Jake Gyllenhaal at The 2010 New Yorker Festival

Jake Gyllenhaal talks about "Love and other drugs" at The 2010 New Yorker Festival on 2nd October 2010

"Jake Gyllenhaal sat down with David Denby at SVA Theater 1 last night to discuss his past films and his newest, "Love and Other Drugs." Denby said that the scenes between Gyllenhaal and his love interest, played by Anne Hathaway, were "electrifying." "You may do for straight sex what you did for gay sex," he said.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton in "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (2010)

"Gyllenhaal, twenty-nine, has played lovers to many. He took a moment to reflect on movie kissing and sex. "There is a weird sense of being watched," he said. "You can't help but watch yourself, which takes the sexiness out of it."

Ed Zwick, who directed the film, was also on hand, providing fortune-cookie insights into some of the darkest mysteries of Hollywood, a faraway land where "casting is love" and "sex is funny."

Asked what's in store for the future, Gyllenhaal admitted to having other interests. "Paul Newman is someone who I admire," he says. "I think I could make a really good salad dressing, too." Source: www.newyorker.com

The Making of Remember Me

Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson in "Remember Me" (2010)

Here is the first part of the Making of Remember Me (starring Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin)

Marilyn Monroe, her sad diary and white dress

"FIVE decades after her death, Marilyn Monroe emerged in her own words yesterday as a suicidal, inadequate and thoughtful woman who feared losing her mind.

Her private writings, to be published for the first time, also show the late star to have been an avid reader who quotes John Milton and Sigmund Freud as she despairs over her loneliness.

The actress's voice comes over clearly in Fragments, a collection of notes, letters and poems that were left to Lee Strasberg, her acting guru, on her death in Los Angeles in 1962 at the age of 36.

Le Nouvel Observateur, the French news weekly, published extracts from the papers, which were edited by Bernard Comment, a Swiss writer, and Stanley Buchthal, their current owner. The English edition is to be published on October 14 by HarperCollins.

Monroe's mental turmoil and literary aspirations are well-known. But her own vivid accounts of her inner life, from teenage years to a time close to her death, bring home how far the real woman was from the dumb blond she portrayed in her films.

"Why do I feel this torture?" she scribbled in a diary in 1955, according to the French translation. "Or why is it that I feel less human than the others (always felt in a certain way that I am subhuman, why in other words, I am the worst, why?) Even physically, I have always been sure that something was not right with me."

In 1958, under psychoanalysis and after the failure of her marriage to Arthur Miller, the playwright, she writes: "Help, help, help. I feel life approaching when all that I want is to die." Miller is the only person in her life she trusted as much as herself, she confides in her notebook.

In another undated fragment, she describes her desperation on a film set. "I am tired. I am searching for a way to play this role. My whole life has always depressed me. How can I play such a gay girl, young and full of hope?"

As a rising star in the early 1950s, she wrote verses about her solitude. "I am alone. I am always alone, whatever happens . . . " Source: www.heraldsun.com.au

"William Travilla is best known for dressing Marilyn Monroe for eight of her films and this exhibition showcases five prototypes of these dresses, alongside two dresses designed for Marilyn for personal appearances.

'The White Dress', from the film 7 Year Itch (1955) is likely to be the most famous dress he ever made for Marilyn Monroe.

On display is an identical copy made by William Travilla during her lifetime from the original pattern, as the dress worn in the film is owned by actress Debbie Reynolds". Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall, co-stars in "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953)

"How to Marry a Millionaire earned an Academy Award nomination for Color Costume Design for 20th Century-Fox wardrobe director Charles LeMaire, a 16-time Academy Award nominee and winner for All about Eve, The Robe and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, and Travilla (William "Bill" Travilla), a four-time Oscar nominee and winner for The Adventures of Don Juan. Travilla was also known for designing Monroe's costumes.
nowhere near as broad as she was in Blondes, Monroe here is just a more sentimental version of the same type, and the part doesn't add up to much more than blonde window dressing. Bacall has the serious audience sympathy, and Gable the biggest heart, so this was exactly the kind of part Monroe so desperately wanted to flee".
Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen prefer blondes" (1953)

