Maybe it’s coincidence that Ezra Miller had two films premiere at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, including Beware the Gonzo — which finally arrives theaters this weekend in limited release and is currently available everywhere on VOD. (His 2009 Tribeca entry, City Island won the festival’s audience prize.) But it’s no accident: Since his 2008 screen debut in the harrowing prep-school drama Afterschool , the 18-year-old actor has built a reputation behind the scenes for fearlessness, intensity, comic chops, and holding his own against alpha-castmates like Andy Garcia, Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt. And coming soon: Tilda Swinton.
I’ll never forget Sean Stone as the young, freckle-faced Jim Morrison through whom the soul of the bloody dead roadside Indian passed in his father Oliver Stone’s epic The Doors . But now Stone fils is all grown up and making sketchily conceived films of his own for his dad to appear in. Click through to check out the triple Oscar-winner’s cameo in the trailer for Stone’s narrative feature debut Graystone (no pun intended… I think?), and stick around for more Buzz Break.
‘If you’re not a baseball fan, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to love the movie,’ he tells MTV News in our Fall Movie Preview. By Kara Warner Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill in “Moneyball” Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon/Columbia In addition to his trimmed-down figure , Jonah Hill fans will see a new side of the “Superbad” and “Get Him to the Greek” actor come September 23, when “Moneyball” drops into theaters: his dramatic acting chops. The film is inspired by Michael Lewis’ 2003 best-seller of the same name, which revolved around Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and how he recruited undervalued yet extremely talented baseball players to build successful teams. In the film, Hill plays Peter Brand, a statistician who helps Beane (Brad Pitt) select players based on in-depth analysis of complex baseball statistics. Click for exclusive photos from Fall’s biggest flicks. When MTV News caught up with Hill recently, he was excited to talk about his dramatic work and emphasized the fact that the film is more about life than baseball. MTV : Did you read the book before you started the film? Jonah Hill : I had just been told that [director] Bennett [Miller] wanted to meet me and I should read the book “Moneyball” in preparation, and so I did, and I really, really loved it. MTV : Were you a baseball fan beforehand? And how did your appreciation for the game evolve over the course of working on the film? Hill : I grew up with baseball and really respect and appreciate the game, but in the past, since I was probably 12 or 13, I haven’t followed closely. So I wouldn’t say I was an avid fan, but I grew up being a Dodgers fan. But if you’re not a baseball fan, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to love the movie. We used baseball as such a metaphor for life. The movie is about these guys trying to create a baseball team with no money, but it’s really about choices and being an underdog, so I really can start to relate the game to the people playing it and seeing them as people and wondering about them, and I couldn’t help but start wondering about all the players as people and do their stats represent them and their value — that’s a lot of what the movies about. MTV : How is the film not just a sports movie? Hill : I hesitate to even call it a sports movie, because if you love baseball, you’re going to love it obviously that much more, but for people that I know that have seen it that don’t know the first thing about baseball, [they] love it because it’s a movie about underdogs. It’s really about being undervalued and proving your worth and value and the decisions you make in life. MTV : Everyone raves about Aaron Sorkin’s scripts and dialogue. What was your impression of the script? How does it rank versus some of the others you’ve seen? Hill : The script was written by Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian. … I don’t think there’s any debate they are the two of the most successful and respected screenwriters in Hollywood, so between them and Scott Rudin and Mike De Luca, our producers, and Bennett Miller and Michael Lewis, who wrote the book, and Brad and Philip [Seymour] Hoffman and Robin Wright, I can say it was pretty crazy to be second lead in this movie. It was a laundry list of people I admired and respected, and it kinda didn’t seem real for the first few weeks I got the part. MTV : Was there a learning curve for you? Did you feel like more of a student on this production? Hill : I think I always feel like a student. I always work with people I admire or else I don’t go to work. To me, it’s about learning from people. The best advice I ever got was “Shut up and listen.” … This was obviously the most different. Drama, I had only done one other one, this movie “Cyrus,” and for me, those were two experiences, because I had done so many comedies, where I learned something totally different. MTV : What was your experience like with Brad Pitt, as far as the actor and the person? Hill : He’s great at both. I think he and I are really close in the movie. The movie is really the two of us playing off of each other a majority of the time, so if that chemistry wasn’t there between us, I think the movie would have completely failed. So I think we both knew that going in, and I think we both happened