Tag Archives: john landis

9 Prolific Actor/Director Combos Not Quite as Cool as Johnny Depp and Tim Burton

This weekend sees the release of Dark Shadows , marking the eighth time director Tim Burton has teamed with Johnny Depp , his second-favorite performer on screen. (He no doubt frequently has to tell Helena Bonham Carter as much.) So natural is their pairing that we have come to expect a certain level of quality and/or box-office performance from their combined efforts, and an announcement of a new Burton title has generally come to carry the expectation of a Depp appearance. Although Hollywood has long brought us such fruitful and lucrative actor/director relationships — from both Cary Grant and James Stewart’s collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock to Robert De Niro’s legendary work with Martin Scorsese — consider nine other long-term pairings packing a little (or a lot) less luster. Héctor Elizondo / Gary Marshall After Marshall cast character actor Elizondo in his feature directing debut, soap-opera spoof Young Doctors In Love , the two became friends to such an extent that the actor has now appeared in every one of Marshall’s 17 movies. Be it the modern fairy tale Pretty Woman , to the retro fairy tales of The Princess Diaries , or Marshall’s latest unwatchableholiday pictures, Elizondo always manages to steer things a bit closer to the side of classy. Matt Walsh / Todd Phillips As Phillips rose up the Hollywood ladder with his frat-boy-centric films he has done two things: struck box office gold, and taken actor-comedian Matt Walsh with him. Walsh has the kind of face you note, if not outright recognize, thanks to a long career of comedic appearances. But this co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is arguably best known as the doctor to whom the Vegas revelers turn for information in The Hangover , and Walsh worked with Phillips for a sixth time in the follow-up, Due Date . Many of those roles found him playing a character by the name of Walsh. Michael Par

Dakota Fanning Has Cancer (and a British Accent) in Now Is Good

Young adulthood has seemed to suit Dakota Fanning well, as the now 18-year-old has embraced her transition out of childhood with a number of ballsy , mature moves. The latest in her career progression? Tackling the two-fold challenge of playing a dying cancer patient and sporting an English accent, as seen in the trailer for Now is Good . Try to ignore the Mia Wasikowska vibe emanating from Fanning (and the spectre of Mandy Moore , who did this already in the Nicholas Sparks pic A Walk to Remember , if you remember) after the jump. In the film, based on the 2007 YA novel Before I Die , Fanning’s a 17-year-old leukemia patient who decides to waive treatment as her condition gets worse in order to live life to the fullest, etc. Is she spunky in the face of impending death? Yep! Will she inevitably teach those around her lessons on how to live fully? I mean, of course. Is Fanning’s Brit-speak a bit wobbly but nonetheless confident? Absolutely. War Horse ‘s Jeremy Irvine co-stars as the boy Fanning wants to cross off her bucket list, if you catch my drift. Kaya Scodelario of Skins fame also co-stars, which excites me even though she’s nowhere to be seen here. I’m curious to see less of Fanning gleefully indoor skydiving and more of her breaking the law, having sex, getting into trouble thanks to the license terminal illness gives her character to pack a lifetime of risky, thrill-seeking behavior into a truncated last hurrah, but maybe that’s just me. The film is due stateside in 2012. [ Yahoo! ]

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Dakota Fanning Has Cancer (and a British Accent) in Now Is Good

Who’s Excited for the Animal House Musical… With Music By Barenaked Ladies?

Following in the footsteps of hit musical adaptations Billy Elliot , Wicked , and Bring It On: The Musical , Universal’s stage adaptation of John Landis’ s Animal House will hit Broadway with a book by playwright Michael Mitnick, to be directed by Book of Mormon ‘s Casey Nicholaw, with music by the guys who sang the indelible lyrics “Chickity China the Chinese chicken/You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’.” Because nothing says “Broadway” like frat boys and crunchy Canadian alt-rock, right? [ THR ]

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Who’s Excited for the Animal House Musical… With Music By Barenaked Ladies?