Kristen Stewart says it was director Walter Salles’ passion for On The Road that inspired her to sign on for the film. At the New York premiere for the film, the actress, who plays free-spirited Marylou (a character based on Beat icon Neal Cassady’s onetime wife LuAnne Henderson), Stewart told me she was impressed by the immersive research that Salles did — including a 2011 documentary called Searching for On The Road — in preparation for adapting Jack Kerouac’s novel for the screen. “There’s an honor to this story and to the project that is not typical in our business,” Stewart said. Salles is lucky to have her riding shotgun, too. Hollywood has been trying to turn On the Road into a movie since the year it was published, 1957, and Stewart’s immense star power was crucial to getting the job done. RELATED: Check out Movieline’s photo gallery of Kristen Stewart and Garrett Hedlund at the On The Road screening at AFI Fest Salles also talked to me at the premiere as did cast members Sam Riley , Garrett Hedlund and Kirsten Dunst and screenwriter Jose Rivera. It was fun to congratulate him for getting top billing on the movie poster — a rare thing indeed for writers in Hollywood. Check out my full interview below: MORE ON KRISTEN: Kristen Stewart Shares How ‘On The Road’ Helped Her Be Unabashedly Herself Kristen Stewart Talks ‘Hard Love’ In Toronto For On The Road Kristen Stewart Tells Toronto Her Character’s Ability To ‘Love So Openly’ Was Difficult, Nude Scenes Not So Much Follow Movieline on Twitter . Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter .
Pedro Almodóvar has taken a rather dark turn in his last couple of outings including 2011’s The Skin I Live In and Broken Embraces (2009). Speaking in Cannes in 2011, Almodóvar admitted that he has a dark outlook on life, at least then, but he is still very capable of pulling out a comedy. And this teaser for his latest, I’m So Excited appears to be just that. [ Related: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Bows A New & Haunting Trailer ] There are not many detail about the film that his longtime U.S. distributor Sony Pictures Classics will open domestically sometime in 2013, but its stars include Carlos Areces, Raul Arevalo, Javier Cámara, Lola Dueñas, Carmen Machi, Laya Martí, Cecilia Roth, Hugo Silva, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, and Blanca Suárez. The clip seems to indicate I’m So Excited (a not-so-subtle reference to the Pointer Sisters early ’80s hit) will be a high-flying Laugh Out Loud adventure complete with dancing queen flight attendants and at least one pilot asleep on the job. And even Pedro himself appears to be a passenger (seated in the back in the top image). Almodóvar teased two Mays ago he was working on a comedy and even his first English-language script, though I’m So Excited or Los amantes pasajeros , which is its official Spanish title, appears to be firmly in his Spanish roots. The trailer follows with English subtitles.
Even in a huge year at the movies, nothing compared to Christopher Nolan’s Batman conclusion. By Kevin P. Sullivan Christian Bale as Batman in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Photo: Warner Bros.
Matt Damon channeled Bill Clinton on a recent Tonight Show with Jay Leno . He recalled a trip he made to Camp David during the Clinton presidency when he and Ben Affleck brought along their Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting . Damon recalled how a producer from the film told the Prez that he was friends with John Travolta who was starring in Primary Colors , a film considered unflattering to Bill Clinton and did a great impression of him. Damon recalls the story and then morphs into the then POTUS. Check it out…
Promised Land is not the first nor even second collaboration between filmmaker Gus Van Sant and actor Matt Damon . Van Sant helped usher in the age of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck with their Oscar-winner Good Will Hunting back in 1997 and Damon and Ben’s younger brother, Casey Affleck worked with Van Sant in Gerry . Fast forward nearly a decade and a script Damon had been collaborating on with John Krasinski from a story by Dave Eggers set in a small town needed a director. Damon, who had originally planned to direct the feature, realized he could not because of his packed schedule, so he reached out to his old friend Gus Van Sant and the result, which will head to theaters later this month, has caught the wind of Oscar chatterers. Van Sant discussed his latest pic and why he “always wants to work with Matt” during a NYC screening of Promised Land . “The genealogy of this is that John Krasinski was observing a mining operation in Alaska and spoke to Eggers later about writing a screenplay about installing wind power,” Van Sant said at the post- Promised Land screening. “Matt Damon was going to direct [ Promised Land ] himself but then decided he didn’t have time. They thought the project might go away, but then he contacted me – and a year