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Daniel Day-Lewis Hesitant To Play Abraham Lincoln

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

Actor Daniel Day-Lewis was reticent playing U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the now much anticipated film that opens this weekend beginning in limited release and heads out wide the following week. But after a long build-up before actually taking on the 16th U.S. leader, he reflected that he now feels “nourished” by the role and hopes Lincoln will “stay with him forever.” Both Day-Lewis and director Steven Spielberg made their only joint television appearance on ABC, which airs Friday evening on World News with Diane Sawyer and Nightline . “This seemed like such an important thing,” said U.K.-born Day-Lewis. “The last thing I wanted to do was to desiccate the memory of the most dearly loved president of this country.” Day-Lewis said that he became familiar with Lincoln while studying up on the Civil War and Spielberg recalled going to Washington, D.C. as a youth. “I think it might have been from the cards that you got with bubble gum,” Day-Lewis said. “That was a huge currency at the school where I was and there was a big series on the Civil War. … We were constantly swapping cards back and forth to try to get the completed set.” Added Spielberg: “All I saw was a giant. I never forgot that experience. … I felt he was looking directly at me.” Spielberg added that the found the idea of making Lincoln daunting, but said that Doris Kerns-Goodwin’s Team of Rivals shed light on a part of the President he had hoped to discover. “He was awkward to look at. His voice didn’t fit his stature, and he would just disarm a room with just a crazy story that had no relevance to the issue of why they were in the room to begin with,” he said. “There were so many odd, strange things about Abraham Lincoln that I think nobody knew how to pigeonhole him.” Spielberg said he had considered fully chronicling Lincoln’s life, but decided to narrow this portrait of him to the period when he struggled to pass the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which formally abolished slavery. “We didn’t have the real estate to really give an accurate Lincoln portrait,” he told ABC News. “It would have been like a greatest-hits album. You know, all those moments you read about in class — two minutes for that, five minutes for the Gettysburg Address, let’s do a little montage of the debates. I realized we had to take a position, our position, and get on with it. … I will certainly carry this with me.” Tommy Lee Jones Clip in Lincoln follows: Official Log-line: Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. Watch the video on YouTube [Source: ABC News ]

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‘Hobbit’ Producers Angered By ‘Age Of The Hobbits’ Mockbuster

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

The people behind The Hobbit are no fans of what they perceive as imitators. Warner Bros., New Line Cinema and MGM as well as Hobbit producer Saul Zaentz are taking backers of low-budget pic Age of the Hobbits for trademark infringement. The plaintiffs say that movie label The Asylum, which is behind a slate of “mock-busters” that spoof Hollywood movies, is “free-riding on the marketing campaign of Peter Jackson’s upcoming string of Hobbit pics, beginning next month with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey . Producers of the Jackson film called Age of the Hobbits an “international and willful attempt to trade on the popularity and goodwill” of the filmmaker’s The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, according to BBC. And producers are not looking for any compromise either. They are asking for all “infringing and ad materials and packaging for The Asylum’s Hobbit to be destroyed, claiming it may “divert customers and potential customers away from the Hobbit films.” The Zaentz Co which controls the trademark rights to the Tolkien book has also threatened legal action. Age of the Hobbits is due for a DVD and online release December 11th, just three days before the U.S. opening of Jackson’s Hobbit . “Age of the Hobbits is about the real-life human subspecies, Homo Floresiensis, discovered in 2003 in Indonesia, which have been uniformly referred to as ‘Hobbits’ in the scientific community,” noted Asylum in a statement, adding that it is therefore “protected under the legal doctrines of nominal and traditional fair use.” Aylum also said a Google search of ‘hobbits’ and archaeology would turn up a dozen of disparate articles. Asylum’s previous “mock-busters” include Transmorphers , based on Michael Bay’s big budget movie Transformers , and The Da Vinci Treasure , which took its name from The Da Vinci Code , directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks. [Source: BBC ]

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Woody-Wan Kenobi? ‘Toy Story 3’ Writer Hired For Next ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy Treatment