to like each other a lot. We definitely played some pranks on each other. That part of [Brad Pitt] lore is true, that he likes to do that. We played some really funny pranks — his a lot funnier than mine — and we became cool. He’s a really admirable dude, and I think he has inspired me in a lot of ways, both creatively and personally. If you look at his filmography, his choices are so diverse and cool and eclectic that it’s something I really just took away. He was really cool about sharing his history with me and really pushing me in a great way to make interesting choices. MTV : Can you give me a couple of those pranks? Hill : There were some golf-cart wars. We had these golf carts, and we would race them all the time to set and crash into each other. And he started messing with mine and eventually turned mine into a full-fledged Wham! mobile — the band Wham! — where eventually there was a bigger-than-life-sized portrait of myself as a member of Wham! next to George Michael on the front of it. It was bright pink, and eventually, by the end, if you turned on my golf cart, it blasted “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and could not be turned off unless the engine was turned off. Sometimes I feel like he has a team of scientists working on f—ing with me. MTV : So what was your best retaliation you think? Hill : I got him with a prank to his car that I’m not going to reveal yet. It’s a secret. From “Abduction” to “Muppets, “Moneyball” to “Breaking Dawn,” the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest upcoming flicks in our 2011 Fall Movie Preview. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films’ biggest stars. Check out everything we’ve got on “Moneyball.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Fall Movie Preview 2011 Related Photos Exclusive Photos From Fall’s Biggest Flicks
‘There’s one [scene] in particular that stands out to me that’s just horrific,’ actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead says in our Fall Movie Preview. By Eric Ditzian Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton in “The Thing” Photo: Kerry Hayes/Universal It’s a horror-movie question almost 30 years in the making: What the hell happened to the Norwegian researchers discovered toward the beginning of the 1982 John Carpenter cult fave “The Thing” ? Kurt Russell and his crew do end up stumbling into some terrifying answers, but Carpenter’s flick concentrates on the alien horrors the Americans endure. The 2011 fall movie season, however, is set to uncover what really happened before Russell touched down in the Antarctic, as director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. delivers a prequel story, also called “The Thing,” to theaters on October 14. As part of MTV News’ Fall Movie Preview, we’re not only debuting an exclusive clip and photo from the horror flick about an alien able to mimic the likenesses of other life forms, but we sat down for a chat with star Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays a young researcher confronting the extraterrestrial danger. She spoke about the pressures of remaking a classic, the criticism from some corners about introducing a central female character to the action, and the challenges of reinventing an alien creature while staying true to its original form. MTV : What’s the bigger threat for you on set in Canada? Is it losing your voice from screaming all the time or losing your fingers from frostbite? Mary Elizabeth Winstead : I think it was fainting from nearly hyperventilating. That was the biggest thing. Also, by the end of it, we were shooting in the summer and we were acting like it was freezing cold and we were all in parkas and layers and layers of gloves and hats, and it was humid and hot outside. There was a lot of heat exhaustion setting in. It was kind of crazy — we had to act cold. I didn’t have to do a lot of screaming in this, which was good. It was just a lot of that kind of heavy breathing, where you’re trying to keep your composure and trying not to fall apart. It’s that really small, fast breathing and take, after take, after take of that kind of thing, you start to get lightheaded and start to get a little woozy. MTV : There are a lot of remakes and new takes on cult classics, and I think a lot of people feel, “I’m OK with it, if they get it right.” For you guys on set, was that sort of pressure on your minds? And do you think you did get it right? Winstead : There was definitely a lot of pressure, because everyone involved is a fan of the John Carpenter version. None of us wanted to mess it up and none of us wanted to sully the legend of the John Carpenter film. We wanted to add to it in a positive way, a fun way, and make something that could go hand in hand with that film. And that’s what we did. I think we made a film that’s a really great standalone film, but also something that’s really cool if you’re a fan of the John Carpenter version, just to get a little insight into what may have occurred before. I think it’s just a good movie regardless of how you feel about remakes and prequels and all of that. At least you can go see a good film and hopefully put that aside and just be there and go along for the ride. MTV : Since this is a prequel, we presumably know what’s going to happen at the end. How did you keep the suspense going? Winstead : I think that it’s exciting to wonder who is a Thing and who isn’t, and that’s really where the suspense lies. A lot of films in the genre, you kind of know