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Newswire || ||

Willem Dafoe Joins Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac; Nicole Kidman Heads Out

Willem Dafoe Joins Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac; Nicole Kidman Heads Out

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe played a crazily estranged couple in Lars von Trier's erotic/thriller/surreal Antichrist in 2009. And now, Dafoe is set to return to Von Trier's latest, Nymphomaniac along with Gainsbourg, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Stellan Skarsgard and Uma Thurman. Others are joining the cast, while one big name has pulled out.
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Biz Break || ||

Tom Rothman to Produce Steven Spielberg's Next Pic; Helen Mirren To Be Honored By European Film Awards: Biz Break

Tom Rothman to Produce Steven Spielberg's Next Pic; Helen Mirren To Be Honored By European Film Awards: Biz Break

Also in Tuesday morning's round-up of news briefs, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams and more begin work on a new project. The Abu Dhabi Film Festival unveils its lineup. And Beasts of the Southern Wild director begins work on a new "Louisiana-fable" project.
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Biz Break || ||

Biz Break: Harvey's Party, Dafoe's Furnace, Ridley's Retrospective

Biz Break: Harvey's Party, Dafoe's Furnace, Ridley's Retrospective

Welcome to Biz Break, Movieline's inaugural roundup of film news that comes our way and other highlights from publications worldwide. Among today's stories: Harvey Weinstein will celebrate his Legion of Honor award in New York, Willem Dafoe lands a role in an upcoming thriller, Ridley Scott gets a career retrospective, and more...
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Interviews || ||

The Running Man: Abel Ferrara on 4:44, Staying Busy and Bad Lieutenant at 20

The Running Man: Abel Ferrara on 4:44, Staying Busy and Bad Lieutenant at 20

I met Abel Ferrara in a café on Mulberry Street. In an hour’s time, he didn’t once take his seat. The filmmaker makes a couple of phone calls, goes to the bathroom twice, shows me the new Web series that he’s developing with Vice TV on, and points me to two different articles about his movies. Unkempt and energetic, the Bronx-born director of such New York notorieties as Ms. 45, King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral and this week's 4:44 Last Day on Earth is exactly what you’d imagine he’d be like if he were one of his movie’s characters.
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Review || ||

REVIEW: Abel Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth — Apocalyptic Howler or Love Letter to NYC?

REVIEW: Abel Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth — Apocalyptic Howler or Love Letter to NYC?

If you happen to live in a neighborhood with no Jehovah’s Witness ladies around to remind you that we’re living in the last days, wackadoodle director Abel Ferrara’s latest, 4:44 Last Day on Earth, is here to drive that truth home — or at least make you think about it just a little bit. Willem Dafoe plays an actor, Cisco, facing what he, and everybody else, knows is the Earth’s last day, thanks to an ozone layer that dissolved faster than anyone expected. He spends that last day writing in his journal, watching video footage of some fake-inspirational guru-dude, reaching out to his daughter and assorted pals via Skype and, most importantly, making sweet, crazy, soft-core love to his dishy, much-younger girlfriend, painter Skye (Shanyn Leigh), in the couple’s artsy, faux-ramshackle Manhattan loft. What a way to go!
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Festivals || ||

GALLERY: See Which Stars Took SXSW 2012 By Storm

SXSW 2012: Celeb Gallery (Getty Images)

There was no shortage of stars coming through SXSW 2012, debuting films and projects as diverse as Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods to Lena Dunham's HBO series GIRLS. Take a look and see who else dropped in on Austin, Texas for the annual film festival, including: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and their 21 Jump Street crew, Willem Dafoe, Al Gore, Johnny Knoxville, Melissa Leo, Matthew McConaughey, Jack Black, Aubrey Plaza, Gabrielle Union, Bobcat Goldthwait, new director (!) Matthew Lillard, two Broken Lizards, model-turned-actress Dree Hemingway, and more.
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Inessential Essentials || ||

Inessential Essentials: Last Temptation of Christ on Blu-ray

Inessential Essentials: Last Temptation of Christ on Blu-ray

Movieline is pleased to introduce Inessential Essentials, a regular feature about some of the most intriguing — if not necessarily most obvious — new home-viewing options on the market. We begin today with a film practically doomed by controversy a quarter-century ago, resurrected for DVD and finally given the treatment it truly deserves this week on Blu-ray. — Ed.

What's the Film: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), new on Blu-ray via Criterion Collection
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Review || ||

REVIEW: John Carter's Soulful, Pulpy Majesty Breaks Through Big-Budget Gloss

REVIEW: John Carter's Soulful, Pulpy Majesty Breaks Through Big-Budget Gloss

I had fun at John Carter. Just not $250 million worth of fun, which leads us to the central and vexing problem: Moviegoing pleasure can no longer be casual. We’re now acutely aware of how much every movie cost, how much every studio – in this case, Disney – has riding on every given project. “What does Disney need to make its money back?” becomes the overriding question, when what we really should be asking is, “Did you see how John Carter slashed his way out of that big, blubbery whatsis and came out all blue and shit?”
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Interviews || ||

Willem Dafoe Talks Fireflies in the Garden and Platoon at 25

Willem Dafoe Talks Fireflies in the Garden and Platoon at 25

"Usually when I hear the words 'family drama,' I run," said Willem Dafoe, who nevertheless found something to savor in writer-director Dennis Lee's Fireflies in the Garden. Little did Dafoe or his castmates Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson, Hayden Panettiere and least of all Lee himself know that their particular family drama wouldn't make it to American theaters only today -- nearly four years after its Berlin Film Festival premiere in 2008.

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The 2-Minute Verdict || ||

Ryan Reynolds and Willem Dafoe Do Tree of Life-Lite in Delayed Fireflies in the Garden

If Sean Penn didn't love the abstract narrative Terrence Malick employed in Tree of Life, maybe he'll dig the pretty-similar, much more conventional stuff in the long-delayed Fireflies in the Garden -- a Tree of Life Lite starring Ryan Reynolds as a middle-aged man who returns to his Texas childhood home to deal with his strained relationship with his stern father (Willem Dafoe). Period flashbacks, memories of an angelic mother (Julia Roberts), and a pivotal death that inspires exploration into deep emotional scars? The only things missing are the cosmic clouds of particles laden with meaning. Would Penn approve?

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