It was cute a few weeks ago , but now it’s just sort of embarrassing: “As a six-time undefeated middleweight world karate champion, I have a pretty good idea what makes a warrior. And there’s presently one particular presidential candidate in the political ring who wears those gloves better than the others. Even when he’s knocked down, he has astounding agility and rebound. It’s one thing to enter a ring with a single opponent, but what if you had to enter with three: one candidate with unlimited reservoirs of wealth and two titans of political swing to back him? That is exactly what former Speaker Newt Gingrich is facing right now.” [ WND ]
It’s official: Comedienne-activist Roseanne Barr is a Green Party Presidential Candidate. “As POTUS I will forgive all student loans and ALL HOMEOWNER DEBT AND ALL CREDIT CARD DEBT [sic],” she Tweeted shortly after her candidacy was announced. “As potus, I will pursue all lawbreakers-financial terrorists first,” she continued , adding an aside to a follower regarding health tips : “u will have 2 stop using diet coke if u r to survive.” Let’s follow this woman into the future! [ @therealroseanne ]
The heroes and heroines of old-fashioned ghost-story flicks resemble the average horror fan more closely than any other of the genre’s archetypes. Amateur ghostbusters like The Innkeepers ’s Claire (Sara Paxton), for instance, troll spooky hallways and scour dank basements for thrills, which is to say without the real threat of physical harm. We go to movies like The Innkeepers , Ti West’s follow-up to his delightful old-school creep-out The House of the Devil , to explore and experience fear from a similarly safe remove. Like the average horror fan, Claire can be her own worst enemy; on both sides of the screen, much depends on the question of whether one can be scared to death. Along with her laconic co-clerk Luke (Pat Healy), winsome, asthmatic Claire is the only staff on site at the Yankee Pedlar Inn during its closing weekend. A grand old establishment with a rumor-laden pedigree, the inn has only a few last guests to deal with, including a harried mother and son (Alison Bartlett and Jake Ryan) and a fading television actress named Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis). The fact that a couple of low-ranking attendants have been left to close up the joint adds to the cavernous building’s feeling of abandonment. Like all haunted houses, the emptiness of this one poses a mournful and ominous question: Where did all the people go? Luke and Claire have an idea of where at least one wound up. The legend of a bride who committed suicide on her wedding day and was left to rot in the inn’s basement fuels their idle, overtime chatter. Luke is working on a crude, paranormal activity-type web site and claims to have seen the undead bride once; Claire, bored and curious, marshals his electronic voice phenomena kit and pokes around for sound vibrations. The first two “chapters” pass congenially, as characters come and go and we’re played for a couple of cheap scares. Unlike Devil , which builds slowly to an almost excruciating peak of tension, The Innkeepers is dotted with dead-end sequences — a YouTube prank, a bat in the attic — that break up a sometimes sluggish pace but also promote a certain aimlessness in the narrative. More so than in West’s previous film, which worked on its own steam right up until the end, The Innkeepers feels like a devoted horror fan’s attempt to reinvent a classic genre by sheer force of quality. Without a strong story to dance with, all of those fabulous tracking shots, lovingly uncanny art direction details and flickering shafts of light can make The Innkeepers feel more like an exercise in craft than a scary movie. Still, there is pleasure in Paxton’s slightly daffy, tomboyish take on the final girl and in McGillis’s welcome, perfectly anomalous presence. Leanne turns out to be something of a ghost whisperer, and it’s fun watching McGillis sell some pretty fruity lines between pulls on her cigarette. Luke is an intermittent and oddly diffident player in what becomes Claire’s adventure, although they share a pivotal and terrifically frightening séance scene toward the end. He warns Claire that chasing spirits has serious side effects — you’ll start seeing things everywhere you go, he says, you’ll warp your radar for what’s real and what’s not. It sounds like a statement of ambition for the best kind of ghost story, which is ultimately what The Innkeepers turns out to be. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
