A week ago brought the first teaser for The Road We’ve Traveled , a Davis Guggenheim-directed, Tom Hanks-narrated, campaign-driven lighting round through the Obama presidency to date. Last night brought the full 17-minute video, and while it squeezes a lot — from the economy to healthcare to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — into 17 minutes, it’s probably most interesting around the 10:35 mark as Joe Biden takes us behind the scenes on the night Osama bin Laden was killed. Just saying! It’s a step up from Larry Crowne , in any case. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
mtvU’s Woodie of the Year winner says his latest tape is due Friday, March 23. By Rob Markman, with reporting by Sam Hendrick Mac Miller performs at the 2012 mtvU Woodie Awards during SXSW Photo: Getty Images Mac Miller may have cashed in when his Blue Slide Park hit #1 last year, but the Pittsburgh MC hasn’t forgot what got him to the top. On Thursday night, the mtvU Woodie of the Year award winner announced he’s set to drop his Macadelic mixtape as a free Internet download on Friday, March 23. After performing fan favorites like “Donald Trump,” “Party on Fifth Ave.” and his newly released “Loud” at the awards show in Austin, Mac took a moment to plug the new tape and revealed the March 23 drop date; the Macadelic Tour will kick off four days later on March 27. It was an eventful night for Miller, who also took home the Performing Woodie awardl. For the coveted Woodie of the Year, Mac beat out some tough competition, including Skrillex, J. Cole, Foster the People, Frank Ocean and the Black Keys. “I was really excited just to be nominated and I came in with the mindset that I wasn’t gonna win, like that’s how I wanted to think,” Mac told MTV News backstage in Austin. “I was up against some really talented people, some really successful people and I didn’t want to come in thinking I was gonna win but they surprised the hell out of me.” MTV and mtvU will air the half-hour “2012 mtvU Woodie Awards Special” on Sunday, March 18, at 8 p.m. ET/ 7 p.m. CT, showcasing some of the best Woodie Awards performances by Santigold, Mac Miller and Steve Aoki, in addition to celebrating the night’s winners. SXSW is under way in Austin, Texas, and MTV News has you covered with all of the action. From the Woodies on March 15 to behind-the-scenes scoop on festival showcases from Lil Wayne, T.I., 50 Cent and many more, stick with us for unprecedented access! Related Videos 2012 mtvU Woodie Awards Festival Performances Related Artists Mac Miller
Perry will debut the video for her hit on ‘MTV First: Katy Perry’ on Wednesday, March 21, at 7:23 p.m. ET on MTV. By John Mitchell Katy Perry in her “Part of Me” video Photo: Capitol Katy Perry ‘s 2011 was huge, and 2012 is shaping up to be even bigger with the March 26 release of Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection and a new album in the works. We’re just days away from “MTV First: Katy Perry,” when the pop star will debut her video for 53rd Grammy Awards as one of the top nominees. Her Teenage Dream was up for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and the tracks “Teenage Dream” and “California Gurls” were nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Collaboration, respectively. She also hit the stage to perform a medley of her Dream tracks “Not Like the Movies” and “Teenage Dream.” During “Movies,” Perry floated over the audience while footage from her lavish wedding ceremony in India to Russell Brand played on a screen behind her.
