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
“Bleed for This” (2016) starring Miles Teller (Open Road). This marks the second attempt to get a boxing movie into awards season competition, after The Weinstein Company unsuccessfully launched “Hands of Stone” at Cannes in May. Source: www.indiewire.com
The much-loved Here Comes Mr. Jordan has spawned two direct remakes and a sequel, but the 1941 original retains a unique charm that no other version has been able to duplicate. Why does it keep such a hold on our affections? Perhaps it’s the way it mixes elements in a way unique to its era—screwball comedy, slapstick farce, boxing fable, supernatural romance. Directed by Alexander Hall and released by Columbia Pictures, it boasts a just-crazy-enough premise—angels try to return the soul of a boxer, who has been mistakenly snatched by an overeager apprentice, to a ring-ready body back on Earth—yet has enough real-world pathos to leave a lasting emotional impact. The rollicking dialogue and gleefully complex plot, the film’s belief in friendship, destiny, and true love.
Together, Montgomery and Rains, the tough guy and the seraph, work to put Joe back on Earth as the champion boxer he was meant to be. Montgomery, a lifelong conservative whose patriotism had spurred him to spend time driving an ambulance in France, had only recently returned to his home studio, MGM. But, despite his restlessness there, when Montgomery found himself loaned out to the perpetually low-budget Columbia, he wasn’t pleased about it.
Columbia wanted Evelyn Keyes to resemble their top star Rita Hayworth, and thus they padded her figure and made her wear hairpieces to imitate Hayworth’s luscious mane. In addition to her hair and makeup discomfort, Keyes at the time was having a red-hot affair with the married director Charles Vidor. One day, she recounts in her autobiography, Montgomery drawled to her, “I hear you’re running around with a married man.” Unable to tell if he was joking, and not much caring either way, Keyes snapped back, “What business is it of yours?”
The tenderness of Keyes and Montgomery’s love scenes is a small triumph of acting, and offers proof that on-screen chemistry is a mystery no scientist can ever solve. Presumably all hard feelings were, if not forgotten, at least soothed by Here Comes Mr. Jordan’s stellar notices and boffo box office.
In terms of film history, 1941 was a triumph. Hollywood’s output that year was staggering, even by the eccentric standards of what films got Oscar nominations, which list includes The Maltese Falcon, How Green Was My Valley, The Little Foxes, Suspicion, and Citizen Kane. (Here Comes Mr. Jordan garnered seven nominations, winning best story for Harry Segall and best adapted screenplay for Sidney Buchman and Seton Miller.) If you went to the cinema and sat through the newsreels, however, 1941 was terrifying. Even before Pearl Harbor in December, many Americans realized we wouldn’t be able to sit this one out much longer.
Then there’s Joe’s original accident, the plane hurtling toward Earth; we’re told 7013 pulled Joe out ahead of time because he couldn’t stand the thought of the boxer’s pain on impact. Even the pretty tune that Joe hilariously butchers on his ever-present lucky saxophone is “The Last Rose of Summer,” based on a poem by Thomas Moore about loneliness and death (the unheard lyrics start, “’Tis the last rose of summer, / Left blooming alone”). It takes sure hands at script and direction and a nimble cast to maintain the sweetness around such bitter pills.
Critic Dave Kehr once referred to Alexander Hall as “the guy who got the Columbia projects that Frank Capra turned down,” and indeed it is hard to discern a distinctive imprint from Hall’s direction. Aided by the black-and-white genius of Capra’s frequent cinematographer Joseph Walker, Hall’s direction is unobtrusive to the point of invisibility, though some compositions stand out. There is the prop of the grand piano slicing the frame, as Mr. Jordan explains to Joe that Farnsworth is being murdered upstairs, thus offering a fresh body for Joe to inhabit.