She can put “Bond girl extraordinaire” on her resume and describes her character in the forthcoming Dark Shadows as a “bawdy Barbie,” but between those two roles Eva Green is a woman holding on for dear life during a global pandemic in Perfect Sense . In David Mackenzie’s romantic drama, Green plays an epidemiologist struggling to track and contain a series of mass-scale maladies. Acute emotional states like unexplained sadness cause the human race to gradually lose the ability to taste, smell, hear and see, leading to more than a few mood swings. Amid catastrophe, though, the pieces are finally falling into place for Green’s Susan: She’s found love and a rock to lean on in Michael (Ewan McGregor), a chef with just a splash of bad-boy. It’s this love story that Green is most in touch with, and what drew her to the film in the first place. The emotional and, it must be said, super-steamy scenes between Green and McGregor halt the chaos and serve as a reminder that we should always stop to smell the roses, even if we technically can’t. Movieline talked to Green about her career path, love vs. calamity and Tim Burton fostering collaboration on Dark Shadows . How have you gone about choosing roles since being a Bond girl? You know, I’ve always liked characters that are complex, and even the Bond girl that I played was a complicated character, and intelligent. And you know, I always like complicated, interesting characters. Yeah, Vesper was the ultimate Bond girl. Yeah, I think so. But it was nice because there was a love story in [Casino Royale]. Not like a cliche, but a real human being. What made you connect with the Perfect Sense script? I really enjoyed the love story when I read it. I thought it was kind of a brave, unusual story. Thought-provoking, but also very romantic. But with a public panic angle. A few years ago, Blindness was adapted to film, and I don’t know if you read about this but there was recently a documented case of mass hysteria among a group of girls. What is it about stories like this that we find so compelling? I would say that, in this film, people come together. There’s an urgency. It’s very dramatic. Everybody has to become hungry for each other. You know, you have to seize the moment, seize the day and tackle the enemy, like we say, and what matters in life is love. Sounds very cheesy, but it’s true. People come together and still cling to each other after the loss of everything. The character you play suffers grief and heartache so deeply, and that’s even before the world goes haywire. Did you find it exhausting to portray this woman? Oh, no. I kind of identify with her. She’s quite normal. She was unlucky, and a bit damaged, and came out of a hard relationship. And the character that Ewan played was also damaged, but little by little she opens up to him and allows herself to be vulnerable and honest with him, and falls in love with him. I don’t see this film as something dark or dramatic because there’s a catastrophe. It’s also that she’s kind of awakened, weirdly. It’s a bit late because the senses are disappearing, but she is becoming, I don’t know how you would say it, but more human. Yeah, I think the opposite is true, too. She experiences happiness pretty deeply, and there were also some moments of levity, like the bathtub scene with Ewan. Yeah, that was fun to shoot, eating soap. And the flowers. I had to eat flowers in another scene. And toothpaste and lipstick. Lovely. Then you moved to Dark Shadows , playing another woman who’s had her heart ripped out. Oh, it’s a very different character. She’s an extreme character, completely obsessed with a man [laughs], and will do absolutely anything to get him, to own him. She looks like Barbie, but a bawdy Barbie. She’s a big character, and lots of fun to play, that’s for sure. Did you feel like you were coming in to an already formed family? Tim Burton and some of the other cast collaborate all the time. How did you mesh? Tim is very normal, and he is extremely open to suggestions, which is a luxury. He wanted me to feel as comfortable as possible. It was a real collaboration, which is very rare, and he was very kind, very creative, very supportive and we really got on. Is it true you almost took the role in Antichrist that went to Charlotte Gainsbourg? Yeah. Why did you decide against it? Oh, it’s hard to say. I didn’t agree with everything the director wanted me to do. Do you think you’ll work with Lars Von Trier eventually? I don’t know. I think he’s a genius, and Melancholia is a beautiful movie. I hope so, but we’ll see. Perfect Sense opens Feb. 10 in limited release.
