"I Wake Up Dreaming" Noir Festival, Cathartic Rewards, Miles Teller at Café Gratitude

Film noir fans, rejoice: I Wake Up Dreaming, a month-long annual festival of genre classics, is underway at the Castro Theatre. Beginning tonight, films will screen every Wednesday evening through August 31st.  "Film noir, simply put, is a film style first popularized in America around 1940," Lavine explained. "It's photographically expressionistic, utilizing a high-contrast, monochromatic approach. Tilted camera angles help to accentuate the discordant nature of the narrative, which often centers around fatalistic concerns, criminal or otherwise. Duplicity is generally part of the package, with trust a barely recognizable commodity. Happy endings are usually in short supply." "Film noir's enduring popularity stems from the timelessness of cynicism, which is at the heart of film noir," Lavine said. 

"Every generation seems to have something to be disgruntled about, and film noir offers its own kind of cathartic rewards." Betty Grable, fondly remembered for her song and dance talents, is seen in a rare out-of-character role in 1941's I Wake Up Screaming, a dark tale of murder set under the bright lights of Broadway. Source: hoodline.com

Whiplash: A Stirring, Cathartic Masterpiece - Miles Teller is brilliant as the obsessive, slightly unbalanced, and yet bizarrely anti-charismatic charismatic. It is a master class performance that one hopes is only the start to even greater things although it is hard to imagine him topping this. The resolution of this film, to that point, is one of the best, most discomforting, disquieting, and singularly impactful scenes in recent memory. It is a visceral representation of agony and perseverance, of genius, madness and precision congealing beneath a sweat, blood and tear-laden veneer. Not since Black Swan has a film so elegantly tackled destructive obsession. But unlike that film, which by comparison is a gentle meditation, Whiplash is a catastrophic catharsis, a personification of the differences between people, those that will do anything and those that won’t. Source: mducoing.wordpress.com

Miles Teller: "I don't see very much of myself at all, if any, in Whiplash. There's stuff that my character is doing where I'm like, 'I don't think I've ever made that face in my life.'"

"I can't get up," says Miles: "I want to stay in bed all day." A slight moan escapes his lips when I'm on top of him. His eyes are still closed but a smirk plays on his lips as I push his hair back and gently kiss his jaw. He sighs and opens his eyes. 'I'm so in love with you,' he says quietly and I sit up to look at him. 'What have you done to me?' -a small smile appears on his lips as he takes a strand of my hair and tucks it behind my ear. His thumb traces my bottom lip and still, after all of this time, my heartbeat quickens from his touch. Source: www.wattpad.com

As the Rolling Stones, Revlon, and Angelina Jolie can attest, not many body parts are more sexualized than the lips. A new study published in Royal Society Open Science suggests that we’re not the only primates that feel this way. Black-and-white snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus bieti) have a strict social hierarchy in which a few, older males mate with multiple females, while the younger males form bachelor groups and bide their time. Mating males’ lips redden during the mating season, whereas the bachelor males’ become paler. Scientists still aren’t sure why the animals’ lips seem to correspond with their social rank, but one idea is that females prefer the redder shades when choosing a mate, similar to how a female peacock chooses the male with the most elaborate tail. Another explanation could be: Paler lips could make bachelors appear less threatening, allowing the mating males to focus their aggression on other red-lipped competitors. Source: www.sciencemag.org

Miles Teller pulls a black tin from his inside pocket and pops a little piece of Snus dipping tobacco into his mouth. We’re at Café Gratitude in Downtown LA, a high temple of vegan culture and green health where menu items have names such as “blissful” and “charismatic”. Mr Teller has been filming Granite Mountain, a movie about the Arizona wildfire tragedy of 2013, in which he plays a firefighter who lost 19 friends to the flames. “People are so quick to judge,” he says about his "boys are dumb" light comedies period. But tread carefully around that stuff with Teller. 

“They said, ‘Oh, he’s this frat guy’. But if you’re getting speaking parts in your twenties, that’s better than most people.” Teller is prickly, ambitious, a little surly. He’s annoyed that BuzzFeed ran something about his dyed blond hair – which is for his Granite Mountain character. “They were like, ‘Who does Miles Teller think he is?’” he says. “That shit nauseates me.” And in Granite Mountain, he loses close friends. Teller can relate. When he was 20 years old, he was thrown out of a car that flipped eight times while travelling at 80mph. No story about Teller is complete without that crash. 

