Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh may publicly disparage Hollywood to his legions of Ditto-heads , but that is not keeping the movie biz away from cashing in on the widely followed conservative. And John Cusack is just the man to do it. John Cusack will take on the role of the ever-controversial Limbaugh in a new biopic that is in its early stages, according to The Guardian. Betty Thomas is eyeing the project as director, which takes a look at the radio personality’s meteoric rise over the past three decades. Cusack may not necessarily share Limbaugh’s conservative orthodoxy, but the story will reportedly give a “non-partisan approach.” Cusack had been a strident critic of George W. Bush’s Administration. He is also expected to be a producer on the project. Betty Thomas has radio credentials having previously directed Howard Stern pic Private Parts . Limbaugh recently lashed out at Hollywood, saying The Dark Knight Rises was anti-Romney because its villain was named Bane, which he said was a reference to the Republican candidate’s former involvement with Bain Capital, which President Obama’s campaign accuses of exporting jobs to China. [ Sources: The Guardian , Deadline ]
Oscar winner Melissa Leo has always been one to keep busy, and in Robert Zemeckis ‘s Flight she fills her dance card with yet another brief but potent supporting turn. “‘ There are no small parts, only small actors ,'” she quoted to Movieline as we sat to discuss her Ellen Block, the key investigator and the lone figure standing between alcoholic pilot-hero Whip Whitaker ( Denzel Washington ) and a prison sentence in the addiction drama. “Sometimes there are small parts, actually,” she laughed, “but this was no small part.” Leo, one of the go-to character actresses working today, has made an art out of popping up to deliver crucial supporting roles when she’s not carrying her own indie movies. (She earned her first Oscar nod for her work in Frozen River and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Fighter , while Francine , an intimate study of a woman newly released from incarceration , is the rare film featuring Leo in the lead; it’s in select theaters now.) In Flight , she manages to do no one else in the film can, and what few have done in the movies, period: Intimidate Denzel Washington. Movieline caught up with Leo in Los Angeles, where we spoke in-depth about Flight , what President Obama has in common with Washington’s Whip Whitaker, how she came to play Robin Williams’ wife twice in one month in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and Lee Daniels ‘ The Butler , and why mixed messaging is a clever way to get audiences to experience the terror in Flight more frightening than a plane crash: “There are all kinds of people in the world, but the way that addiction can grip a talented human being is so sad.” You are having such a busy year. When you stop to think about it, does it seem that way to you? I’ve been very, very busy. Most of it is unfortunately all the traveling between all of it, which is the hardest part of it – but I get through it, because why complain? I get to go to Romania and work with Shia LaBeouf [in The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman ], and then I get to go up to Canada and work with Sammy Rockwell [in A Single Shot ], and I got to do this with Denzel. It’s been a lot of running about doing work, but its been fun. The most fun part of it has been the experience and talent I’ve gotten to play with in the last six months. It’s funny that you should mention the constant traveling, because you’d think a movie like Flight might frighten you away from airplanes. [Laughs] I’m an actor, right? I know that when I’m up there in my little red jacket I’m not as smart as that lady is. I can pretend to be that smart, to play her – but I’m more aware of the pretend of what we do. That’s the angle that I come at it from. So the “accident” is thrilling moviemaking to watch; I’m fascinated by the filmmaking in it. And Brian Geraghty! His fear makes me feel so afraid. Just a terrified little boy in the cockpit. I think that is one of the scariest pieces of that amazing thing Zemeckis did, staying inside the airplane. But it’s play! When I arrived in Atlanta to shoot I was lucky enough to see them building the animation of the shot where the plane knocks the chapel off the church. I saw the inner workings of how he was going to do that. So you see, it’s not real to me. Why be afraid? If you’ve got Whip Whitaker out of his mind on booze and coke in that pilot’s seat, well, you got on the airplane and that’s your lot in life. I don’t wish a plane accident on myself, by any means, but if it happens, so shall it be. That’s such a terrifying scene, the audience collectively gasps because we’ve all been there on a plane, wondering what would happen if things went wrong. It’s such an odd sensation, to be at once terrified and entertained by a scene in a movie like that. We also go on ferris wheels and roller coasters, to get our hearts racing in the way that perhaps they raced when our husbands went out in loincloths to slay a bear. It’s a human necessity, to elevate your feeling in that way – and that’s why we