ago, I said yes…” Van Sant said Damon packed schedule had once kept him from playing in one of the director’s most celebrated recent films. He had originally been slated to play Dan White in the 2008 Oscar-winner Milk , but again the actor’s long queue of roles interfered. But, Promised Land posed the next opportunity and the planets aligned. “When you work together you become friends and you wonder what else you can do together again and Matt and I became friends,” said Van Sant. “I felt like we’ve had successful collaborations so the idea of doing something again was really interesting… Working with Matt on this film – I always wanted to work with him on every film.” Set in a fictitious Pennsylvania town that could represent much of small town America that has taken economic blows due to de-industrialization, agribusiness consolidation and the fallout from globalization generally, the story revolves around Steve Butler (Damon) a former farm boy turned big city business guy who teams up with Sue (Frances McDormand) to sell financial prosperity to the struggling town. The sales execs offer up easy cash in return for drilling rights on their property. Though economically hard pressed, the town, along with many others across Rust Belt states, sit atop a rich resource of natural gas once thought unreachable. But through the controversial advent of fracking (fracture drilling) the resource is recoverable though at what ecological cost is not fully known. Steve and Sue think their stay in the town will be short, but a respected schoolteacher (Hal Holbrook) complicates what they think will be an easy sell when he questions the environmental risk. Steve meets a local school teacher (Rosemarie DeWitt) as they bunker down to sway in the town and things get really sticky when an environmentalist (John Krasinski) shows up and raises the stakes. “When we arrived in Pittsburgh during [pre-production] the hydraulic manufacturing companies were moving in and just happened to be having a convention at the hotel we were staying at,” Van Sant said. “So right away we had some sources we could go down and talk to. Also the people in contract talks were also the people we wanted to [scout] for locations.” The tracking process at the center of Promised Land ‘s plot has been hailed by some economic prognosticators as a short cut to energy independence while even cutting carbon emissions. But it has been criticized by others for polluting underground water-tables and even causing earthquakes in areas where they’re almost nearly unknown. Documentaries such as GasLand (2010) and others have depicted frightening scenarios of ecological degradation in the race for plentiful energy, which is not lost on Van Sant though he also sees the film as describing an even larger topic about corporations. “By default its playing into discussions that are political having fracking as a topic,” he said. “But I think the emotions of the story are about corporate maneuvering and inner corporate personnel maneuvering and it could relate to any corporation’s maneuvering including mine or Focus Features. [The film] will obviously play into politics…” [ Promised Land opens December 28 via Focus Features, trailer below.] Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Pulling back the curtain on Star Trek Into Darkness Monday at Bad Robot HQ, director J. J. Abrams and his Trek crew of cast and collaborators were cautious not to reveal too much information as they previewed the May 2013 blockbuster. Still, some of the most intriguing details thus far in the great “ What Is J.J. Abrams Hiding From Us? ” Trek sequel mystery emerged: Who is Benedict Cumberbatch playing? How do a certain race of staple Trek baddies figure into the plot? And, perhaps most significant: What does Alice Eve’s character, revealed to be Carol Marcus – a character very familiar to fans, from a very specific story in Trek canon – mean for Star Trek Into Darkness ? [Spoilers and speculation ahead!] Benedict Cumberbatch is… John Harrison First things first: A conveniently released/leaked still revealed that Cumberbatch’s mystery villain is named John Harrison , though some questioned whether this was a misdirection on Abrams’ part. So what do we know about him? Well, get used to the name. At Monday’s press day Cumberbatch’s character was referred to left and right as Harrison. The costumes of his on display were sleekly functional and metrosexual (one getup involved a scarf and a cobra-like cowl that would fit right in with H&M’s Winter 2259 line). The Starfleet-issued black shirt he wears in the above photo, I’m told, is the same kind Chris Pine ‘s Kirk wears in 2009’s Star Trek ; read into that what you may. I briefly spoke with Cumberbatch about the character, and while he couldn’t say much he did describe Harrison in a particular way. “He’s a terrorist ,” Cumberbatch emphasized. Still a mystery, but that brings me to… The Klingons Yes, Star Trek Into Darkness will have Klingons — we’ll even take a trip to the Klingon home planet of Qo’noS. Although a dozen Klingons were outfitted in STID ‘s semi-throwback Klingon style (pierced ridged bridges and all), only two seem to have prominent speaking roles in the film, which required new prosthetic designs for ease of speaking. They sport armored helmets and familiar Klingon weapons, including a bayonet-like Klingon rifle, a pistol, and bat’leth. Most curious of all: I’d swear one mannequin dressed in Harrison’s garb also sported a Klingon rifle slung around its shoulders… Next: Alice Eve is Carol Marcus — and a NEW Trek villain theory so crazy it just might work…