You can still see the scars on his face. “I got lucky,” he says: “The EMT told me 99.9 per cent of people in these cases would be dead or paralysed. Recovery was slow. For years, I had to have steroid injections and laser surgery. Very painful.” Within a year of his crash, two of his friends died in separate car accidents. “I probably should have talked to a therapist,” he says. “But I always felt I had a pretty strong sense of self.” In that way, he relates to Vinny Paz. The fighter broke his neck in a car crash at 29, at the peak of his career. The doctors said he’d never fight again, but Mr Paz disobeyed their orders to work out with a full neck and head brace and, within 13 months, he was back in the ring and won again. 

It’s unarguably the greatest comeback in boxing history. To get into a lightweight boxer’s shape, Teller didn’t eat carbs or have a beer for eight months. He boiled down to 168lb and just six per cent body fat. He got Pazienza’s accent and mannerisms down to a tee. “Vinny came on set one time,” says Teller. “I didn’t want to be doing him in front of him, but in the end, I was so proud of my preparation I wanted to show him. I wanted him to see himself at age 26. And he sent me a voicemail afterwards. He said, ‘Miles, you did me so perfectly!’” 

His phone bleeps. It’s time for Mr Fantastic to go home to Studio City, where he’s getting measured up for some suits. “I’ve got to do all these talk shows but I haven’t got anything to wear.” But after that, it’s just Mr Teller and his model girlfriend Ms Keleigh Sperry having a quiet evening in. “I got my Snus, I got my ESPN, I’m taking it easy tonight,” he grins. Source: www.mrporter.com

Brie Larson in Unicorn Store & The Spectacular Now, Miles Teller on scripts and duck hunting

Brie Larson, who won an Oscar this year for her leading performance in Room, is set to make her helming debut with the quirky independent comedy Unicorn Store. Larson also will star in the movie and produce it with David Bernad and Ruben Fleischer via their banner The District. Based on an original screenplay by Samantha McIntyre, the story tells of a woman named Kit who, after moving back in with her parents, receives a mysterious invitation to a store that will test her idea of what it really means to grow up. The deals are freshly inked and the filmmaking team is now prepping for an October production start. 

Brie Larson is the newest member of the Marvel Studios family, having become attached to star in the company's first female-centric film project, the high-profile Captain Marvel movie. 

She next stars in Legendary’s big-budget creature feature Kong: Skull Island, which impressed the Comic-Con crowd with its footage, and reteams with her Short Term 12 director Destin Daniel Cretton for Lionsgate’s coming-of-age drama The Glass Castle. The actress also leads the cast of Free Fire, Ben Wheatley’s crime thriller being released by A24.  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

"Have you turned her into a lush yet?" That's the pertinent question Cassidy (Brie Larson) asks her ex-boyfriend, Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) in James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now. Cassidy's concern belies the fact that she's referring to Sutter's new girlfriend, Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley). Is she trying to protect the naïve Aimee from the perhaps alcoholic Sutter's charming sort of peer pressure? Is Cassidy warning Sutter not to lose his new love the way he lost her? Or is she mindful of her own unresolved post-breakup feelings over Sutter's inability to simply subsist without an oversized plastic cup full of spiked soft drink in hand to sweeten the day? 

Sutter needs the innocent Aimee to look up to him, to help him through school, to provide the company he can't get from his workaholic mom, absent father (Kyle Chandler) or the guarded sister (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who's moved to an upscale suburbia and decided to never look back. And Aimee needs Sutter's cocky empowerment to rub off on her in order to stand up to her overly dependent mother. That's what makes The Spectacular Now so unconventional. Sutter and Aimee's relationship is equal parts romantic and codependent.

Aimee's sober self-assuredness in contrast to Sutter's practiced cool makes The Spectacular Now feel just a bit unbalanced. You want to know why Aimee is attracted to the self-hating Sutter when she seems to have it so together in most respects. As their relationship progresses, it soon becomes apparent that Cassidy was right to have voiced her concern for Aimee, whatever her true motivation might be. Before long, Aimee is drinking as hard and as often as Sutter. 

