Tag Archives: film

TALKBACK: Can Elmo Recover In The Wake Of Kevin Clash’s Resignation?

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

” Elmo  is bigger than any one person,” the producers of Sesame Street declared last week when Kevin Clash, who was the voice of the  furry and very famous red muppet, was first accused of having sex with a minor. That statement is about to be tested in the wake of Clash’s resignation from the venerable children’s show after a second allegation, this time, in a lawsuit, was reported by the Associated Press on Tuesday. Although Clash’s first accuser recanted his claims, a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York charges Clash with sexual abuse of a second youth, Cecil Singleton, then 15 and now an adult.  According to the AP (via Yahoo!) , the lawsuit, which seeks damages in excess of $5 million, alleges that Singleton was persuaded by Clash to meet for sexual encounters. A statement posted on the Sesame Workshop blog, also on Tuesday, noted that “the controversy surrounding Kevin’s personal life has become a distraction that none of us want.”  The statement additionally read that Clash had resigned after 28 years at Sesame Street , because he’d concluded that “that he can no longer be effective in his job.” “It’s a sad day for Sesame Street ,” concluded the statement. It’s also a thorny public-relations problem for Sesame Workshop. But while   Clash’s career won’t likely bounce back from this scandal  any time soon, the reality is that Elmo is going to be fine. Movieline ‘s offices are located in the Times Square and even as news of these new allegations were breaking, there were two people dressed as Elmo circulating among the tourists and making a few bucks by taking pictures with children. They did not seem to be having trouble attracting business and no one was taunting them about the Clash story.  In fact, when I approached one of the Elmos, who identified himself as Jose Segarro — that’s him in the picture with Hello Kitty — he was unaware of Clash’s resignation and told me that business was “the same.” In a recent piece on the growing scandal, The Grio.com interviewed Jim Silver, Editor in Chief of the online family site, Time to Play.com, who pointed out that while a small group of parents may be hesitant to buy an Elmo-related product for their kids in light of Clash’s problems, the brand remains strong. (He estimates that Elmo generates more than 50 percent of the $75 million in sales that Sesame Stree t toys generate each year. ) “Kevin [Clash] is the voice and is not Elmo the same way James Earl Jones is not Darth Vader.” Exactly.  Despite this scandal’s great potential as a media story, my experience as a father tells me that kids, who are in the Elmo-loving age bracket, aren’t going to spend a lot of time thinking about what the voice of Elmo does in his personal life, even if they’re savvy enough to understand that Elmo is a puppet voiced by an actor.  And even if there are a few preternaturally aware youngsters who watch a lot of cable news and grasp what’s happening here,  they’re probably going to grow up to be the kind of knowing pop-culture savants who will convert this unfortunate chapter in Sesame Street history into some form of art or journalism, whether it be a documentary, book or comedy routine. That may be cold comfort, but, at this stage in the story,  the silver linings don’t look all that plentiful. Related Stories: TALKBACK: Can ‘Elmo’ Puppeteer Kevin Clash Bounce Back From Abuse Allegations? INTERVIEW: Kevin Clash, the Man Behind Elmo, on Jim Henson, Puppetry, and Jason Segel’s The Muppets [AP via Yahoo!   The Grio.com] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter.  Follow Movieline on Twitter. 

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Just One Hitch! ‘Hitchcock’ Stars Name Their Favorite Scene and Movie By The Master Of Suspense

