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Acting
That’s Quite a Cast of Characters
Zack Snyder assembles a cast of relative unknowns for Watchmen
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Christian Bale Returns to Brooding Batman in The Dark Knight
Back in 2005, Christian Bale might not have seemed the most likely choice to play the title role in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, the risky re-imagining of the classic comic book franchise. Yet, due to the first film’s critical and commercial success—and Bale’s stand-out performance—the Welsh actor is donning the black cape once again for the highly anticipated sequel, The Dark Knight.
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Shakespeare on Film: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
MM's seventh week of Shakespeare on Film explores the Bard's original comedy duo
Tom Stoppard originally sold the screen rights to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, the stage comedy which made his name, soon after its 1967 premieres in the West End and on Broadway. He wrote a screenplay for MGM, then saw the project languish for twenty years until the rights were bought back and he rewrote the script and filmed it in what was then still Yugoslavia. With a cast featuring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, Stoppard portrayed the events of Hamlet entirely from the point of view of the Prince’s doomed friends as they travel to Elsinore, kick their heels ‘off stage,’ and sail to England.
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Warren Beatty Honored with AFI Life Achievement Award
On June 12, 2008, legendary Hollywood star Warren Beatty received the 36th AFI Life Achievement Award. The event will air on the USA Network, Tuesday, July 8th at 9 p.m. Guests including Beatty’s wife, Annette Bening, his sister Shirley MacLaine, Julie Christie, Robert Downey Jr., President Bill Clinton, Gene Hackman and old pal Jack Nicholson gathered to honor the multi-faceted moviemaker's contributions and lifetime commitment to cinema.
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Shakespeare on Film: Antony and Cleopatra
In MM's sixth week of Shakespeare on film, we examine why Charlton Heston's Antony and Cleopatra didn't fare too well.
After playing Marc Antony in the 1950 and 1970 Julius Caesars, Charlton Heston had become obsessed with adapting Antony and Cleopatra, which he considered Shakespeare’s finest work, but which had never previously been filmed at feature length. His love affair with character and play reached a rocky conclusion in this overlong epic.
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Will Smith in Action
Will Smith is the king of Hollywood—as named by Entertainment Weekly and Newsweek in their recent rankings—and the July 4th box office, which is why, with this weekend’s release of the movie Hancock, MM saw it fit to take a look at Will Smith in action.
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Shakespeare on Film: Romeo and Juliet
With Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli interprets the language of young love in MM's fifth week of Shakespeare on Film.
With Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli interprets the language of young love in MM's fifth week of Shakespeare on Film. Zeffirelli first sowed the seeds of this box-office triumph in 1960, when the Italian director-designer made his Shakespeare stage debut with Romeo and Juliet at London’s Old Vic. In 1967, he set out to replicate that Old Vic passion on film. He was confident of attracting a large international audience and, believing that “the kids in the story are like teenagers today,” took a gamble by casting actors almost as young as their characters: Leonard Whiting was seventeen, Olivia Hussey, chosen ahead of 350 other hopefuls, just fifteen.
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M. Night Shyamalan Happens
After the disaster that was Lady in the Water, seems like M. Night Shyamalan's backers have got another marketing trick up their sleeve as they release his latest film, The Happening: Promote the hell out of the fact that it's the director's first R-rated movie. It's probably not enough of an incentive to outdo The Incredible Hulk as the summer season box office continues to heat up, but the reviews so far have been on Shyamalan's side. As the sci-fi auteur awaits the final tallies, MM takes a look at the roller coaster ride Shyamalan has his taken critics and audiences on since The Sixth Sense.
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Shakespeare on Film: Julius Caesar
MM's third week of Shakespeare on Film looks back at 1953's Julius Caesar.
MM's third week of Shakespeare on Film looks back at 1953's Julius Caesar. In 1952, MGM coupled its substantial $1.7 million investment in Shakespeare with one of the most inspired casting decisions in Hollywood history. A year after stunning audiences as macho, mumbling Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Marlon Brando was to play the “wise and valiant” Marc Antony. Columnists expressed astonishment, TV comedians impersonated Kowalski’s rendition of “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” but the star, declaring himself “sick to death of being thought of as a blue-jeaned slobbermouth,” had decided that Julius Caesar must kill his Streetcar image.
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Kung Fu Panda Drop Kicks the Competition
Seems like all those promos must have paid off—first at Cannes, then the TV commercial onslaught—as Kung Fu Panda kicked some serious butt at the box office over the weekend, out-grossing Adam Sandler's new film, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, by 50 percent. The animated action flick, featuring the voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman and Jackie Chan, took in $60 million over the weekend—while Zohan earned $40 million.
Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull held strong in the number three position with $22.8 million, while last year's surprise topper, Michael Patrick King's Sex and the City, saw a more than 62 percent decline in ticket sales, with a weekend total of $21.3 million.