Sutter's prom night gift to Aimee isn't a corsage or some other token of affection. It's a flask. Things aren't headed anywhere good for the couple. It takes a fateful meeting between Sutter and a person he looked up to for him to realize that something is wrong. There, he hears his own limited philosophy of making the most out of the present reflected back to him. For the first time, the non-committal now doesn't seem as spectacular as it's cracked up to be. Source: www.cinemaviewfinder.com

Eric Walkuski sat down to talk to Miles Teller about his latest film, WAR DOGS, and asked the actor a few questions in regards to a film he was promoting at this time last year; FANTASTIC FOUR. For those that need a recap, FANTASTIC FOUR, the Fox-produced adaptation of the Marvel property directed by Josh Trank, ended up being savaged by critics and fans, publicly derided by the director, and was ultimately a flop in every sense of the word, making just $56 million domestically. 

However, the one thing that stood out in the film was the cast, which included Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Jamie Bell, all actors who could certainly rise to the occassion when given the right material: “I loved the cast, I loved the characters. I think it's such an interesting dynamic. I love how much they really need to rely on each other. This Avengers thing, they've kind of created their own Fantastic Four in a way, Marvel's first family. So yeah, absolutely, I would do another one”. Teller points out that he always begins with the script and his performance in mind, with the rest falling in the hands of the director. 

“Whiplash was Damian [Chazelle]'s first feature, who would have known? I did that because of the script. I think certain things you can get sort of disenfranchised with a little bit. I can honestly say I've never just done something for money; I'd be really embarrassed for something like that to come out, that I had no attachment to the character, no attachment to the script. It takes a while before you're only working with the best directors, nobody's career is flawless.” Source: www.joblo.com

War Dogs, the newest movie from Hangover director Todd Phillips, stars Jonah Hill and Miles Teller in the true story of Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz, two stoner buddies from Miami turned international arms dealers. “You can see it as a dollar sign, and that’s what these guys did,” Teller told Vulture at the premiere. “Even though these guys are dealing with $300 million contracts, and 100,000 rounds of AK47 ammo, to them it could have been Funyuns; it could have been Doritos, just exploiting a loophole.”

Set in what the film calls “Dick Cheney’s America,” Teller plays Packouz, the workhorse in the partnership, with Jonah Hill as Diveroli, a bro partial to gold jewelry, black tracksuits, and Scarface references. But the two actors have a different relationship with guns. “I’ve pretty much always felt the same way about guns. I’m not a big fan of them,” Hill said. “I think the movie is really good at pointing out how ridiculously easy it was for these two guys to become gunrunners the way our government is currently structured in that world.” In terms of gun control, Hill said he’d like to see more oversight and “more heavy screening, and making it harder overall for people to get guns.”

Teller is a little more comfortable with guns. “I’ve always had a respect for guns,” he said. “Once I got into a pretty rural town of Florida, it was not uncommon for your buddy’s dad to have a gun rack.” He said that he would be going duck hunting soon. “I’m going hunting this fall in North Dakota, so I’ll have my hunter’s safety [license] and everything. If you are going to use a weapon, just make sure that you’ve passed all the tests.” Be careful, Miles: This isn’t Nintendo! Source: www.vulture.com

"No Baggage" for Shailene Woodley

Based on a Salon article about a one-of-a-kind OkCupid date by Clara Bensen, Shailene Woodley is attached to star in the film "No Baggage," from New Line Cinema and Offspring Entertainment. Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot of Offspring will be producing. Imagine an online date that includes traveling to eight different countries over the course of 21 days with one outfit and no luggage. As told in her original article “The Craziest OkCupid Date Ever,” the two traveled with exactly one outfit each and only essentials like passports, credit cards, iPhones, and toothbrushes. The Tracking Board has exclusively learned Woodley is attached to star in the film as Clara Bensen.