You have to admire the chutzpah, if not necessarily the filmmaking skills, of Jay and Mark Duplass, the duo behind the stay-at-home-son comedy-drama Jeff, Who Lives at Home . With their 2005 debut, The Puffy Chair , the Duplass brothers took an uninteresting story fleshed out with lackadaisical dialogue and, using barely rudimentary camera skills, fashioned a noodly tale about love, life and relationships. It’s easier, maybe, to admire the Duplasses’ boldness more than the actual product, but you have to say this much for them: They sure do keep moving. Jeff, Who Lives at Home is the duo’s fourth feature, and if their sense of craftsmanship hasn’t grown by leaps and bounds in the past seven years, it has surely improved. Which raises the question: At what point do we stop applauding the Duplass brothers for their gumption and stick-to-itiveness and admit that, maybe, their storytelling just isn’t so hot? Or that their characters sometimes seem more like groovy-cute constructs than believable people? For example, the protagonist of Jeff, Who Lives at Home , played by Jason Segal, believes that everything and everyone in the universe is interconnected. Why? Because he keeps watching M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs over and over again. In the movie’s prologue, we hear him in voiceover as he writes in his diary, “It keeps getting better every time I see it.” Even if the movie’s title didn’t give it all away, you could probably guess that’s a setup for a story about a schleppy 30-ish guy who still lives at home with his mother (in this case, Susan Sarandon) but who will somehow find his purpose in life – his own sense of interconnectedness – during the course of the movie. And you’d be right. The whole conceit feels a little too manicured, too neat, even though the filmmaking around it is still pretty Duplassy – in other words, its earmarks are lots of (somewhat) shaky handheld camera moves and a decidedly uncinematic sense of composition. But there is, at least, a story here, and Jeff, Who Lives at Home suggests that the Duplass brothers really do want their movies to be better and better. Like the duo’s last movie, the 2010 Cyrus , Jeff deals with an adult son who isn’t, for vague yet understandable reasons, quite equipped to live in the real world. Sarandon’s Sharon, hoping to give him at least some purpose in life, just wants him to help out a little around the house – she sends him on a mission to buy some wood glue to repair a cupboard door’s broken slat. Jeff heads out to the store via bus, gazing out the window in a state of semi-wonder as it makes its way past some of the nondescript gas stations and fast-food eateries of Baton Rouge. He never makes it to the store: A mishap surrounding his certainty that the name “Kevin” is somehow of cosmic significance leads him into contact with his estranged brother, Pat (Ed Helms), whose wife, Linda (Judy Greer), has just given him the gate for being a fiscally irresponsible loser. (She seems to be right.) Jeff and Pat forge a tentative reconnection, reminiscing about their dead father and gradually – perhaps too gradually – wending their way toward a climax that gives real meaning to their lives. There’s some genuine sweetness in this story: Jeff may be a clueless galoot who overthinks everything, but he’s really searching for something here, and as Segel plays him, he does have a degree of lumpy charm. But even though much of the dialogue in Jeff is improvised, there’s still something deeply calculated about the picture: It has the distinction of feeling unshaped and sloppy and at the same time meticulously planned out in terms of what it’s asking us to feel. The picture demands that we feel protective of Jeff, and so we do. But we’re also supposed to find it gratifying when Jeff learns that the signs he’s learned to read by watching Signs really are signs. How you feel about the ending of Jeff, Who Lives at Home will depend on your capacity for cosmic delight, but I will say that one man’s date with destiny is just another man’s handy plot device. still, there’s one area in which the Duplasses’ instincts serve them well: The movie features a subplot in which Sharon learns she has a secret admirer at work. She’s pleased and flattered, but she has no clue who it is, and she shares her flutter of confusion with her co-worker and friend, Carol (played, with marvelous suppleness and grace, by Rae Dawn Chong). Everything Sarandon does here feels believable and natural — that’s in addition to the fact that she looks lovely, like a woman who’s happy to be living in her own skin instead of trying to shape it into a mask. She’s the kind of actress who can do a lot with a little, and it’s a pleasure to watch the way small gradations of feeling play across her face like the shifting sunlight on a half-cloudy, half-bright day. Her scenes with Chong (whom the Duplass brothers, God love them, also cast in Cyrus ) are superb, and they suggest that the Duplasses’ improvisational MO can work beautifully with the right kind of actors. Like the Duplass brother’s other movies, Jeff, Who Lives at Home worships at the altar of the small moment, without recognizing that some moments are just, well, small. But occasionally, the Duplasses hold their cracked magnifying glass up to something very real. And oddly enough, it’s the crack that makes all the difference. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