it’s not gonna end up well. I don’t think anyone is really expecting a happy ending. But that kind of going along for the ride and being in the suspense of the moment is what’s really exciting. Our story is so great and it’s one that could be played out in so many scenarios, and I think with bringing in completely different characters from completely different backgrounds and countries brings a whole other level of paranoia. It takes it into a different direction, having this language barrier between the characters and having a lot of “us” vs. “them” between the Norwegians and the Americans and things like that was an interesting take on it, made it a not straight-up remake. And it was exciting to me to put a girl in the mix, which people have different opinions on it. But for me, that’s what differentiates it from the John Carpenter version in a big way and makes it a different film, makes it a unique film and one that stands on its own. MTV : What do you mean by different opinions? Do you think people are skeptical of a woman battling aliens? Winstead : I read a lot of comments, which kind of surprised me, to be honest, of people who were really upset that we would dare put a female in “The Thing” when the John Carpenter version was all men. I do think it was an interesting dynamic to see men, grown men, all living together and dealing with this paranoia and isolation. But I also think it’s interesting having a young woman thrown into the mix trying to take control of the situation where nobody trusts her opinion. It’s a very different and interesting dynamic and it’s not gonna be the same as the original version, but that’s what’s great about it to me. MTV : Anyone who’s seen Ellen Ripley [Sigourney Weaver in “Alien”] do her thing knows that a woman can take on an alien. Winstead : What’s cool about it, for this character, a lot of her strength lies in her intellect rather than her muscles. It’s not like one of those characters where I come in and act like I can kick everybody’s ass. It’s not realistic. All these guys are bigger than me, stronger than me. But my character has a really strong intellect, which gets her far in this film. MTV : So you didn’t have to hit the gym? Winstead : No, none of that, which was nice. MTV : How does this one build? How long before, you know, sh– gets bad? Winstead : It’s a definite slow burn, which is great. It makes it feel like a classic horror film. You really set up the characters and you really build the fear slowly, and once sh– hits the fan, it gets crazy and it doesn’t stop. It’s super-intense, the last half of the film. You just hold your breath and you don’t breathe again till the credits roll. That’s really great. The first part of the movie is really slow and foreboding, and you feel this slow dread building because you do know what’s coming. You know that something crazy and horrible is gonna happen to these people, but they don’t know it yet and kind of having that feeling as the audience is one that’s exciting and creepy and terrifying. MTV : Carpenter’s movie really was horrifying and just gross. Really gross. Are you guys taking the same angle? Winstead : The “assimilation scenes” are definitely terrifying and disgusting and just creepy as hell. There’s one in particular that stands out to me that’s just horrific. I can’t really describe it in too much detail because I don’t wanna give anything away. It just blows your mind. Just seeing it being filmed, because we have a lot of practical effects stuff there, which is great and kind of seeing the beginning of it on set was terrifying in itself and disgusting. They just took it to a whole new level, the stuff they added in postproduction. MTV : We get a glimpse of the creature in the trailer. Because it’s a prequel, do you guys have to stay very true to the first one or do you have room to play? Winstead : I think they definitely kept the John Carpenter version in mind when it came to the creature design. Definitely it is still that same world, but there is a somewhat new look to it and somewhat different take on it. It’s sort of the 2011 version, but still with that spirit of practical effects. It certainly doesn’t look exactly like the John Carpenter version. As awesome as those effects are, they are out of a certain period. And when you see that, you can kind of tell like, “Oh, those are really awesome ’80s effects.” So you can’t really go exactly for that. You have to bring a little of the modern element in to it too, but hopefully keeping that real tangible quality the ’80s effects had as well. From “Abduction” to “Muppets, “Moneyball” to “Breaking Dawn,” the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest upcoming flicks in our 2011 Fall Movie Preview. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films’ biggest stars. Check out everything we’ve got on “The Thing.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Fall Movie Preview 2011 Related Photos Exclusive Photos From Fall’s Biggest Flicks
