Kristen Stewart says it was director Walter Salles’ passion for On The Road that inspired her to sign on for the film. At the New York premiere for the film, the actress, who plays free-spirited Marylou (a character based on Beat icon Neal Cassady’s onetime wife LuAnne Henderson), Stewart told me she was impressed by the immersive research that Salles did — including a 2011 documentary called Searching for On The Road — in preparation for adapting Jack Kerouac’s novel for the screen. “There’s an honor to this story and to the project that is not typical in our business,” Stewart said. Salles is lucky to have her riding shotgun, too. Hollywood has been trying to turn On the Road into a movie since the year it was published, 1957, and Stewart’s immense star power was crucial to getting the job done. RELATED: Check out Movieline’s photo gallery of Kristen Stewart and Garrett Hedlund at the On The Road screening at AFI Fest Salles also talked to me at the premiere as did cast members Sam Riley , Garrett Hedlund and Kirsten Dunst and screenwriter Jose Rivera. It was fun to congratulate him for getting top billing on the movie poster — a rare thing indeed for writers in Hollywood. Check out my full interview below: MORE ON KRISTEN: Kristen Stewart Shares How ‘On The Road’ Helped Her Be Unabashedly Herself Kristen Stewart Talks ‘Hard Love’ In Toronto For On The Road Kristen Stewart Tells Toronto Her Character’s Ability To ‘Love So Openly’ Was Difficult, Nude Scenes Not So Much Follow Movieline on Twitter . Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter .
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are not only co-hosts of the 70th Golden Globes this year, they’re also competitors. Both were nominated for Best Actress in a Television Musical or Comedy, with Fey duking it out with her counterpart for 30 Rock , while Poehler is up for the award for Park and Recreation . [ Related: Golden Globes Unveil 70th Edition Nominees ] But while the co-hosts won’t conceivably know the results until the envelope opens at the ceremony on January 13th, the pair are busy working together in the lead-up to the big event, and no doubt re-calling those good ol’ Saturday Night Live days. In this promo for the Globes, the duo are dressed in matching golden sparkly dresses and they both dish out cheesy Brit(ish) accents (until they don’t). Maybe they’re commenting on the resurgence of British-speak in Hollywood films reminiscent of the very early “golden days” of Hollywood? Who knows, but here’s a funny look at what may bode well for the Globes telecast after the New Year. [ Source: Huffington Post ]
The Oscar Index’s head is spinning. What critics organization didn’t announce their nominees or award-winners this week? On Thursday it was the Golden Globes , on Wednesday the SAGs , and Monday the AFI and BFCA. The Boston, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles , Phoenix, San Diego, St. Louis and Washington critics associations also weighed in with their picks. But critics don’t vote for the Academy Awards, so much of this will have little bearing on who will be nominated for an Academy Award; not Lincoln ’s seven Golden Globe nominations, not Dwight Henry’s Best Supporting Actor win from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for Beasts of the Southern Wild , and not the Washington D.C. Film Critics Association’s pick of Zero Dark Thirty as the year’s best film. By splitting its acting categories into drama and musical-comedy, the Golden Globes muddle the view of the fields , but they do afford some Oscar dark-horses like Richard Gere some necessary exposure to keep their chances alive. Meanwhile, the Screen Actors Guild Awards do matter as an Oscar precursor, as do perhaps some preemptive strikes at a probable Oscar frontrunner. But how big a target is Zero Dark Thirty ? We got a pretty good idea this week. Let’s go to the Gold Lining Playbook. Best Picture Zero Dark Thirty might have sustained some damage this week in the wake of several newspaper pieces that charge the film with being pro-torture and questioning the character of the real-life inspiration for the CIA analyst portrayed in the film by Jessica Chastain . A New York Times Op-Ed piece provocatively opened, “I’m betting that Dick Cheney will love the new movie Zero Dark Thirty ,” Greg Miller in the Washington Post wrote that the real-life operative, who remains undercover, “was passed over for a promotion that many in the CIA thought would be impossible to withhold from some who played such a key role in one of the most successful operations in agency history.” A New Yorker profile of director Kathryn Bigelow questions whether the film’s waterboarding scene takes dramatic liberties with the true story. The timing of these stories is suspect. If past Oscar campaigning has taught us anything, one has to ask at this early stage: Just how far will Harvey Weinstein go to win Oscars for Silver Linings Playbook ? which did receive a Screen Actor’s Guild’s ensemble nomination, a Best Picture equivalent. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ’s SAG ensemble nomination could boost the film’s chances for a Best Picture nomination. Its distinguished British cast (classy) and pure escapism would seem irresistible to the typical Oscar voter, which the Los Angeles Times last year found was 94 percent Caucasian and a median age of 62. The Dark Knight Rises and so perhaps its Best Picture hopes after being named among the year’s 10 best films by the American Film Institute. Amends for The Dark Knight ? That The Master was not noticed by the SAG for its powerhouse ensemble is testament to the once presumed frontrunner’s fading buzz, while the omission of the critically praised Beasts of the Southern Wild was due to its SAG ineligibility. Likewise, the shutout of Quentin Tarantino ’s wildly anticipated Django Unchained might be a simple matter of screeners not being available in time for voters, theorizes Awards Daily ’s Sasha Stone. And with its five Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture, Django could join the Oscar Best Picture race. 1. Lincoln 2. Zero Dark Thirty 3. Silver Linings Playbook 4. Les Miserables 5. Argo 6. Beasts of the Southern Wild 7. Life of Pi 8. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 9. The Sessions 10. Django Unchained Ones to watch: The Dark Knight Rises, The Impossible, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Skyfall Best Director It’s doubtful that the potshots at Zero Dark Thirty will be enough to keep Bigelow out of the running. The director and screenwriter Mark Boal returned fire against agenda-driven critics. “This movie has been and will continue to be put in political boxes,” Boal told The Wrap this week. “Before we even wrote it, some people said it was an Obama campaign commercial, which was preposterous. And now it’s pro-torture, which is preposterous.” That leaves a slot for David O’Russell , Ang Lee , or late entrant Quentin Tarantino, who received his inevitable Golden Globe nomination Thursday. Pundits still give Lee an edge. The Golden Globes’ surprise snub of Tom Hooper is another indication that this field is anything but set. The Director’s Guild nominations, a reliable Oscar precursor, will be announced on Jan. 8, two days prior to the Academy. 1. Steven Spielberg ( Lincoln ) 2. Kathryn Bigelow ( Zero Dark Thirty ) 3. Ben Affleck ( Argo ) 4. Ang Lee ( Life of Pi ) 5. Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) Ones to watch: Paul Thomas Anderson ( The Master ), Michael Haneke ( Amour ), David O. Russell ( Silver Linings Playbook ), Quentin Tarantino ( Django Unchained ) Next: Best Actor & Actress
Oh, Top Gun . The Sullivan to Rambo ‘s Gilbert, it cemented pop-culture love for Reagan’s aggressive foreign policy , established the late lamented Tony Scott as a successful director, and catapulted Tom Cruise to A-list status, where he has remained ever since. Now, 26 years after its initial theatrical run, Top Gun ‘s barely stifled masculine angst and jingoistic pro-military message (wait, isn’t that the same thing?) feel more relevant than they did in 1986. (I blame Dr Pepper Ten for that.) What the world clearly needs is a chance to experience the film’s many delights with fresh eyes. And now we can, as Top Gun is getting an IMAX re-release in glorious, unintentionally homoerotic 3D two weeks before the February 19 release of the two-disc Blu-Ray set. Gird your loins everyone, because at the risk of writing this thing off sight unseen, 2D films converted to 3D almost always look terrible. It’s particularly bad when the movie wasn’t filmed in a way that really benefits the 3D experience. Top Gun is action-packed, but it’s basically a drama with fast jets every 10 minutes or so. Maverick’s character arc — that would be Cruise — involves him getting past the guilt of causing his friend’s death, falling in love, and coming to terms with the legacy of his dead father. Although 3D might benefit the dogfights, will we really be better off seeing a sort of passionate, blue-lit love scene unfold as if we’d stumbled into the very bedroom where it took place? Of course we will! And personally, I can’t wait to see these other choice moments popping off the screen: 1. Tom Cruise flipping the bird at a Russian jet before performing a death-defying maneuver so he can escort a panic-stricken fellow pilot back to their aircraft carrier. Moral of the story: Maverick is a loose cannon, but he gets the job done. 2. The touching teacher-student romance between Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise, which includes sex and sexy motorcycle riding. 3. Anthony “Goose” Edwards’ tragic death as he’s rammed face-first into a cockpit window.
