Lindsay Lohan can’t catch a break these days. Last week, her new movie The Canyons was rejected by the Sundance Film Festival, and now South By Southwest (SXSW) has reportedly followed suit. According to The Hollywood Reporter , “quality issues” was the hilarious reason cited, with one source labeling the Bret Easton Ellis film “a monstrosity.” Good or bad, the recent New York Times feature entitled “Here Is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie” did little to help the film. The paper describes the “chaos” surrounding the often- drunk Lindsay Lohan , from $46,000 hotel bills to erratic behavior and days-long disappearances. Director Paul Shrader recognized the controversy surrounding Lohan, citing her lead role in the indie project as the reason for the movie’s delayed release. “Intense reactions to Liz & Dick and the Times article have made us realize there will be blowback once The Canyons is publicly screened – for good and ill,” he said. “That’s the nature of anything involving Lindsay.” The official plot synopsis for the film, also starring James Deen , is “a contemporary L.A. noir … about the dangers of sexual obsession and ambition.” Lohan is one of a group of stars in their 20s. “One chance meeting connected to the past unravels all of their lives, resulting in deceit, paranoia, cruel mind games and ultimately violence.” Its release date is still TBA.
Director Robert Rodriguez leads MTV News through his return to Sin City, from Josh Brolin’s entrance to shooting in 3-D. By Kara Warner Robert Rodriguez Photo: MTV News
I couldn’t have guessed back in 1995 that Richard Linklater ‘s charming Before Sunrise would spark one of the most beloved trilogies of the next few decades, but anticipation has been so high for the latest chapter in Jesse ( Ethan Hawke ) and Celine’s ( Julie Delpy ) arrested romance that it was only natural we’d be longing for more after 2004’s Before Sunset . Shot in secret, the third film in the series, Before Midnight , premiered last night at Sundance to rave reviews and today brings a few new photos that’ll have you pining even harder for whenever it’s delivered to theaters. Via The Playlist : Without walking and talking into spoiler territory, let’s just say Sundance critics were largely over the moon for the pic, which was also written by Delpy, Hawke, and Linklater. Slate goes so far as to say it’s “not only good, but so good it approaches perfection.” Perfection , people! THR calls it “funny and harrowing,” for what it’s worth, which sounds… promising? Indiewire lauds it “Linklater’s most refined achievement,” although The Guardian goes against the grain, labeling it “forced and unnecessary.” Read more from the Sundance Film Festival : ‘The East’: How Marling & Batmanglij’s Dumpster-Diving Freegan Summer Inspired The Eco-Anarchist Sundance Thriller ‘Austenland’ Director’s Note: Jerusha Hess On Her ‘Girlishly Indulgent’ Sundance Rom-Com SUNDANCE: ‘Sound City’ Premiere Finds Dave Grohl Rocking With Rick Springfield Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Director talks to MTV News about replacing Gary Ross and arena-sized challenges he faced. By Amy Wilkinson, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Sam Claflin and Jennifer Lawrence in “Catching Fire” Photo: Lionsgate
In one of the stranger, more elaborate death hoaxes to hit the Internet and way beyond, a new report suggests Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o’s girlfriend did not die this year, as had been previously reported. In fact, she never even existed. Some quick background: Te’o was a Heisman Trophy finalist who led Notre Dame to an undefeated regular season. On September 12, news broke that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, passed away from leukemia. The story became national news three days later after Te’o starred in an Irish victory and said Kekua encouraged him to play. Kekua’s funeral took place on September 22, with Te’o not in attendance and with the above message displayed across television screens, supposedly proving that this was in accordance with his late girlfriend’s wishes. But now Deadspin has come out with an elaborate article that alleges there is no record anywhere of Kekua’s death: no obituary, no funeral announcement, no mention in the Stanford student newspaper. Moreover, there is no record of her life . University records do not show anyone named Lennay Kekua enrolled at Stanford; there is no record of her birth and, in perhaps the most confusing and troubling report, the photo above is reportedly NOT of Kekua. Deadspin claims it got in touch with a woman from Torrance, California who, upon being shown the image, replied over the phone: “That is a picture of me from my Facebook account.” The article goes on to explain why Te’o likely played a role in this hoax. Deadspin says it has reached out to the athlete for comment, but is yet to get in touch with him. It’s certainly one of the more unusual stories we’ve come across in recent memory, considering the elaborate conspiracy that would be at work here by one of college football’s most respected players… if it is proven to be true, of course. We’ll update this post as more news breaks.