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Quick, name your favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie and scene. With the Master of Suspense getting a lot of attention this fall, thanks to the HBO movie, The Girl , and the theatrical feature Hitchcock , which opens in limited release on Friday, Movieline decided these would be good questions to ask of the celebrity contingent that showed up for the New York premiere of the latter film on Sunday. Hitchcock , which stars Anthony Hopkins in the title role and Helen Mirren as his better half Alma Reville, is set during the making of Psycho and depicts the filmmaker in a more cuddly light than the manipulative misogynist he’s made out to be in The Girl .  The comic drama is built around Hitchcock’s relationship with wife and the helpful role she played in his career.   And though Hopkins didn’t attend the premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater, I spoke to him via satellite on Saturday. Based on his answers, he’s clearly spent some time with Vertigo. Movieline: What is your favorite Hitchcock film and your favorite scene?  Anthony Hopkins , the star of Hitchcock . Movie: “ Vertigo is one of my all-time favorites. I think it’s the haunting music of Bernard Hermann and James Stewart’s romantic obsession for this young woman who is a mystery.  She’s beautiful, blonde, inaccessible. He falls madly in love with her, and she’s killed halfway through or a quarter way through the film. She just falls out of the window or commits suicide. Then she reappears on the street in San Francisco.” Scene: “That scene particularly, when he follows her across the street to her hotel. That late afternoon light in the San Francisco street, 54 years ago when it was made. And the moment when he leaves her room, he says, “Can I take you for dinner,” and Kim Novak, as he goes out, turns towards the camera and you see the whole plot. You’re let in on the secret that this was a setup and James Stewart is the victim of an appalling tragedy—a woman’s murder. Then, he sees her on the street and becomes obsessed with repossessing Madeleine. He makes her have her hair done and the skirts and the shoes and everything. He’s obsessed, as Hitchcock was about the costuming, about the dressing of his female stars. He’s waiting in her hotel room and she’s finally persuaded to have her hair done the way Madeleine had it. She comes out and she’s come back from the dead. I mean, that’s the kind of mystical genius of Hitchcock. I think that has now become the top, number one film of all time. The critics destroyed it when it came out. They just said it was rubbish. Now, it’s number one. Top movie, above Casablanca and all those. So, the guy’s genius lives on, many years after his death.” Sacha Gervasi , the director of Hitchcock Movie:  “Hel-lo, Psycho . With many filmmakers there’s perhaps two or three masterworks, but with Hitchcock there’s ten or twelve. That’s very rare. I also love Vertigo , because it’s so romantic. I think it’s sort of unintentionally revealing of the man himself.” Scene: “How could I not say the shower scene? It’s so revolutionary and so shocking and surprising.” Scarlett Johansson , Janet Leigh in Hitchcock Movie:  “ Strangers on a Train . As a kid, I liked the look of it. I liked the cinematography. I liked the suspense. I liked everything about it.” Danny Huston , Strangers on a Train screenwriter Whitfield Cook in Hitchcock Movie: “ Strangers on a Train — only because I wrote it. [Laughs] I suppose Psycho because of those memorable moments; because it all came together in such a terrifying way and it’s just such a deeply psychological film.” Scene: “I don’t know whether it’s my favorite, but the one I just can’t shake, especially when I get soap in my eyes in the shower is the Psycho shower sequence. It’s just something that stays with me. And, if you’re somewhere around birds and the birds get a little too close to you, then you have that memory, too. It’s a subconscious thing.” Toni Collette , Peggy Robertson in Hitchcock : Movie: “It’s too hard. I mean, do you know how many movies he made? Jesus. I always go for Rear Window . Psycho is probably the most famous, which is why [Hitchcock] is so enlightening. He’s the master.” Scene: “I’m too jetlagged to recall.” Michael Stuhlbarg , Lew Wasserman in Hitchcock : Movie: “It’s impossible to choose between them. Each one accomplishes a different feat. I am particularly taken by Rope , especially because of the technical achievement of shooting the story so that it appeared to be a single continuous shot and how he creatively found ways to hide that.” Scene: “When that biplane comes after Cary Grant in North By Northwest and how close it gets to him — that’s an iconic scene that has stayed with me.” Jessica Biel , Vera Miles in Hitchcock : Movie : “I actually just saw Dial M for Murder , which I quite loved a lot. That and The Birds , of course.” James D’Arcy , Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock Movie: “I think the best one is the last one I watched, because the minute you see it you’re struck by his genius and you forget the other ones. Then, you watch the next one. The last one I saw was  Foreign Correspondent , which is a 1940 piece of war propaganda. It’s utterly mesmeric. It’s got one of the best plane crashes I’ve ever seen. That wasn’t even on my radar before I’d seen it. Now it’s my favorite Hitchcock film.” Scene: “Wow. That is a difficult question. That shower scene in Psycho . That had people running out of cinemas when it was first screened. It’s just so iconic.” Jon Voight , actor: Movie: “I don’t have any favorites. I liked what he did for cinema, you know? And everybody who makes a film has learned something from Hitchcock and the way he made films. So, every film I see reminds me. ‘They took that from Hitchcock, they took that from Hitchcock.’ The things he employed became ingested by everybody in filmmaking.” Amanda Setton , actress,  Gossip Girl Movie: “I don’t want to be cliché, but I have to say Psycho . We shoot on the Universal lot in L.A. and the Bates Motel and the Psycho house are on our back lot, so I kind of feel a very personal relationship to the ‘epicness,’ if you will, of that space. Ralph Macchio , actor: Movie: “Right now, it’s Rear Window . I just wrote a short film that I’m going to direct this December and there’s a voyeur-esque element to it. Scene: “Certainly the shower scene in Psycho . There’s a zillion of ’em.” Steve “Lips” Kudlow, frontman, Anvil Movie: “It would probably be Dial M for Murder . It was really brilliant that there was virtually nothing but one room. That and Rear Window . Those two movies. Wow.” Nell Alk is an arts and entertainment writer and reporter based in New York City. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Manhattan Magazine, Z!NK Magazine and on InterviewMagazine.com, PaperMag.com and RollingStone.com, among others. Learn more about her here. Follow Nell Alk on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