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Indiana Jones Whips the Competition
Indiana Jones proved he's still got what it takes—at least in box office clout—as the latest film in the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, whipped the competition, with a box office total on track to be the second biggest Memorial Day movie opening ever. The film, which brings Harrison Ford back in the titular role alongside Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf, brought in just over $125 million for the holiday weekend, putting it just behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which had a Friday-through-Monday total of $139.8 million in 2007.
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Sneak Peek: Sex and The City
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Being John Cusack
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Lights! Camera! Geritol!
Are audiences ready for a rickety Indiana Jones?
Today’s stars keep themselves in better shape than ever before, and audiences seem to like that. In fact, box office receipts for recent flicks featuring some of our favorite aging action heroes are so encouraging that studio execs are practically rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the new Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) vehicles. Stallone certainly didn’t hurt himself when his more famous screen persona—Rocky Balboa—earned critical acclaim and a respectable $70 million in last year’s titular blockbuster, chasing doubts that the actor-director was simply giving himself a starring role in order to slow a career slide.
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Kung Fu Panda Comes to Cannes
In the tradition of all things animated finding appreciation at Cannes (from Shrek to Persepolis), Jack Black and Angelina Jolie's new film, Kung Fu Panda, made its debut on the French Riviera.
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Last Exit to Film Geekdom
Film geeks like to show off; it's in their job description. Whether it's debating the merits of Lars von Trier or discussing which Evil Dead film is the true masterpiece, it's just what they do. Well, thanks to entrepreneur Mike Ford, what they do has just gotten a bit easier to show off. Ford's UK-based company, Last Exit to Nowhere, sells T-shirts based on fictional companies and locations from films. And although the movies represented tend to skew a bit toward cult favorites (designs include the Winchester Tavern from Shaun of the Dead, the Urban Achievers from The Big Lebowski and Jaws' Amity Island), Ford says this was not deliberate.
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Christina Ricci Goes Hollywood with Speed Racer
A seasoned moviemaker at the age of 28, Christina Ricci has never been one to play by the rules. Ricci is surprising Hollywood again by starring in Speed Racer, her first big summer blockbuster, nearly two decades into her career.
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Dennis Farina Reveals What Happens in Vegas...
He’s been a part of some of the most critically acclaimed movies (Saving Private Ryan) and popular television shows (“Miami Vice,” “Law & Order”) of the past 30 years. But for Dennis Farina, the notion of making a living as an actor was not the first one that occurred to this son of blue-collar Chicago; his first career was as a beat cop in the City of Broad Shoulders. It was only after meeting director Michael Mann through a mutual friend that the actor best known for his wiseguy roles (Midnight Run, Get Shorty) and the occasional unorthodox ladies’ man (Sidewalks of New York, “Empire Falls”) landed his first role in the 1981 thriller, Thief. While Mann helped launch his career, Farina has gone on to work with a number of other strong auteur directors, including Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight), Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games).
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Harry Potter’s World Comes to a City Near You
It’s really impossible to hear something like “sorting hat” or “invisibility cloak” and not feel at least a little of the allure of Harry Potter's universe. When the films brought the J.K. Rowling books to life, it was through the costuming, set design and props. In 2009, “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” will bring 10,000 square feet of artifacts from the enchanting films to 10 or more cities around the world over a five-year period.
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Iron Man Comes Out Fighting in London
As U.S. audiences start counting down the days until Iron Man, one of this spring's most anticipated movies, is released in theaters on May 2nd, film fans across the pond got a sneak peek at hero in action when the film premiered yesterday at the Odean in London's Leicester Square.
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She’s The Boss
The rise of the actress-director
Two of last year’s more critically acclaimed films—Sarah Polley’s Away from Her and Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris—were directed by women who first gained renown for their on-screen performances. Now, a new pair of films—Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me and Jada Pinkett Smith's The Human Contract—also happen to be made by actress-turned-directors.
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The Dark Knight Wins MovieTickets.com Challenge
This summer is unusually packed full of comic book and graphic novel adaptations, starring old favorites and some fresh faces. In light of this trend, MovieTickets.com ran a poll asking which superhero will win the summer's number one spot. Here’s what the online community had to say:
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Jason Segel Takes the Lead in Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Jason Segel isn’t a typical Hollywood leading man—especially not for a romantic comedy. But then again Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the movie in which the 28-year-old has his first leading role, is not your typical romantic comedy. Inspired by the likes of Albert Brooks and Woody Allen before him, Segel wrote a script that turns convention on its head.
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Tanna Frederick Lives the Hollywood Dream
It seems appropriate that actress Tanna Frederick's breakthrough came in a film called Hollywood Dreams, Henry Jaglom's tale of an aspiring actress who takes Hollywood by storm. With absolutely no connection to the movie business, the Iowa native has proven herself a force to be reckoned with—"determined" would be an understatement—and has found a kindred spirit in Jaglom, who can't say enough kind things about his new muse.
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Independent Spirit
Independent moviemakers explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.
Six independent moviemakers talk of the state of independent moviemaking today and explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.