"Blondes is immediately recognizable as a Hawks film for a number of reasons pointed out by Robin Wood in his essays from 30 years ago. The glib toughness is there, with the unspoken understanding that the girls are 'professionals'. They're proud of their man-killing, just like Hawks' soldiers or fliers are. They have an impromptu sing-along number at a Paris cafe, also very Hawksian. Russell even delivers her lines similarly to Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not". Source: www.dvdtalk.com

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in "To have and to have not" (1944)

Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe

Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in "Sabrina" (1954)
Audrey Hepburn wearing a dress designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Jesse Eisenberg talks "The Social Network" at Jimmy Fallon

Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg in Total Film magazine (2010)
Jesse Eisenberg at The Cinema Society Screening of "The Social Network" After Party on 29th September 2010


Jesse Eisenberg talks about "The Social Network" at Jimmy Fallon show, Thursday, September 30, 2010


Jesse Eisenberg says The Social Network, the story of the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, is complex.

Edward Zwick talks about Jake Gyllenhaal in Love & other drugs

"Gyllenhall’s character, Jamie Randall, is a philanderer and smooth talker who doesn’t live up to his millionaire brother, or physician father and sister. Hathaway plays Maggie Murdoch, whose early Parkinson’s diagnosis drives her to fear her own mortality and to push people from her life.“I didn’t want to do a standard romantic comedy, something that was contrived so it was about finding the right story,” Zwick said. “And more than that, it was about finding the right actors.”
Though audiences have seen powerful performances from Gyllenhaal, such as his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain, Zwick thinks he’s still coming into his prowess as an actor.
“There is a moment in every actor’s life when those things come together,” he said. “There is a moment in every young man’s life, not necessarily when you’re 24 or 28. Sometimes you have to get a three in front of their age before everything starts to function and they fire on all cylinders. I think it’s happening and very abundant and clear in the film.”
Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie Randall and Anne Hathaway as Maggie Murdock in "Love and other drugs" (2010)

Though billed as a romantic comedy, the film does exactly what Zwick wants and detours from typical contrived conventions, and detours into more serious territory as the bond between Gyllenhaal and Hathaway’s characters deepens. Zwick credits life as inspiration for their performances.
“Everyone goes through things. Annie had this relationship that was traumatic.
Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal dining in Paris, France on 14th March 2009

Jake was deeply in love with someone that had two children and it ended, and these things mark you. They have an effect on your soul and your instrument, and it’s happened to both of them.”
“When I was 30, I got married,” Zwick said. “And within two weeks, my mother died. I think it pertains to this movie, that is has the word and in it. Sometimes the best thing happens, but the worst thing happens as well. It’s not just — it’s and.” Source: blastmagazine.com

Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis had a couple of drinks for sexy scene in "Black Swan"

"In The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) models Facebook on Harvard’s legendary final clubs, private groups made up of some of the school’s most privileged students. But the clubs are as secretive as they are exclusive, which meant researching them was no easy task for screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Luckily, he got a hand from one of the school’s most famous alums: Natalie Portman. The star studied at Harvard from 1999-2003 and dated a member of the famous Porcellian Club — and she couldn’t wait to tell Sorkin all about it.Natalie Portman - Toronto IFF Portraits by Matt Carr
Natalie Portman wore a grey sweater dress by 3.1. Phillip Lim.

“Natalie Portman got in touch with me when she heard that I was doing this to say, ‘Listen…come over for dinner and I’ll tell you some stories’, Sorkin said to a group of Harvard students at a sneak preview screening last week. “I would’ve come over for dinner under any circumstances. But that was really helpful.”Portman also gets a tongue-in-cheek reference in the movie itself, when one character mentions that Zuckerberg became the hottest thing on a campus that included Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prizer winners, future Olympians, and a movie star". Source: popwatch.ew.com

Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis (co-stars in "Black Swan")

"For their graphic sex scene in “Black Swan”, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, who are friends in real life, felt that a couple of drinks would help them through the potentially awkward encounter. A bottle of tequila was procured for the occasion and the scene was shot in half a day, according to director Darren Aronofsky.
Still of Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel in "Black Swan" (2010)

Aronfsky told The Hollywood Reporter that the sequence was originally blocked for a day and a half but he cut it short after feeling guilty about what he was putting the actresses through". Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

R.I.P. Arthur Penn and Tony Curtis

Arthur Penn On Directing BONNIE AND CLYDE
Director Arthur Penn talks about Warren Beatty's encouragement to have him direct BONNIE AND CLYDE as well as the experience of making the film and its social impact.