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Ryan Gosling Don’t Look So Pretty In ‘Drive’ Director Winding Refn’s ‘Only God Forgives’

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Nicolas Winding Refn has said that the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired him to become a filmmaker. So we shouldn’t be surprised that Ryan Gosling appears to be sporting a quasi-Leatherface look in what may be a poster for Only God Forgives.  (Check it out after the jump.)  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but the actor’s face does look pretty damn tore up. The Film Stage posted the image , which it indicates it received from a reader. Certainly, it doesn’t seem implausible as a poster. What better way to whip up interest in a film than to go with a poster that messes with Gosling’s pulse-quickening handsomeness . On Gosling and Winding Refn’s follow-up to their most excellent 2011 film  Drive ,   Only God Forgives is set in the Thai boxing underworld.  According to the Film Stage, this  is the synopsis: Julian (Gosling) lives in exile in Bangkok where he runs a Thai boxing club as a front for the family’s drugs smuggling operation. When Julian’s brother Billy is killed their mother, Jenna (Kristen Scott Thomas), arrives in the city. She wants revenge and forces Julian to find the killer. Julian’s contacts in the criminal underworld lead him directly to The Angel of Vengeance, a retired police officer who knows everything and who is both Judge and Punisher. Jenna demands that Julian kill The Angel of Vengeance, an act that will cost him dearly. The fight scenes in this movie are apparently brutal and intense — as if the poster image doesn’t convey that — and, like Drive , Winding Refn sets many of his scenes to the kind of electronic music that gets under your skin and makes those shots even more emotionally palpable. In this case, he’s working with M83 of “Midnight City” fame. (Try not to get hooked on that song. I dare you.) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter. 

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REVIEW: ‘Anna Karenina’ Is So Wright It’s Wrong − Beautiful To Behold But Empty Inside

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

There’s a five-minute tracking shot in the middle of Joe Wright’s 2007 film  Atonement  that is impossible to forget once you’ve seen it. A wounded Robbie ( James McAvoy ) is on the beach at Dunkirk, waiting to be evacuated, and in a nightmarish, beautiful single Steadicam take he wanders past crowds of soldiers, burning cars, horses being shot, a beached ship, a choir singing, the ferris wheel still spinning in the ruined background. It’s a mind-boggling piece of work, requiring immaculate timing and choreography, and it takes you right out of the movie because it’s there to show off.   As impressive as it is from a production standpoint, the shot takes your focus away from the story and puts it on the mechanics of what’s happening on screen. Wright’s new adaptation of Tolstoy’s  Anna Karenina   lives in the hollow clockwork world of that shot. From a filmmaking perspective, it’s a gorgeous shadowbox of a production, filmed largely in a single location: a set resembling a run-down theater that was built on a Shepperton Studios sound stage. It starts with the sounds of an unseen audience settling down — there are no visible viewers of this story other than ourselves — and closes in on a proscenium arch as a curtain goes up. The scrim behind it reads “Imperial Russia, 1874.” Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen) is on stage, receiving a shave. When a door opens off the side, it is to a snowy street exterior in Moscow. He pays a visit to the family governess he’s having a fling with, and when he heads home, through a backstage area, he opens a door to see his wife Dolly (Kelly Macdonald) weeping over evidence of his infidelity. The scene sets the story into motion as his sister Anna ( Keira Knightley ) comes to visit in an attempt to save their marriage. Anna Karenina  isn’t a filmed stage production in any way — it lives within this theoretical theater while not being confined to it. Characters stride up wooden stairs into bustling rafters that stand in for a city street, or walk through a bureaucratic office that, as the camera rotates, is pulled away and restaged as an upscale restaurant. Musicians wander through the space providing a soundtrack to the transition as it happens in front of our eyes. It’s an incredible thing to behold, at least at the start. Wright is clearly a fan of Aleksandr Sokurov ‘s  Russian Ark , and the intense cleverness of his direction and the way Anna Karenina revels in artifice set the film apart visually from typically glossy film adaptations of classics that gleam with assured self-importance. But the gorgeous look and stage work and the way the movie connects impossible spaces — backdrops lift to reveal the Russian countryside, a grassy field running down the stage into the orchestra — is only a temporary salve. The unfortunate truth is that beneath the initial brilliance of its stylized setting, the film is just as dramatically inert as a more stuffy, traditional take on the material might have been. Scripted by playwright  Tom Stoppard , the film labors to fit Tolstoy’s sprawling story into its two hour and ten minute runtime by drawing its characters with minimal lines. The film may be experimental, but the adaptation is actually fairly traditional, if briskly efficient. Anna, a Saint Petersburg aristocrat married to the stiff but good and moral Alexei Karenin (Jude Law), meets the handsome cavalry officer Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) when departing the train for Moscow. Everyone expects Vronsky to propose to Dolly’s sister Kitty (Alicia Vikander), but he falls for Anna, following her home to Saint Petersberg and around to the parties, operas and other frilly gatherings until he wins her. As Anna struggles with wanting to leave Karenin for Vronsky, a scandal that would result in her being shunned by society, Kitty comes back around to Levin (Domhnall Gleeson), the earnest, shy childhood friend of Oblonsky whose proposal she at first turned down. The performances in  Anna Karenina are strong, albeit built around a story told in shorthand, and the actors sometimes feel like they’re staging recreations of famous paintings rather than embodying characters. Knightley, lit sumptuously and dressed in luxurious gowns, stands out among the performers-as-props, but she can’t portray the complicated journey of a character who gives up everything for love, only to doubt and regret it. In this condensed version of the story, she seems more like someone who dithers for a few hours before throwing herself in front of a train. Wright has said that his inspiration for this adaptation was that the aristocrats at the time of Tolstoy’s novel were constantly on display and observed in society, living their lives as if they were always on stage. But this Anna Karenina feels like a diminishment of the story, not the essence of it. Rather than a tale of an affair that would have been fine had it not turned into a more serious love that broke societal rules, Anna Karenina feels like a group of people play-acting at passion. They hit all the famous elements in the story — the train station, the ball, the races, the running off together, the suicide — without a sense of them as a coherent whole or as anything other than opportunities for innovatively staged sequences. It’s a beautiful creation, but a remote and empty one. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