go to the movies. The more terrifying force in Flight is Whip’s addiction… So well put. But I can’t imagine everyone out there will know that going in, based on the ads. I think it’s a genius plan to get everyone in the United States to sit down and watch that film, because they’re going to see Denzel Washington and this big plane accident and it’s going to be so exciting – and to get this intimate portrait, this sad, sad portrait of a talented, capable, functioning addict is much more scary. Your character plays a very interesting role in Whip’s story, in that she’s a looming antagonist – she’s the one who could bring his world crashing down, who he and his legal team worry will be their undoing. How was the character presented to you, and why did you decide to do it? I tell [screenwriter] John Gatin all the time that I’m so pleased they mention her name so often in the film, because when she comes you really know who she is. Some people have said, ‘You’re so mean to him,’ but I don’t think she’s mean at all. That sort of delineates people in their responses to it – if people understand what it is to need help, they do not see her as mean. I was so highly honored that someone with such experience, such scope of who he could use in the role, would come and not just ask would I do it but beg me to do this role for him. I understood, you know, the old expression ‘There are no small parts, only small actors’ – and sometimes there are small parts, actually –but this was no small part. [Laughs] The load that he was giving me far outweighed the moments in it. It’s also more dialogue than I generally have to learn for an entire script! It was a responsibility that Mr. Zemeckis placed on my shoulders, and that was not lost on me. The honor he was giving me, saying ‘You can bring this home for me.’ If the scene doesn’t work, the film doesn’t work. He was asking me to do that. And having now seen it and heard people’s response I feel I can say I did a pretty OK job. It’s also pretty fun watching you in the hearing scene, having Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and Bruce Greenwood all intimidated by you. [Laughs] We accomplished most of that by simply staying very distant all day. There’s a big temptation on a set to get to know folks and chat with them, but it’s not really why any of us show up. I think some of us show up for the press because we might get an opportunity to do some of that friendly visiting! But in my mind very clearly Ellen Block has her own agenda, she has her own people she answers to, and as far as she’s concerned she knows exactly what this ne’er do well attorney is up to. She’s not involved with them in any way, so by shutting them out of my world maybe that’s what establishes that distance between them. She’s also quite surprising in that she’s built up in such a way, from Whip’s perspective, that you expect her to be some big scary lady coming after him, guns blazing. That’s Mr. Zemeckis. That was his choice. I asked him what he needed from it. It could have been done in a very mushy, maternal way. It could have been done in a very angry and judgmental kind of way. He didn’t want any of that; he just wanted her to extract the truth. It was a very clear direction. So much of Whip’s life is a performance – he’s acting, pretending to be something he isn’t, just to hide his addiction from people. He’s getting by in that way until the crash makes him a celebrity and the world puts him on a pedestal. I may be reaching, but can you relate to the balancing act of having to deal with that sort of attention as a celebrity while retaining your own private complexities as a human being? You’re not wrong in seeing how complicated it is. With little recognized accomplishment does anything negative get said about you, would anybody bother? No, they wouldn’t. But if you have an accomplishment or accolade given to you, you’re much more open to speculation of your more dark sides, and judgment about you. Eventually you learn to know that everybody has an opinion. It’s kind of interesting that anybody would have an opinion about you, you know? But it’s a funny thing. It makes me think of dear Obama. Back when he made that speech as a senator years ago and people were like, ‘What a speech!’ It’s almost even since that moment that people began to find things to tear him apart with. Until you walk in any shoes like that, it’s the same with Whip Whitaker – what are the reasons that he’s turned so fully? The portrait of a strong and capable man who’s such a dirty rotten addict… I’ve known such addicts, and it’s so much harder in a strong, smart, capable person than somebody who wasn’t ever really going to do anything with their life anyway. There are all kinds of people in the world, but the way that addiction can grip a talented human being is so sad. Shifting gears, I’d like to take you back in time a bit. You’ve done so many great and celebrated projects during your career, but one of my favorite credits of yours is All My Children . [Laughs] Before I worked on it, man, I used to watch them all the time! We all did. Back when I did it, soap opera just had one of its biggest heydays ever. And that was even from radio, when it was the only