In advance of Lovelace ‘s Sundance Film Festival premiere, a new photo of Amanda Seyfried as legendary porn star Linda Lovelace has been released: The actress, as you can see, is in full ’70s character, just about to get to down to business with fellow porn star Harry Reems, played by Adam Brody. Damn you Adam Brody. That’s Hank Azaria in the director’s chair, with Chris Noth and Bobby Canavale on either side, FYI, ready to monitor whatever adult film magic might ensue. Seyfried replaced Lindsay Lohan , who had to pull out (a topic she knows a lot about – WHAT) due to scheduling constraints, i.e. being on probation and in court every other day. Think she can hack it as the iconic porn queen?
Even as it gears up for the launch of the Sundance Film Festival Thursday, the Sundance Institute unveiled 13 titles it is making available through a variety of platforms through its “Artist Services” program. Films include 2012 Sundance Film Festival titles Detropia , I Am Not A Hipster , The Atomic States of America and We’re Not Broke . Artist Services films are available on an array of online platforms including iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, SnagFilms, Netflix, SundanceNOW, VUDU, YouTube and more. “With the proliferation of new digital outlets these days, Sundance Institute saw a real need to help filmmakers and producers easily access these platforms and to provide information on how best to navigate and take advantage of independent distribution,” commented Keri Putnam, Executive Director, Sundance Institute in a statement. “It’s exciting to see these filmmakers charting their own path towards finding audiences.” Sundance titles available starting January 15th: The American Astronaut (Director and Screenwriter: Cory McAbee) — Sundance Institute Screenwriter’s Lab Fellow Cory McAbee stars in his sci-fi feature film as an interplanetary trader. The film also stars 2012 Independent Spirit Award nominee James Ransone (Starlet, HBO’s Treme and The Wire) as Bodysuit. (2001 Sundance Film Festival) The Atomic States of America (Directors: Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce) — Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce’s provocative documentary takes viewers on a journey to nuclear reactor communities across the country. (2012 Sundance Film Festival) Budrus (Director: Julia Bachas) — Documentary filmmaker Julia Bacha’s award-winning 2009 documentary follows a Palestinian community organizer who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save the village of Budrus from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier. Budrus was produced by Just Vision, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the power and legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis working nonviolently to end the occupation and resolve the conflict. (2009 Sundance Documentary Film Grant) Detropia (Directors: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady) — Winner of the Best Documentary Editing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for Gotham and Cinema Eye awards, Detropia chronicles the lives of several Detroiters trying to survive and make sense of what is happening to their city – once an industrial utopia, now on the brink of bankruptcy. (2012 Sundance Documentary Film Grant, 2012 Sundance Film Festival) High School Record (Director and Screenwriter: Ben Wolfinsohn) — In Ben Wolfinsohn’s semi-improvised 2005 “mock doc,” four exceptionally awkward 17-year-olds struggle through their senior year as moments of humiliation and triumph are caught on tape in a documentary shot by fellow classmates at a performing arts high school. (2005 Sundance Film Festival) I Am Not A Hipster (Director and Screenwriter: Destin Daniel Cretton) — Featuring music by indie electronic band, Canines, and a break-out performance by Dominic Bogart (Flash Forward), Cretton’s music-focused drama premiered at sold-out screenings at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. (2011 and 2012 Cinereach Project at Sundance Institute Grant, 2012 Sundance Film Festival) Primer (Director and Screenwriter: Shane Carruth) — Shane Carruth’s cult classic won the Grand Jury Prize and Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Timed to the premiere of the director’s much-anticipated follow-up film, Upstream Color, at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. (2004 Sundance Film Festival) Pursuit of Loneliness (Director and Screenwriter: Laurence Thrush) — Award-winning director Laurence Thrush’s (Left Handed) 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiere stars a cast of non-professional actors depicted in their own workplace roles. (2012 Sundance Film Festival) The Slaughter Rule (Directors: Alex Smith and Andrew Smith) — David Morse (Treme) and Ryan Gosling (Drive) star in Alex and Andrew Smith’s feature writing-directorial debut about a fatherless high-school quarterback. Nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award.. (2002 Sundance Film Festival) Stingray Sam (Director and screenwriter: Cory McAbee) — Cory McAbee’s 2009 follow up to The American Astronaut features writer-director McAbee as Stingray Sam and “Crugie” as The Quasar Kid, two