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Glimmers Of Gold: Let The Oscar Index Begin!

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a fierce battle being fought out there for the right to heft a gold statuette at the Dolby Theater on Feb. 24 and forget to thank some vital member of your family.  And though more than a half dozen pictures and performances that the blogosphere is touting as Oscar-worthy have yet to be seen by the public (and, in some cases, the very bloggers who are touting them), the virtual home office at Movieline has decided it’s time to throw open the doors to the Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics and start up the Oscar Index . How The Oscar Index Works This year, Movieline’ s Oscar Index will be presented differently than it has been in the past.  We’ll soon add the now-iconic graph that tracks the weekly rise and fall of the candidates based on fluctuations in the Institute’s extremely sensitive media seismometers. What will be different is that, with each award category that we track, we’ll present four different rankings. Movieline Executive Editor Jen Yamato , Managing Editor Brian Brooks and myself will each provide our personal weekly rankings of the movies and actors in the running, and then those results will be weighted and averaged to determine an official Movieline ranking for each category. This week, we begin with the Best Picture category. Next week, we’ll weigh in on the Best Director, Best Actor, Actress and Best Supporting Actor and Actress races. Oscar for Best Picture 2013 Right now, Lincoln is the picture to beat with its heart-and-soul performance by Daniel Day-Lewis — his world-weary slump-shouldered walk alone is worth the price of admission — a beautiful script by Tony Kushner and some pitch-perfect scenery chewing by Tommy Lee Jones and James Spader. The picture finishes at the top of two of our three lists, and Awards Daily calls it “Arguably, the best film of the year so far,” adding: “Films this thoughtfully created don’t come around very often.” The consensus at a number of blogsites, such as Indiewire , is that Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, Ben Affleck’s Argo and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook are also going to be nominated for Best Picture. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master has also been mentioned, but the film opened so early in the race and, with the exception of Joaquin Phoenix’s comments about how he really feels about Oscars, the movie could use a second wind unless The Weinstein Company is shifting its weight to a Silver Linings push. But coming up fast is Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables , which our own Ms. Yamato notes, is “scaring” a lot of the other contenders.  Meanwhile, Michael Haneke’s Amour and Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild are long shots, but still in the race. Indeed, the latter film finished in the number 10 spot on each Movieline editor’s list. An even darker horse is Skyfall , but I (alone) agree with Deadline that the movie’s critical and box-office success and its popularity among Academy members bode well for a best-picture nomination.  Here’s the rundown of each Movieline editor’s Best Picture picks in descending order: Frank DiGiacomo’s Picks 1. Lincoln 2.   Silver Linings Playbook 3.   Argo 4.   Les Misérables 5.   Life of Pi 6.   Skyfall 7.   Zero Dark Thirty 8 .   Flight 9.   The Master 10. Beasts of the Southern Wild — Jen Yamato’s Picks 1.   Les Misérables 2.   Lincoln 3.   Silver Linings Playbook 4.   Argo 5.   Life of Pi 6.   Zero Dark Thirty 7.   Anna Karenina 8.   The Master 9.   The Hobbit 10. Beasts of the Southern Wild — Brian Brooks’ Picks 1. Lincoln 2. Silver Linings Playbook 3. Les Misérables 4. Argo 5. Life of Pi 6. Amour 7. Django Unchained 8. Anna Karenina 9. The Dark Knight Rises 10.   Beasts of the Southern Wild And the winners are…