Because he deseeeeerrrrrvvvves it : “Now, it might be easy to conjecture that Gibson’s recent personal issues were a reason to bypass theaters, especially after The Beaver grossed less than $1 million domestic. I think this is different — a ballsy move by a maverick entrepreneur whose willingness to break rules led him to self-finance the $30 million R-rated The Passion Of The Christ and watch it gross $371 million domestic and $612 million worldwide (still the biggest indie film of all time), and spend $40 million to fund Apocalypto , a film that grossed $51 million domestic and $121 million worldwide.” [ Deadline ]
Oscar-winning Man on Wire director James Marsh is clearly unafraid of dropping real talk ; during this month’s Sundance Film Festival he unleashed a tongue-lashing on the Academy for its recent Oscar documentary nominations, which notably did not include Marsh’s own well-received Project Nim . But that’s not the real problem — Marsh laments the entire class of ’12 Academy Awards doc selections, which he claims overlooked the best films of the year and makes the entire branch “look stupid.” Marsh, in Park City with his narrative feature Shadow Dancer , wasn’t terribly precious about Nim ‘s snub in conversation with The Daily Beast ‘s Marlow Stern (via SUNfiltered ). “Putting Nim to one side, if you created a short list of five films that would reflect the best documentary filmmaking of the year, none of those films were nominated.” “I’m a member of the documentary branch so I’m criticizing my own branch here, and it’s really about trying to recognize the best work out there. The system that we have, which I think we’re improving next year, doesn’t seem to do that on a regular basis. Instead, it creates a ‘we look stupid,’ clearly overlooking great ones every year.” Which great docs, then, should have been nominated? Marsh rattled off a laundry list of acclaimed works that many expected to be vying for the Oscar. “I was shocked that film of The Interrupters ’ ambition, quality, and heart didn’t get in…[Its omission from the Top 15 cut ] is a disgrace to our branch, and I don’t mind saying that publicly. And it’s not about taste. I think we can all agree that that is a great piece of documentary filmmaking. Likewise, Senna was a gripping character portrayal of a very interesting man, but also an exciting cinematic experience. Both those films found audiences as well. I was also surprised that Bill Cunningham didn’t make the last, which is a charming and lovely film.” Marsh’s criticism extends to the Oscar documentary selection process, which this year earned a set of revisions . But the branch member also had words for the foreign documentary category, which he says demands attention. “Something is not working here and it’s an annual controversy. I think the system that’s being mooted now is a slight improvement, but [the Best Documentary] category does have a responsibility to getting these films exposure, and we’re also eliminating a lot of foreign documentaries that really should be part of this discussion as well. There was a Danish film called Armadillo two years ago; brilliant film that didn’t get anywhere in that category. We need to try and rectify this.” • Oscar-winning MAN ON WIRE director James Marsh rips Best Doc Oscar noms, talks brilliant new film SHADOW DANCER [SUNfiltered]
W.E. wasn’t just an undertaking for Madonna, who directed her Wallis Simpson/Edward VIII biopic with all the lavish heft of a gigantic watercolor landscape. It was also a labor of love for Andrea Riseborough, the 30-year-old actress playing Simpson, the American socialite whose romance with Edward led to his abdication of the throne in 1936. The film’s most enjoyable asset, Riseborough was saddled with making the polarizing Simpson a wholly charismatic figure — an Evita without the benefit of torch songs. She succeeds, and with her thoroughly photogenic Edward (James D’Arcy) in tow, she softens W.E. ‘s melodrama with fantastic ease. We caught up with Riseborough to discuss her fascinating director , her feelings about the subject matter, and the zaniness of the Venice Film Festival . You’ve been promoting this movie nonstop for months! Are you sick of corsets and gorgeous costuming at this point? Are the constraints of the couture caving in on you, so to speak? That’s very funny! No, I’m very much enamored with every different period. It’s so funny because people often say — or people talk about period pieces — and I never really faction different periods or divide them from one another. I just think that really everything is of a specific period whether it be 2016 or 1810. It was extraordinary, the architectural feats that some of the couture gowns entailed on W.E. entailed. You have no idea. It was extraordinary. But is it daunting to think of committing so much to the look and feel of a period piece again? It’s something I’m very familiar with. Because whether it is 2016 or 1810, it’s very arduous. Specificity in any project, even if it exists in the abstract [Laughs] or it exists in an alternate reality, there’s always a