kind of entertainment. I loved that job, I really did. It was shot the way live television was shot, and I’ll never get an opportunity to do live television again like that. There’s a famous cat fight scene that made the rounds a few years back. Do you remember it as fondly as the internet does? When that came up on the internet and somebody pointed it out to me, I couldn’t even remember the fight. I looked it up, too, because so many people were asking, I felt like a silly goose that I couldn’t remember. Now fast forward to the future – you have about a dozen movies coming out in the next few years. Yes, and they’ll all be like this. Well, not all of them; you won’t have to wait ‘til the end of the movie to see me in all of them. But most of them are one or two –day parts, and the continuing story down in New Orleans playing Toni Bernette on Treme , and getting to play Robin Williams’ wife twice in the last month, what a hoot… How did that even happen? Just a fluke. A total, absolute fluke. I’ve met Lee Daniels over the last few years and I was just delighted when he asked me to come do his Mamie for him with Robin as his Ike. At the same time Phil Robinson wanted me to play Robin’s wife in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn . Did you and Robin find yourself bringing one movie marriage into the next? Oh, it was really delicious! With both roles, we had so much. If you’ve ever spoken with Robin or have spoken with anyone who’s spoken with Robin, he’s a very serious actor, and very concerned. He was constantly at Phil’s side after takes – not neurotically so, but just like, ‘Did I get it right, is that what you needed?’ But he also cannot help himself – if he hears something out of the corner of his ear and he has a joke, out will come a joke, and another, and another. Everybody’s on the floor laughing! So as we played Mamie and Ike, it was very serious to both of us – he had done an incredible amount of research on Eisenhower. And the way Lee wanted them portrayed is not really in the history books. It’s from Forest’s eyes that you’re seeing all these presidents and their wives come through the White House, so you really want a more intimate portrait of them than you’d get in a biopic. But then to be back up on Brooklyn shooting, I said to Robin at one point during this lovely dancing scene, ‘Remember that party where we dressed up as Ike and Mamie Eisenhower?’ And I got him to laugh! I was so delighted. Read more on Flight , in theaters today . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The movie industry can be a forgiving one. SlashFilm is reporting (via Variety) that Roger Avary will be making his post-jail directorial debut with Airspace , a mile-high thriller in which John Cusack plays a charter pilot whose plane comes under attack from a heavily armed MiG fighter jet after he finds a mysterious briefcase in his aircraft. The movie is being described as ” Duel in the sky,” a reference to Steven Spielberg’s nailbiter of a 1971 TV movie about a guy in a car being menaced by an insane dude in a semi. Avary’s other project is a film adaptation of the Castle Wolfenstein video games that Avary, who won an Oscar in 1994 for co-writing the Pulp Fiction screenplay with Quentin Tarantino , was slated to do before he ended up spending eight months in jail stemming from a 2008 DUI-related vehicular manslaughter conviction . Panorama Media and Samuel Hadida, who produced the 2006 Silent Hill film, which Avary wrote, will produce the Wolfenstein film. [ SlashFilm] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
James McTeigue ’s The Raven , a thriller set in Baltimore during the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, is a handsome-looking thing, with fairly grand period costumes and reasonably lavish sets. So much for production values: In every other way the picture is stiff and unyielding, hampered by a clumsy plot and diorama performances. The whole thing has the feel of a second-rate living-history exhibit. John Cusack plays the beleaguered Poe, who hasn’t had a literary hit in a long time and doesn’t even have enough dough in his pocket to buy the good stiff drink he sorely needs: When the barkeep at the local watering hole refuses to serve him, he tosses a pile of coins and crumpled money on the bar, and there’s an old button mixed in there, too. Still, Edgar finds some solace in his romance with the pretty, vivacious Emily Hamilton (Alice Eve), whose father greatly disapproves of the match. (It helps that he’s played by a gruff, grouchy Brendan Gleeson, taking his role only about as seriously as he needs to.) Meanwhile, there’s something really ugly going down in Baltimore. A serial killer is offing his victims via grisly means clearly inspired by Poe’s stories: A mother and daughter suffer a throat cutting and a strangulation, respectively, a la “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” A critic (!) named Griswold – based on one of Poe’s real-life adversaries — is slowly, excruciatingly bisected by a scary slicer thing right out of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Fields (Luke Evans), a young detective working on the case, appeals to Edgar to help him find the culprit. To