Shailene Woodley started her career as the lead character in Freeform’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, before branching out into films, landing roles in features like The Descendants and The Spectacular Now. Her name got on the map in a big way when she starred in the popular movie The Fault in Our Stars, and then took on the main role in the YA action franchise Divergent. She’ll next be seen in the Oliver Stone film Snowden. Source: www.tracking-board.com

The Spectacular Now commences with Sutter’s girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larson), dumping Sutter (Miles Teller) over something that’s relatively minor but that we sense is just the latest in a series of disappointments. They had a lot of fun, and they’re popular in school, but apart from drinking and having sex, they never really worked as a couple. Reeling from the break-up, Sutter gets drunk at a party and wakes up the next morning on someone’s lawn.

That someone is Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a classmate of lesser social standing who enlists his help with her paper route. He takes an interest in her, not romantically at first, but as a pal. Though he doesn’t say it in so many words, he seems to find her innocence and semi-nerdiness refreshing. She’s sweet and unaffected.

These two central performances by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley are key. Teller finds the kernel of realism that makes us sympathize with Sutter and root for his success. You can see why Sutter’s classmates love being around him but don’t respect him. He’s a fun guy, a people person – a douchebag, maybe, but never a bully. In his part-time job at a men’s clothing store (where his boss, played by Bob Odenkirk, is something of a father figure), he’s all the customers’ favorite.

Shailene Woodley, from “The Descendants” and TV’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” has an aura of kindness about her, a vulnerability that makes her a perfect counterpart for Teller’s cockiness. Spectacular it may not be, yet there’s so much tender, relatable emotion in these characters and their experiences, and so much underlying goodness in them. Source: www.ericdsnider.com

Analeigh Tipton is Megan, currently experiencing a deep, full and wide slump in her life. Jobless, loveless and crashing with Faiza (Jessica Szohr), she decides to engineer a one-night stand for herself at Faiza's urging and despite her own misgivings. And so Megan, on a website that looks just enough like OKCupid to dodge a lawsuit, winds up meeting Alec (Miles Teller), whose wit and whimsy inspire her to invite herself over to his place. When she tries to make her escape the morning after, though, the harsh light of morning is abetted by harsh weather, with the front door to Alec's building blocked by ice and snow on New Year's Eve.

Cinematographer Bobby Bukowski does what he can with the confined spaces of Teller's apartment, which is very different from Hollywood's usual, huge-apartment version of New York. Both Tipton and Teller are better than this material in Two Night Stand, but they do elevate its lowest points, and their rare high moments --when Alec explains to Megan that her ex-fiancée "has no idea how rare you are,"-- you get scenes so heartfelt and superbly performed. Source: www.mtv.com

Max Nichols waded through piles of “super bro’d-out comedies and by-the-numbers rom-coms” before he found Mark Hammer’s story about a love that begins in lust. Nichols strove to emulate the immersive atmosphere of the films he loved growing up: “The candid ones that gave you great characters, a great sonic palette, and awesome laughs. Movies like ‘The Breakfast Club,’ and ‘Sixteen Candles.’ Megan and Alec remind me of the wonderfully unremarkable people who are your actual, real-life friends.” They look and act young, but they’re on the fast track to middle age. Megan was pre-med, but she confesses to Alec that she really just wants to be a wife and mother. And Alec is content to work at a bank—not a master-of-the-universe iBank but an actual bank that might lend you money. His longest speech is an “ambition is such bullshit” rant about old folks’ careerism and consumerism. Source: www.newyorker.com

Rami Malek, Miles Teller: Magnetic Head Games

Let’s also agree that if Elliot ever gets his brain in order than he and Angela are perfect for each other. That’s who Angela visits next. It's the first time the characters have shared the same screen since late last season, and it’s a heartbreaking little moment, because they’ve been apart due to Elliot’s love for Angela. He wants to fix himself. For her. The subtle reminder in Elliot’s dream sequence last week is all we need to remember that this guy is in love with Angela, so his admission this week doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere.