vision that everybody adheres to. Everybody very much passionately leans toward expressing that vision and the way we share it with the world. It’s something that’s very familiar to me, actually, I suppose is the answer to that. It’s something I enjoy very much. It’s transporting. You are stunning in this movie. You really have the face of a beautiful silent screen star, or a young Bette Davis. Have you seen Dark Victory ? Oh I have, yes! Very much a part of my lexicon as a child. Did you think your throwback looks would aid you in getting cast? Because you would definitely fit in with the stars of Wallis Simpson’s time. Not really, because when I’d been sent the script, I thought it was very unique. I wanted to explore a little more and was interested certainly in the character that was Wallis Simpson, when I went to meet with the director — but when I met her, I actually had what could only be described as sandy blonde hair and a false tan. I was playing a modern character elsewhere. I’d never seen myself in one particular period. I know that my face is pretty plain and can look reasonably attractive but can also look horribly unattractive, and it’s been something that’s been a real benefit to me — being a blank canvas. Muscularly, I can mold it anyway that I want to, if need be. Or I can completely relax it! So, no, I didn’t think that — no. What I saw ahead was like with any role, the journey of a transformation that was something so utterly far away from myself. It was something and is something I’m very fulfilled by. For the record, James D’Arcy also looks just like Anthony Perkins. You can tell him I said so. [Laughs.] Nobody’s ever told him, but I can e-mail him if you like! [Laughs again.] E-mailing him now. Madonna is known for being able to choose forthcoming trends, own them, and bring them to the pop culture fore. Before you met her, did you have any idea what would impress her, based solely on your knowledge of her before W.E.? Did you use that insight to get cast in the film? My desire was not to impress; I wanted to see what fueled her passion for the story. I wanted to know what her vision was for it, and whether she would respond to what I could her offer her as a potential duchess. I think it would’ve been — I would’ve been somebody else, actually. It’s not who I am, I suppose. I was interested to see what our complicit working relationship would be. That was exciting to me. The story of the duchess was something I thought would be potentially interesting to excavate. I wanted to see within what framework that might possibly happen. She, very fortunately, responded to what I had to bring to her. Really, we were artistically complicit from that point on, from the outset really. She’d seen me play Margaret Thatcher and this other character before, so she had a good grasp on the reality that I could inhabit somebody who existed and somebody who was young and innocent — this other character was young and innocent. One interesting thing about W.E. is the sheer continental difference in knowledge about Wallis Simpson. In the U.K., everyone knows. In the U.S., plenty of people know nothing about that era of British history. Oh, don’t do yourself down! I’m trying not to! But there’s definitely a gap in awareness about who Wallis Simpson was. How do you feel addressing that with different markets for the film? I think, really, the story transcends any historical context you might feel you need to put it in. Interestingly, of course, it was a reality. But what we have portrayed is our perception or version of the truth, Madonna’s version and vision of a woman who really existed. The heart of the piece is the thing that’ll tap on the door of the common man, if you will. Because, I hope, that was the thing that originally tapped on the door of the common man — every one of the working class areas that Edward visited, the working men so very much appreciated him, took him into their homes in a way that a prince had not been taken in before. It’s that same honesty and love and truth, I think, that people will feel and respond to. Wallis, she’d seen the writing on the wall. She ended up being as trapped as she imagined she would be, if he should abdicate, which he did as you know. It’s impossible for any one person — I mean, let’s not even reduce it to gender — it’s impossible for any one person to live up to the responsibility of the kingdom. How does one man fulfill a partner who has given up such an awful, awful lot for their relationship? Do you find yourself sorting out the fair criticism of W.E. from what might be considered a biased response to your director? Has the criticism been fair? I really believe that people have their own relationship with it. And I say “with it,” I mean everything that the film is. We were all part of making it. They can choose to absorb it and gain what is valuable from it any which way. I really have no opinion on it, to be truly honest, Louis. I know I’m incredibly honest to be part of something I found beautiful. That’s really all I know. Talk about the Venice Film Festival, where the