space convicts in a series of episodic adventures narrated by David Hyde Pierce (Frasier). (2009 Sundance Film Festival) to.get.her (Director and screenwriter: Erica Dunton) — Five teenage girls with a shared secret get together for a weekend of “no consequences” in this 2011 Sundance Film Festival premiere that won the Best of NEXT Audience Award. Actress-model Jazzy De Lisser stars in a “mystery” written and directed by Erica Dunton (The 27 Club). (2011 Sundance Film Festival) Wave Twisters (Directors: Eric Henry and Syd Garon) — Animators Syd Garon (Superheroes, Last Call at the Oasis) and Eric Henry’s “turntablism-based musical” won the 2001 Midnight Films Audience Award at the 2001 SXSW Film Festival. Scripted to a recording by “scratch” artist DJ Qbert, Wave Twisters follows a group of heroes traveling through inner-space on a quest to save the lost art of Hip Hop. (2001 Sundance Film Festival) We’re Not Broke (Directors: Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce) — A timely exposé on how the government has allowed U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes, and the growing wave of discontent that is has fostered. A 2012 Sundance Film Festival premiere from the filmmakers of The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt. (2012 Sundance Film Festival)
The headline for moviegoers here is that the new feature Metallica Through the Never is headed to theaters. What is more significant is how it will get there. Longtime distribution figure Bob Berney is resurrecting a label he once headed, Picturehouse, to serve as CEO, while a veteran in the filmmaking scene in her own right, Jeanne Berney, will serve as president of the label, which will be based in New York. Metallica Through the Never stars members of the band as well as Dane DeHaan ( The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ) who plays a young band crew member. He is sent out on an urgent mission while the band is playing a live set in front of a sold-out crown and unexpectedly finds his world turned completely upside down. The re-fashioned Picturehouse will open the film August 9th. “Metallica’s way of doing things is to jump into unexplored creative endeavors with no safety net whatsoever,” said Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. “Putting this movie together for the last couple of years has been a pretty wild ride, and we’ve definitely done our share of flying without a net! Bringing Bob and Jeanne and the new Picturehouse team in at this point provides us with a much needed level of security for the distribution of the film. Their spirit of independence and desire to work outside the box is something we can relate to in every way, and this makes them both a welcome addition and a natural fit in the Metallica family.” The new Picturehouse plans to acquire, market and theatrically release independent films from the U.S. and around the world, beginning with two to three films this year and increasing its output to four to five features in 2014 and six or seven in subsequent years it said Tuesday. Bob Berney helped launch the original Picturehouse in April 2005 as a joint venture between Time Warner’s HBO and New Line Cinema divisions. During that tenure, the company released Guilermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth which won three Oscars; Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose (winner of two Academy Awards, including best actress for Marion Cotillard); Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol ; Patricia Rozema’s Kit Kittredge: An American Girl ; Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion ; and Seth Gordon’s documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters . Time Warner later folded Picturehouse and New Line into the general Warner Bros. operations and the brand continued to live in the home entertainment and television releases of its films. Most recently Berney co-founded and served as president of theatrical distribution of FilmDistrict, overseeing the roll outs of Insidious, Soul Surfer, Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark and Drive . Prior to Picturehouse he worked at IFC Films, where he acquired and oversaw the release of films including the $240-million surprise hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Y Tu Mamá También . Later he served as president and partner of Newmarket Films, releasing features including Mel Gibson’s $370 million-grossing The Passion of the Christ as well as Monster , which earned Charlize Theron the Best Actress Academy Award; and Whale Rider , a little-known Toronto International Film Festival find that also received a Best Actress nomination. Newmarket sold its distribution operation to Time Warner as part of the formation of Picturehouse. Entertainment marketing veteran Jeanne Berney most recently served as Executive Vice President of Marketing at FilmDistrict. Before that, she was Executive Vice President of Marketing and Administration for Apparition. Jeanne Berney also served as Director of Public Relations and Marketing at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where she was responsible for the campaigns for all of the Society’s year-round programs.
