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Funny Valentines: Cinema’s Quirkiest Couples
Some people are Valentine’s Day people and some just aren’t. As a service to our readers, MM has chosen several movies that break the typical romantic comedy mold, making for fine Valentine’s Day viewing for those looking to forgo the overpriced, overcrowded restaurants and gooey Valentine’s Day crowd.
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Two Lovers Director James Gray Says Goodbye to Joaquin Phoenix
Indie auteur and Two Lovers director James Gray laments the retirement of his longtime leading man (and selfishly hopes that Lovers won’t be the last we see of that Joaquin Phoenix fella).
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MM Remembers: James Whitmore
Character actor par excellence James Whitmore had dozens upon dozens of film and TV credits on his lengthy resume—everything from Broadway-spawned musicals (Kiss Me, Kate, Oklahoma!) to edgy crime dramas (The Asphalt Jungle, Madigan) to fact-based war stories (Battleground, Tora! Tora! Tora!). But I suspect that, depending on their age, most movie buffs remember him best as either the hard-bitten police sergeant who tangles with atomic-mutated ants in Them! (1954) or the tragic convict who can't cope with the pressures of post-prison freedom in The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
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Football Hits and Misses—Hollywood Style
Ah, January. That special time of year that can mean only one thing to all of you inveterate sports fans out there in movieland... Super Bowl. So whether you're rooting for the Steelers or the Cardinals, there's no better pre-game ritual than a football movie marathon. To help you in your decision-making, we're revisiting some of the football movie genre’s hits, misses and fumbles.
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The Lost Interview: John Cassavetes
Two decades after his death, a 1985 interview with the grandfather of modern independent cinema reveals new truths
This 1985 interview, one of Cassavetes' last, has been unearthed to reveal the indie moviemaker at his contemplative best.
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Kate, Heath and Slumdog Win at SAG Awards
At last night's SAG Awards, Heath Ledger, Kate Winslet and the cast of Slumdog Millionaire continued their award-winning domination—while Meryl Streep and Sean Penn gained some additional steam in the race toward Oscar.
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Amy Adams and the Benefits of Doubt
Whereas most celebrities take pains to hide their personal relationships from the press, 34-year-old Amy Adams brings hers along to breakfast. This morning, she has shown up for an interview at her local Sunset Boulevard eatery with her betrothed, actor Darren Le Gallo, in tow. “He was hungry,” she explains with a sunny smile. The freshly-minted two-time Oscar nominee sat down with MM for our Fall cover story to talk about religion, Meryl Streep and the benefits of Doubt.
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Leads the 2009 Oscar Nominees
By the time Oscar nominations come around each year, there are few surprises and this year proved no exception. Leading the pack, with 13 nominations, was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which landed nods for its lead actor, Brad Pitt, his on-screen mother, supporting actress Taraji P. Henson, and director David Fincher. Following on its heels was the Golden Globe Best Motion Picture – Drama winner Slumdog Millionaire with 10 nominations and The Dark Knight and Milk, which landed eight apiece.
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Golden Globes Return—and Surprise
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association held its annual Golden Globes awards ceremony last night, Sunday, January 11, 2009, after a forced hiatus last year due to the writers’ strike. Actors, directors, screenwriters and producers turned up at the The Beverly Hilton to celebrate the year in television and cinema and ended up with a few surprising turns of events and others that weren't so.
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Screen Actors Guild Announces Its 2009 Award Nominees
The Screen Actors Guild announced the nominees for its 15th annual awards ceremony Thursday morning. Doubt lead the race with five nominations, followed by Milk and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which each garnered three. Kate Winslet returns with two chances to win this year, while surprise nominee Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) will be attending for the first time to see if he can take home the award for Male Actor in a Supporting Role.
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Freddy Rodríguez Finds There's Nothing Like the Holidays
Actor takes his turn behind the scenes
Actor Freddy Rodríguez has been picking up the pace of late. By now clearly established as one of the most malleable actors of his generation, Rodríguez is ready to take on more. In addition to enjoying a starring role in his latest picture, Nothing Like the Holidays, Rodríguez has also parceled out a share of the producing duties for himself.
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Santa Claus Drops In At the Movies
This time of year we see his image everywhere. The jolly man in a bright red suit and a sack of presents over his shoulder helps to ring in the holiday season. St. Nick appears in malls and weekend animated television marathons each December. From the Christmas classics to modern-day comedies, MovieMaker highlights five of our all-time favorite cinema Santas.
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Alien Encounters: The Super-Nice and the Ultra-Scary
Movie aliens typically come in one of two flavors: Super-nice or ultra-scary. The benevolent aliens spring from our desire to make contact with otherworldly creatures who mean us no harm and may have come to Earth for our benefit. The malevolent ones spring from our deepest darkest fears of the frightening unknown.
With a new remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still in theaters, MM thought it a perfect time to take a look at the some of the most successful alien encounters of the past 60 years.