"Penn's masterpiece, Bonnie and Clyde. The 1967 film charted the freewheeling exploits of two real-life Depression-era bank robbers, Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Beatty), with a frankness that was shocking for the era. Not only were the anti-heroes gleefully unrepentant, but they were often overtly sexual (see: gun-stroking scene above). However, it was the film's explicit violence, rendered in a flurry of quick cuts and stylized slo-mo Penn had pilfered from French New Wave films, that had the most lasting impact.
Bonnie and Clyde's infamous final scene - all gunfire, spastic flailing bodies and cool nihilism - outraged audiences, but also ushered in a new era of permissiveness in American film, where sex (The Graduate), drugs (Easy Rider) and violence (The Wild Bunch) were no longer off limits. Without Penn's initial throwing down of the gauntlet, the golden era of gritty, naturalistic movies that followed in the 1970s might never have happened, and his lasting influence cannot be overstated". Source: www.cbc.ca


Sweet Smell Of Success (1957) trailer starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster


Sweet Smell of Success (1957) scene
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick

"Considered by many to be the very first film noir, John Huston’s directorial debut would go down in history as one of the great detective movies. The film is based on Dashiell Hammett’s book (also called The Maltese Falcon) and star Humphrey Bogart in one of his best roles as private eye Sam Spade. The story starts with the murder of Spade’s partner Miles Archer. Although he never really liked him, Spade is honor bound by his personal code of ethics to track down his killers. Along the way he will get involved with the sultry Miss Wanderly and a group of criminals who seek a gold-encrusted falcon sculpture known as the Maltese Falcon.

Final 5 minutes of Maltese Falcon.
Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade) kissing Mary Astor (Brigid O'Shaughnessy) in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)

As Spade gets closer and closer to discovering the identity of his partner’s killer, he gets more and more involved with the search for the priceless statue. Is the death of his partner linked with the statue? Why are so many people so desperate to find it? And how is the mysterious Miss Wanderly involved? Complete with evocative cinematography and camera angles that recall Citizen Kane (released the same year), The Maltese Falcon is both a technical and thematic milestone for film noir- the characters and filming techniques continue to be emulated today".

"In the city of New York, your reputation is everything. If you are not careful, it could easily be destroyed overnight. Or it could be protected, for the right price. Such is the world of Sweet Smell of Success, the gritty, grimy noir from famous screenwriter Ernest Lehman (he also wrote the screenplays for Sound of Music and North by Northwest). Director Alexander Mackendrick, who had made his name doing comedies for England’s Ealing Studios, transforms New York City into a dystopia soaked with jazz, smoke, and criminals. We follow Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), a press agent without the burdens of morality. He is hired by J.J. Hunsecker, New York’s premier newspaper columnist, to stop his sister from marrying Steve Dallas, a fresh, young jazz guitarist. So, Sidney plants some reefer on him and spreads rumors that he is a Communist.

But that isn’t the end for Sidney - he is summoned to Hunsecker’s penthouse only to find the sister attempting suicide. Hunsecker walks in on Sidney saving her and accuses him of rape. From there, fates are decided and lives are destroyed as the truth comes out. In this powerful film, nobody is innocent. Featuring one of the most unequivocally quotable and memorable screenplays ever written, you will be quoting its lines and remembering its characters for the rest of your life". Source: www.toptenz.net

Tony Curtis, his wife Janet Leigh with Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner at a charity party in Hollywood
Tony Curtis with his daughter actress Jamie Lee Curtis
The actress brings her dad to a screening of Streets of Fire, 1984. Father and daughter had an uneasy relationship and were estranged for many years -- Curtis blamed his ex-wife for it. "She had heard that I was arrogant, uninterested, a rake, a womanizer, a drunk and a dope-taker," he told People magazine in 1980. Jamie Lee said she had come to terms with their relationship. "I understand him better now," she said at the time, "perhaps not as a father but as a man."

Jake Gyllenhaal with Jamie Lee Curtis, who is Gyllenhaal's godmother, in New York on September 27, 2006