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Alexander Skarsgård May Holla ‘Tarzan’

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In the last couple years, Alexander Skarsgård has taken on roles ranging from controversial Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s Melancholia to Peter Berg’s Battleship , but now it looks like the 6′ 4″ heartthrob may be heading to the dense foliage of the tropics. The Swedish-born actor has risen to the top of the contender list to star in David Yates’ Tarzan for Warner Bros., Variety said . The film still is awaiting the official go-ahead from studio brass, but a late summer shoot is expected. Come summer, Skarsgård may don the character of John Clayton III, aka. Tarzan. The story follows the “re-assimilated” Clayton who is asked by H.M. Queen Victoria to team with mercenary George Washington Williams to save the Congo from a warlord who controls a rich diamond mine. Samuel L. Jackson is a possibility to play Williams who is a Civil War vet who wants to repair his name following his involvement in a massacre of Native Americans. Yates officially committed to the project last week, which, given all the colonial subtext, risks running afoul a sensitivity issue or two. Yates directed the last four installments of the Harry Potter franchise. Toronto premieres Disconnect and What Maisie Knew will be Skarsgård’s next starrers. [ Source: Variety ]

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High & Low: Godard Savages Capitalism & Mel Brooks Satirizes Everything

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Even Jean-Luc Godard , the bad boy of the French New Wave, loved a good car crash. And Mel Brooks loves sitting down with an erudite interviewer just as much as he loves a good fart joke. Together these auteurs climb the peaks and plumb the depths of this week’s High and Low with new DVD releases that belong on the shelf of any film lover who enjoys a good Marxist dialectic leavened with the occasional showtune-singing Nazi. HIGH: Weekend (The Criterion Collection; $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-Ray) WHO’S RESPONSIBLE: Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Starring Mireille Darc, Jean Yanne, Juliet Berto. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT: A fairly despicable bourgeois couple (Darc and Yanne), who are both cheating on and planning to kill each other, travel to the country to attempt to get money from the wife’s dying father, even if that involves patricide. They get stuck in a mammoth traffic jam and auto accident that appears to run the entire length of France. The further along they travel, the closer they seem to get to the end of civilization itself. WHY IT’S SCHMANCY: A brutal satire on capitalism that tests its audiences with repeated musical cues and a lengthy static shot of workmen eating sandwiches while the narrator goes off on a lengthy tangent about colonialism — the “I Am John Galt” speech for the far left — Weekend is one of Godard’s most daring and entertaining movies, with the always-provocative auteur throwing everything at the screen. (The film’s final title card declares “ fin du cinema .”) WHY YOU SHOULD BUY IT (AGAIN): Besides marking the film’s Blu-Ray debut, this Criterion release features a thicker-than-usual booklet with color artwork, an essay by Gary Indiana and excerpts from a 1969 Rolling Stone interview with Godard. There are also archival interviews with cast and crew members, excerpts from a French TV show about Godard that was filmed partially on the Weekend set by filmmaker Philippe Garrel, and other goodies. LOW: The Incredible Mel Brooks (Shout Factory; DVD/CD $89.93) WHO’S RESPONSIBLE: This five-DVD, one-CD collection features some of the many highlights of Mel Brooks’ career in film, television and recordings. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT: This is one-stop shopping for fans of Melvin Kaminsky (Brooks’s given name). The set includes a five-part documentary about his filmmaking career ( Mel and His Movies ), interviews (vintage and contemporary) with Dick Cavett, hilarious appearances on The Tonight Show and Mad About You , episodes of programs he created ( Get Smart and When Things Were Rotten ), and much, much more. WHY IT’S FUN: This compilation makes it into “Low” only because Brooks himself famously noted that his work “rises beneath vulgarity.” But while he’s always been a rule-breaker — has anyone dared to satirize racism as sharply and hilariously as Brooks did in Blazing Saddles ? — his comic genius has made him an icon of 20th-century popular culture. WHY YOU SHOULD OWN IT: Like Shout Factory’s recent box set of Steve Martin’s television work, this is a meticulously curated collection of an extraordinary artist. (Where else are you going to find a 60 Minutes segment on the same DVD collection as sketches from The Electric Company and vintage Mad Men –era TV spots directed by Brooks before he took his vision to the big screen?) In addition to all the digital treats, there are also essays by Leonard Maltin, Gene Wilder and Bruce Jay Friedman. Here’s as good a glimpse into the wonderfully warped mind of a director-writer-actor-producer-songwriter as you’re probably ever going to find. Alonso Duralde has written about film for The Wrap, Salon and MSNBC.com . He also co-hosts the Linoleum Knife podcast and regularly appears on What the Flick?! (The Young Turks Network) .  He is a senior programmer for the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles and a pre-screener for the Sundance Film Festival. He also the author of two books: Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men  (Advocate Books). Follow Alonso Duralde on Twitter. Follow Movieline on  Twitter.