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is heading to the Sundance Film Festival next month with his directorial debut Sound City and he’s wasting no time getting the pic out there. The film’s website is now taking pre-orders for the documentary that will be released via HD digital download and stream February 1st. It will also be released theatrically February 1. Sound City is the brainchild of Grohl who conceived the story after purchasing a custom-built 8028 recording console from Sound City Studios last year. The board was built in 1972 and considered to be a “crown jewel of analog recording equipment,” having recorded such artists as Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Cheap Trick, Guns and Roses, Fear, Grohl’s former band, Nirvana as well as Rage Against the Machine, Slipknot, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica and others. Grohl’s personal connection to Sound City began with the 1991 recording of Nirvana’s breakthrough album, “Nevermind”. Selling over 30 million copies worldwide. Grohl is getting personal with the feature, sending customers who pre-buy Sound City for $10 a letter, which follows: Hey there…. Thanks for scraping up your hard earned dough and buying the movie direct from our site! We’re stoked! Hope you love it as much as we do…. Ummm………Holy shit! I made a movie! I started this project a little over a year ago with ONE of my good old friends (Jim Rota from the band Fireball Ministry). That’s right….just me, my drinking buddy, and a crazy idea that we should tell the story of a studio we had loved hanging around for years, and our heartbreak to see it close. It soon blossomed into something truly epic! I don’t think either of us ever imagined our little project would become what it is now. Like all the best things in life, it just…….happened. From day one, it was the most incredible experience of my life. I swear. Sitting down with Neil Young talking about recording guitars, John Fogerty telling me about the day he decided to become a musician, Stevie Nicks telling me the story of how she joined Fleetwood Mac, Trent Reznor schooling me on the world of computers and digital technology, etc etc etc…..can you imagine? All I had to do was listen…I am the luckiest man on earth. And, being a completely independent film, no one told us how or what to do! Me and my crew of under 20 people did it OUR way. It was like a keg party with a camera. WE got to tell the story of a place we all held so dear. WE wanted to do it justice. And I think we did. But, SOUND CITY is only part of the story….. What is it that happens when 4 people turn on, plug in, and really play that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up? What is it about those moments when you hear something and it immediately puts its hooks in you, and you feel…..understood? What is it that will inspire the next generation of kids wanna do what I did when I was a little punk growing up in Springfield, Virginia? That feeling like, “Wait……I can do this too….. That’s what I’m talking about. That human connection. That human feel. That human sound…that isn’t perfect…but it’s sooooo good. I really feel like SOUND CITY is my life’s most important work. I hope you do too. Psyched that you get to see it! Show it to your friends! Get together, start a band, sound like shit, and change the world. GO! Thank you, thank you, thank you………Dave [ Sources: Sound City , THR ]
There are no movie stars in Brazil. When a local comedy show asked people to list the most famous Brazilians, the top three were Gisele Bundchen, Pele, and Blanka — the green ogre from Street Fighter 2 who got his powers from the bite of an Amazonian electric eel. So far in 2012, not a single Brazilian-made movie has cracked the top ten in the country’s own box office—in fact, to find a domestic hit, you have to go all the way down to the romantic comedy E Ai…Comeu? , which to date has made about half of as many reals as Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked . But Brazil does have soap stars. And at the Amazonas Film Festival in Manaus, Brazil — the heart of the Amazon — soap stars, dozens and dozens of them, all handsome and cheerful and thrilled by their own fame, were the main event. That a film festival celebrates soap stars makes no sense, until it does. One of the major reasons for trekking these TV celebrities out to Manaus is to lure