South Park is either getting seriously meta, or bizarrely free-associative in its advanced age. The beginning of Wednesday night’s new episode of the Comedy Central series saw the relentlessly cheerful and naively optimistic character Butters Stotch become a pint-sized rageaholic that is initially attributed to his Hawaiian roots, but later turns out to be about the charmed life of Ben Affleck . After arriving on the island of Kaua’i to engage in a rite of passage that, presumably, will cure him of the furies, Butters inexplicably vents about Affleck, wondering how after the mediocrity of Daredevil , the actor/director “can hit a home run that everyone loves,” a reference to Affleck’s critically well-received Argo . “You shouldn’t be able to be good looking, and be with Jennifer Lopez and be a good director,” Butters wails ” Argo is a good movie! It holds up! Ben Affleck has everything, Braaaaa!” (Affleck and Lopez were featured in a famous 2003 South Park episode called “Fat Butt and Pancake Head.” At one point, Butters summons up enough rage to sink a cruise ship with a golf ball. His battle cry: “Stupid Ben Affleck!” The cure for his vexation: Jennifer Garner . Butters cools his jets when someone points out that Affleck is no longer with JLo and is now married to Garner. “He’s just married to Jennifer Garner? Oh my gosh, I feel so much better!” Butters says, setting up one of the most creative insults I’ve heard on South Park . “Ben Affleck has a lot going for him,” Butters says as he walks off into the Hawaiian sunset with Kenny. “Not everything, but a lot.” Maybe I’m reading too much into this plot point, but I wonder if creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are making a bigger point here, or whether they were just free-associating at such a high speed that things appear to mean more than they do. Regardless, there are some interesting coincidences that have me looking for a larger meaning. For example: -Is there some kind of connection to be drawn between Butters’ ire and the fact that Garner’s latest movie is titled Butter ? -Are Parker and Stone somehow also having some fun with Argo producer George Clooney? One of the subplots of the South Park episode is about residents of Kaua’i claiming to be natives of Hawaii when they’re just longtime residents who got there before the more recent tourists, whom they despise. Although Clooney’s name is not mentioned in the episode, I was reminded of the plot of Alexander Payne’s 2011 movie The Descendants , which starred the actor and got him an Best Actor Oscar nomination. In the movie, Clooney plays a genuine Hawaii native who’s grappling with selling his family’s 25,000 acres of pristine Kaua’i land to a developer. -Am I spending too much time looking for meaning in South Park episodes? If anyone out there can make sense of this, I’d love to read your interpretation in the comments section. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Republican candidate Mitt Romney caused an uproar during last night’s Presidential debate with his vivid and hilariously ignorant “binders full of women” comment. But he didn’t just alienate women and men and anyone appalled by his antiquated language and attitude toward gender equality in the work place — he launched the hottest meme since Big Bird. So hot is Mitt — albeit not in the way he’d hoped prior to yesterday — he spawned the @Romneys_Binder Twitter account (14K followers and counting in half a day), the Tumblr Binders Full Of Women , and countless Tweets, Tumbls, and Photoshopped nuggets of hilarity. Let’s all have a laugh at Mittens’ silly notions about ladykind with a look at the best movie-related entries from the last 18 hours. ( via ) Say Anything … except what Romney said last night. This one works on so many levels. ( via ) ( via ) Click on over to Funny or Die for the full GIFtastic awesomeness. ( via ) Mitt’s meme meets the best meme. ( via ) And my favorite: ( via ) If Swayze says it, so must it be. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Director Sam Mendes and screenwriters, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan have done a very wily thing for James Bond’s 50th anniversary: They’ve given 007 a midlife crisis. The trauma takes root during the white-knuckle opening of Skyfall , the best film so far of Daniel Craig ‘s run as Ian Fleming’s suave super spy and one of the best of the Bond franchise. After chasing his quarry by motorcycle over the rooftops of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and piloting an earth mover over a speeding train to keep his target from escaping, a wounded Bond loses the battle, and, it appears, his life. But since the movie has only just started, there’s not much doubt that he will back after the eerie-but-dreamy titles sequence set to Adele’s lush theme song . ‘ When he appears on screen again, Bond’s in paradise and presumed dead in the U.K. His wounds have healed, except for the big psychic gash that has him drinking shots while balancing a riled scorpion on his wrist for sport. Alas, even paradise has CNN and, soon, Bond is learning from Wolf Blitzer that MI6’s headquarters have been