The backstage stairs that soar up in the last scene are at first romantic, as Joe’s last incarnation and Bette recognize each other across this world and the next, then poignant, when Mr. Jordan steps up to say farewell—for now. The real emotional climax, however, has come just before, when Max cradles the saxophone that has stayed with Joe through all his various guises. Gleason’s expression says Joe was like a son to Max—a son he’s lost three times now.
The pleasures of Here Comes Mr. Jordan are not those you get from a visual stylist but those found from watching actors working at the very top of their abilities, in a clever plot with skillful dialogue. And actors are, after all, part of a film’s visual elements. A camera trained in stillness on Claude Rains is as good as or better than many another film’s flashy traveling shot, even when, as in several scenes, he’s out of focus, stretching elegantly in a chair in the background, listening to what’s going on.
Evelyn Keyes, discussing Here Comes Mr. Jordan, told a reporter in 1989, “I enjoyed doing comedy. It’s complex. You can’t think you’re being funny. Comedy is serious business.” Turning death into comedy is Here Comes Mr. Jordan’s serious accomplishment. Source: www.criterion.com
Humphrey Bogart, Evelyn Keyes & Danny Kaye in front of the Dies Committee (of the House Committee on Un-American Activities), 1940
The director of “Whiplash,” Damien Chazelle, said that Miles Teller’s face drew him in, reminding him of a young Humphrey Bogart, Gene Hackman: men who could play dashing heroes, romantic charmers or troubled everymen. “There’s something very malleable about his face,” Mr. Chazelle said. “In terms of how you shoot it or light it, he can have this tough, battered boxer physique. Other times, he looks like a child: vulnerable. The great actors’ faces are these muscles of emotion.”
“I feel like a lot of actors of my generation are not proper actors,” Miles Teller said flatly in an empty hotel conference room. Filmgoers who have only seen Mr. Teller’s frisky bro comedies like “21 & Over,” or his bawdy romantic comedy “Two Night Stand” might be surprised by his bravado. As he demonstrated in the moving coming-of-age indie “The Spectacular Now,” Mr. Teller is capable of much more than the wisecracking, laid-back charm he exudes so naturally.
“I’m pretty hot now,” he said, flashing a wry smile with the self-aware, somewhat ridiculous and somehow sincere swagger that has become his improbably winning trademark. “I guess I was lacking sex appeal at the time. I don’t know if I found it.” Source: www.nytimes.com
Based on a true story, “War Dogs” follows two friends in their early 20s (Jonah Hill and Miles Teller) living in Miami during the first Iraq War who exploit a little-known government initiative that allows small businesses to bid on U.S. Military contracts. Starting small, they begin raking in big money and are living the high life. But the pair gets in over their heads when they land a 300 million dollar deal to arm the Afghan Military—a deal that puts them in business with some very shady people, not the least of which turns out to be the U.S. Government. The film is targeting an August 19th release. Source: www.flickeringmyth.com
Teen Choice Awards 2016 — Choice Movie Actress Action/Adventure Winner: Shailene Woodley, The Divergent Series: Allegiant
It appears that Lionsgate is trying to salvage the Divergent franchise as best they can by positioning it for a television audience. Currently, the plan appears to be to complete the current story arc with the main cast with Ascendant, while using the film to introduce a new group of characters who will carry the spinoff television show. It’s not clear if any of the film’s cast will appear in the television show. Downgrading the film to become a glorified television pilot could help cut the company’s losses while appeasing fans of the series, even if it’s a huge blow to Lionsgate. Films such as Stargate and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been spun off into extremely successful television franchises, and it’s possible that the company is hoping to score a similar level of success with Divergent. Source: www.theverge.com
Jessica Chastain is in negotiations to join Jake Gyllenhaal in The Division, Ubisoft Motion Pictures’ adaptation of its own hit video game. Gyllenhaal is producing the project with Ubisoft’s Gerard Guillemot. Ubisoft developed and published the game with Red Storm Entertainment also involved. Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were the platforms.