schoolchildren to attend the free festival where, between hooting hellos at their idols, they watch a movie, fall in love with film and kickstart the next generation of Brazilian cinema. The second reason for the soap star deluge is to make the rest of the country pay attention to Manaus. Until very recently, the 2.2 million capital city of the Amazon was only accessible by plane and boat; most of the celebrities in attendance from the southern metropolises of Rio and Sao Paulo had never been there at all. It takes longer to drive from Rio to Manaus than it does to drive from Los Angeles to New York, and the cultural distance between the two is so vast that the TV actors kept insisting to us gringo journalists that Manaus wasn’t even really Brazil, but more like how we think of Alaska. But if Manaus has a lot to prove, they’ve also got the money to do it. In case you haven’t heard: Brazil is rich. And Brazil sets aside .85% of the federal budget to support the arts, while the United States manages a meager .066% — and Mitt Romney still wanted to kill Big Bird. The 2012 Amazonas Film Festival was a lavish spare-no-expenses wonder: Every night one to two movies screened for attendees sitting in the velvet chairs of the Teatro Amazonas, an opera house built in 1896, and every day, the festival hosted trips to waterfalls and rainforests and palaces. One afternoon, everyone trekked to a nature reserve to celebrate as Elizabeth the sloth was rechristened a native name meaning “Beloved by Humans.” There was a fireworks salute, the clinking of goblets filled with Coca-Cola and Guarana soda, and then the DJ spun “Jungle Boogie.” Meanwhile, a concession stand employee fed stray marmoset monkeys like they were pigeons. And unlike Sundance in Park City, Utah, the film festival isn’t even the town’s high point of the year: Manaus hosts a big cultural festival every month for rock, opera, folklore, carnival, jazz, theater, dance, pop music, and even Christmas, which this year will be produced by Disney and aired on national TV. Americans have seen Manaus before, even if they don’t realize it. The Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez masterpiece Anaconda claims to have been shot there, although none of the locals would admit it. (They should.) So few feature films have been shot in the region that when the fest played A Floresta De Jonathas (aka Jonathas’ Forest — “Jonathas” is not a typo), a trippy slow burn about a teenager lost in the jungle, it was heralded as the first flick filmed there in 10 years. Film nerds can name a third flick from Manaus: Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo , which opens with Klaus Kinksi and Claudia Cardinale leaping from a canoe to dash up the stairs of the grand old Teatro Amazonas, desperate to see Enrico Caruso. But most Brazilians haven’t heard of that movie either, though if you believe a word Kinski wrote in his sex-mad autobiography All I Need is Love , he had to have left behind at least a half-dozen half-Brazilian children. The Teatro Amazonas (pictured at top), where the seven-day film festival was held, looks almost the same as it did when Herzog filmed there in 1982, except for the mime dressed like Charlie Chaplin who stalked the red carpet each night and eagerly leaped in front of every camera. At the opening of the Amazonas Film Festival, the old marble walls — imported from Italy back when the rubber barons of Manaus made it the richest city in the world — buzzed with energy. We American journalists were given headsets that translated the introductory speeches from Portuguese to English, not that they helped us make any sense of the moment when a soap star named Igor, a dead-ringer for Benicio del Toro, stormed the stage uninvited and shouted something loosely paraphrased as, “Thanks for letting me have sex with my girlfriend under a waterfall!” to the Minister of Culture. Then he pulled a pair of sheer black pantyhose over his head like he was about to rob a convenience store, and fled the stage to massive applause. Lost in translation, I suppose. The opening night film, Colegas ( Buddies ) has been sweeping up awards in Brazil. It’s comedy version of Natural Born Killers with a twist — the two gun-toting lovebirds on the run with their best friend all have Downs Syndrome. Plus, the trio, headed by de facto leader Stallone (whose parents named him after their favorite actor) were so bored at their institution for the mentally handicapped that they spent their days memorizing old Hollywood movies on VHS. It’s a Brazilian movie about American movies — even the credits riff off old posters for Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Godfather . When girlfriend Aniha waves a pistol in a fancy Buenos Aires restaurant, she hollers, “Everybody be cool — this is a robbery!” and when she and Stallone snuggle up, he whispers, “Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?” The inevitable Fox Searchlight remake will rake in millions, especially with the built-in controversy of a cast that’s half-disabled. But there was no frisson of exploitation here, though when lead ingenue Rita Pokk literally lowered to her knees onstage to thank the director for allowing her to act, he hastily joined her on the ground. Continued…