Golden Globe nominees Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor turned out for a special screening of their epic tearjerker The Impossible and talked to me about how they summoned the emotional wherewithal to play a couple whose family is torn apart by a tsunami. The picture’s director, J.A.Bayona also attended and told me he had no qualms about casting a Scottish and an Australian actor to play the real-life Spanish couple on which the harrowing story is based. Bayona pointed out that the film never clarifies the couple’s nationality. Besides, the actual husband and wife who inspired the story were on the carpet and they were clearly supportive of the film. Check out my full interview below: RELATED: Golden Globes Unveil 70th Edition Nominees Globes Analysis: Hooper, Russell, De Niro Snubbed & Is Waltz Really A Supporting Actor?
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has a distinctively aggressive relationship with his audience that ranges from the provocation of Caché and The Piano Teacher to the outright antagonism of Funny Games and Benny’s Video . Amour , his latest work and the winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival , might be considered Haneke’s version of a love story, and its grimness is of a much quieter but no less impactful sort. It is, more than any of Haneke’s previous work, infused with compassion, but of a sort that cuts like a knife. For all that it is, as promised, about love, it’s also a subtly punishing affair that grinds you into the ground as you watch an elderly couple deal with one member’s slow deterioration of health and sanity. Amour starts with firemen breaking into a beautiful Parisian apartment. The bedroom door has been taped up, and inside is the corpse of Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), lying on the bed, scattered with flowers — and it’s here that Haneke inserts the title card, to ensure you know that this will not be a syrupy tale. We cut back to when Anne was alive and living with her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), both in their eighties. They attend a concert being given by one of Anne’s former students — a trip that, with the accompanying streetcar ride home, marks the film’s only venture out of the apartment, a location that becomes confining until it shifts into a sort of hiding place to dwell on the misery that life must end, and sometimes does so in messy, undignified failings of the flesh. Riva and Trintignant are the latest in a long line of Annes and Georges that Haneke’s presented over the years (the names have recurred in his films from 1989’s The Seventh Continent through 2009’s The White Ribbon ) and perhaps the most fully realized — they are a couple with a deep connection and a long history together, one that includes moments of chilliness as much as devotion. They’ve been spending a comfortably bourgeois late life together, their middle-aged daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert), a mother herself, periodically visiting from London where she lives with her British husband Geoff (William Shimell). Anne and Georges surely have some awareness that death is closer than it was when they were young, but when a first brush with mortality arrives, it does so in a frightening way that catches them unaware. Anne has a stroke or a fit, one that leaves her temporarily frozen — it passes before Georges can get help, but it’s a sign of what’s to come. Haneke approaches the story with characteristic unflinching austerity that makes all the more difficult the unadorned scenes of Georges, frail himself, struggling to help Anne off the toilet after a surgery meant to help her instead leaves her unable to walk. Anne, afraid of doctors, extracts a promise from him that he will not bring her back to the hospital, and not long after asks for death. “There’s no reason to keep on living,” she tells him. “Why should I inflict that on you or me?” In the moment, it feels harsh and defeatist — at that point Anne is suffering only from manageable mobility problems, and while life will be different, it’s still open to many of the same experiences. But Anne is not naturally suited to optimistically soldiering on, and prefers not to talk about what’s happening to her to a visiting student or to welcome her son-in-law on a visit. And as things get worse from there, every intrusion into their increasingly difficult existence seems like an invasion, from the nurses who arrive to help care for Anne after another stroke leaves her paralyzed and unable to speak beyond nonsensical phrases. In one of the film’s most wrenching scenes, Georges tries to lock Anne away when Eva comes to visit, not to protect his daughter but to protect Anne from her well-meaning but terrible child who sweeps in and demands to know what else can be done, having no real grasp of her parents’ day-to-day of diaper changes, peach porridge and compulsive crying out (“Hurts! Hurts!” Anne yells), or that some things cannot be fixed, only endured. “Life… so long,” Anne mutters at one point in what may or may not be a moment of clarity. And the prospect of the days stretching out and only getting worse is heavy on this film, as the flesh fails and all that’s left is the promise of waiting out the undignified end of existence. Haneke’s dry-eyed, unsentimental approach makes what would have been, in someone else’s hands, an agonizing ordeal a little more bearable, allowing for moments of relief when a semi-symbolic pigeon finds its way into the house, or a jolt of horror in a nightmare sequence. But the clinical distance Haneke manages so well also makes the film feel like a beautifully crafted but calculated exercise, one gentler and touched with more warmth than his earlier films, but still meant to be a shrewdly knowing knife to the viscera. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Standing well over 6′ tall, with an athletic frame and impeccably coiffed hair, Richard Armitage the silhouette screams matinee idol , which makes it all the more impressive that Richard Armitage the person screams “Dwarf!” But, then, this isn’t your older brother’s axe wielding, pipe smoking, occasionally tossed comic relief. As Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of a band of not so merry dwarves looking to reclaim their ancestral homeland from the ravages of the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey , Armitage takes his first bold, steely-eyed, heroic steps into the world of Middle Earth, embodying with method exactness the badass anti-hero of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original. Before that, though… a little bit of fun. Armitage recently sat down with Movieline in New York City where he revealed the physicality of being a dwarf, his facility for speaking in tongues, his hard fought battle scars, and the number one reason you should always answer an interrupting telephone. Movieline: Here’s what we can do. We can do the entire interview in Khuzdul [the fictional language created by J.R.R. Tolkien for the dwarves of Middle Earth]. Khuzdul! Do you speak dwarvish? I speak some dwarvish. Do you speak it fluently? There isn’t really that much [in The Hobbit ]. Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! No. You can’t fool me. That’s from Lord of the Rings .* Do you know dwarf sign language? [Huge laughter from Armitage as he crosses one forearm perpendicularly over the other, giving an especially vigorous non-dwarf signal.] Yes, any dwarf could understand that. But, no, this is a real thing. Tolkien made dwarf sign language because, you know, it’s too loud to talk in the mines. Actually, we did work with Terry Notary and we did work on a kind of sign language. That scene in Bag End where Dwalin head butts Balin as a dwarf greeting — it’s a visceral, physical greeting. The language implies [physicality] as well. Physical sort of found its way into the vocal for me. Physical as in changing your body? Is there a physical choreography to being a dwarf? A way to walk? It’s sort of informed by the skeleton of these creatures because they’re not really human. Their center of gravity is much lower, their torsos longer — which was really tough for me because I’m the other way around. I’ve got really long legs and a short body. So all of my belts were down here on my hips, and slowly they work their way up to where your waist is. I was constantly having to pull them down. There were other things we worked on — chewing up the ground as you walk. You know, when a dwarf starts running it takes a long time to stop. They’re very heavy, very stooped trains. They can’t stop immediately. Like, they’ll crash through a wall. Their bone structure is heavy and solid. And those huge boots, which I think are going to be a big fashion statement next year. Why not a trend following all these hot dwarves? [Laughs] Oh yeah, we were baking! Dwarves baking wasn’t what I think these websites that listed ‘hot dwarves’ were thinking. Was there ever advice or conversation with John Rhys Davies [who played Gimli the dwarf in Lord of the Rings ]? No. Was there something in his performance that you ever looked at? No. He came to visit and said hello. But we started from scratch. With this dwarf physicality, were you able to escape unscathed from all these battle scenes? I put my tooth through my lip when we were shooting the Battle of Azanulbizar. You see Thorin fighting six orcs. And we choreographed it on the ground and then filmed it on platforms so everything gets higher by about two feet. I actually smacked myself in the face with the shield and had this huge swollen lip that was bleeding down my neck. I was so angry at myself. You know when you hit yourself? I was so bloody angry. And then Andy [Serkis] came and showed me a mirror. I was like, ‘Oh God.’ He said, ‘Do you want to carry on?’ I said, ‘Yeah, cause it looks good.’ It looked really good. It looked really kind of real. In the original film, both Elijah [Wood] and Andy [Serkis] were able to take props home. If I go to your house will I see Ocarist above the mantle? You have Ocarist in the umbrella stand. Cause I want to be able to pick it up. You also have the shield in the kitchen drawer. And on the wall you have the map and key. I’ve got the full kit. The only thing I wanted was the key. But I was very kindly — [Armitage is cut off when the phone in the hotel room where we are conducting the interview rings, interrupting us.] Do you need to answer that? Maybe I should. It’s Sauron. You can tell by his ring.