For a movie with a comedic premise this simple – essentially: can you believe we made a movie with a premise this simple? – Casa de Mi Padre can feel pretty exhausting. Its comic arsenal is laid bare by the end of the credits sequence: There is Will Ferrell playing a Mexican ranchero and speaking Spanish; Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal as narco peacocks; telenovela melodrama played absurdly straight; self-conscious B-budget goofing; and plenty of guns and flames for ambiance. Are you not entertained? A credits sequence or SNL sketch or Funny Or Die video is the natural habitat for this kind of hit-and-run goof. Conan O’Brien, playing the fiery Conando, made his telenovela riff Noches de Pasión a regular feature on his show a few years back, and a few minutes is really all it takes to get the job done. Ferrell has worked with his collaborators – director Matt Piedmont and writer Andrew Steele – at both SNL and Funny or Die, and like last year’s Your Highness , Casa de Mi Padre has the feeling of a very inside joke. The story of how the cowardly dupe Armando Alvarez (Ferrell) defends his family from drug-war fallout is told in terms so self-consciously broad that the “joke” becomes obscure again, suggesting that rarefied sense of what’s funny that comedians often develop after a couple of decades on the job. For most of the rest of us it quickly becomes a struggle to find – or desperately root out – humor in much of the re-heated genre spoofing. The house of the title belongs to Miguel (Pedro Armendáriz Jr., who passed away this December), father to Armando and the prodigal Raul (Luna), who returns home at the beginning of the film with a fiancée to die for named Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez). When it turns out that Raul has actually made his fortune running drugs, he earns the scorn of his brother and a bounty on his head, levied by fellow drug lord Onza (Bernal). Armando and Sonia clamp eyes on each other frequently and for long, fraught moments: Is she the worthless coke whore she seems to be or the woman of his dreams? Ferrell is eminently silly as a Latin buffoon with “the eyes of a small chicken” and a heart of gold, and Luna and Bernal are as fun to watch in polyester leisure suits as they are out of them. A blend of location shooting and obvious sets contribute – along with purposefully jumpy edits and one long memo from the second camera assistant explaining the omission of a coyote attack – to the general celebration of shitty aesthetics. There are also boisterous campfire songs about the joy of knowing nothing, mildly subversive slaps at the DEA and an America full of drug-hoovering babies, lavish shoot ’em ups that linger over the explosion of visible blood packets, and one love scene comprised of extensive butt-kneading and Ferrell’s seamless transition into mannequin form and back again. Every once in a while a laugh might take you by surprise – the chicken eyes line did it for me – but the downfall of this kind of long-con comedy is that too often its terminal drollery feels like having the same joke explained to you, over and over again. At the same time the ironic layering feels tiresome rather than intuitively clever or witty, adding barriers between you and the funny part. Ferrell and company reportedly made the Hispanic audience – a huge moviegoing market – a big part of the plan of making and selling Casa de Mi Padre . Weirdly, that kind of calculation feels completely in line with a comedy that manages to be both as “crazy” and as perfunctory as this one. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
There’s a peculiar kind of pleasure to be found in watching Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, in 21 Jump Street , horsing around and generally acting like doofuses for our amusement. As rookie cops assigned to patrol — by bicycle — a city park, they’re more than ready to prove their tough-guy status: When they spot a bunch of biker guys experiencing the joys of cannabis beneath a tree, they strut toward the gang in their shorts and bike helmets, but not before flipping their kickstands down with a mighty thwack . Later, Hill says a fervent prayer in the Catholic church that serves as headquarters for the undercover unit to which the duo has been assigned, its sign outside reading, in mistranslated Korean, “Aroma of Christ Church.” Hill kneels in front of the crucifix, beginning his urgent plea with the words, “Hey, Korean Jesus…” That irreverent riff captures the tone of the whole picture — it’s a ramshackle thing, a goof on the idea that anyone might actually care about a movie based on an old TV show, or that anyone might actually care about a movie at all. For the first half, at least, 21 Jump Street gives us reason to care. In recent years, the mania for turning old TV shows into movies has waned — a good thing, particularly given the ungodly mess known as The Green Hornet . Still, movies inspired by TV shows are coming back with a tiny vengeance — we have Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows , to name just one, to look forward to later this spring. And for now, 21 Jump Street is a small puff of fresh air simply because it’s not, like umpteen other releases coming down the pike, based on a comic-book series. Instead, its inspiration is a show that made its debut on the then-fledgling Fox Network in 1987 (and also helped launch the career of Johnny Depp, long before he became buried under Burton’s makeup or obscured by pirate-y facial hair), although this 21 Jump Street has its own distinct, goofy flavor. The movie opens in 2005, when Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are