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

Whether you love or hate the idea of Disney acquiring and expanding the Star Wars franchise, you can’t say the House of Mouse isn’t treating   Episode VII like the prestige project is deserves to be.   Vulture reports that screenwriter Michael Arndt, who won an Oscar for his Little Miss Sunshine script, and was nominated for another with Toy Story 3 , is the leading candidate to write the new Star Wars script The website cites insiders who say that Arndt, who’s also the screenwriter for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ,  has written a 40- to 50-page treatment, and will probably be one of the screenwriters on board when shooting begins in 2014.  In addition to being a successful screenwriter who’s worked successfully with Pixar, Vulture notes that Arndt has lectured extensively  on “why the original Star Wars ending is so creatively satisfying.”  Turns out it’s not because there’s a big explosion at the end. Although the plot of Episode VII remains the subject of much speculation , Vulture indicates that Disney wants to bring back the three main characters from the original Star Wars : Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. Reportedly, Harrison Ford is “open” to reprising that last role , despite his apparently conflicted feelings about the character that made him a bankable actor. More ‘Star Wars 7’ News: Harrison Ford Might Return As Han Solo − And Die Happy Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia Knew Of More Star Wars Episodes; Surprised By Lucasfilm Sale ‘Leaked’ Disney ‘Star Wars Episode VII’ Posters Revealed By Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter. 

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REVIEW: Daniel Day-Lewis Brings Noble, Determined President To Life In Spielberg’s Timely ‘Lincoln’

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

The release of Lincoln , the new film from Steven Spielberg , is intended to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the days leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation and not the recent election; it doesn’t try to make a metaphor out of its portrayal of the 16th President or to force comparisons to our current commander-in-chief and the state of the country he’s overseeing, but it still couldn’t feel more timely. Written by Tony Kushner, the film covers the last four months in the life of Abraham Lincoln ( Daniel Day-Lewis ), as he battles to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment and bring an end to the Civil War, and up until an overly soft coda it is a magnificently warts-and-all portrait and appreciation of democracy at work in all its bickering, lively messiness. The difficulty of getting consensus on what’s clear now to be the righting of a massive ethical wrong allows for unlikely suspense and drama in what would be, had it existed back then, the domain of C-SPAN. The stakes are considerable, but Spielberg has no need to convince anyone of the awfulness of slavery. Instead, he makes a case for the democratic process, despite its flaws — as the best way for these decisions to be examined and hammered out, a place for moral purpose to meet practical concerns. A composition of browns and grays and dark rooms illuminated by dim period lighting,  Lincoln opens with two scenes that establish it has little desire to gaze at its subject or era with starry eyes. A glimpse of the war shows men floundering and dying in the mud, jabbing bayonets in each others’ guts. (Spielberg has no use, these days, in prettying up battle.) In the scene following, we watch soldiers greet Lincoln, all adoring, though not all content to simply praise: While two young white soldiers gawk over how tall he is, an African American one questions why there are still no commissioned officers of color as his friend tries to shush him. Lincoln receives and jokes with them all with characteristic unhurried equanimity, a quality that sees him through subsequent larger version of this interaction, in which even those who are firmly on his side have their own requests and additional needs to be pursued. With the help of a very good, fundamentally restrained performance from Day-Lewis,  Lincoln  offers up its protagonist as a flesh-and-blood being while allowing us to understand why his status in the country is already, as one of his officials puts it, “semi-divine.” Wielding a folksy charm and remaining even-keeled in the most tense of situations — his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Bruce McGill) storms off in frustration at one point when he realizes the President is about to launch into another anecdote — Lincoln’s nobility shines through in his unswerving conviction for what is right and his unfussiness about how to achieve it. Certain that the amendment must go through before the war ends, or risk not getting passed at all, Lincoln has Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) hire a slightly disreputable trio (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson) to offer up patronage jobs to the outgoing Democrats in the House of Representatives in exchange for their votes. In his own Republican party, he tries to placate the conservatives, led by Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook), who are afraid of chasing away support with “extreme” views on things like freed slaves getting the vote, while winning over the radicals, led by the prickly Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones at his most wonderfully irascible ), who consider compromise to be a betrayal of their beliefs about equality. Half the working character actors in Hollywood don wretched period facial hair and show up in small but memorable roles in  Lincoln — Jackie Earle Haley, Jared Harris, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Walton Goggins are just a few, while more famous faces like  Joseph Gordon-Levitt and  Sally Field show up as son Robert and wife Mary Todd Lincoln, who push and pull their patriarch over Robert’s desire to enlist. But this is Day-Lewis’ movie, and he does with the meditative inner stillness of his character a wonderful thing — he finds a type of heroism that runs counter to all of the usual showy movie signifiers of such a quality. The climactic vote in Lincoln , a rousing scene in which each congressman calls out his vote to the roar of his colleagues and the observers, takes place with the title character playing quietly with his young son in the White House, having done all he can. After months of a presidential campaign that illustrated the United States as a nation in which communication between parties and points of view has largely ceased,  Lincoln feels like a work of legitimate importance, and not only because it shows that people did just as much snarky, politicized yelling back in 1865. Spielberg has made a film that shows the legislative process as work but also as an ongoing conversation, one in which individual contact and shifts in perception can add up to gradual change, that argues multiple differing points of view needn’t leave the country immobile. Democracy is such that there will always be those who are displeased with the way votes went, but this was the moment in our history in which we declared that it didn’t mean they were allowed to secede and start their own country — that we were going to be in this together, one quarreling, diverse whole united in this national identity. As divided as the present can feel, there’s something unaffectedly patriotic about this sentiment, one that lightens this very fine film from within. Read more on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln . Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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REVIEW: Daniel Day-Lewis Brings Noble, Determined President To Life In Spielberg’s Timely ‘Lincoln’