Why yes, there are musical numbers in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey , which hurtles into theaters this week. Alas, none of them are eligible for the Oscars’ Best Song category, though I’d love to see Richard Armitage, AKA Thorin Oakenshield, face off against Katy Perry and Adele on that Academy Awards stage. Listen to Thorin and his not-so-merry band of dwarves prepare for peril with a solemn ditty in a clip from The Hobbit . Verdict : It’s no “Bilbo Baggins,” but then again, what is? [via TheOneRing.net ]
Danny Boyle solicited the help of 007 in his Olympic spectacle last summer in London, but that doesn’t mean he is on track for a future Bond director gig. Skyfall actor Daniel Craig was a highlight of the opening of the London Olympics along none other than H.M. The Queen, raising rumors that he would take the helm of a future Bond pic. Asked on BBC Radio 4 if he’d be into doing a full-length Bond, Boyle said, “No, I’m not very good with huge amounts of money.” Boyle told the station that the 2000 feature The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio made him averse to taking on big budget movies. Don’t trust me with huge amounts of money anybody,” he said, according to BBC . “I did a film, The Beach, which was a proper Hollywood scale budget and it didn’t suit me. Certain people can handle that and I love watching those kinds of films, but I’m much better with a smaller amount of money and trying to make it go a long way.” Still, Boyle oversaw the London Olympic Opening Ceremonies which reportedly cost $42.3 million, though still shy of The Beach ‘s reported $50 million budget. The feature made just under $40 million in the U.S. but managed to nab just over $144 million worldwide. Boyle pulled-off what many in the U.K. never would have imagined happening when he persuaded Queen Elizabeth II to “act” along with Daniel Craig and “appearing” to jump out of a helicopter with 007. Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won multiple Oscars in 2009 including Best Picture. His next pic is Trance , starring James McAvoy. The latest Bond pic, Skyfall has cumed $918 million worldwide. [ Source: BBC ]
Angelina Jolie is one step closer to another helping of Salt as Columbia Pictures hits the negotiating table with Seven Years in Tibet writer Becky Johnston. Naturally with the 2010 original grossing $293.5 million, including $118,311,368 in the U.S., the studio has incentive to get a Salt 2 underway, especially with its irreplaceable star, Angelina Jolie, threatening retirement in the not-too-distant future . Columbia hired the first Salt ‘s writer Krut Wimmer to write the sequel, but Jolie had apparently scoffed at the script and had not committed to a re-do, according to THR . The studio searched for a replacement who could re-style the story that will satisfy all involved. Johnston’s other credits include The Prince of Tides (1991) as well as Wonder Woman and Brad Bird’s San Francisco earthquake story, 1906 . Johnston’s participation will be a departure from her previous work, though there’s at least one connection. Seven Years in Tibet , released 15 years ago, starred Jolie’s future partner, Brad Pitt. [Source: THR ]