The Hobbit doesn’t make you heave, according to Warner Bros. The studio behind the first film in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings prequel trilogy is batting down reports that the the high-frame rate of the picture caused nausea and dizziness for some fans who saw early screenings of the picture in New Zealand. Here’s the statement that the studio released on the matter: “We have been screening the full-length HFR 3D presentation of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY extensively and feedback has been extremely positive, with none of thousands who have seen the film projected in this format expressing any of the issues described by two anonymous sources in media reports. We share the filmmakers’ belief that by offering filmgoers the additional choice of HFR 3D, alongside traditional viewing formats, they have an opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking advancement in the moviegoing experience and we look forward to having audiences everywhere share in this new way of storytelling.” Warner is reacting to reports by the New Zealand Herald and ABC News that some moviegoers found the film’s frame-rate hard to stomach. The Down Under publication cited “some viewers” who said the “filming technique made them nauseous and dizzy, with some even complaining of migraines.” ABC News quoted a Hobbit fan who tweeted: “You have to hold your stomach down and let your eyes pop at first to adjust.” Jackson’s decision to shoot the movie at 48 frames-per-second — twice the rate of most films — has also prompted complaints that high-definition result requires the moviegoer to process too much visual information. The New Zealander does have one Hollywood heavyweight in his corner. James Cameron predicted that Jackson’s decision to shoot The Hobbit at 48 frames per second would do for high-definition filmmaking what his Avatar did for 3D movies. “We charged out ahead on 3D with Avatar , now Peter’s doing it with The Hobbit . It takes that kind of bold move to make change.” RELATED STORIES: ‘Hobbit’ Fans Complain Of Dizziness & Nausea ‘The Hobbit’ At 48 FPS: A High Frame Rate Fiasco? ‘The Hobbit’ 3-D Early Review: Back Again, But Not Quite There [ New Zealand Herald , ABC News ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Aviation and music tycoon Sir Richard Branson and his son Sam Branson are no fans of the War on Drugs and they’re hoping a new film that they launched on YouTube will do for their cause what An Inconvenient Truth did for the issue of global warming. Produced through the younger Branson’s production company, Sundog Pictures, Breaking the Taboo features a host of notables including former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, other former world leaders as well as experts and other household names in a doc hoping to change hearts and minds about the global war on drugs. Clinton is shown in the trailer saying the War on Drugs, which has cost billions and jailed thousands in the U.S. alone, “hasn’t worked.” Morgan Freeman narrates the English version of the pic, the trailer of which opens with Richard Nixon’s proclamation ushering in the U.S. War on Drugs. Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal narrates the Spanish version of the film, which has its trailer available on YouTube. The site indicated the full-length Breaking the Taboo will bow December 7th. “I am hoping in the same way that Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth opened people’s eyes to global warming issues…, Branson told The Guardian . This film will open people’s eyes on the war on drugs and the failed war on drugs and make it easier for people who want to be brave and do something about it.” Sam Branson said the film will head to YouTube because of its “potential to reach millions. Both Branson look to countries such as Portugal and Spain where drug users receive treatment as opposed to jail time as providing an example. Sir Richard calls the legalization of marijuana as “inevitable” and added that most in power secretly agree with him. “I have hardly ever come across a politician that won’t say – off the record – what needs to be done…in the end they just need to be brave.” Washington and Colorado voted to legalize marijuana in the most recent election and the U.N. general assembly voted to hold a special session on drugs in 2016. Obama is also seen in the film before being elected saying that a change is needed, though he has held the line on decriminalization earlier this year. “We would be hopeful that in a second term Obama intends at the very least to start treating drugs as a healthcare problem, not a criminal problem,” said Sir Richard Branson. Check out the trailer below : [ Source: The Guardian ]