The storyline is set in dystopian New York City after a smallpox pandemic. In the third-person shooter game, the player is an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division, aka The Division, and is searching for the origins of the outbreak.
The twice Oscar-nominated Chastain will be seen toplining Europacorp’s Miss Sloane, a gun-rights drama that has an awards-season-minded release date of Dec. 9, and also will star opposite Daniel Bruhl in the World War II drama The Zookeeper’s Wife. The actress also will soon tackle the lead in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Hollywood gambling drama Molly’s Game with Idris Elba. Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com
Karin Strauss, who works at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, is working to make that sci-fi fantasy a reality. Into this world comes the notion of DNA storage. DNA is by its essence an information-storing molecule; the genes we pass from generation to generation transmit the blueprints for creating the human body. That information is stored in strings of what's often called the four-letter DNA code. That really refers to sequences of four building blocks—abbreviated as A, C, T and G—found in the DNA molecule. Specific sequences give the body directions for creating particular proteins. Digital devices, on the other hand, store information in a two-letter code that produces strings of ones and zeroes. A capital "A," for example, is 01000001.
Converting digital information to DNA involves translating between the two codes. Advocates also stress that DNA crams information into very little space. Almost every cell of your body carries about six feet of it; that adds up to billions of miles in a single person. In terms of information storage, that compactness could mean storing all the publicly accessible data on the internet in a space the size of a shoebox, Ceze says. Getting the information into DNA takes some doing. Once scientists have converted the digital code into the 4-letter DNA code, they have to custom-make DNA. For some recent research Strauss and Ceze worked on, that involved creating about 10 million short strings of DNA. Source: phys.org
In Season 2 Episode 4 of Mr. Robot "eps2.2_init1.asec," Darlene’s cry for help comes in the form of the Linux command that gives the episode its title: “init1” is their code for “Emergency Mode.” It’s enough to make Elliot put his fog aside and act like a big brother. “init1” also denotes “Single User Mode” in Linux, setting a system to only allow access to the primary user. As Elliot dons the mask and hatches the plan to take down Evil Corp, the dramatic music is from Holst’s “The Planets” — “Neptune, The Mystic,” with the dramatic crescendo over the credits spliced in from “Mars, The Bringer of War.” When we see Darlene on the subway, there’s a prominent ad for “Allez Ridesharing.” A way to avoid getting sued by Uber, or a potential in-world website to keep an eye out for?
When Elliot gets on Ray’s computer, he contacts Darlene through the old-school web protocol IRC. His IRC client is BitchX and the username he signs in under is “samsepi0l,” which was the same alias he used last season in a Wikipedia hoax. Elliot asks what would happen to him if he loses the chess match, and Mr. Robot describes it as, “The absence of knowing. Losing time forever. A deep black void that you will never come back from. No thoughts, no body, no memories, absolute nothingness.” Elliot’s entire fantasy scene of the imagined life worth fighting for seems to show him in a relationship with Angela, with Cisco proposing to Darlene, and even allowing the Wellick family to join in. Source: www.indiewire.com
In talking to the press about Snowden, Shailene Woodley addressed the latest headlines about Lionsgate’s Divergent Series: Ascendant potentially skipping a theatrical release and being made into a TV movie, particularly after the last film Divergent Series: Allegiant stumbled at the box office, making $66M stateside. “Honestly, I was on a plane when all that happened and I landed, and I’m like Whoa, what’s going on?! I need to talk and find out what the details are,” said Woodley about Lionsgate’s plans for the conclusion of the feature adaptation of the Veronica Roth series. Source: deadline.com
SNOWDEN (2016), starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley, is written and directed by Academy Award®-Winning Director Oliver Stone. The script is based on the books The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena. Release Date: In Theaters September 16.
This documentary covers NSA analyst-turned whistleblower Edward Snowden and his escape from American authorities to Hong Kong and later to Russia, after leaking classified information about global surveillance programs used by the American government to spy on people around the world and other nations activities. The movie also presents the journalists who had an exclusive access to Snowden and the members of WikiLeaks, who helped him in moments of his escape.