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‘Twilight’ Finale ‘Breaking Dawn 2’ Premieres In L.A. To Screams, Oh, The Screams!

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Screams of elation, excitement — and at one point pure, unadulterated horror — echoed down through the rafters at the Nokia Theater last night as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II premiered to crowd of well-heeled industry guests and legions of Twi-hards, all craning for a glimpse of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson , who were in attendance alongside dozens of their Twilight co-stars. Hollywood suits and fans alike seemed taken with the action-packed Twilight finale, which concludes the billion-dollar film franchise with a polished touch, new faces, a welcome dash of humor, and more than a few fan service moments dedicated to Bella and Edward’s bloodsucking marital bliss. And, proving that Twilight is a universal phenomenon, the premiere drew famous faces as varied as they come: Stevie Nicks , who compared Twilight to Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre on the red carpet; Terrell Owens, spotted taking pictures with a Breaking Dawn vampire at the after party; Jaleel White, the erstwhile Steve Urkel; and even Weird Al Yankovic. Weird Al! Who’d have guessed he was a Twilight fan? PHOTO GALLERY: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson & More Hit The ‘Breaking Dawn Part 2’ Premiere Breaking Dawn Part II picks up shortly after the gory events of Breaking Dawn Part I , in which franchise heroine Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), newly wed, gave birth to her half human, half vampire daughter Renesmee. Or, rather: When baby Renesmee clawed her way out of the womb leaving Bella dying, and fast. Enter vampirism: Painful, permanent, but too convenient to turn down in a pinch. The new film opens with Bella’s rebirth as she awakens to undead life with new strength and beauty, a thirst for blood, and a hyperactive sex drive for making eternal love with Edward (Robert Pattinson). And Bella’s not alone; along with her resurrection, the franchise comes alive with renewed energy and a much-needed sense of humor, not to mention – gasp! – changes from the book that lend Breaking Dawn a cinematic drama lacking in Meyer’s final novel. Director Bill Condon, who helmed Breaking Dawn Part I and shot the two final installments concurrently, delivers the ultimate Twilight farewell for fans of Stephenie Meyer’s books and the film adaptation they spawned. Together with series screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg and Meyer herself, a guiding presence on set and in the scripting process, Condon gives the Twilight faithful all the must-see moments they want — and a few they didn’t know they needed. PHOTO GALLERY: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson & More Hit The ‘Breaking Dawn Part 2’ Premiere Suffice to say, in the service of satisfying the fans Condon and Co. have included plenty of canoodling opportunities for Bella and Edward, who are finally sexual equals now that vampire life has balanced out their 100-year age difference. If you thought Breaking Dawn Part I ‘s PG butter-colored honeymoon sex was thrilling, just wait until Bella, powered by a diet of mountain lion blood, shoves Edward onto their bridal bed and becomes entangled in a blur of abstractly unidentifiable arms and thighs and sighs until her brain explodes in orgasmic, butter-colored bliss. Scream level: 8, on a scale of 1 to 10 . And despite being saddled with the trickiest plot development of the film, maybe even the series ( Imprinting: Totally not weird, right? ), Taylor Lautner shows off his comic timing, and his six-pack, both of which he’s clearly been working on these past few films. I dare say Condon pushes the envelope a bit where Lautner is concerned; in one scene the camera leers just so at Lautner’s crotch that the entire audience gets to second base with him just by looking. Scream level: 9 . But where Rosenberg, Meyer, and Condon show they really know their fan base is in the film’s biggest departure from the book. Without spoiling it, I’ll just describe what it sounded like in the theater: Gasps and screams escaped from the fan contingent, crescendoed, and sustained for a good ten minute span. The feeling was contagious, creating a wave of invisible, palpable energy cascading from the balcony to the screen. Scream level: 11 . PHOTO GALLERY: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson & More Hit The ‘Breaking Dawn Part 2’ Premiere At the after party guests danced under the Forks High prom lights, sat in Bella’s red truck, and posed for photos in Bella and Edward’s meadow. Locations from the entire series were replicated in every corner, from the Volturi chambers to the Quileute forests to the flower-lined awning under which Bella and Edward were wed. Bella’s wedding dress stood underneath a giant hanging moon while servers dressed as Volturi brought around canapes; outside, live wolves roamed a cage on display. It was a Twilight fan’s dream, so thoroughly detailed that you wonder how long it’ll take Summit to figure out how to create a Harry Potter -styled Twilight attraction where fans can wander scenes from the films and imagine themselves in Forks, Washington, and keep the screams — and cash — rolling in for years to come. GET MORE TWILIGHT: Taylor Lautner On Jacob And Renesmee’s ‘Breaking Dawn’ May-December Relationship: ‘I Was Worried About It’ Are Breaking Dawn Fans In For ‘Big Shock’ Ending? Breaking Dawn First Images: Bella and Edward Welcome Renesmee, Lautner Insists Imprinting Not Creepy Read up on all things Twilight: Breaking Dawn ! Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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‘Twilight’ Finale ‘Breaking Dawn 2’ Premieres In L.A. To Screams, Oh, The Screams!