Brett Ratner describes the long road to making the film and finally getting the chance to team up with Murphy, in our Fall Movie Preview. By Josh Wigler Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy in “Tower Heist” Photo: Universal Ralph Fiennes, Ian McKellan, Phillip Seymour Hoffman — these are just a few of the acting titans Brett Ratner has worked with over the course of his career. But as he told MTV News, the only time he’s really had to pinch himself was his first day on the set of “Tower Heist” with Eddie Murphy (who has just signed on as the host of next year’s Oscars , produced by Ratner. Murphy is just one of the many all-stars in the cast of “Tower Heist,” Ratner’s upcoming heist comedy that centers on a New York City high-rise building’s staff working together to rip off one of the residents, a wealthy businessman (Alan Alda) who lost all their pension funds in a Ponzi scheme. It’s a heavier comedy than some might be anticipating, Ratner said, and it didn’t come easily: The movie went through multiple incarnations over several years of development. Now, with the “Heist” finally set to commence in November, MTV News’ Fall Movie Preview continues with an exclusive look at the film and a chat with Ratner, who spoke about the project’s difficult development process, working with Murphy and the dramatic weight this comedy carries. Click for exclusive photos from Fall’s biggest flicks. MTV News : “Tower Heist” took a long time for you to pull off, but now we’re finally weeks away from release. Can you walk us through a bit of the process you went through in setting this movie up? Ratner : I was actually developing “Beverly Hills Cop [4]” with Eddie. He called me at my house one day and said, “I have an idea for a movie.” He pitched me the idea of a bunch of guys who work in the Trump Tower going and ripping off Donald Trump. To the urban community, Donald represents wealth, and I thought it was such a good idea. We pitched it to Brian Grazer, who came on as a producer, and we sold it to Universal. But it became very difficult to crack. It became very similar to “Ocean’s Eleven,” just ripping off a rich guy for the sake of ripping off a rich guy. We went through a bunch of writers, just trying to crack it and crack it, and we couldn’t crack it. Then this guy Ted Griffin, who I’d hired to write “Ocean’s Eleven” before Steven Soderbergh did it — I’d been attached to it, but I never did it, and I missed my opportunity to work with Ted — I sent it to him and asked if he’d give me his opinion. He said, “I have good news and bad news. Good news: I’m going to write it for you. Bad news: I’m throwing the script away.” He came up with this pitch about a guy living in a building who does a Ponzi scheme and loses all of the employees’ pension funds. We didn’t know the economy was going to get f—ed up. This all just coincidentally happened. We weren’t looking for [the Bernie Madoff connection], but we loved the idea, and we just had to do it. Ted wrote an incredible heist movie that’s reminiscent of the ’70s heists, which spend the first 40 minutes setting up the characters, which are different from the heist movies of today that tend to start with these big set pieces. MTV News : Was Eddie still involved at this point, or had the idea moved so far away from what he initially imagined? Ratner : Well, Eddie’s original idea was he’d do the movie with Dave Chapelle, Jamie Foxx, Chris Tucker, Chris Rock — all these guys together. [When Ben Stiller came onboard], Ben and I were talking about who we could get to play [the movie’s co-lead]. He went, “Wouldn’t it be the most incredible thing to have Eddie Murphy?” And I told him that this movie actually was Eddie’s idea. And he was like: “What? We gotta go to Eddie!” But I didn’t know if Eddie wanted to do it anymore, because [his character] wasn’t the lead anymore. It was his idea to be the manager of the building, but there was always a character from the ‘hood who’d go out and help with the heist. It was a completely different script. I didn’t expect Eddie to [be onboard], but I showed him the script and he said, “I’m in.” MTV News : You and Eddie had been planning to work on “Beverly Hills Cop 4” for a while, but obviously, this movie came first. What was it like getting to finally work together on set? Ratner : You know, I’ve been around some big stars, some of the greatest actors who’ve ever lived. The only time I ever really had to pinch myself was the first day of shooting with Eddie Murphy. [ Laughs. ] This guy is a genius! He delivers the lines on point, and he brings so much. He’ll give me what’s on the page, and then he’ll give me stuff … for instance, the scene in the trailer with him and Gabby Sidibe, that was completely improvised. I just had the idea last minute to put those two together, having her show him how to crack the safe. It was supposed to be one shot, and then I told Gabby that she should flirt with Eddie and see what happens. [ Laughs. ] And, oh my god, it was just incredible. It was genius! The outtakes of that are going to be some of the funniest outtakes in the history of outtakes. There’s stuff I can’t even put in the movie of them just going at it. For me, this cast, it was like a dream come true: Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick and all these actors … I was 12 when Matthew was the coolest movie star in the world, so directing him was like the ultimate. MTV News : It’s interesting, because the film does have such a hilarious cast of actors and comedians, but when looking at the “Tower Heist” trailer , this doesn’t feel like an out-and-out comedy. Ratner : It’s heavier. There are scenes in this movie that would never be in “Ocean’s Eleven,” and that’s what I loved about it. It’s like one of these ’70s cool movies where there are real stakes. And I really learned that from watching Eddie Murphy movies as a kid: great, real villains with real stakes, real drama, and Eddie does his thing. Eddie’s funny in the movie, but everyone is very real. It’s funny you bring