"Malicious" doesn't quite cover it, when it comes to Peter Hayes. I can't say he's pure evil. A truly evil person wouldn't have any debt to repay, or any guilt to feel. On top of that, he asked Four for the memory serum. Begged him for it. "I want the serum because I'm sick of being this way, I'm sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what's wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again." That's what Peter said, word for word. An evil person wouldn't want to start over. Normally, Peter Hayes' voice would be enough to make my hair stand on end. But he's reached a point in his "detox" (as he calls it) where he's completely harmless now. The only bite he has left are a few stinging insults here and there. He sarcastically clutches his chest. "You're hurting my newly awakened, beating heart."I don't hate him. And I'm definitely not scared of him, not anymore.
As much as I think I have him figured out, he's become endlessly complicated to me, now that he's adopted this "nice-guy" philosophy. And then we were kissing. I live just down the hall from Christina, so we went to his room. We hadn't thought any of this out, obviously, but the second we closed that door behind us, it kind of just started. The furious, guilty, impassioned kissing. He pushed me up against the wall, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I ran my hands through his hair. No amount of therapy in the world would change Peter's innately aggressive traits. He didn't gracefully tug at my shirt fabric, like Four would; it came off in one sloppy, uncoordinated swoop, because he was too busy simultaneously crushing his lips against mine.
If Peter Hayes wasn't already in love with me, then he was damn well on his way there. We paused, and I took a minute to look at his eyes, his face, his body. Of course I'd noticed that he was attractive before. His personality had always been enough reason for me to look away. But on this night and this room, Peter Hayes didn't have that personality; in fact, he didn't have any personality. He was a distraction. -Divergent Fan Fiction Source: www.fanfiction.net
"I can't take this anymore," Miles says when we are half way to the premiere: "The awkwardness. I don't care if you saw me naked. I just want to keep talking to you. You're the most important thing in my entire life." I smile. "You're the most important thing in my life too Miles," I say. He smiles and we hug. "You know since you saw me naked I think I should see you naked," Miles says when we pull away from the hug. "I... I love you," he says his eyes tearing up. I smile at him. I want to tell him that I love him too.
"I used to like Shai," Miles says. I have known this for a while. They used to flirt a lot in interviews before I even met them. For some reason it hurts to hear this from Miles himself. I nod and blink away the tears. I turn around to leave but I'm close enough to the bed that Miles grabs my wrist. I turn around and look into his eyes and melt just like always. "Why, why should I stay?" I ask. He looks deep into my eyes. "Because Shai means nothing to me now. You are all I want. I used to think I was in love with her, but now I realise that I love you, and only you." We make out until we are out of breath. Miles kisses my forehead and my jaw. A month ago I was too scared to have sex with him. Now I suddenly want him, I want all of him. I begin to pull his shirt up. I take it off, exposing his beautiful abs. He looks up at me. "Are you sure?" He asks. His voice is husky and it sends shivers down my spine. I just nod and he continues kissing me. Source: www.wattpad.com
Love is a sickness in dystopian ‘Equals’: Nicholas Hoult plays Silas, a member of the Collective, an Orwellian society in which they all wear white and do their part to move humanity forward. Emotion has been eradicated in the future, except for those suffering from a disease known as SOS, or Switched On Syndrome. Sufferers of SOS often commit suicide, and after Silas witnesses one of those, something snaps in him, and he begins to exhibit signs himself. He also notices that Nia (Kristen Stewart), a co-worker, appears to be experiencing emotion, though she remains undiagnosed.