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REVIEW: Daniel Day-Lewis Brings Noble, Determined President To Life In Spielberg’s Timely ‘Lincoln’

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

The release of Lincoln , the new film from Steven Spielberg , is intended to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the days leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation and not the recent election; it doesn’t try to make a metaphor out of its portrayal of the 16th President or to force comparisons to our current commander-in-chief and the state of the country he’s overseeing, but it still couldn’t feel more timely. Written by Tony Kushner, the film covers the last four months in the life of Abraham Lincoln ( Daniel Day-Lewis ), as he battles to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment and bring an end to the Civil War, and up until an overly soft coda it is a magnificently warts-and-all portrait and appreciation of democracy at work in all its bickering, lively messiness. The difficulty of getting consensus on what’s clear now to be the righting of a massive ethical wrong allows for unlikely suspense and drama in what would be, had it existed back then, the domain of C-SPAN. The stakes are considerable, but Spielberg has no need to convince anyone of the awfulness of slavery. Instead, he makes a case for the democratic process, despite its flaws — as the best way for these decisions to be examined and hammered out, a place for moral purpose to meet practical concerns. A composition of browns and grays and dark rooms illuminated by dim period lighting,  Lincoln opens with two scenes that establish it has little desire to gaze at its subject or era with starry eyes. A glimpse of the war shows men floundering and dying in the mud, jabbing bayonets in each others’ guts. (Spielberg has no use, these days, in prettying up battle.) In the scene following, we watch soldiers greet Lincoln, all adoring, though not all content to simply praise: While two young white soldiers gawk over how tall he is, an African American one questions why there are still no commissioned officers of color as his friend tries to shush him. Lincoln receives and jokes with them all with characteristic unhurried equanimity, a quality that sees him through subsequent larger version of this interaction, in which even those who are firmly on his side have their own requests and additional needs to be pursued. With the help of a very good, fundamentally restrained performance from Day-Lewis,  Lincoln  offers up its protagonist as a flesh-and-blood being while allowing us to understand why his status in the country is already, as one of his officials puts it, “semi-divine.” Wielding a folksy charm and remaining even-keeled in the most tense of situations — his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Bruce McGill) storms off in frustration at one point when he realizes the President is about to launch into another anecdote — Lincoln’s nobility shines through in his unswerving conviction for what is right and his unfussiness about how to achieve it. Certain that the amendment must go through before the war ends, or risk not getting passed at all, Lincoln has Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) hire a slightly disreputable trio (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson) to offer up patronage jobs to the outgoing Democrats in the House of Representatives in exchange for their votes. In his own Republican party, he tries to placate the conservatives, led by Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook), who are afraid of chasing away support with “extreme” views on things like freed slaves getting the vote, while winning over the radicals, led by the prickly Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones at his most wonderfully irascible ), who consider compromise to be a betrayal of their beliefs about equality. Half the working character actors in Hollywood don wretched period facial hair and show up in small but memorable roles in  Lincoln — Jackie Earle Haley, Jared Harris, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Walton Goggins are just a few, while more famous faces like  Joseph Gordon-Levitt and  Sally Field show up as son Robert and wife Mary Todd Lincoln, who push and pull their patriarch over Robert’s desire to enlist. But this is Day-Lewis’ movie, and he does with the meditative inner stillness of his character a wonderful thing — he finds a type of heroism that runs counter to all of the usual showy movie signifiers of such a quality. The climactic vote in Lincoln , a rousing scene in which each congressman calls out his vote to the roar of his colleagues and the observers, takes place with the title character playing quietly with his young son in the White House, having done all he can. After months of a presidential campaign that illustrated the United States as a nation in which communication between parties and points of view has largely ceased,  Lincoln feels like a work of legitimate importance, and not only because it shows that people did just as much snarky, politicized yelling back in 1865. Spielberg has made a film that shows the legislative process as work but also as an ongoing conversation, one in which individual contact and shifts in perception can add up to gradual change, that argues multiple differing points of view needn’t leave the country immobile. Democracy is such that there will always be those who are displeased with the way votes went, but this was the moment in our history in which we declared that it didn’t mean they were allowed to secede and start their own country — that we were going to be in this together, one quarreling, diverse whole united in this national identity. As divided as the present can feel, there’s something unaffectedly patriotic about this sentiment, one that lightens this very fine film from within. Read more on Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln . Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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‘World War Z’ Trailer: Brad Pitt Will Save Us From The Zombies