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5 Rock ‘N’ Roll Martial Arts Life Lessons From ‘Miami Connection’ Guru Grandmaster Y.K. Kim

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

As far as underdog success stories go, no film this year holds a candle to the crazy true resurrection of the obscure Florida-set 1987 rock ‘n’ roll martial arts pic Miami Connection . A totally ’80s actioner shot independently by Korean-born Tae Kwon Do expert and future Grandmaster Y.K. Kim, the film tanked so hard upon initial release (in just eight theaters in Central Florida) that it sat languishing in obscurity for decades… until the maverick visionaries at Drafthouse Films discovered the gloriously cheesy and infectiously sincere tale, about five orphaned Tae Kwon Do black belts who face off against biker ninjas while moonlighting as a synth rock band . Thanks to Drafthouse Films, the upstart distribution arm of the Drafthouse Cinema specializing in a kind of bold, genre-leaning fare that has so far yielded one Oscar-nominee ( Bullhead ) and another Oscar hopeful (Korea’s 2012 contender Pieta , by Kim Ki-Duk) in just two years of existence, contemporary audiences can share the unbridled joy that emanates from Miami Connection ‘s unique combination of martial arts action, ’80s rock, and genuinely sweet message of friendship (forever). Miami Connection has everything: Evil biker ninjas, “stupid cocaine,” catchy songs with titles like “Friends Forever,” a touch of romance, a lot of bromance, and, at the center of it all, one Y.K. Kim. A cross between Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, Kim plays Mark, a college student who lives, plays rock and roll, and trains in Tae Kwon Do with his four best friends John (Vincent Hirsch), Jack (Joseph Diamand), Jim (Maurice Smith), and Tom (Angelo Janotti). When Jane (Kathy Collier) joins their band Dragon Sound, her seedy brother and his evil ninja-gangster pal set out to destroy them. Awesomeness ensues! The Korean-born Kim wrote, co-directed, and starred in Miami Connection , which began as an action movie pitch from a director who’d seen Kim promoting his martial arts philosophies on Korean TV. Kim knew nothing of filmmaking, but he seized the opportunity, recruiting some of his own Tae Kwon Do students to star alongside him. It wasn’t the smartest financial venture, to say the least. Kim, still a force of nature who now runs a martial arts school, tours as a motivational speaker, and developed a five-step program for success, has no regrets about the indie bomb that ended his filmmaking career before it even had a chance to take off. “All my friends and community leaders and media came up to me and said, ‘Don’t try to make a movie – you are a martial arts expert, you are not a movie maker,'” he remembered when we met to chat in Austin at Fantastic Fest , where Miami Connection played to a raucous crowd. “So many people in Central Florida tried and not one person finished a movie, and that means you were asking for bankruptcy. But all my students were excited; with martial arts spirit you don’t just give up. So I started.” Long hours, not enough money, and crew shortfalls threatened to derail the production; Kim stepped into multiple roles behind the scenes and went without sleep. “You name it, I did casting, cleaning up, catering, dialogue, location scout,” he said. “Five nights I didn’t sleep, just five or ten minutes here in the daytime, like a cat.” Through the blood, sweat, and tears, Kim and Co. thought they were making a hit movie, until everyone in Hollywood passed after watching the film. “I went to Hollywood, showed it to Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, you name it – over 100 distribution companies, and every single person said, “This is trash! Don’t even try. You will waste more money and it’s not going to work,'” said Kim. After taking Miami Connection to Cannes, Kim and actor Joe Diamand sat down to rewrite the film, adding in elements of Kim’s Tae Kwon Do martial arts philosophy. The new version opened theatrically in eight theaters in Florida, but poor word of mouth effectively killed the film upon arrival. “One guy was a very popular movie critic in the newspaper – I still have his review – and he wrote: ‘Worst Movie Of The Year – don’t go watch!'” Kim said. “People listened to him and in weeks, it was dead. I lost all the movie, dead. The name Y.K. Kim was trash. But I started a new life. I built it up right away. I’m a fighter.” Diamond and his fellow martial arts students/actors were, he says, “devastated” by the failure. “It was as if all the air had been kicked out of our guts,” said Diamand. “We were horrified; we just couldn’t believe it. We had a lot more hope.” “We were just so numb after putting all the energy into it and getting no recognition for it that it was one of those memories we wanted to forget about,” he continued. “On the one hand it was viewed as pure inept campiness originally, and now it’s being viewed as more real and sincere – we were martial artists going out there pretending to be actors, rather than actors pretending to be martial artists.” The re-embracing of Miami Connection by contemporary audiences has heartened Kim, Diamand, and the rest of Dragon Sound, who reunited at Fantastic Fest to play all two of their original Miami Connection rock songs. “You can’t fake this stuff,” Diamond said. “We really did feel this way about each other because we were all martial arts students practicing together. People originally thought we were trying to be actors but really it’s about being martial artists and getting that message across about friendship and a true indomitable spirit. This is how we lived; this is what we believed in. And this is what we wanted to show.” Before joining Grandmaster Kim and Diamand in cementing our newfound eternal friendship in song in a karaoke room at Austin’s Highball (we sang Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend,” in case you were wondering), Grandmaster shared with me five lessons from the philosophy that life, martial arts, and now Miami Connection have taught him. Hit the jump for Grandmaster Y.K. Kim’s life lessons (and the real story of how all those biker boobs popped up in Miami Connection …

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5 Rock ‘N’ Roll Martial Arts Life Lessons From ‘Miami Connection’ Guru Grandmaster Y.K. Kim

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Selena Gomez Rides A ‘Getaway’

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

It appears that Selena Gomez is dipping into another Mickey-less role, solidifying her catapult into adulthood. Gomez is starring with Ethan Hawke in a film titled Getaway . A photo hit the internet today with the hoodied (with baseball cap) former child-star in the front seat of a vehicle with Hawke in the pic. Also starring Jon Voight (that’s an interesting one!), Paul Freeman and Bruce Payne, the film is an Action-Crime feature that is set for release next August. OnTheFlix said it is “about a retired race car driver who tries to track down his kidnapped wife with the help of a younger female computer hacker.” Gomez mentioned that she’s filming the pic in Bulgaria. Speaking about another film she recently completed, Spring Breakers , at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Gomez said she is eager to move on to more mature roles. When my series ended, I was invited to do a couple of films,” said the former Wizards of Waverly Place star in Toronto . “I thought the independent film route would be best for me…The biggest challenge is that I have a younger generation of fans who follow my music, shows and clothing line.” Continuing about her fans she added: “Everything I do is for them and this may not be so accessible to them. But the other side is that people put you in a box and it is a challenge for me because some may not take me seriously because of the brand I have – that I’m fortunate to have – but it’s also about doing things that I just want to do for me.” Starring James Franco and Vanessa Hudgens, that Harmony Korine-directed Spring Breakers revolves around several college girls who get arrested after robbing a restaurant in order to fund their spring break vacation. But, they’re bailed out by a drug and arms dealer who wants them to do some dirty work. [ Sources: The Playlist , OntheFlix ]

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Selena Gomez Rides A ‘Getaway’

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