James Franco. Hank Azaria. David Cross. Ron Livingston. It's a broad range of actors who've been enlisted previously to play Beat icon Allen Ginsberg, none of them quite delivering the poet's intellect and spirit opposite the, er, best minds of his generation. Now comes the news that Daniel Radcliffe will take a shot of his own at Ginsberg in director John Krokidas's Kill Your Darlings.
more »
Thanks to the wonders of Twitter, we already know how Albert Brooks feels about this morning's brutal Oscar-nomination snub. But how is the rest of the Academy's snubculture faring? We may never know entirely, but at least their unofficial ambassador Patton Oswalt has the fan-fiction angle covered -- and it sounds like this group has the Governors Ball beat.
more »
Park City was eerily peaceful early this morning with nobody around and last night’s dusting of snow on the ground. Soon enough – by this afternoon, or this evening, or certainly tonight – that will all change as filmmakers, press and industry folks roll in and the dreaded promoters (“leveragers,” Sundance founder Robert Redford called them in his inaugural address today) pimp out this snowy mountain town like a toddler in a tiara. Appropriately, Redford pointed to the current hardships for filmmakers, and the world at large. “Times are hard and grim,” he acknowledged, later offering optimism. “Independent film is healthy. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
more »
Smack in the middle of a two-week frame yielding two awards shows and a pair of nomination announcements that will culminate in this year's Oscar nods, the researchers at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics have gained minimal insight into where the Academy may take the 2011-12 awards race in next Tuesday's final nominations. Or maybe they're all just sleeping. It's been that kind of year. Let's check their work in this week's Oscar Index.
more »
Last year, Sundance It Girl Elizabeth Olsen had two notable films debut in Park City. One was Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, which earned Olsen raves and new fans for her central turn as a paranoid cult survivor. Now comes Olsen's second Sundance '11 pic, Silent House, in which poor Olsen finds herself spooked by bumps in the night and possibly more insidious forces while stuck in a darkened abandoned house. Was it really shot in a single continuous take, as co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau claim? Is there any young actress quite as watchable in moments of terror as the younger Olsen? Watch the trailer and let us ponder these questions together.
more »
What a week at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the pundits' hustle harmonized with the guilds' bustle to create a heavy-duty wake-up call for some otherwise dormant awards-season underdogs. They also telegraphed danger for a few juggernauts once thought unassailable. What does it all mean as we head into the Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards weekend? To the Index!
more »
The first Oscar Index entry of 2012 finds Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics a little hungover from the holidays and lot bored from the protracted inertia of awards season. Not even this week's Producers Guild Award nominations could do much to shake up a contest that appears to be both wide open and solidifying into place at the same time. Let's investigate...
more »
Well, this should go pretty fast: The holiday week has offered a dearth of new narratives to trace and pulses to take, with only one film demonstrating any significant mobility in the studies coming out Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. Let's get to it!
more »
For nearly three years, Movieline's Verge feature has introduced you to the likes of Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Armie Hammer, Emma Stone, Chris Hemsworth and dozens of other bright young screen talents on their ways to the big time. 2011 was no exception, so wind down the year with a look back at -- and a word with -- a few major new players you'll be seeing plenty of in the future.
more »
Screw Christmas. Forget Hanukkah. To hell with New Year's. There is only one holiday we celebrate in the dank, windowless labs of Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, and that is Oscar Night. Thus the latest edition of Oscar Index, offering all the festive year-end joy you can possibly stand. Let's get to it!
more »
Every month at Movieline, we collect the best interviews, smartest features, and most compelling reviews we've produced, and curate them in one easy-to-use table of contents called the Virtual Newsstand, which pays tribute to our print magazine history. Here's the Virtual Newsstand for October 2011.
more »
After writer-director Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar) debuts her latest film, this December's moody Tilda Swinton-Ezra Miller pic We Need to Talk About Kevin, she'll set her sights on more classic fare: Herman Melville's Moby Dick... only, set in space. "We're taking the premise into the realm of the galaxy; it's creating a whole new world, and a new alien, a very psychological piece" Ramsay told Radio 5 Live's Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo. "Mainly taking place in the ship, a bit like Das Boot, so it's quite claustrophobic. It's another monster movie, in a way, 'cause the monster's Ahab." Stick around for more happenings in today's Buzz Break.
more »
One of the biggest discoveries you'll make this year -- and one of this fall's class of neophyte Oscar contenders -- is 22-year-old Elizabeth Olsen. The younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley may have earned her first credits as a child actor in her siblings' tween franchise-building movies, but she launches her very serious film career this October in the Sundance award-winning Martha Marcy May Marlene, Sean Durkin's deeply observed drama-thriller about a shell-shocked young woman (Olsen) who reunites with her family after spending years under the influence of a sexually abusive cult.
more »
The opening scene of Sean Durkin's debut feature Martha Marcy May Marlene suggests we're in for a big rusty bread pan's worth of rural miserablism, and even though we're not, the yeasty grayness of those early moments is clearly intentional: A group of women in drab dresses and droopy T-shirts go about preparing dinner in a house whose unfinished interior looks either new and hastily erected or ancient and about to fall apart -- it's hard to tell which. A young boy stomps about in a dusty, scrubby yard; a woman sits on the porch working on a crocheted afghan. When dinner's ready, a bunch of men sit down to eat; then they leave the table -- the man who appears to be the leader murmurs something appreciative about the meal -- and the women take their places. Then there's one lone shot of a ton of dirty dishes jumbled into and around the kitchen sink -- there's no question who's going to be scouring them clean. It's as if Amishtown had been taken over by a nicer version of the Manson family.
more »
More news out of the bustling Cannes marketplace: Naomi Foner, producer, screenwriter and mother to Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, will direct Very Good Girls from her own script. What's more, she's got acclaimed up-and-comers Dakota Fanning and Sundance It girl Elizabeth Olsen attached as her leads, playing two friends trying to lose their V-cards during a summer in New York City. But who will play the "charismatic street artist" both gals fall for?
more »