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Christmas Kids With Spirit
Five of the most memorable children's roles in Christmas classics
Turn on any television during the holiday season and you’re bound to find a wide variety of Christmas movies from which to choose. Santa, snow and sleigh bells are everywhere this time of year. But one important element that makes these festive flicks so special is the bright young faces of children, whose innocence, faith and whimsy so aptly portray the spirit of the season. Here, MovieMaker takes a look back at five of the most memorable performances by children in holiday movies (and incidentally made a list of pretty good stocking stuffers, too).
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Twilight Fans Vote for Most Badass Vampire
Twilight mania is at its peak and what better way to illustrate this than with a to-the-death match between Robert Pattinson, the actor playing the 108-year-old vampire in the much anticipated romantic fantasy movie, and some of the most legendary vampires in movie history? Not literally, of course, but at spout.com, visitors have been voting for their favorites as the famous fangs behind Bela Lugosi, Max Schrek, Gary Oldman and Tom Cruise have been pitted against one another in a digital cage match.
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Robert Davi Introduces The Dukes
Actor-turned-director Davi addresses America’s economic woes with some overseas inspiration
When The Dukes screened at the International Rome Film Festival in October 2007 audiences gave it a standing ovation, critics applauded and the following day it was splashed across all the major newspapers in Italy. After successfully running the festival circuit for the past year, writer-director Davi’s first movie will hit theaters November 14. Here, he speaks with MM about the project that took him nearly 40 years to release, the state of independent film today and how The Dukes is more timely now than ever.
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Politics As Usual—At Least in Hollywood
Lessons Learned From 15 Politically-Minded Movies
As eye the home stretch of the 2008 presidential race and brace for the endless "I approved this message" tags, it may seem cruel and unusual punishment to consider a raft of political films. But these 15 standouts offer a useful primer on politics American-style.
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The Abominable Vincent Price
With his velvet-smooth voice and suave countenance, Vincent Price didn’t really look like your average horror star. Yet, it was his distinguished persona that made him the go-to guy for moviemakers looking to add a touch of respectability to their horror movies from the 1950s to the 1980s.
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Make-Up Makes the Monster
It takes more than great acting and directing to create a great fright for audiences—make-up is key to a character's believability. Blood, guts and gore are all necessary, whether you're talking about the undead or soon-to-be dead, and Rick Baker, Rob Bottin and Tom Savini are among the best in the business at making you believe it's all real. Among them these make-up men have been key in some of horror cinema's most frightening faces, from the zombies of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead to human-to-wolf transformations like in An American Werewolf in London and The Howling. Their reputations precede them and their awards are numerous, but just to review, MM takes a look at some of the best in the business.
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These Women Can Scare You Silly
Whether they’re running for their lives, bravely defending themselves or scaring us senseless, these women have all played indispensable roles in the horror genre. Join MovieMaker as we recap the five scream queens who helped put a face to the genre and the five performances that still give us nightmares.
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Sayed Badreya Is a Man of the People
Although his latest role sees the Egyptian actor playing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, his career has always been about representing his people
There’s so much more to Sayed Badreya than what appears on the surface. Born in Port Said, Egypt, the actor took a rather circuitous route to his current position in Hollywood as the go-to man for terrorist and doctor roles. It was while he was serving the country’s required military service that the future actor heard he was accepted to college in the United States. “So the deal was, ‘Okay, let me go to America for five years to study,’ because this was my dream.” He spent his first few years at the University of Massachusetts in Boston before studying film production at New York University. “The problem is, everyone in the class was using me as an actor. So I became really good at it,” Badreya says.
Five years turned into a few decades and by 2008 Badreya had carved himself a niche in the American movie landscape as Hezbollah Head Gunman (The Insider), Terrorist (in his own T for Terrorist) and Assisting Surgeon (Stuck on You). Now, Badreya is preparing for reaction to his role as Saddam Hussein in Oliver Stone’s anticipated drama W.
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Only Boris Karloff Can Animate Frankenstein
Like Lon Chaney's Quasimodo or Bela Lugosi's Dracula, Boris Karloff became the face of one of the horror genre's biggest monsters with his portrayal of Dr. Frankenstein's Monster in the 1931 original movie and its sequels.
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Mark Ruffalo's Blind Faith
It took a role opposite Laura Linney in 2000's You Can Count on Me to bring Mark Ruffalo into the spotlight. While his name became a staple of independent flicks like XX/XY, My Life Without Me and We Don't Live Here Anymore, the actor has been able to straddle the line between indie and mainstream success, moving between genres with ease and working with some of the greatest directors of the time. With a string of upcoming lead roles in the year ahead, it's clear: The name Mark Ruffalo is synonymous with versatility.
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Simon Pegg Knows How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
The co-creator of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz—and star of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek—shares 10 lessons he's learned as a moviemaker.