bombed and it’s time for him to return to the service of his country. Except it’s not as easy as that. After Mike Myers strip-mined the Bond franchise for his Austin Powers parodies, the Bond writers take a cue from The Spy Who Shagged Me and explore the idea: what would happen if James Bond lost his mojo? Although Craig’s chiseled body does not exactly cooperate with the plotline, he does the best acting of his career playing a supremely confident man grappling with the onset of doubt: doubt in himself, doubt in his work and doubt in his superiors, who with the exception of M (played once again with stately grit by Judi Dench), seem to be of the mind that 007 has passed his sell by date. But, shaky as his trigger hand may be, 007 is not going down without a fight. There’s a wonderful scene in the National Gallery in London where Bond meets the new Q, who turns out to be an insouciant young whippersnapper played by the excellent Ben Whishaw. As man and boy genius stare at J.M.W. Turner’s painting The Fighting Téméraire’ tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, Q sets the tone by describing the image as a “grand old warship being ignominiously hauled away to scrap.” He then boasts that he can accomplish more while working his laptop at home “in my pajamas.” Guys like Bond, he implies, are only still around because “Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.” “Or not pulled,” 007 replies before going in for the kill. “It’s hard to know when you’re in your pajamas.” Craig’s searing, stoic performance is beautifully complemented by Javier Bardem’s flamboyant turn as Silva, a former MI6 operative and computer genius who has stolen the list of every NATO agent embedded in enemy camps across the globe and is slowly blowing their covers. Bardem vaults into the pantheon of Bond villains by playing Silva as a bleach-blonde, computer savvy Anton Chigurh, who appears to have a thing for Bond. Even more remarkable, when Silva reveals this attraction to his bound former colleague by caressing his chest, 007 coolly alludes that it wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten it on with a guy. Silva has a different kind of hard-on for M, who turns out to be the reason he has hatched his evil plan, which, like the rest of the movie, is more plausible and human-scale than a lot of the world-domination hoo-ha that has taken place in previous Bond films. “Think on your sins,” is the warning message that Silva repeatedly sends M, and when he eventually recounts the blood-curdling turn of events that led him to turn his back on his country, it’s difficult not to have some empathy for him. Skyfall has most of the familiar ingredients of Bond film — beautiful women, sleek cars — the Aston Martin DB5 makes a cameo appearance that will be talked about for a long time — memorable villains and intense action scenes. And yet, the movie is also full of surprises, small and pivotal. You won’t find me spilling any of them though. Not unless martinis are involved. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
While there’s no shortage of burly action hero types in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty , it’s Jessica Chastain who’s front and center hunting down Osama bin Laden in the first trailer — and that in itself is worth noting as you mark your calendars for the December Oscar contender. I mean, how fantastically striking is the above image of Chastain, her shadow, and the American flag? Chastain plays a CIA operative attempting to locate the al-Qaeda leader, who was killed while in hiding in Pakistan nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks. Chastain is joined by Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler, Chris Pratt, Joel Edgerton, and more in the tale of how a global network of operatives joined forces to bring bin Laden down. Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal’s research for the film had come under scrutiny by right wing watchdogs , though that flap has died down in recent months. Expect buzz to start back up again, only of the gold statue kind. Zero Dark Thirty hits theaters December 19. Watch it on YouTube Synopsis: For a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar(R) winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history’s greatest manhunt for the world’s most dangerous man. [via iTunes ]
Also in Thursday morning’s round-up of news briefs: Tim Burton launches the London Film Festival with his latest; Toronto surf pic heads to U.S. theaters and Variety is set to end its pay wall. Storm Surfers 3-D Heads to U.S. Theaters The 2012 Toronto Film Festival documentary is directed by Christopher Nelius and Justin McMillan. The film follows Tom, Ross and surf forecaster Ben Matson’s adventures as they track and chase giant storms across the Great Southern Ocean, braving gigantic waves, freezing conditions and near-death experiences. Using state-of-the-art 3D technology the feature is narrated by Oscar nominee Toni Collette. XLrator Media acquired U.S. rights to the film. Around the ‘net… CBS Films Courts Chris Hemsworth to Play Terrorist Hunter in American Assassin Based on Vince