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

Well, maybe Brad Pitt won’t save all of us. As you can see in the first full trailer for Marc Forster’s big-budget action pic World War Z (via Apple), a few billion Earthlings will kick the bucket (but will probably reanimate, so there’s that) when the undead rise against us. Watch the trailer to get a look at Pitt’s shaggy-maned family man hero, who must to leave his wife (Mireille Enos) and their kids to go fight the zombie apocalypse for the sake of humanity in next summer’s World War Z . Head to Apple for the trailer debut. The full trailer has me breathing a sigh of relief after this week’s rather underwhelming trailer tease ; I can get used to World War Z ‘s superfast undead swarms, pouring through streets and leaping like lemmings off of buildings chasing desperately after Pitt’s delicious, delicious body. I mean brain. Or whatever these zombies eat. It must be high in protein to keep this kind of zombie metabolism going. Despite the departures from the book that will have lit fans up in arms, and the vaguely I Am Legend / War of the Worlds vibe this gives off, World War Z has me excited to see Pitt as an action hero. And how great is it that he’s doing a rare action turn while looking like a long-haired crunchy hippie dad? World War Z hits theaters June 21, 2013. How’s it look to you, Movieliners? Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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‘Eat Sleep Die,’ ‘A Royal Affair’ Win Top AFI Fest Awards