For the audience it’s a reminder that Elliot is human. For Angela he’s a call to action. Which leads her back to Darlene and F Society’s war room. It’s a moment that feels a lot like when the girlfriend get’s let in on the superhero’s secret. The Elliot’s many carefully parceled worlds are converging. Let’s just hope the latest world, full of Silk Road bad guys, doesn’t converge with his friends and family anytime soon. Source: io9.gizmodo.com

Mr. Robot star Rami Malek is negotiating to star with Charlie Hunnam in Papillon, a remake of the classic 1973 film. Hunnam will play the role originated by Steve McQueen, and Malek is in talks to play the Dustin Hoffman role. The film will shoot in September, directed by Michael Noer (Northwest) from a script by Prisoners writer Aaron Guzikowski. Malek's film credits include Night at the Museum, The Master and Need for Speed. Source: deadline.com

Mr. Robot delights in being a challenging show, sometimes to a fault. And though I still look fondly at the bruises my brain suffered from the wrestling match of Season 1, Season 2 has been a slightly different story largely because the head games that proved magnetic in Season 1 came with the meat of a TV show -- clear plot -- and Season 2 has been content to dance in the ether and -- I apologize in advance for using this next term -- be very Mr. Robot-y. Source: www.tvguide.com

In 2013, Miles Teller did The Spectacular Now, which was a perfect “starter” lead role. The film — in which Teller plays charismatic, aimless Sutter Keely— is flawed, but he’s totally magnetic. Somehow, he managed to outshine Shailene Woodley, who, when this movie came out, was riding high from The Descendants, and being a weirdo in fairly homogenous Hollywood. This was right around when the John Cusack comparisons began; the heat was on. But the proper breakout was yet to come. 

His charisma matched perfectly (and surprisingly) with Woodley’s reserved teenager. She was delicate, he was ragged. Of course, these two have gone on to star in Divergent together, though as enemies not lovers. Teller told The Hollywood Reporter that he’d feel “comfortable doing any kind of stuff with Shailene.” Aww!

Next came 21 & Over and That Awkward Moment, two pretty bad movies: The script for That Awkward Moment is so thin that it feels like Teller is ad-libbing everything, which means watching it might be a fairly close approximation of what it’s like to hang with Teller in real life. Likening him to an athlete who joins the N.B.A. straight out of high school, his co-star Michael B. Jordan added Teller ‘got that raw talent that you’ve got to respect.’

Teller brought straight fire to the press tour for Two Night Stand (“We’re basically in a science experiment,” Teller's Alec proclaims). Since the movie is about sex and relationships, many of the interviews went to the bedroom, and he did not hold back. Elle magazine talked to him while he was loopy in Las Vegas: "I’ve taken Viagra before. You know, curiosity killed the cat. It’s a big-ass pill. My buddy in Vegas gave me one. He was like, “Bro, break it in half and take it two hours before you’re ready.” When people are very specific on the instructions, that makes me kind of wary. But he was right." Source: grantland.com

At the premiere of his new comedy “War Dogs,” Miles Teller sounded stunned that the “Divergent” franchise will end with a television movie instead of a theatrical release. The actor has been in all three previous films and said that he barely got a heads up before Variety broke the news. The series was originally seen as a successor to “The Hunger Games,” but the third installment, “Allegiant,” stumbled at the box office when it hit theaters last spring. “I’ve talked to nobody,” Teller said. “I found out 20 minutes before Variety printed it.”

Teller’s comments mirror those of Shailene Woodley, who told press at Comic-Con last month that she hadn’t decided whether or not she would participate in the final film and that she’d been caught off guard by the news. Teller seems disappointed by the changes. “We all really enjoyed that time we spent together and those characters,” he added. Source: variety.com

Shailene Woodley vs Jennifer Lawrence, Sex Scenes (The Spectacular Now, Passengers)

Jennifer Lawrence is not only an Oscar-winning actress with a household nickname, she's also one of Hollywood's most in-demand young stars, who seems to have her pick of the best roles while others are left to comb through her leftovers. 

Shailene Woodley, for example, had a similar start in the biz and has also enjoyed critical acclaim, but career-wise, Lawrence is unquestionably the girl on fire right now. As producers were assembling the Hunger Games cast, both Lawrence and Woodley had recently drawn critical raves. Lawrence's work in Winter's Bone earned her the first of her four Oscar nominations, and Woodley's part in The Descendants gained her a Golden Globe nom. While Woodley's box office record is nothing to shake a stick at ($1.25 billion worldwide), Lawrence's commercial clout is even more impressive: $5.273 billion worldwide, earning an average of $139 million in domestic sales. 