Flynn’s bestselling novel series, CBS Films is offering Chris Hemsworth $10 million to star as terrorist hunter Mitch Rapp in American Assassin It is the 11th book in Flynn’s series of espionage novels, Deadline reports . Sean Hannity to Make Film Debut in Atlas Shrugged: Part II In the film that opens Friday, Hannity plays the host of a TV show similar to his own on Fox News. The film is set several years in the future when the conservative commentator will presumably be off the air. Hannity is a fan of the book Atlas Shrugged and its author Ayn Rand, a fierce defender of capitalism, THR reports . Frankenweenie Opens London Film Festival Filmmaker Tim Burton has said he is “honored” that his stop-motion 3D animation Frankenweenie has opened the BFI London Film Festival. “It was made here, so it has extra special meaning,” the director told the BBC at the film’s European premiere. Variety’s Pay Wall to End One day after the official announcement PMC Media acquired trade publication Variety, its new owner said at a town hall meeting at Variety’s L.A. office that the pay wall will come down. Variety has been mostly inaccessible to non-subscribers online since the pay wall was instituted, Deadline reports . ( PMC is the parent company of Movieline ).
Tom Hanks will make his Broadway debut in a play written by his friend, the late Sleepless in Seattle director Nora Ephron. Hanks will play the late tabloid columnist Mike McAlary in Lucky Guy , Ephron’s play about the charismatic and controversial newspaperman, who worked for both the New York Post and its rival the New York Daily News during the gritty 1980s. According to the New York Times , Ephron, who died in June, first developed Lucky Guy as a movie but later decided to adapt it to the stage. (She last worked on Broadway in 2002 when Imaginary Friend s, her play about the writers Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman, opened.) An announcement put out on Thursday by the play’s producers described Lucky Guy as the “rise, fall and rise again” of McAlary who, shortly before succumbing to colon cancer at the age of 41, won a Pultizer Prize in 1998 for his coverage of the Abner Louima police brutality case. Earlier that decade, McAlary came under fire for three columns he wrote questioning the story of a former Yale University student who claimed she’d been raped in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The 29-year-old woman hit McAlary with a $12 million libel suit claiming that he damaged her reputation by writing that she fabricated the rape claim to publicize a feminist rally. A judge cleared him of the charges in 1997. Lucky Guy will be directed by George C. Wolfe (Angels in America) and will open on April 1, 2013 at the Broadhurst Theater on West 44th Street for a limited engagement. (Previews will begin March 1.) The Times also reported that, although Hanks has never appeared on Broadway before, he made his professional theater debut as a servant in a Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival production of The Taming of the Shrew . The two-time Oscar winner worked with Ephron in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail. [ New York Times ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead needed to prove herself. After years of hopping from genre to genre, she wanted to shed her Scott Pilgrim vs. the World dye job and bloody Final Destination 3 history and find a complex role that would be a game-changer for her career. Luckily, the stars aligned and landed her in front of Smashed director James Ponsoldt, where she not only impressed him enough that he didn’t audition anyone else for the role, but she also helped him cast her leading man, Aaron Paul . Mary Elizabeth sat down with Movieline ahead of the film’s Oct. 12 release to talk about crafting her recovering alcoholic character, Kate Hannah, preparing for the role without meeting anyone first — except for one wild night with Aaron — and sharing her modest, yet poignant, reaction to all of the well-deserved Oscar buzz. And as for all of those big blockbuster roles she’s been “passed over for” throughout the years? She spills about that, too, opening up about the truth behind failed negotiations and what she wants her career path to look like after Smashed . Smashed is a departure from your previous roles, including comedies like Scott Pilgrim and bloody gore like Final Destination 3 . Was it refreshing to play such a dynamic, dramatic character? Yeah, I mean it was such a change of pace. It was almost like changing careers because it was so different. It was great, and it was what I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve needed to sort of prove myself in this capacity for a long time — I needed to show, at least to myself, that I could carry a really complex role, so I knew that I needed to do it for me. The fact that people are actually responding to it is sort of above and beyond what I even was hoping for. How did this role come to you? Did James [Ponsoldt] say, ‘Hey, I want you for this role?’ or did you audition? I had been seeking out smaller scripts. I had been really trying to find something small and intimate, so I had a meeting with Jonathan Schwartz, who is the producer of the film. I didn’t know what he was producing at the time, but I just wanted to meet him because I knew that he had some scripts in the pipeline. After he sent me this script, I just flipped out over it and called him immediately and was just like, ‘Please let me know what I can do to just get my foot in the door and be considered for it!’ So then he set up a meeting with me and James, which went really well. After that, I just sort of took it upon myself to do an audition tape; I taped probably like seven, eight scenes from the movie and sent it to James. And after he and the producers talked it over, they cast me, which was crazy! I expected them to sort of see every actress in Hollywood and go through that whole process, but they didn’t. They didn’t see anyone else. And so it was really, really, amazing. It’s hard to imagine anyone else but you in the role — you embodied Kate to a T. How did you prepare? Is there anything you did in the audition tape that made it into the film? Luckily whatever I did in the audition tape was enough to get me the part, but from my perspective, in retrospect, I feel like it’s terrible! [Laughs] I did so much more work on the character by the time I actually shot it that to me it’s like night and day. When I look at that audition tape, I feel like I’m acting , and I feel like I was able to get to a place by the time I shot the film where it wasn’t acting anymore. I was sort of scared, even after I did the audition tape and got the part, because I still didn’t feel like I had a handle on it at all. So it was scary to me almost to get the part because I was like, ‘Ooh, but I don’t know how to play this!’ So I worked really hard. I really wanted to make sure I did the part justice, and I did whatever I could. I spent a lot of time in AA meetings, I spent a lot of time with James just really carving out Kate’s backstory and becoming really, really specific about that. And just spending a lot of time on myself and my own issues emotionally. It was a lot like, just, therapy. Working through my own stuff. That ended up being the most important thing, the thing that connected me the most to the character — sort of relating my struggles to her struggles and my issues to her issues, and sort of linking those two things up. It was an amazing experience. Is there anything from Kate’s backstory that we didn’t see that you worked together with James on? We talked about her entire life. There are hints at it throughout the film — you see her relationship with her mom, you know there’s probably a lot of pain there, especially childhood pain. And so we fleshed that out quite a bit with her dad leaving and what age, what age did she start drinking and why, and what age did it become her identity to be the fun drunk girl, and how that became so much easier to be than to be herself. How it became easier to be the drunk girl than to be the girl with all of these problems. So that was the thing that we really focused in on. You said you went to some AA meetings to prepare. Was there anything else that you did? I’m sure you didn’t go on any drinking binges to get into your character… Yeah, I went on one! I went on one with James and Aaron! [Laughs] I hope you weren’t on a bike. No, not on a bike. James was our designated driver. And it was in part to get into character, but it was mostly for us to feel the dynamic with each other — what we’re like when we’re drunk. Because the couple is like that so much; it’s how they spend their lives together, is drunk. So we wanted to kind of start off with that. And also it helped because Aaron and I didn’t have any rehearsal time. We had only met each other once before. It was a good way for us to get to know each other really fast. You know, when you sort of go out and get drunk with someone, you become close pretty quickly. [Laughs] It was a nice way to sort of expedite that process. And by the time we showed up [on set], we felt close enough to be able to go to those places together. Was Aaron cast before you or after you? After me. Everyone was cast after me. It was like a total shock. It was so crazy. I had no idea that the supporting roles were going to end up being these incredible actors. I mean, that really took it to a whole new level. I knew it was an incredible script, I knew it was an incredible part I was dying to play, but I sort of thought it was a tiny movie, that it was probably going to be all unknowns, and we were kind of just going to try to get people to see it and do our best. And then when they started telling me who was going to be playing the other roles, I was like, ‘Oh, people are going to see this! This is a real movie! This is really happening!’ [Laughs] So, yeah, that was incredibly exciting. And you mentioned that you and Aaron had only met once or twice before. Did you do a chemistry read together or did you meet at all? No. I kind of knew that Aaron was everybody’s favorite. He was my favorite, he was everybody’s favorite. [Laughs] We had talked about a lot of people for that part, but he was the only one that everyone agreed on. We’d come up with other names, but it would be very polarizing. Like, one person would be like, ‘That person would be great!’ and another person would be like, ‘No! Definitely not!’ [Laughs] But Aaron was the first name that came up that everyone went, ‘Yeah! That would be great.’ I still wanted to meet him, just because I didn’t know him personally. I knew he was an incredible actor and I had such admiration for him, but I also knew that I needed to work with somebody in that role who was going to be really open and who was going to be someone I felt comfortable with, because you have to go to a lot of humiliating places doing a role like this. You don’t want it to be someone who you feel like is going to be closed off or is going to be too cool to really give anything back. From the moment I met him, he was so open and warm and genuine and lovely, and just the sweetest person. And now I feel like everybody else knows that he’s the sweetest person in the world, but I’m like, how didn’t I already know that? [Laughs] I shouldn’t have even had to have met him to find that out. But it was great, and after I met him, I sort of told everybody that he was perfect, and then he came back. Honestly, your chemistry reads like you’ve known each other for years. Although their love story is far from perfect, If you take the alcohol out, could you see their relationship continuing? For me, having learned a lot about alcoholism and AA from researching the character, I’m very much of the feeling that they can never be together, as heartbreaking as that is. Just because no matter what they have that co-dependency that they’re naturally going to want to fall back into. And it would be such a struggle for them to have a normal, healthy relationship that it would make them both really tempted to go back to alcohol. And I think as an alcoholic, you have to really keep yourself in the most healthy of environments at all times. So I think for her it would just be a mistake to put herself back into that really unstable place. But I do love the fact that the end is so hopeful for him; that he is going to figure his life out. And that one day, I do think that they could be really great friends. I think there’s a lot of love there and they will be able to be in each other’s lives, but I don’t see them ever being a couple. The craziest part for me was that you don’t really see how damaged Kate’s life is until she really hits that downward spiral. That’s the thing. It certainly isn’t a message movie by any means, but we are kind of making a point that even if you stop drinking, it doesn’t mean your life suddenly becomes easier — it actually becomes harder in a lot of ways because you have to deal with your pain. It’s better, but it’s hard. It felt like a very realistic portrayal of alcoholism, especially with Kate’s two split personalities. How did you balance the dynamic of both opposing sides of her persona? What’s great about it is that it just felt like, for the first time to me, that I was playing a really whole person. Because we all have so many different sides to our personalities, but you just never see that on screen. I think that’s why it’s so surprising that it feels so different, because we’re not used to seeing people on screen show so many different sides of themselves — we’re not usually really allowed to since characters are usually more one-dimensional. So I loved that; I loved being able to do that. I felt like I was able to bring all the different shades of my own personality to her, and there was nothing that I had to shut off. Your chemistry with the entire cast — including Nick Offerman’s offbeat character, Megan Mullally as your boss, and Octavia Spencer as your sponsor — was incredible. How did you form that dynamic? I think it was just luck, and James casting the right people. We didn’t have any rehearsal time — we didn’t even meet! Aaron was the only person I even met before we started working. Did you all even do a read through together or did you just jump into it? No, we just showed up and just did the scenes! It was just one of those lightning in a bottle things where everything just comes together and everyone was so wonderful. We were very lucky. The most surprising part was that most of the cast were comedic actors playing straight. What was that like, both in and out of character? It was just really lovely. It was such an amazing group of people who are all just lovely human beings. They’re all super funny, but not in that way that they have to constantly be telling a joke or constantly getting attention — not in that way at all. Just lovely people to be around. So it was a comfortable, relaxed environment, and it was sort of like the film. We would go from laughing together to talking about more serious things. We just felt like a family. It just felt like a place that you could really be yourself, which was the ideal environment for a film like this. Now that you’ve done such a big drama, what’s next? Rom-com? Adventure? I know you’ve seemingly been passed over for some of those big blockbuster roles, including Cobie Smulders’ role in The Avengers . But if