complicate matters, the creep absconds with Emily and challenges Edgar to find her before she succumbs to the nasty death he’s got planned for her. That’s not a terrible premise for a film, and The Raven at least offers the occasional spurting blood vessel of gruesome fun. Sometimes, though, it seems to aspire to be a sort of period Saw — albeit a much tamer one – with a degree of sadism it really doesn’t need. McTeigue (who directed, seemingly a century ago, the adaptation of Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta ) is working from a script by Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare, and you can see he’s pedaling hard to keep the suspense level high: The Raven seems to be striving to jazz up Poe the way Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies tried – unsuccessfully – to capture the spark of Arthur Conan Doyle. Along the way, the plot wobbles off the rails too many times to count, particularly as the movie rattles toward its convenient wrap-up, but that isn’t even the major problem with it. It all could have worked, maybe – if only Cusack, as the frustrated, impoverished genius, weren’t so insufferable. Cusack tries to turn Poe into a tragic crank, a man whose brilliance was sorely underappreciated by the masses, and even if the approach is believable enough, Cusack too often comes off as an imperious bore. He peers at the folk around him through those small, dark, glittering eyes; sometimes he condescends to them with that reluctant crinkle of a smile. Cusack has often been a marvelous actor – he was convincingly haunted in the 2007 Stephen King adaptation 1408 – but he makes a smug Poe, not a tortured one. It doesn’t help that the character keeps reminding everyone in the movie, and us, how brilliant he is. The real Poe was brilliant, and the literature he left behind elicits a particular type of delicate but bone-rattling shiver; no artist since has been able to match it. Do we really need John Cusack strutting around in a floaty cape, bellyaching about how the simpletons around him just don’t get his genius? Poor Edgar sure didn’t have it easy in life; the last thing he deserves is to be portrayed as a pompous ass. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The Cannes Directors Fortnight released its 2012 lineup Tuesday following yesterday’s Critics Week announcement and the Cannes official selection lineup last week. Michel Gondry’s The We and the I will open this edition of the sidebar, which was founded in May 1968 in the wake of the massive student uprisings in France. The Directors’ Fortnight styles itself to “independent-mindedness” and is non-competitive (though debut films are eligible for the Camera d’Or prize recognizing Cannes’ outstanding first-time filmmaker). Since its beginning it has showcased the first films of Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Ken Loach, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Haneke, Chantal Akerman, Spike Lee, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Francis Ford Coppola Sofia Coppola and more. Feature Films : 3 de by Pablo Stoll Ward (Uruguay, Germany, Argentina) – Première internationale Granny’s Funeral by Bruno Podalydès (France) – Première mondiale Alyah by Elie Wajeman (France) – Caméra d’or – Première mondiale Camille redouble by Noémie Lvovsky (France) – Première mondiale The King of Pigs by Yeun Sang-Ho (South Korea) – Caméra d’or – Première Internationale Dangerous Liaisons by Hur Jin-Ho (China) – Première mondiale Le Repenti by Merzak Allouache (Algeria) – Première mondiale Ernest et Célestine by Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner (France, Belgium, Luxembourg) – Première mondiale Fogo by Yulene Olaizola (Mexico, Canada) – Première mondiale Gangs of Wasseypur by Anurag Kashyap (India) – Première mondiale Enfance clandestine by Benjamin Ávila (Argentina, Spain, Brazil) – Première mondiale La Nuit d’en face by Raoul Ruiz (France, Chile) – Première mondiale – Séance spéciale La Sirga by William Vega (Colombia, France, Mexico) – Caméra d’or – Première mondiale No by Pablo Larraín (Chile, USA) – Première mondiale Opération Libertad by Nicolas Wadimoff (Switzerland, France) – Première mondiale Hold Back by Rachid Djaïdani (France) – Caméra d’or – Première mondiale Room 237 by Rodney Ascher (USA) – Caméra d’or – Première internationale Sightseers by Ben Wheatley (United Kingdom) – Première mondiale – Séance spéciale Sueño y silencio by Jaime Rosales (Spain, France) – Première mondiale The We and the I by Michel Gondry (USA) – Première mondiale – (Opening film) A Respectable Family by Massoud Bakhshi (Iran)- Caméra d’or – Première mondiale Short Films : Programme 1 – 1H38 With Jeff by Marie-Eve Juste (Canada) Rodri by Franco Lolli (France) Königsberg by Philipp Mayrhofer (France) Enraged Pigs by Leonardo Sette et Isabel Penoni (Brazil) Les Vivants pleurent aussi by Basil da Cunha (Switzerland , Portugal) Programme 2 – 1H25 Drawn from Memory by Marcin Bortkiewicz (Poland) The Curse by Fyzal Boulifa (United Kingdom, Morrocco) Tram by Michaela Pavlátová (France, Czech Republic) The Living Dead by Anita Rocha da Silveira (Brazil) Wrong Cops by Quentin Dupieux (France)