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

Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die won the Gand Jury Award, at AFI Fest Thursday afternoon, while A Royal Affair by Nikolaj Arcel won the Audience Award in the World Cinema section. Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm won the Audience Award among the fest’s list of New Auteurs and Only the Young by Jason Tippet received the audience prize among its “Young Americans.” David Tosh Gitonga took the Audience nod for “Breakthrough” for Nairobi Half Life . “It has been an incredible year in film and we’re grateful for having had the opportunity to showcase so many wonderful films,” said Jacqueline Lyanga, Director of AFI Fest in a statement. “Our desire is to have these films reach an even wider audience after these eight festival days, and that our jury and audience awards contribute to building an audience for these films.” AFI Fest closes out Thursday night with the World Premiere of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln . AFI Fest 2012 Winners Jury Awards, New Auteurs (with descriptions provided by AFI Fest): Grand Jury Award: Eat Sleep Die by Gabriela Pichler Description: A Montenegrin-born young woman living in rural Sweden, Raša is laid off from her job at a food-packing plant. Her ensuing job search pulls us through the maze of limited prospects and frustrating bureaucracy facing the country’s working immigrant population. Affable, resilient, street smart and soft-hearted, Raša’s natural magnetism draws us in completely. We feel every ounce of her disappointment, fear and elation as she soldiers on, looking for work. An Audience Award winner at the Venice Film Festival, Eat Sleep Die ‘s assured naturalism and political conviction single out Pichler as a bold, exciting new cinematic voice. Special Mention for Performance: Simon Killer ‘s (DIR Antonio Campos) Mati Diop for “her contribution to Simon Killer as both an actress and screenwriter.” Description: follows recent graduate Simon as he travels to Paris to escape the fallout from a former relationship. No matter how hard he tries, Simon can’t seem to shake the past and feelings of lost love. Instead, he fills his days traveling the streets and taking in the sites, while composing letters to his ex-girlfriend, engaging in chat room sex and hitting on girls in the streets. When he meets a beautiful prostitute and falls in love, everything begins to unravel and we discover that Simon is harboring some dark secrets. Special Mention: Here and There by Antonio Mendez Esparza Description: After many years in New York, Pedro returns home to Guerrero, Mexico, to an overwhelmed wife and daughters he barely knows. Pedro struggles to secure a job in town and establish his place as the head of the household. Just as the family begins to regain their balance, Pedro and his wife Teresa are thrown into turmoil, facing a difficult pregnancy and the prospect of a new child. Audience Awards (with descriptions provided by the festival) World Cinema: A Royal Affair . DIR Nikolaj Arcel. Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany. Description: In the age of enlightenment, a young woman becomes Queen of Denmark via an arranged marriage, but shortly after the ceremony it becomes clear that the young king suffers from mental illness. German physician and philosopher Johan Struensee is called to attend the unstable King and an epic romance results between the doctor and the queen, giving Johan the power to make transformational social changes within the Danish kingdom. Based on a true story, A Royal Affair is Denmark’s official submission for Academy Award consideration. New Auteurs: A Hijacking . DIR Tobias Lindholm. Denmark. Description: One mistake can mean life or death to the crew on board a Danish ship taken hostage by Somali pirates. In Denmark, the shipping company’s CEO boldly ignores advice from a hostage negotiator and speaks on the phone directly with the pirate’s translator, Omar. Conditions worsen on the claustrophobic ship as the psychological pressure intensifies and months pass while negotiations continue. Shifting from the chaotic conditions onboard to the offices of the Danish shipping company, A Hijacking skillfully examines the art of bargaining in this fraught, high-pressure drama. Young Americans: Only The Young . DIR Jason Tippet, Elizabeth Mims. USA. Description: North of Los Angeles stands the city of Santa Clarita, where once-affluent neighborhoods now buckle under the strain of economic recession. Inside one of the town’s vacant houses, teenagers Garrison Saenz and Kevin Conway build a skateboard ramp in an empty room. The two best friends — punkish and no strangers to rowdy behavior — are as devoted to preaching the Gospel as they are to the half-pipe. Add to the mix Garrison’s on-again, off-again girlfriend Skye, a whip-smart, devout Christian facing a devastating foreclosure on her home; and Kristen, Garrison’s liberal-thinking, hip-hop dancing possible new paramour and you’ve got enough teen love, happiness and heartache to fill a deeply affecting screenplay. Breakthrough: Nairobi Half Life . DIR David Tosh Gitonga. Kenya/Germany. Description: Despite his parents’ wishes, Mwas leaves his small village and embarks on a journey to Kenya’s capital in order to pursue a career in acting. Naïve and filled with hope, he quickly learns why the city is nicknamed “Nairobbery.” A few innocent mistakes land him in jail, which eventually leads Mwas to connect with a gang. Although he learns how to survive in the dangerous and sprawling urban center, Mwas is torn between his new lifestyle of theft and violence and his dream of becoming an actor. Grand Jury Awards, Live Action and Animated Short – AFI Fest Grand Jury Award winners in the Live Action and Animated Shorts categories as qualifiers for the annual Academy Awards Short Film category. Grand Jury Award, Live Action Short: Introducing Bobby by Roger Hayn “for crafting an honest vision of America by making an insightful portrayal of a single man.” Grand Jury Award, Animated Short: Oh Willy… by Emma De Swaef and Marc Roels “for melding a dynamic narrative with innovative animation style that leads the viewer to pure wonderment.” Special Jury Award for Animation: Belly by Julia Pott “for its personal touch to technique and playful storytelling that is a welcome addition to the pantheon of animation.” Special Jury Award for Documentary Filmmaking: Whateverest by Kristoffer Borgli “for constructing a film that contextualizes the digital generation and reflects on what happens when we turn the camera onto ourselves.” Honorable Mention for Performance: Narcocorrido (DIR Ryan Prows) for Raul Castillo’s “penetrating lead performance that conveys a sense of loss that leaves a lasting mark on the audience.” Honorable Mention for Promising Vision: Dogs Are Said to See Things by Guto Parente “for pulling together social criticism with a pool party and actually making something fresh and smart.”