you took that role, do you think you would be where you are now? And do you have any hopes to be that big blockbuster star? Yeah, I mean, it’s funny, because some of those roles — well, the majority of them, I was just plain passed over for them [Laughs] — but some of them I actually chose not to do as well because I don’t really just want to be the blockbuster star, and I don’t necessarily want to sign onto seven films in a role that I’m not really passionate about. That’s actually happened several times as well, where in the news it sort of seems like, ‘Oh, she lost the part,’ but in reality, it just falls apart in the negotiation process and you realize that this isn’t really something I’m passionate enough about to agree to ‘X, X, and X,’ and sign the contract on. [Laughs] So that’s happened a bunch, too. Because I do really want to do films like this. That’s the majority of stuff I want to do. But unfortunately, you don’t get paid to do films like this! [Laughs] You get enough to go to a nice dinner. That’s basically the money that you get paid. So you do have to think about your career and making a living and how you’re going to do that. Going forward, I would love to work with directors like Rian Johnson and Joss Whedon; people like that who are doing big films but do have really independent voices. That’s kind of what I want to focus on, is always working with people with at least an independent point of view, even if it’s not an independent film. Well, on that note, congratulations! For this film, you already have a lot of Oscar buzz. What, in the perfect situation, would you like to happen next whether you win an award or not? I think for most actors, because we sort of have to tell ourselves this, we always say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t mean anything to win an Oscar!’ It certainly isn’t a goal that you want to set yourself up for, because then you’re just setting yourself up for disaster. Because how many people actually win an Oscar? So I would certainly never imagine that for myself, but the thing about those kind of awards are that they are completely life-changing. You’re given a power that so few other people in the industry have. And so that’s the thing, that I would sort of just want to use … for good! [Laughs] I sound like a superhero. But to help make good movies. I would love to be in the position where my name is a name that is large enough in some capacity to make things happen in the industry. To be able to fund a small film or be able to discover a new voice and give them a platform. That’s something I would really love to to do. Smashed hits limited theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Oct. 12. Alyse Whitney is an editor at Wetpaint Entertainment. You can follow her on Twitter @AlyseWhitney .
After throughly enjoying Adult Swim alumnus Jim Tozzi’s Psychocats parody trailers for Seven Psychopaths (which made me even more focused and productive in the office), I’m counting the minutes until some new-media smart-ass takes this fun Wreck-It Ralph clip and makes it funnier by splicing in some of Sarah Silverman and John C. Reilly’s less, um, family-oriented comedy. Reilly plays the title character of the Rich Moore-directed Disney animated picture, which hits cineplexes on Nov. 2. He’s Wreck-It Ralph, a vide0-game villain from a Donkey Kong-like game who tires of being the bad guy and goes on a vision quest of sorts to prove that he can be a hero. His journey takes him through a couple of game scenarios, including Sugar Rush , a candy-themed Mario Kart homage, where he encounters Vanellope von Schweetz, a cutesy voiced cookie full of arsenic. In this clip, Vanellope proceeds to needle Ralph by, for instance, asking him if he’s “a hobo” and commenting on his “freakishly big” hands until he pronounces her “freakishly annoying.” Perhaps because the word freakish gets tossed around, I found myself hearkening back to these YouTube clips featuring Silverman on Conan O’Brien’s TBS talk show and Reilly on Adult Swim as the genius Dr. Steve Brule. In the right hands their words coming out of Ralph and Vanellope’s computer-generated mouths could be pretty diabolically funny. If any Final Cut jockey out there is up for the challenge, I’d love to see the results. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Tuesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs: Oscar-nominated filmmaker Frank Darabont will receive an upcoming festival tribute. South Korea’s Oscar entry Pietà heads to U.S. theaters. And a sci-fi thriller will also make its way to U.S. audiences. Marion Cotillard to Receive Tribute at 22nd Annual Gotham Awards The Best Actress winner will be honored at the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards on November 26th in New York City. Cotillard stars in French director Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone alongside Matthias Schoenaerts, Bouli Lanners and Céline Sallette. The French actress joins previously announced Tributes Actor, Matt Damon; Director, David O. Russell and Philanthropist and Social Entrepreneur, Jeff Skoll. Ben Affleck Eyes Warner Bros’ Focus Glenn Ficarra