still high school students. Schmidt is the smart, shlubby, unpopular one — he’s an Eminem nut with a crop of bottle-blond hair, which could be sort of cool if his braces didn’t ruin the whole effect. Jenko is the dumb, sleepy-eyed jock with lank, shaggy hair. When the school principal informs him that he can’t go to the prom and that it’s “time to pay the piper,” he squints at her dimly and murmurs, “I should pay who?” Fast-forward a few years, and these two have become first police academy buddies (Jenko, recognizing he could use some help in the smarts department, latches onto Schmidt) and then rookie officers. After botching that aforementioned pot bust, the two are reassigned to an undercover unit — headed by a hard-ass, and very funny, Ice Cube — in which their job is to pose as teenagers and find the source of a drug that’s sweeping the local high school. 21 Jump Street is at its best when directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller — the guys behind the much-loved 2009 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs — just let Hill and Tatum run with the patent ridiculousness of the setup. (The script is by Michael Bacall, from a story by Bacall and Hill.) Hill is reasonably funny and relaxed here; even when he’s playing the loser-sadsack, he radiates more confidence than he has in the past, instead of just relying on shtick. He still has that unassuming, “Who, me?” demeanor, but he’s more fully in control of it than ever before. And Tatum, who has already proved to be a marvelous dramatic actor even in throwaway pictures like Dear John (he also recently starred in the megahit The Vow ), has the kind of comic timing that’s deceptively laid-back and sharp at the same time. His Jenko comes off as an easygoing galoot, which makes the idiot-savant observations he comes up with that much funnier. Schmidt, upon his return to high school, notes that all the things that made him uncool in his own high-school days (caring about the environment, being tolerant) have now become hip. Jenko agrees, and he doesn’t like it, looking for a place to lay the blame: “I know the cause. It’s Glee ,” he says definitively, like a Sherlock Holmes who’s spent too much time parked in front of the tube. Together Hill and Tatum are so much fun to watch that it’s disappointing when the story around them becomes overly cluttered and convoluted. To say 21 Jump Street loses the plot isn’t quite accurate: It’s a pretty loose-limbed affair from the get-go. But Lord and Miller insist on turning it into an action film, complete with elaborate car chases and shootouts that betray the spirit of silliness they laid out at the beginning. 21 Jump Street falters when it becomes too ambitious. Its finest moments — as when Schmidt and Jenko sternly forbid a bratty kid from feeding ducks in the park, which causes him to immediately (what else?) feed the ducks — are the ones that feel unplanned and tossed-off. In those moments, 21 Jump Street shows a kind of wayward, pigeon-toed brilliance. Maybe that particular brand of half-assed genius is too evanescent to survive a whole movie. Then again, half an ass is better than none. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Preparing for a battle to the death in which the odds are most definitely not in her favor, Jennifer Lawrence’s Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen feels utterly alone, trapped within the deceptively cushy confines of the Capitol. Thankfully, she has at least one key ally on her side: Her stylist Cinna, played gracefully by rock star-turned-actor Lenny Kravitz , who discovered only after being cast that he’d be sharing the screen with one of his daughter’s close friends. “I asked, ‘Who’s playing Katniss?’” Kravitz recalled to Movieline. “‘It’s Jennifer Lawrence.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, she was just in my house cooking breakfast!’” Their previous friendship (through daughter Zoe, who co-starred with Lawrence in X-Men: First Class ) helped lend a natural rapport to scenes between Katniss and Cinna , moments that evoke the stalwart tribute’s hidden fears and anxieties on the eve of The Hunger Games ’ death Olympics. For Kravitz’s part, his take on Cinna is at once subtle and fresh; cast on the strength of his acting debut in Lee Daniels’ Precious , he lends Cinna unexpected warmth and complexity and breathes confident life into one of the books’ most beloved supporting characters. Kravitz spoke with Movieline about the call from Gary Ross offering him the part of Cinna, the all-night reading sessions that caught him up on Suzanne Collins’ page-turner, and why, in this age of media oversaturation and reality TV fame, The Hunger Games rings scarily true. (Also discovered: Lenny Kravitz totally watches Hoarders .) Revealing the real-life inspirations for his take on Cinna – described in the books as a gold-eyeliner wearing fashionista who is also the most “normal” person Katniss encounters in The Capitol – Kravitz answered Movieline’s burning question about Cinna and his intentionally ambiguous sexuality, a question that’s led to much discussion of Collins’ more subtle commentaries on modern culture. Is Cinna gay? [ GALLERY: Jennifer Lawrence & Co. shine at the Hunger Games premiere ] So, you weren’t familiar with the books beforehand and only heard about them when you got the call for Cinna? Yes, through Gary Ross – I had no idea. Did you know Gary beforehand? I had met Gary once at a dinner, a random dinner. He and I had a conversation about film in general, and I was completely taken by the fact that he had written Big and it was his first thing, off the cuff – ‘Oh, I’ll write this movie called Big …’ But that was it! I’d met him once at a dinner. Never saw him again, didn’t have his phone number. How did he track you down for this phone call? I’m in the Bahamas, recording my album, and I’m in the booth somewhere. The engineer knocks and says, ‘There’s a Gary Ross on the telephone.’ I had kind of forgotten, you know? I pick up the phone and he’s like, ‘It’s Gary! Remember, we had dinner…’ I was like, ‘Oh! Gary Ross . Cool. What’s up?’ He said, ‘I’m doing this movie called Hunger Games and there’s a character called Cinna. If you want it, you’ve got it – just tell me. You won’t have to audition.’ I’m sitting there like, what? But in the back of my head I’m thinking, who’s Cinna and what’s Hunger Games ? I had no idea what it was. So I said, ‘Thank you, I’m sure I’d want to do this but – I don’t know what it is, so let me get the book.’ I was in the Bahamas in a small town, not a lot of internet around, so I’m with my iPad trying to get a signal to download this entire book… and I began to read, began to read, and at the end of Chapter One I thought, oh shit – I can’t put it down. I’ll just read another chapter. It was at night and I had been working all day so I’m tired and I figured I’ll make a chapter or two before I put it down, but I couldn’t. I was like, wow, this is a really good story! So I called him the next day and said, ‘I’ll be there.’ Your scenes in the film are mostly comprised of just you and Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, and you two share a great chemistry together. But you had already known her prior through your daughter Zoe, who was also in X-Men . What was your relationship like with her before making the movie together? She used to come over, and I’d go to London and see them. I mean, I fell for her the day she walked in my house. This girl is family. She’s so funny, such a joy to be around. She brings sunshine to any situation. And obviously it was a plus to find out, because when I told Gary I would do the movie I asked, ‘Who’s playing Katniss?’ ‘It’s Jennifer Lawrence.’ And I was like, ‘Wow – she was just in my house cooking breakfast!’ Did Gary know about this connection when he called to offer you the part? Did he know? No, he didn’t know. I told him and he said, ‘Really? Well, that makes it even better because there’s going to be a natural chemistry already.’ That definitely was a plus. Did you read the whole book in a day? At night, and then the next day. Quickly. I could not put it down. What a great opportunity! And the fact that he’d called me – he said he’d seen Precious and he thought that Nurse John and Cinna, even though they’re completely different characters, had similar characteristics as far as being nurturing and all that. Certainly, they do. When it comes to Cinna, though, maybe given the fact that he’s a fashionista some readers of the books infer that he’s gay, even though his sexuality remains ambiguous. Right, they assume. And that was a question: How far do we take it? If we had gone the outrageous route, it would have been just another stereotypical statement. Immediately I’m thinking science fiction, crazy costumes, this sort of possibly effeminate costumes. I started thinking Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element , because I didn’t know where Gary was going stylistically. Then when I got to the set I thought, this is really smart. The look of the Capitol and the way everybody dressed, it was real – it wasn’t this outrageous costumey stuff. There were a lot of outrageous colors and big statement, but there were a lot of old things and new things mixed, just like it is now. We’re in 2012 and we’re still wearing clothes that look like clothes. We’re not wearing silver space suits with helmets and all that… well, some of us are. [Laughs] Did you take inspiration in terms of Cinna’s style or carriage from any real life figures? I thought about Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford, who are both very inspiration design characters for me. And both of them are kind of right down the middle and very classically dressed, not say, like a Galliano or someone who is more outrageous and flamboyant in dress. That was the way we decided to play him and I think that was definitely the right choice. So then: Is Cinna gay? I have no idea. I have no idea. I played him right in the middle, and one of the inspirations is a friend of mine, actually, who I grew up with. He’s bisexual and you could think he’s gay, you could think he’s straight, you’re not really sure. It’s very subtle. You wouldn’t know it, but Cinna’s speech patterns and the way he enunciates was kind of based on this person that’s just a friend of mine, who I thought was a good example. It’s worth noting that the way you play Cinna, what stands out a bit more than in the books is that he comes off as more of a strategist than a stylist. Was that an important element to highlight? Most definitely. When people think at first, ‘So, what is Cinna?’ I play a stylist, but it’s hard to just say I play a stylist. What does that mean? He’s not that, he’s trying to help Katniss make an impression and he’s trying to save her life, and he wants people to like her because that’s part of the game. So that’s a good word, strategist. Given how much of a stark contrast he is to most people in the Capitol, more sensitive and grounded and restrained in his sense of style, it feels as if he’s infiltrating Capitol culture. Right. He’s clearly on Katniss’s side, doesn’t agree with the Capitol groupthink. No, he’s doing his job, trying to stay alive and do his thing and not get on the bad side of the government… How much of Cinna’s backstory did you cultivate with Gary or Suzanne Collins in terms of where Cinna comes from, even if that backstory isn’t included in the film? Not a lot, really. I just thought about him as being a person who’s been there for a few years; he hasn’t been there forever, he’s not that old, and he’s one of those people that kind of wishes or wants to break out and it’s not the time, necessarily. So he’s going to keep things even but he’s going to show his talent, he’s going to be fierce about it – he’s making these fire costumes and all this stuff – and he obviously is talented and likes using his talent. I’m sure he’s cared about everybody that’s come his way over the years, but now he’s met this girl that he really sees something in, and she’s the biggest underdog there is, and he’s going to do his best to help. Do you see a contradiction between the wariness in the books of mass media and the dangers of entertainment as a means of cultural control, and the fact that the Hunger Games movie is a now studio franchise involving hundreds of millions of dollars that will likely dominate pop culture when it comes out? Especially given your unique position as a successful recording artist, how do you view that fine line? It’s a very interesting time we live in. You know, it took me a long time to join this party of Facebook and Twitter and reality TV – I mean, I still don’t really watch it, but sometimes when I’m on the tour bus late at night trying to bring my brain back to a neutral place I’ll flip past these shows, and when I stop it’s because I’m really blown away that I’m watching this… that it exists . There’s a show for people that don’t know how to throw away their garbage! Or guys who have a pawn shop. Last night I was flipping channels for a bit before I went to bed and there was a show for guys in prison and how they function in prison and all their secrets! This one guy’s making moonshine liquor and they’re getting him to show us and it’s like, my god, what’s going on? Well, some of those shows are amazingly insightful, but then you have the other kind of reality TV shows… You have the bad behavior being glorified, and they’re becoming role models. Kids, everybody just wants to be famous now. I mean, I grew up saying I wanted to be a musician. Did I want to make it and be famous? Why not, sure. But I never said I wanted to be famous, I wanted to be a musician . Now it’s just all about fame. They’re showing everything. It’s quite interesting, but I think the movie is trying to show us where we are. We’re not yet in arenas killing people, but it happened thousands of years ago. Could it happen again? How much is it going to take to keep quenching our thirst? Look at where we are now. How’s it going to be a hundred years from now? People are going to be numb. That’s the great thing about the novels; it’s a young adult series and could be dismissed on first glance as a children’s property… But it’s not! That’s what’s so interesting. That’s why I think this is going to be very successful. The Hunger Games is in theaters March 23. Read more here. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Mark your calendars for May 20! Or not: “Chronicling the lives of Dina Eastwood, the wife of Oscar-winning film legend Clint Eastwood, and their daughters Francesca (18) and Morgan (15), and the all-male six member vocal group from South Africa managed by Dina, ‘Overtone,’ Mrs. Eastwood & Company is an unprecedented look at the surprisingly normal extended and blended family behind one of Hollywood’s most iconic superstars. This series invites viewers to witness their lives and proves that familial bonds are shaped by more than DNA.” [ E! ] [Photo of (L-R) Dina Eastwood and daughters Francesca and Morgan via Getty Images]
Despite nabbing an Academy Award last year with her self-financed and controversial “ Consider ” campaign, Melissa Leo says that neither life, nor the frequency of juicy Hollywood offers coming her way, is much different now that she’s an Oscar-winner. “The projects you think have been offered to me have not, I guarantee you,” she told Movieline this week at SXSW in Austin, where she and directors Melanie Shatzky and Brian M. Cassidy screened their minimalist character study Francine to critical applause. Still, Leo perseveres. And as the intimate acting showcase demonstrates, there’s plenty of reward to be had in smaller and more daring projects. Francine follows the quiet, often disorienting moments in the experience of a woman recently released from incarceration (Leo) who is now slowly and cautiously adjusting to life on the outside. Taking on a number of jobs and tentative friendships, Francine finds herself increasingly comforted by stray animals she adopts, only further alienating herself from the people around her. Filming in New York’s Hudson Valley region, co-directors Shatzky and Cassidy tapped their photography and documentary film backgrounds to capture Francine’s attempts and failures at human interaction with a sensitive observational style that allows Leo the space to fully, and courageously, inhabit the character. Prior to Francine ’s SXSW premiere (which garnered high praise for Leo’s performance and the directors’ minimalist use of visual and aural elements), Leo spoke