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‘Top Gun 2’ Mothballed In The Wake Of Tony Scott’s Death

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Tony Scott’s  dramatic and still-mysterious leap to his death in August has grounded the Top Gun sequel .   The New York Times reported that the film, which was being planned by the filmmaker, the star of the original, Tom Cruise, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, has “fallen apart” in the wake of Scott’s suicide .  If there is a silver lining to the story, it’s that a 3D version of the original Top Gun may be released in February 2013. Earlier this year, Legend3D, which specializes in converting two-dimensional films into the more eye-popping format, completed a conversion of the film, which, the Times notes,  “as a way to whet the world’s appetite for a sequel.”  Since Scott leapt to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles on Aug. 19, however, Paramount, the studio behind both the original Top Gun and its sequel, is “considering a release in February, perhaps beginning with a one-week exclusive showing on domestic Imax screens.” [New York Times] The paper also reports that the studio is treading carefully because it does not want to seem insensitive or exploitative. Although the Los Angeles coroner officially ruled Scott’s death a suicide, questions remain about his reasons for taking his own life.  According to the Times , the filmmaker’s brother,   Prometheus director Ridley Scott has asked a number of people who knew and worked with his sibling not to discuss his “life or demise.” Tony Scott’s last work appears to be the below Diet Mountain Dew commercial featuring Dallas Mavericks and HDNet owner, billionaire Mark Cuban . Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.   

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Ex-‘Spy Kid’ Alexa Vega Goes Sexy For ‘Machete Kills,’ Brains Implode

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Let’s not bother talking about how Alexa Vega went from 13-year-old Spy Kid in 2001 to a hot hitwoman wearing only a bra and chaps in the forthcoming Machete Kills in the blink of an eye (yes, you’re old, and that was over a decade ago). Or that Robert Rodriguez , who directed the 24-year-old Vega through adolescence into her teen years in three Spy Kids pics, is probably not pervy at all despite casting his former child actress as a sexy body-baring femme fatale in his tongue-in-cheek action sequel. If anything it’s you and I who are the pervs, sitting here unable to stop our brains from instantly juxtaposing this first-look image at Vega (via Vega’s Twitter account ) as Killjoy in Machete Kills with fuzzy memories of her from those bygone Spy Kids days. (It’s even worse if you remember Vega’s first film role, as Icebox’s cousin Priscilla in Little Giants . ) Nooooooo ! MAKE IT STOP, ROBERT RODRIGUEZ!!! The thing is, any child actress growing up in the business has to deal with this sort of thing at one point or another, and Vega has been steadily working in the indie world for a good decade-plus. Why shouldn’t she get to flaunt it? It’s the association with Rodriguez that gets that cognitive dissonance firing, but I suppose that might only help her performance as a Rodriguez Femme Fatale a la Salma Hayek , Michelle Rodriguez , Rose McGowan , and Jessica Alba – the kind of screen siren whose sultry sensuality is her most lethal weapon, aside from her actual lethal weapons which in this case appear to include guns and cars on fire. Hats off to Rodriguez for going there, I guess. If you need me I’ll be in the corner wrapping my brain around this madness, watching the internet explode in “Alexa Vega Is All Grown Up, WINK WINK HEHE” headlines. [via @ AlexaVega ]

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‘Starlet’ Exclusive Clip: Surprise! ‘Strip-Joint’ Fabulous

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Starlet had its premiere at AFI Fest this week and is set for a limited theatrical release beginning this weekend. Movieline picked up an exclusive clip from the film, which stars model-turned-actress Dree Hemingway , Besedka Johnson, Stella Maeve ( The Runaways ) and James Ransone ( Red Hook Summer ). In the clip, Ransone’s character Mikey leads roommates Jane (Hemingway) and Melissa (Maeve) down a staircase for a big surprise. They’re not quite dressed for a party, though their panties set aglow with the strip-club interior Mikey unveils. They don’t look terribly impressed, but Mikey has plans to cash in on the new interior. Starlet centers on an unlikely friendship between 21 year-old Jane and Sadie after Jane discovers a hidden stash of money inside an object at Sadie’s yard sale. Starlet , co-scripted with Chris Bergoch by writer-director Sean Baker ( Prince of Broadway ), screens at AFI Fest again tonight and opens in limited release on Friday. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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