world got its first taste of W.E. and the first swarm of responses to the film hit. Seemed pretty manic at the time. How do you remember it? It felt incredibly special. It was almost like our first offering at something we’d been so lovingly baking. The explosion that then ensued was quite breathtaking. It was almost funny being so surrounded by love. I’m just speaking as honestly as I felt it! Lastly, I heard you say that you and Madonna connected deeply in researching the “geeky” minutia of Wallis Simpson’s life. How deeply did that fixation go? Oh my gosh, that is such a long answer, Louis. Her fastidious research has no bounds! And that’s where the answer lies. When you approach something that you’re ignited by and are passionate about in such a way, really, until it seems to you’re getting to the point where no stone is unturned, only then can you stop. When you imagine chronicling an entire woman’s life from age 29 to 70, everything that went before 29 — since it must be taken into account — and everything that went after, you can imagine that’s no small feat. I ferociously lapped that up. I enjoyed it so much. But none of that is worth anything if you can’t just trust that it’s been inside of you so you can be present when you’re living out what might’ve been their life. W.E. opens Friday in limited release. [Top Photo: WireImage]
Screw moustaches . I give you… Assdance : “Call for entries soon! (THE FILM FESTIVAL IN WHICH ONLY FILMS REJECTED BY SUNDANCE CAN FINALLY BE SCREENED!) All films submitted will be viewed and chosen by a legendary Board of Directors while high on ambien, drunk, and/or stoned (or most likely all at once). Films chosen as Official Selections will simply be the ones which the Board of Directors felt were enjoyable while wasted! That’s it. Call for entries TBA!” [ ASS Studios ]
Screw moustaches . I give you… Assdance : “Call for entries soon! (THE FILM FESTIVAL IN WHICH ONLY FILMS REJECTED BY SUNDANCE CAN FINALLY BE SCREENED!) All films submitted will be viewed and chosen by a legendary Board of Directors while high on ambien, drunk, and/or stoned (or most likely all at once). Films chosen as Official Selections will simply be the ones which the Board of Directors felt were enjoyable while wasted! That’s it. Call for entries TBA!” [ ASS Studios ]
So we’ve already established that The Artist is going to pretty much dominate next month’s Academy Awards — a certainty that we’ve seen reflected in the behavior of certain awards-season foes who’ve taken aim at the silent film’s ubiquitous wonder dog Uggie. Christopher Plummer led the offensive last week on behalf of his Beginners co-star (and Uggie’s fellow Jack Russell terrier) Cosmo, joined over the weekend by an unlikely ally hoping to raise another dog’s profile as we sleepwalk toward Oscar. Martin Scorsese — yes, the Martin Scorsese, master filmmaker and current Best Director nominee for Hugo — put his name on a cheeky L.A. Times op-ed asking viewers, voters and especially the organizers of the inaugural Golden Collar Awards to consider his film’s fierce Doberman, Blackie. It’s all kind of priceless: OK, let’s lay all our cards on the table. Jack Russell terriers are small and cute. Dobermans are enormous and — handsome. More tellingly, Uggie plays a nice little mascot who does tricks and saves his master’s life in one of the films, while Blackie gives an uncompromising performance as a ferocious guard dog who terrorizes children. I’m sure you can see what I’m driving at. I’m proud of Blackie, who laid it on the line and dared to risk the sympathy of her audience. Let’s just say that on the set, she had a fitting nickname: Citizen Canine. The bath scene alone is a masterpiece of underplaying, with Blackie’s wonderfully aquiline face accentuated by the 3-D. Ohhhh, boy. You really need to read the whole thing, for both a refreshing glimpse at Scorsese’s sense of humor and a bracing example of how dogs — dogs! — have politicized this year’s awards race. Dog News Daily has agreed to add Blackie to its Golden Collar nominees if she receives 500 write-in endorsements today on Facebook. I mean, come on . Blackie is fantastic and all, but Uggie’s 10,000 fans on Facebook say all anyone needs to know about the year’s most formidable four-legged awards contender. Oh, right: Did I mention that Movieline’s Consider Uggie campaign has eclipsed 10,000 supporters worldwide since its launch two months ago? It’s true! With a little less than 30 days remaining before the Academy Awards, we’re on pace for around 15,000 Uggieheads by the big night. I’d hoped for something a little closer to 20,000, so if you haven’t yet joined up, please consider heading over to Consider Uggie HQ and giving our boy a little boost. Tell your friends on Twitter to #ConsiderUggie as well, and continue keeping track of everything he’s up to via Facebook and/or Uggie’s own Twitter page ( @Uggie_TheArtist ). Or as always, keep on eye on Movieline for all your Consider Uggie news and to learn about the next great director to fire across Uggie’s bow. Go ahead, Terrence Malick, I dare you.