Woodley's The Fault In Our Stars did very well too, but some of her other films (like The Spectacular Now and White Bird in a Blizzard) were DOA, money-wise. As her career shifts into post-YA franchise mode, Woodley has been somewhat pigeonholed—a marked contrast to Lawrence, who's comparatively free to spread her wings in a variety of genres. Woodley will star in the true story-based film Snowden, featuring the same serious, seldom-smiling persona that has become synonymous with her roles. 

Meanwhile, you'll soon see Lawrence keeping her fans on their toes with a new sci-fi adventure (Passengers, which hits theaters on Dec. 21, 2016), a wartime biopic (Steven Spielberg's It's What I Do), and a thriller (Darren Aronofsky's as-yet-unnamed project). Woodley probably has the capacity to do more, but hasn't had enough opportunities to prove it yet. 

Headlines sell tickets, and being the subject of a mass photo-hacking incident, or breaking up with her latest boyfriend, it seems like just about anything Lawrence does makes national news. Lawrence has a gift for gab, and she knows how and when to use it. Her constant self-deprecation and quick wit with the media make her relatable and easy to root for. 

Meanwhile, Woodley's private life is… well, private, which means people may feel less invested in her "personal brand"—and, ultimately, her career. Even when she did have a haircut heard 'round the world moment, it was for a film, and although she's active on social media, it's largely for political discourse that lifts none of her personal veil. 

Woodley's rather reserved demeanor during interviews gives audiences little to chew on during her public appearances and certainly doesn't leave the kind of lasting impression that tends to drive people to theaters. Lawrence is also the face of Dior, whose clothing she frequently dons on the red carpet and accessories she models in print ads. Woodley, on the other hand, has no such fashion house endorsement and is thus not plastered all over billboards and magazine pages. She's dabbled in a bit of charity work and environmental advocacy, but she's yet to become the face of any particular organization—she did speak at a Bernie Sanders rally during the 2016 presidential campaign. Source: www.nickiswift.com

In Passengers, they play a writer (Jennifer Lawrence) and a mechanic (Chris Pratt) who wake up early during 120-year trip to another planet. "It was just nerve-racking," Lawrence told E! News in May of the sex scene. "It's not even about your co-star because Pratt is so wonderful and lovely. My nerves weren't about him." She said the anxiety stemmed from being watched by "everyone you work with--all of the cameramen, all the producers and the director." Source: www.eonline.com

"It's my favorite scene in The Spectacular Now. It sounds so funny to say that. It really is," Woodley enthused. "I can't think of one single love-making scene in any film that I've ever been, 'Yeah, that's real,' or 'That could actually happen that way.' That scene was a nice way for both of us to lose our on-screen virginities because it was a really safe environment, and we felt very cared for. And everybody was really compassionate towards our needs and not making it feel exposed or exploited in any way." Of course, it helped that Woodley felt totally comfortable thanks to Miles Teller.

"James Ponsoldt, the director, and I, we were throwing names around to each other like, 'What about this guy? What about this guy? He's a great actor. This guy's really attractive. What are we looking for in a Sutter?' We couldn't find anyone that would be believably charismatic without having to act in a certain manner," Woodley recalled. "And I'll never forget it. I was on vacation, and James called me and was like, 'What about Miles Teller?' It felt right. It was just one of those moments where you instinctually know it has to be that person."

"I think we help each other though," Woodley said of Teller. "He helps me, I think, have more fun when I get caught up in being serious. And I think I help ground himself in a way that's perhaps more natural than his other choices." Source: www.mtv.com

Esquire: -What about the sex scene?

Miles Teller: -For prep, it was going to be my first sex scene in this movie, and I thought I'd buff out, and Shailene said no I don't think so, have a little belly. So for a couple months, I didn't go to the gym and drank a little more. It was awesome until I finished The Spectacular Now and had three weeks to prepare for Two Night Stand and knew I was taking my shirt off again, so I had to workout really hard. There's a little bit of leftover Sutter in him. I enjoy making comedies but dramas come more naturally. Source: www.esquire.com