an actor — during which time he graduated from kiddie fare (Little Giants, Casper, Now & Then) to Tiger Beat bait (Wild America) to what he calls his “edgy” phase (SLC Punk, Idle Hands, Final Destination, Slackers, and Eminem’s “Stan” video), Sawa departed Hollywood to reassess his career, not knowing if he’d return to acting.
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Given Mark Ruffalo’s reported six-picture deal with Marvel Studios to portray mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner and his rage monster alter ego The Hulk in multiple movies after this week’s The Avengers – and considering how well his take on the iconic comic book character plays, both as Banner and the beast — it seems safe to say that the indie veteran’s first superhero outing won’t be his last. But before The Avengers director Joss Whedon came calling, Ruffalo admits he wasn’t so sure he could pull off such a task. “I didn’t have the confidence to do it,” he told Movieline, “and no one was coming to me with those kinds of parts.”
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The most revealing tidbit to come from talking with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is the idea that he equates box office success with the quality of a film – not the kind of mega-million dollar marketing campaigns that put characters’ faces on soda cans, or comic book fandoms that date back half a century, or any other factors that will surely help Marvel’s The Avengers seize the box office crown this Friday. Instead, with twelve years at Marvel and billions in box office under his belt, the exec who’s been integral to the new golden age of the superhero movie is still, refreshingly, idealistic when it comes to making movies: “Every time we actually do it, I get very excited and can’t believe that we pulled it off.”
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In this week's The Raven, John Cusack brings 19th century author Edgar Allan Poe to life in a mystery-thriller that envisions Poe locked in a battle of wills against his biggest fan: a serial killer murdering in the style of Poe's most twisted stories. The piece is a paradox in itself, literary-minded meta-meditation masquerading as a pulpy mainstream entertainment; between genre beats and moments of Sherlock Holmesian heroism, Cusack and director James McTeigue leave provocations to be found or ignored, depending on your inclination. Whether or not audiences choose to dive in, Cusack just hopes they take the film on its own merits: "If you want a very different, quiet, Masterpiece Theater version of this, someone will go make that movie. But this is what we made. We made a dream about Poe."
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Sundance '11 darling Brit Marling is now a year and change removed from the stunning festival debut that made her one to watch thanks to two films she co-wrote, produced, and starred in: The moody sci-fi drama Another Earth, released last summer, and the mesmerizing Sound of My Voice. The latter film finally hits theaters this week, giving audiences a chance to see a different side of Marling: Earthy, enigmatic, dangerously charismatic, and -- as the leader of a cult amassing members in a basement in the Valley -- possibly from the future.
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Filmmaker Boaz Yakin has taken a circuitous route through the years tackling indie dramas (Fresh, A Price Above Rubies, Death in Love) and studio gigs (Remember the Titans, Uptown Girls) alike, not to mention his writing stints on films like Prince of Persia and producing duties on the Hostel films. But this week’s Safe, a frenetic throwback actioner starring Jason Statham, marks a return to his roots — both to the streets of New York he grew up loving and to the genre beginnings that gave him his start.
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He's played cops, a count, Houdini, a time traveler, a king, and even a drag queen, but in this week's Lockout, Guy Pearce treads new ground as an all-out action hero -- not that he necessarily sees things that way. "People used to say that about L.A. Confidential," he recalled to Movieline recently in Los Angeles. "They’d go, ‘Wow, so you’re an action hero!’ I’d be like, action hero? It’s a ‘50s film noir!" Even still, after 20+ years of acting, most recently in a string of acclaimed supporting turns (see: The King's Speech, The Hurt Locker, Animal Kingdom, Mildred Pierce), it's only now that Pearce is laying claim to the title, guns blazing.
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He's painted cinematic landscapes of psychosexual kink (The Cell), childhood fantasy (The Fall), and ancient Greek 3-D abs (Immortals), but in this week's Mirror Mirror director Tarsem takes a turn into uncharted territory: The family-friendly fairytale. Turning his attentions to the story of Snow White, Tarsem creates another visually rich fantasyland of imagination -- and gives the fabled princess a post-modern streak to boot -- with the help of the late Oscar-winning costume designer and longtime collaborator Eiko Ishioka (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark), who passed away in January at the age of 73. In an exclusive chat, Tarsem takes Movieline through his work with Ishioka and the whimsical, inventive, and utterly imaginative designs of Mirror Mirror that comprise their final collaboration on film.
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As a member of the Jakarta police force, Rama (Iko Uwais) is one of dozens of SWAT agents about to be trapped within the concrete walls of a tenement building run by a nefarious slumlord, set upon by machete-wielding thugs and forced to fight his way out using knives, broken doorways, and at times, only his bare hands. The fighting style he uses to do so, leaving a trail of broken baddies in his wake, is silat -- a lightning-fast, bone-crunching Southeast Asian martial art that gets its best showcase in Gareth Evans’ festival sensation The Raid: Redemption.
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