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Evan Rachel Wood Wrestles With Her Acting Choices
Though Mickey Rourke's turn as a has-been wrestler in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is making headlines from Venice to Toronto, co-star Evan Rachel Wood's turn as his estranged daughter is also turning heads.
“I think the only time I really am truly true to myself is when I’m acting," Evan Rachel Wood explains. "That’s when I can completely forget inhibition and jump headfirst. You look at my work and you’d never know I’m shy...But with acting, I’m pretty fearless.”
If her choices as an actress are any indication—as with her role in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, Woody Allen's upcoming movie Whatever Works and a rumored role as literary figure Anne Brontë—there’s no doubt that Wood, the person, is just as fearless.
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Neal McDonough’s Golden Rules
Neal McDonough has come a long way since his debut film role as Dockworker #2 in Sam Raimi's 1990 comic book adaptation Darkman. After brief appearances on a bevy of television shows, including "Murphy Brown," "NYPD Blue" and "Murder One," McDonough landed a starring role in the Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries "Band of Brothers." Spielberg liked the actor's work on the project so much that he asked McDonough to act in his then-upcoming futuristic flick, Minority Report. Since then McDonough has enjoyed more starring TV roles, in the Peabody Award-winning "Boomtown" and the Wizard of Oz-reworking "Tin Man," as well as parts in Flags of Our Fathers, The Guardian, 88 Minutes and Jeffrey Nachmanoff's Traitor, which is in theaters now.
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Rainn Wilson’s Big Break
It’s hit or miss when cast members from NBC’s “The Office” land themselves a lead role in a big-screen comedy. Steve Carell’s turn as The 40-Year-Old Virgin propelled his already growing popularity while John Krasinski, the show’s romantic everyman, just couldn’t appeal to enough swooning fans to make License to Wed a box office success. But like Carell, Rainn Wilson’s television alter-ago, beet farmer Dwight Schrute, is not exactly the most respected employee at Dunder Mifflin. Maybe that bodes well for the Seattle native, who will next be seen as the star of Peter Cattaneo’s The Rocker.
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Ben Stiller's Days of Thunder
Reluctant funnyman still doing his own thing with Tropic Thunder
Best-known as one of Hollywood's most bankable funnymen, Ben Stiller has always been more interested in what's going on behind the camera. His upcoming slate of films, including Tropic Thunder, which he produced, directed and stars in, is proof positive.
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Tropic Thunder Creates Storm of Controversy
When Ben Stiller was penning his latest film, Tropic Thunder, he probably never imagined the kind of controversy a subplot would create: A call to boycott the film from more than 20 disability advocacy organizations, just days before Tropic Thunder’s August 13th premiere.
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Shakespeare on Film: William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
Baz Luhrmann attempts a modern-day retelling of Romeo and Juliet in MM's 11th week of Shakespeare on Film
By making rapiers a brand of automatic pistol, Paul Sorvino's Fulgencio Capulet a Godfather-like character and sixteenth-century Verona into 1990s Verona Beach, a Miami-like city, Baz Luhrmann made Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet leap off the screen with unprecedented energy and immediacy. No other director, before or since, has managed to erase young cinemagoers’ resistance to Shakespeare’s language so effectively, by producing a movie that sounds like original-text Shakespeare but looks and feels like a genre adaptation—and succeeds as both.
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Shakespeare on Film: Othello
The language of Shakespeare trips up the actors in MM's 10th week of Shakespeare on Film
Othello director Oliver Parker trims about 50 percent of the text, delivering an audience-friendly two-hour running time without muddling the play’s clear plotting. His script severely restricts the dialogue entrusted to Desdemona (played by Irène Jacob) and handicaps Laurence Fishburne, who exudes hearty sexual swagger and adopts a rich, almost Caribbean accent, but pentameters are alien to an actor more at home in the expletive-ridden worlds of 1990s thrillers like King of New York.
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Young Hollywood’s Last Party
Is the media murdering our most talented movie stars?
You can't turn on a TV, pick up a newspaper or log onto your favorite Website without hearing about young Hollywood's latest casualty. From drunk driving to drug abuse, is today's Tinseltown really any different than it was 10 years ago?
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Boy A Star Andrew Garfield Isn't Afraid to Be Picky
Andrew Garfield’s brief but impressive filmography thus far is no accident; the young actor is nothing if not selective. “I know I’d be really miserable if I was working on something that I didn’t believe in,” says Garfield, 24, whose first four feature film roles are each enviable in their own way.
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Another Step Up for John C. Reilly
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Shakespeare on Film: My Own Private Idaho
Gus Van Sant challenges classicists with My Own Private Idaho in MM's ninth week of Shakespeare on Film
In the 1980s, Gus Van Sant was already writing a screenplay about gay hustlers in Portland, Oregon, when he saw Welles’ Chimes at Midnight and was inspired to make My Own Private Idaho double as a partial, modern-day adaptation of Henry IV. Together with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, the writer-director created a not especially engaging seventy-minute feature: Part love story, part road movie.
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