and John Requa wrote and will direct the project. “The story centers on a veteran con man who gets involved with a newcomer to the grifter business. They become involved romantically but that becomes perilous in a business where they lie and cheat for a living. The complications of the encounter haunt them when they meet up again in the future,” Deadline reports . Austin Film Festival to Fete Frank Darabont The three-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile director will receive the festival’s “2012 Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award” October 20th. This year’s Conference at AFF includes over 80 panels, workshops and roundtable discussions led by more than 100 professionals in the television and film industries. The 19th Austin Film Festival takes place October 18 – 25. Doc NYC Returns for 3rd Year The opening night will feature Jared Leto presenting Artifact (dir. Bartholomew Cubbins) which follows his band Thirty Seconds to Mars as they battle a lawsuit against record label EMI. Also opening is Venus and Serena (dirs. Michelle Major and Maiken Baird), an intimate look at the lives of the tennis-conquering Williams sisters. The festival, taking place November 8 – 15, will feature 115 films and events. Expected guests include Rufus Wainwright, Pete Seeger, Andy Summers, Ice-T, Antony Hegarty, David Bromberg, Ken Burns, Alex Gibney, Rory Kennedy, Jonathan Demme, Barbara Kopple, Joe Berlinger, Radioman and more. For more details on the lineup, visit their website . South Korean Oscar Entry Pietà heads to U.S. Theaters Auteur Kim Ki-Duk’s ( 3-Iron ) latest was chosen by S. Korea as its entry for Best Foreign-Language Oscar consideration. Pietà tells the uncompromising story of a loan shark who is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother. Drafthouse Films picked up North American rights to the film and plans a limited theatrical and multi-platform VOD release for Pietà in 2013. Justin Dix’s Crawlspace Heads to U.S. Theaters The sci-fi thriller centers around a group of elite soldiers infiltrate Australia’s top secret military compound. They quickly discover all is not as it seems and the facility is a testing ground for something far more sinister. IFC Midnight, which picked up North American rights to the film, will take Crawlspace to ScreamFest on October 18th.
Barbara Broccoli was born into the world of James Bond ; along with co-producer Harry Saltzman, her father, Cubby Broccoli, brought 007 to the big screen with Dr. No when Barbara was only two years old. It would be inaccurate to say Broccoli inherited the Bond legacy — she’s made it her own, serving as producer from Goldeneye onwards, and in many ways, ushering cinema’s favorite secret agent into the modern era. The Skyfall producer rang Movieline to talk about the early days, Bond’s role in the cultural conversation over the years, and what the future holds for the character who, fifty years later, is still synonymous with effortless cool. Tell us a little about the beginning of the Bond film franchise. How did your father, Cubby Broccoli, along with Harry Saltzman, make the decision to adapt Ian Fleming’s spy novels? My father had wanted the rights to the films early on, but they eluded him. Harry Saltzman had an option, and my father heard this, called him up, and they joined forces just as the clock was ticking down, as the option was about to expire. Fortunately, they went to Arthur Kremp, who my father had a relationship with, and asked him if he would finance the film ( Dr. No ). David Picker, who was the young executive in the room, loved the Bond books, and he persuaded United Artists to take a shot and make the film, which was a huge commitment then. A million dollars for a budget, at that time, was significant. They were a force to be reckoned with. Cubby and Harry were both very passionate, determined men. They were driven. They wanted to see this series of books made into a film, and they were very passionate about their choice of Sean Connery, who was an unknown. They fought for him, and there was a lot of resistance because he wasn’t well known at all. The studio wanted a star, they wanted an American and all these various things, but [Broccoli and Saltzman] stuck to their guns, and the rest as they say, is history. Bond is turning 50 this year. In 2012, he’s still going strong. Why has the franchise endured? It basically comes down to Ian Fleming. I think he wrote a very complex character that has been able to evolve through the decades, with the assistance of the extraordinary men who have played the role, starting with Sean Connery who established the role to great effect in Dr. No , and all the subsequent actors have taken it and made it their own and made it of their time. I think Bond the character is distinct: He’s British, he has a certain code that he lives by, he’s incorruptible… he’s a classical hero, but he’s also fallible. He has inner demons, inner conflicts, and he’s a romantic. He gets himself caught up in all kinds of situations because of his heart, which gets broken in Casino Royale . He knows at the end of that first story that in order