A flurry of new images recently hit offering a sweaty, revealing look at Lee Daniels ‘ Precious follow-up, the ’60s-set adaptation The Paperboy — so how’s about a round of Caption This! After the jump, help Movieline caption this startling image of Nicole Kidman as the sensual woman at the center of this dark Southern potboiler, here seen having what I can only imagine is quite a moment while sandwiched between Zac Efron , Matthew McConaughey , and David Oyelowo. Based on Pete Dexter’s 1995 novel, The Paperboy follows newspaper reporter Ward James (McConaughey) and his brother Jack (Efron) as they’re tapped to investigate and exonerate death row inmate Hillary Van Wetter ( John Cusack ) accused of murdering a local sheriff. Kidman’s Charlotte Bless is a New Orleans woman in love with Wetter — and as you can see here, this is not exactly the Nicole Kidman we’re used to seeing. (Sofia Vergara was previously attached to play the role; the film is set to debut at Cannes.) Is Kidman having a When Harry Met Sally … moment? Will the real housewives of the world take fashion cues from her next season? Caption away, Movieliners! [ Kinopiosk via The Playlist ]
Having had the chance to work with one of his heroes, Paul Newman (in 1989’s Fat Man and Little Boy ), John Cusack turned to a Newman classic for a round of Movieline’s My Favorite Scene . “There’s a scene of Paul Newman in The Verdict that I would use as the best example of economy and what a close-up is supposed to mean,” Cusack explained during our chat for The Raven . “It’s the example where the film does what no other art form can do – a book can’t do it, and theater can’t do it, it’s only for film, and it’s the best example of it.” Pay attention, kids – Professor Cusack’s Film Language 101 is in session. Really, a Cusack class in film history wouldn’t be so farfetched; In addition to acting, writing, producing, and Tweeting , Cusack’s also a keen student of cinema – so much so, he jokes, he could teach a class (“On other people’s films,” he adds). When put to the Movieline challenge, he didn’t hesitate to draw upon one of the best scenes in Sidney Lumet ’s 1982 courtroom classic. “It’s Sidney Lumet and Paul Newman and David Mamet at their finest,” he began. “Paul Newman plays this ambulance-chasing lawyer whose client has been turned into a vegetable, and the hospital is trying to settle out of court because they’re protecting the doctors from a malpractice suit. It’s a big ethical dilemma. He goes to take a picture of his client, this woman who he hasn’t seen, and she’s on a life support machine – she’s been turned into a vegetable.” “You hear the breathing and breathing, and he takes the pictures,” he continued, “and then, as they develop, he has a moment of conscience. He sits down and he looks at the pictures and he looks at her, and you can see his entire life – all the compromises he’s made, all the short-cuts, all the lies – come crashing down on him.” “It’s still a wide shot, and from the back a nurse comes in and says, ‘Sir, you can’t be in here.’ And then you cut in close on Paul Newman and Paul Newman says three words: He says ‘I’m her attorney.’ And in those three words, what washes over his face tells the entire story, and it tells as much as a novel could ever tell.” Watch the scene below at the 6:40 mark. “If I was to teach what film can be, and what a close-up is supposed to be, and what great acting, directing, and writing is supposed to be, I would use that scene,” Cusack said. “It all comes together and it’s probably the best close-up that I’ve ever seen. I think it’s Newman’s finest hour – one of his many masterful pieces of acting.” Couldn’t agree more. Flashback: The Verdict was indeed nominated for five Oscars, including Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (James Mason), and Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture, but was eclipsed that year by a Gandhi near-sweep. The Raven , meanwhile, hits theaters next Friday, April 27 — stay tuned for Movieline’s full interview with Cusack. Read more My Favorite Scenes. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The last time we saw John Cusack onscreen, he was turning back time in a hot tub. Now, Cusack returns to the multiplex to travel much deeper into the past — far beyond embarrassing ’80s ski suits and Rick Springfield singles and into the 1800s, where as Edgar Allan Poe, he helps search for a serial killer who uses Poe’s own gothic stories as inspiration for his murders. Take a look at the first eerie trailer for The Raven below.
Also in this Wednesday edition of The Broadsheet: Ron Howard won’t direct the next Dan Brown adaptation… Nicolas Cage and John Cusack may get Frozen … a pair of familiar faces rejoin the Bourne franchise (not Matt Damon)… and more ahead.
Actor, singer, magician, talented master of ceremonies, web star… Neil Patrick Harris can pretty much do it all — but can he make the leap into mainstream movie stardom? He’ll find out this month in Sony’s live action-CG adaptation The Smurfs , which sees the famous blue creatures take Manhattan — and the lives of Patrick (Harris) and Grace Winslow (Jayma Mays) — by storm in a modern day-set adventure about appreciating family and stepping into fatherhood.