with Movieline about why she sought and lobbied for the lead in Francine , how things haven’t changed all that much since winning her Oscar, the emotional scene in which a dog appears to be euthanized onscreen, and why it was important to show Hollywood that she could “show up.” How did you come to meet these folks and hear about their idea? It was the summer before last sometime in the springtime, and the Hudson Valley film commissioner is a good friend of mine – he and his wife run the Woodstock Film Festival – and I get little blurbs from them online about what’s going on in the Hudson Valley. It was a casting call, but not for Francine – for the various and sundry characters she meets along the way, and a lead lady was required for this film. The name was Francine, after all! They were going to do something very interesting and tell a story largely through the pictures and not so much dialogue; that sounded like a really interesting notion, so I inserted myself through Laurent [Rejto] and said if they’d be interested in considering me for Francine I would love to talk to them about it. And this was before you’d even seen a script? From a paragraph, really, which I think was based on their own words. Just a little paragraph of what it was. You sought this out from a single paragraph description, which makes me wonder: What sort of projects do you look for, and are you always searching? Constantly looking is a very good way to put it, but I don’t know that I’m looking for one thing or another in particular. Something specific, but it could be a lot of things that are specific. And this project sounded A) very specific, B) a leading role, and this notion of taking film – young, young, film – into yet another realm – really taking it back to its basics, of the images . The sound in Francine is a very important element in the film, both the music that’s laid in and the sound – just like in The Artist ! That’s not a silent movie; you don’t hear the actors’ dialogue but again in that film the sound is such an important aspect of the film. That all really intrigued me, but probably first and foremost the thing that caught my attention was the chance to do a lead. But you’re Melissa Leo! Are lead roles still hard to come by? Who’s that? [Laughs] I say that to you because that’s what most people even today still say. Cab drivers… and then there’s this embarrassing moment when they say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize!’ It’s really ok! Maybe I should wear a stamp on my forehead. But more seriously, the life of an actor is not what one imagines, and I find too that the life of an Oscar-winner is not what one imagines. For an actor, for an Oscar-winner, life is no different than for all the rest of us. We must try each day to be our best selves and make our best choices. Maybe we have a finer array of choices put in front of us, but the process is no less different. My experience, 365+ days later? The projects you think have been offered to me have not, I guarantee you. It will happen in time, if I persevere. But if I expect something to return because I took a beautiful golden statue and a lot of prestige home, I’m going to miss out on the second half of my life. You still operate, then, the same way you always have when it comes to career choices? I hope to continue to grow as I think I’ve done all my life, to continue to be my genuine self all at the same time. We’ll see how it goes! Did you shoot in sequence? No, which is why it’s really important that they’re able to share with me this project as a whole. If we would have shot sequentially, this idea of withholding is a very important notion for a director. There is an advantage in withholding, there is an advantage in telling everything; you’ve got to weigh out when to do that. If you had been going sequentially I would wager to guess they could have withheld more. When we shot 21 Grams , which is told in this beautiful poetic way that [Guillermo] Arriaga wrote it, but we shot it in sequential way which is one of the things that makes 21 Grams land in reality the way that it does. Because Benicio [Del Toro] and I and the kids all knew every moment before this that we’re shooting right now, as we shot. But that’s the key to this project and in the aftermath of getting to see it now and talking to you guys and Brian and Melanie, it has been endless growth and education to me, and I think to Brian and Melanie also, of how these two uses of film – my experience in 30 years as an actor and their experience of light through celluloid, and the sounds that accompany it! – it’s a fascinating marriage. Your performance in Francine feels so alive and in the moment, especially compared to more heavily constructed films – almost theatrical in a way. Is this kind of work particularly rewarding compared to projects with more artificial constraints? I take that as a compliment – I think that it can happen both on the stage and in film, where the film over takes what’s being shot. I’ve read some scripts of films that we might whine about – ‘Oh god, that one was so bad, and they spent how many millions of dollars on it?’ – and my heart goes out to the actors that lead in those films, because those characters aren’t written as characters in a story, they’re written as vehicles in a film. Francine might well be a very nice vehicle for me, I saw that, but it is not conceived of as such. She’s conceived of as a character, and that is Brian and Melanie’s gift to me.
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