it up: Eddie’s always said that his comedy comes from the characters and the situations they’re in. You know, I kind of feel like “Rush Hour” and all my movies were really preparation for this movie, really. To me, as a filmmaker, I feel like I’ve done my best work. I took all my experiences of working with an ensemble like I did on “X-Men,” of doing comedy like “Rush Hour,” suspense like “Red Dragon” and brought it to “Tower Heist.” Growing up being a fan of Eddie’s, and later being a friend of Ben Stiller’s, it felt like I just knew what this movie needed to be. I’m hoping people come wanting more than just a comedy, which is what’s great about it. There’s funny sh– and people are going to have a great time with it, but people need to care about these characters and get invested. It’s not a false thing. You get to know each of these characters; they just all pulled it off. They have such individuality. From “Abduction” to “Muppets, “Moneyball” to “Breaking Dawn,” the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest upcoming flicks in our 2011 Fall Movie Preview. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films’ biggest stars. Check out everything we’ve got on “Tower Heist.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Fall Movie Preview 2011 Related Photos Exclusive Photos From Fall’s Biggest Flicks
Happy Tuesday! Also in this edition of The Broadsheet: Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme get Expendable … Will Noah Baumbach and HBO make Corrections ? … Colin Firth is sick of Hollywood treating you like and idiot … and more…
As part of our Fall Movie Preview, Shawn Levy reveals how he created the sci-fi sports drama’s authentic boxing matches. By Josh Wigler A scene from “Real Steel” Photo: Dreamworks Summer may be over, but the fall season still holds plenty of hot movies worth looking forward to. We’re celebrating the coming months of fantastic films all week long with MTV News’ Fall Movie Preview, starting with a sports drama mixed with a sci-fi twist: “Real Steel,” the robot boxing movie starring “Wolverine” leading man Hugh Jackman and “Lost” babe Evangeline Lilly, which opens on October 7. Click for exclusive photos from Fall’s biggest flicks. “Real Steel,” which takes place in a future where robots have replaced human athletes in the boxing arena, marks a serious departure for director Shawn Levy, in more ways than one. The director of the “Night at the Museum” films and “Date Night” is most commonly associated with the comedy genre. In “Real Steel,” he’s stepping into the ring with significantly more dramatic fare. MTV News chatted with the director about his experiences exploring a new genre, how the giant robots of “Real Steel” were constructed (hint: they’re more human than you realize) and much more. MTV : This movie feels like a big departure for you in a lot of ways, Shawn. Your past work has focused mostly on comedy, but “Real Steel” takes on a decidedly different tone. Was that the appeal for you, trying on something new? Shawn Levy : You know, comedy has been really good to me, but this was a deliberate departure. This is the kind of movie that I’ve been waiting to do. When I was editing “Date Night,” the call came in from [“Real Steel” producers] Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider, and they said, “We’ve got this underdog sports movie with boxing robots.” Already when you have [those two] on the other line, you’re inclined to nudge towards “yes.” But I’ve always loved sports movies, I’ve always loved that kind of iconic underdog story which sports movies tend to service so well. This was a deliberate step and an exciting chance to stretch some new muscles. MTV : Well this definitely does fall into the sports drama category, but when you’re throwing giant robots into the mix, you’re getting something just a little bit different than what we’ve seen from the genre before. Was it tricky trying to service that sports drama audience while keeping the sci-fi elements in the forefront as well? Levy : Honestly, it was an every day balancing act, from the six months of working on the script, the eight months of preparing the movie and the four months of shooting it, and another six editing it. It was every day, making sure you’re servicing just the crazy, balls-out action of robots wailing on each other — and thankfully we had [boxing legend] Sugar Ray Leonard as our consultant for the fights, which was a really great guarantor [of quality]. I’ll digress for a moment, but what’s cool about this movie is that this isn’t computer animation. This is motion capture with real fighters in a real ring, consulting in the ring with me and Sugar Ray, wailing on each other in full contact. We took that captured fight as data and we converted it into robot avatars. That was a big thing. To do the movie as mo-cap instead of animation was a big choice. Mo-cap allows the director to direct a performance; it’s not left to the imagination of an animator that sometimes you don’t even meet. It was huge. Every day we were making sure the robots were cool-looking in terms of design and full-contact fighting. On the flip side, we could never forget that the movie is about Hugh Jackman’s character, first, last and always. The movie is really only 30 to 35 percent robot-based fighting, but it’s 100 percent anchored in Hugh Jackman playing this bot corner man and how he uses these machines to eventually get a shot at redemption. MTV : Which is interesting, because when you see Hugh in these