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Remembering Charlton Heston
Back in the early 1980s, at the time when he and Ed Asner were very publicly clashing over matters concerning the Screen Actors Guild (and, yes, their diametrically opposed political leanings), Charlton Heston visited Houston to promote a new movie—Mother Lode (1982), I think—so, naturally, I agreed to interview him. But here’s the thing: Even though this wasn’t our first professional encounter, and even though he was the epitome of graciousness, I nonetheless felt slightly intimidated while in his formidable presence. So it was more than a little awkward for me to politely phrase a question about... well, about certain incendiary language Asner recently had used…
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Jared Leto Throws His Weight Behind Chapter 27
For all the girls wondering how to get the key to Jared Leto's heart, here's part of the answer: Write an intriguing screenplay that allows him to spread his wings. That's all it took for writer-director Jarrett Schaefer to persuade Leto to star in his independent drama, Chapter 27, and throw his weight behind the film (quite literally) as an executive producer as well.
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Football Hits and Misses—Hollywood Style
Ah, springtime. That special time of year that can mean only one thing to all of you inveterate sports fans out there in movieland... Football season? Okay, so maybe spring is usually reserved for a sport of a more bucolic and placid nature, but so what? We here at MM rarely conform to the demands of the calendar—and neither does George Clooney, whose latest directorial effort, Leatherheads, hits theaters today. In honor of this latest entry into the football movie genre, we're revisiting some of the genre’s hits, misses and fumbles.
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Paul Giamatti Takes 10
Sooner or later, when cruising late-night television, you’re going to catch a glimpse of a no-name character actor who looks an awful lot like the famous thespian, Paul Giamatti. That’s because before he became famous, Giamatti made his living playing parts like “Heckler #2” and “Kissing Man.” Characters with no names. But along came a romp through California’s wine country in Sideways and the Sundance hit American Splendor and suddenly the one-time bit player was a leading man and Oscar nominee.
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David Schwimmer Makes Fatboy Run
It’s impossible to talk of David Schwimmer and not mention "Friends", the ‘90s sitcom that helped to define the decade’s comedic expectations and much of its sensibility. But it’s been four years since Ross Gellar stopped paying weekly visits to audiences around the world and Schwimmer is on to bigger things.
For years now he has toiled away in theater (co-founding Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company) and television, both in positions seen and unseen. Over the course of the ten years "Friends" was on the air, Schwimmer directed 10 episodes of the hit series, but in ways similar to his theater directing credits, it was always a “controlled environment. You never have to worry about sound, for instance, or changes in the weather—it suddenly raining for two hours after you start filming.” Yet, on the set of his feature directorial debut, Run, Fatboy, Run, Schwimmer encountered that and much more.
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MM Remembers Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark ensured his immortality as a giggling psycho killer (Kiss of Death), a cynical pickpocket (Pickup on South Street), a member of John Ford's version of the U.S. Cavalry (Two Rode Together), a wary but not sufficiently watchful N.Y. cop (Madigan)...
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Owen Wilson’s Alter Egos
It would have been the rare critic that could have predicted Owen Wilson would be an Oscar nominee just six years after his debut in the 1996 film Bottle Rocket. But in fact, in 2002, the blondest of the Wilson brothers was nominated alongside his Bottle Rocket co-writer and longtime collaborator, Wes Anderson, for their original screenplay, The Royal Tenenbaums.
Together the duo has worked on five features including 1998's Rushmore and the The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), but it is for his work with Ben Stiller and other members of the "Frat Pack" that Wilson is known best. Whether he's trying to play it straight in Meet the Parents, or hamming it up in the film adaptation of Starsky & Hutch, Wilson's on-screen alter egos have provided audiences with years of laughter, tears, heartache and even more laughter.
Before Drillbit Taylor makes a splash at the box office this weekend, MM takes a look at Wilson's on-screen personas past and present.
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Anthony MInghella: 1954 - 2008
Sometimes an artist creates a work you love so much that he or she just become an integral part of your life, etched in your psyche and on your heart, without your ever even having come into actual contact with the person. That is an artist's job—to move and in many ways define you—and when you have a true artist, as Anthony Minghella was, they leave an imprint on your life that never fades.
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Steve Carell’s Hits and Misses
In honor of this week's release of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, MM takes a look at the hits and misses of Carell's feature film career thus far.
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David Gordon Green Makes Snow Angels
Exploring the unique collaboration between director and actor
When i began working with Kate Beckinsale on Snow Angels, we were trying to find elements rooted in reality that could give her character of Annie anchors of emotion—humor, frustration, aggression and sympathy. I knew that once cameras were rolling, we wanted a high degree of improvisation, particularly when it came to confrontational scenes with her estranged husband, Glenn (played by Sam Rockwell). So we needed to design as much background for her as time would allow.
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Doorpost Awards $300,000 to “Undiscovered” Moviemakers
The Doorpost Film Project, a “contest aimed at discovering and developing moviemakers capable of producing films that inspire and influence rather than simply entertain,” just finished round one and is now left with 15 finalists who are described by Nathan Elliott, the Project's director, as “a globally, ethnically and racially diverse group of filmmakers that have one important thing in common: They're enormously talented."
Posted 07.23.08 | News/Commentary | No comments yet...
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