While the rest of the world dissects the coming-out portion of Jodie Foster’s Golden Globes speech , I’d like to focus on another potential bombshell the 50-year-old filmmaker appeared to have dropped while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement: The suggestion that she was somehow retiring from the business. “This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting, and now what?” Foster told the Globes audience. “I may never be up on this stage again, on any stage, for that matter.” WATCH: Jodie Foster Wins The Golden Globes With Her ‘Coming Out’ Speech After the awards Foster clarified that remark , saying: “I could never stop acting. You’d have to drag me behind a team of horses. I’d like to be directing tomorrow. I’m more into it than I have ever been.” So which of those statements is closest to the truth? I’m going with the clarification. Her I-may-never-be-up-on-this-stage-or-any-stage line felt like an emotional and momentarily insecure remark made by a 50-year-old person who works in a mercilessly fickle business, particularly when it comes to middle-aged women. Yes, by turning to directing and producing and making some extremely smart acting choices, Foster has avoided the forced exile that so many actresses suffer once they hit their 40s, but that doesn’t mean she’s immune to an occasional crisis of confidence, especially when pouring her heart out before the world. Also, lifetime achievement awards come with a built-in punchline: the implication that the best of one’s career is in the rearview mirror. Foster’s back-stage clarification seems like a more level-headed parsing of her on-stage remark, and it’s also in line with a comment she made to The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, when she was promoting The Beaver: “I’ve reached that point where I don’t want to act very much anymore,” Foster told the publication. “I am much more interested in holding off on acting, after 45 years as an actor. It’s a long period of time to do the same thing.” That sounds to me like the early blueprint for Jodie Foster’s next act. When an acting role that inspires her comes along, she’ll take it, but, at the moment, directing moves the needle for her. According to IMDb , Foster’s future work commitments are sketchy, but after her role as Secretary Rhodes opposite Matt Damon in Elysium next summer, and her work behind the camera as the director of The Money Monster , which is in pre-production, she appears to be gravitating toward work behind the camera. I do think we’ll see Foster up on the stage at the Golden Globes, or the Oscars again, but the odds are it will be for her work as a director not as an actor. MORE MOVIELINE COVERAGE OF THE GOLDEN GLOBES: ‘Argo’ & ‘Les Misérables’ Take Top Movie Prizes At Golden Globes Movieline Live Blogs The Golden Globe Awards [ The Hollywood Reporter , Huffington Post , IMDb ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
After Lindsay Lohan’s got busted for allegedly slugging another woman at a New York nightclub in November, I wrote her off as a lost cause , but Stephen Rodrick’s fascinating New York Times piece about Paul Schrader’s making of The Canyons with Lohan left me thinking that there’s still a talented actress in that scandal-ravaged psyche worth saving. Although Lohan exhibits plenty of ridiculous (and tragic) behavior in the story that would prove my original point, and the media has predictably chosen to run with that, I was struck by a few passages in the story that indicate Lohan is more than just a self-destructive starlet whose career is hanging by a thread. Here are three of them: “The next day, Lohan arrived relatively on time for a makeup test. She sat behind a table with a can of Sprite, looked into the camera and flashed a wholesome smile that would not have been out of place in the world’s best soda commercial. Schrader grabbed my arm and pointed at Lohan’s image. ‘See? That’s why we put up with all the crap. You can shoot bad movies with actresses who are always on time. But look! The rest is just noise.’” Then there’s Rodrick’s description of Lohan’s preparation for a scene in which she was required to be scared and emotionally naked: “All that remained was to get a close-up of Deen touching Lohan’s face with a blood-streaked finger. Only half of Lohan’s face would be in the shot. Most actresses would pop in some Visine to well their eyes with tears and be done with it. Instead, Lohan went back to her room, and everyone waited. I was standing by her door, and soon I could hear her crying. It began quietly, almost a whimper, but rose to a guttural howl. It was the sobbing of a child lost in the woods. She came out of her room, and I watched the shot on a monitor. Now, without the garish makeup, Lohan looked sadly beautiful, and it was easy to see why men like Schrader were willing to put their lives in her hands.” The last excerpt appears at the very end of the story when, after all of the drama of shooting The Canyons, Rodrick asks the writer of Taxi Driver and the director of Affliction and the underrated Auto Focus , if he regretted casting Lohan: “He shook his head. “No, she’s great in the film.” Schrader then told me a secret. Until the screening disaster, Schrader had been in talks with Lohan to star in a remake of John Cassavetes’s “Gloria,” about a woman on the run from the mob. The director lighted up, childlike; hope triumphing over memories of being stripped naked. “It doesn’t involve a co-star. She would be perfect for it.” One of the things that makes Rodrick’s piece so good is that with passages like that, the reader has to make a judgement call: Is Schrader deluded because he really needs this film to move the needle, or is that the veteran filmmaker in him — the one who’s worked with Robert De Niro , Martin Scorsese and his brilliant, late brother Leonard Schrader — talking? I say it’s a mixture of both, but more of the latter. And though Rodrick certainly leaves the impression that The Canyons is a problematic film (that was rejected by the Sundance Film Festival), he also writes this passage about Lohan’s performance that suggests that, with a lot of tough love and self-discipline, her career is salvageable. “But about 15 minutes in, something clicked….Lohan was equal parts vulnerable and dissolute.” I know what you’re thinking: That line is a distillation of Lohan’s recent life, but go back and re-read the description of Lohan’s crying scene. In the right hands, Lohan is capable of tapping into all of chaos and pain she’s experienced and putting it into her performance. It’s too bad that Exorcist: The Beginning was such a debacle for Schrader. LiLo could probably turn in quite a performance as a woman possessed. As the Times piece demonstrates, the promising actress that Lohan once was is still alive in her. It’s just that the demons keep dragging her down. More on Lindsay Lohan: Lindsay Lohan Busted Again − Is She Beyond Help? Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