to do the job he does he has to make a lot of personal sacrifices, and one of them is that he cannot really have a proper relationship or a family, and that is a burden to him. By that same token, how do you think the character of Bond has evolved over the years, beginning with Sean Connery and running up to today with Daniel Craig ’s portrayal? With Daniel, the first film he did was Casino Royale , which was the first book, so that’s very much about how Bond became the Bond that we all know and love. It explains a lot about his history and why he got to be the way he is, particularly in his relationships with women, as I described. He knows he’s unable to really form a proper commitment with a woman because he may be captured, tortured, as he is in Casino Royale … he can put himself in that situation but he couldn’t put anyone else he loved, like a wife or a child, in that kind of jeopardy. So, I think with Daniel, it’s sort of come full-circle. We started with Fleming and fifty years later, we’re back to Fleming again: He’s very much central to the making of these films. The spirit of Ian Fleming is always with us and we particularly honor and celebrate him now, fifty years later, during this anniversary. Can you talk a little about your own relationship with 007 from a personal standpoint and how it’s changed from your childhood to the present? I was born in 1960, my father did the deal in ’61, and the first film was made in that year and released in ’62, so my life is synonymous with Bond. Growing up he was a huge figure in our lives, so much so that I thought he was a real person [laughs]. But it soon dawned on me that he was a fictional character. I spent a lot of time on the sets growing up. We would go on vacation from school, go on location, where the films were being filmed. Wonderful places: Exotic locales like Japan and the Bahamas, and the people making the films were part of our extended family. My father would be with them all day long and they would all come home for dinner. We were always together. It was a very large, happy family. Do you think Bond’s place in the pop culture spotlight has been constant, or has it fluctuated over the years? What kinds of challenges arise in making this franchise relevant to audiences today? There have always been challenges. I remember when we were doing Goldeneye and people were saying “The Cold War’s over, the wall’s down — does the world need James Bond anymore?” Of course, the answer was a resounding “Yes!” Just because the wall came down didn’t mean the world was at peace. In fact, good and evil were slightly blurred, and we didn’t know who the enemy was. I think we’re always trying to come up with intriguing storylines and villains for Bond to go up against, and when you look at Skyfall , and you look at Javier Bardem you’ll find… [laughter] he’s sort of the ultimate Bond villain. He’s provided a very exciting counterpoint to Daniel. How did Sam Mendes get involved with Skyfall ? Well, Sam and Daniel had worked together on Road to Perdition , and they’d had a great collaboration. When we were looking for a director, Daniel called us up and said “Oh, I was just at a party last night with Sam and I asked him if he wanted to do a Bond film — it turns out he’s a huge fan. What do you think?” And we said, “Oh my goodness, do you think we could actually get Sam Mendes? He’s a consummate film director, Oscar-award winner. Do you really think he’d be interested?” So we met with him, and it turns out — who would have known it – he’s a big Bond fan. So we snapped him up. He’s made an unbelievably terrific film, so we’re delighted. Has it been a little different working with a director like Sam, who is such a force of nature, on a franchise project like Bond that in the past has largely been producer-driven? I guess our attitude towards Sam was “We have a set of parameters as far as what we feel a Bond film is, but within those parameters…” There’s no point in hiring someone like Sam Mendes and then tying their hands. We wanted him because of his talent and his vision, and we worked together very closely on the script, and set the parameters together. He wanted to make a great Bond film, so it all turned out extremely well. As it turns out he was just like a kid in a candy store [laughs]. He loved the challenge, he lived up to it, and he exceeded all expectations. So I think the film has got all the wonderful, dramatic intriguing storylines and characters — we have a wonderful cast, many of whom were attracted to this because of Sam — and he’s also delivered tremendous action and excitement. He’s ticked all the boxes as far as I’m concerned. Learn more about Barbara Broccoli and the Bond legacy in the EPIX documentary Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007 . Read more in Movieline’s ongoing Bond at 50 series leading up to the November 9 release of Skyfall . John Jarzemsky is a contributor at LitReactor, Twitch, and can be read semi-regularly at his personal blog, the ineptly named Super Roller Disco Monkey Hullabaloo! or on twitter @jtjarzemsky . He is big in Japan. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