This is sci-fi on a budget, which means that Doremus has to rely on his actors, rather than high-end special effects. It has its share of tension, but “Equals” shouldn’t be considered a thriller. Rather, it’s a story of emotion in a world that considers emotion to be a defect. Our world, of course, is anything but emotionless. Things run high and shrill, every minute of every hour of every day. And yet, so often, it all is as internally empty as the citizens of Doremus’ Collective. It’s a strange dichotomy, but one that feels surprisingly timely. Source: www.sandiegouniontribune.com
"Abortions were our birth control,” an anonymous actress once said about the common procedure’s place in Hollywood from the 1920s through the 1950s. While patriarchal political powers connive to block women’s legal access to abortion in 21st century America, in Old Hollywood, abortions were far more standard and far more accessible than they often are today—more like aspirin, or appendectomies. How and why did a procedure that was taboo and illegal at the time become so ordinary—at least, among a certain set? From the very infancy of America’s film industry, abortions were necessary body maintenance for women in the spotlight. Birth control, including prophylactics, were about as new as “stars” themselves—movie performers who went overnight from being “Little Mary” or “The Vitagraph Girl” to “America’s Sweetheart” or “Sex Goddess.”
“These newly wealthy men and women didn’t know how to control their money, their bodies, or their lives, spending, cavorting, and reveling in excess,” writes Anne Helen Petersen in Scandals of Classic Hollywood. In the working environment of the Hollywood studio system, society’s 19th-century sexual segregation had fallen away. Women—flappers, It girls, sirens and seductresses—were spared their destiny in the kitchen. And so it became necessary for the studios to implement reformatory measures to prevent stars from destroying their value through scandal. In 1922, Will H. Hays introduced mandatory “morality clauses” into stars’ contracts. Consequently an unintended pregnancy would not only bring shame to these top box-office earners—it would violate studio policy. “It was a common assumption that glamorous stars would not be popular if they had children,” writes Cari Beauchamp in Old Hollywood, Without Lying Down.
These clauses may have extended to an actress’s right to marry. According to Petersen, rumor had it that “Blonde Bombshell” Jean Harlow couldn’t wed William Powell because “MGM had written a clause into her contract forbidding her to marry”—a wife couldn’t be a “bombshell,” after all. When Harlow became pregnant from the affair, she called MGM head of publicity Howard Strickling in a panic. Shortly thereafter, according to E.J. Fleming in The Fixers, “Mrs. Jean Carpenter” entered Good Shepherd Hospital “to get some rest.” She was seen only by her private doctors and nurses in room 826, the same room she had occupied the year before for an “appendectomy.”
In the 1930s, vamp and man-eating thespian Tallulah Bankhead got “abortions like other women got permanent waves,” biographer Lee Israel quips in Miss Tallulah Bankhead. When virtuous singing sensation Jeanette McDonald found herself pregnant in 1935, MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer told Strickling to “get rid of the problem.” McDonald soon checked into a hospital with an “ear infection,” according to The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM publicity machine.
In 1931 Joan Crawford, estranged from her husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., became pregnant with what she believed was Clark Gable’s child and Strickling arranged for an abortion. Rather than reveal the truth, Crawford told Fairbanks that during the filming of Rain on Catalina Island, she slipped on the deck of a ship and lost the baby.
Crawford’s rival Bette Davis also willingly chose to have abortions for the sake of her career. If she’d had a child in 1934, she told her biographer Charlotte Chandler in The Girl Who Walked Home Alone, she would’ve “missed the biggest role in her life thus far”—that of Mildred in Of Human Bondage, which earned Davis her first Oscar nomination. Other great parts—“Jezebel, Judith, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Margo Channing”—may not have followed, either. “But I didn’t miss any of these roles, and I didn’t miss having a family,” she said. Later in life, Davis had three children.
Her first child, Barbara Davis Sherry—known as B.D.—was born when Davis was 39. As biographer Whitney Stine notes in I’d Love to Kiss You-- Conversations with Bette Davis, “she was proud of the fact that, after her abortions, she could have a baby at last and a career, because her mother had always insisted that she couldn’t have both. She never tired of reminding her mother that she could be a mother and an actress.” Source: www.vanityfair.com