movies with huge action elements, he’s usually very much at the center of those scenes. But that’s not exactly the case in this film, is it? Levy : Without giving too much away, he’s at the center in that … our hero robot, he ain’t the biggest, he ain’t the newest, he’s not state of the art. What he has is this connection that I won’t give away to Hugh’s character, such that Hugh plays a former boxer [named Charlie] whose knowledge of the human sport that used to exist is the advantage that his robot has over the others. Every robot in the movie is built with one gear: full-on ground and pound. This robot fighter is informed more by Charlie’s boxing history. So there’s a nuanced human flair, resulting in this robot and his connection to Jackman, who’s able to win fights he has no business winning. MTV : As a director, how did you establish that connection between Hugh and his fighter? These are the two leads of the film, really, but only one of them is played by an actual person — unless you leaned on motion-capture for most of the robot’s appearances? Levy : Well, this is where it gets really cool. In my first meeting with Steven Spielberg, he said to me, ” ‘Jurassic Park’ was a long time ago, before computers could do everything. We built real dinosaurs that moved. I know it’s an old-fashioned notion, but consider building real, fully animated animatronic robots.” So that’s one big difference on this movie: We built real robots. In the fight scenes, it’s me and Ray directing human boxers. But in every scene in the movie where Hugh is interacting with one of his robots, if that robot isn’t walking or boxing, it was a real, big, massively tall robot in the room on set and in the movie. It’s unreal. What happens is, whether you’re 10 or 40 years old, if you’re a guy, and you’re face to face with this robot that’s literally shadowing everything you do — it’s actually robotically operated from a remote feed — it’s just unbelievably cool, and it affects the performances in a way that you just don’t get … if you’re acting opposite a tennis ball on a stick. There’s no comparison. That was really the co-star. ATOM in particular was in the room with us every day. I’d direct ATOM, his puppeteer, in much the same way that I’d direct Hugh. It was really cool to work with [something practical] in this day and age, where everything that can be computer-generated usually is computer-generated. MTV : We’ve talked a lot about the technical side of making “Real Steel,” but let’s go back to the beginning: You wanted to carve out a different type of movie for yourself. How did you find the experience of going from the comedy world to something significantly more dramatic? Levy : The irony is that though I’ve made thankfully a number of successful comedies, if I were to name my top 20 favorite movies, maybe you’d find one comedy on there. My career has gone one way, but my tastes have always run another. Those tend to be dramas, action, sports. So what was really amazing was to do a movie where the pacing, tone and, most importantly, the aesthetics and performances, where all those elements were not in the service of the almighty laugh. They were in service of themselves. When you do comedy, the laugh always comes first. Maybe you’ll find a scene or sequence — and I can point to this in “Date Night” — where you’ll bracket it off and slow down the movie with something a bit more poignant. But to do a whole movie that was not first and foremost in the service of laughs was very, very different, and very, very liberating. From “Abduction” to “Muppets, “Moneyball” to “Breaking Dawn,” the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest upcoming flicks in our 2011 Fall Movie Preview. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films’ biggest stars. Check out everything we’ve got on “Real Steel.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Photos Exclusive Photos From Fall’s Biggest Flicks
I’m not sure about the other European critics, but so far the U.K. critics here seem to love one picture above all others: Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy , an adaptation of John Le Carré’s 1974 novel, stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, the deposed British spy who must find the mole who’s compromising MI6 — or “the circus” — in order to put the organization, and his life, back together. In addition to being based on an enormously popular book, Alfredson’s picture is also haunted by a ghost: The 1979 TV mini-series, which featured Alec Guinness in the George Smiley role. Who’d want to try to top that?
Rumors abound today that Eddie Murphy may dig out of his extended rut with an Oscar-hosting stint next February. The Web site that broke the story says it’s a done deal, while our sister site Deadline reports that co-producer Brett Ratner has a few hurdles to clear at the Academy (quite possibly including his producing colleague Don Mischer). Among them: Convincingly answering the question, “What on Earth is the upside of Eddie Murphy hosting the Oscars?”
Diablo Cody has her own movie to anticipate with the release of her third feature Young Adult this December (featuring a thoroughly unamused Charlize Theron ), but the Academy Award winner took time out tell Movieline which three films she most looks forward to seeing. What will make the cut? The Iron Lady ? Carnage ? A Dangerous Method ? Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip Wrecked ? Click through for her adroit (and quite cheeky) observations.
