Kristen Stewart: New Moon and Adventureland

"New Moon", the second film in the Twilight series (due Nov. 20). Her Bella and vampire love Edward split, and the teenage werewolf Jacob draws her affection into a supernatural love triangle.

"He becomes like her best friend," Stewart says of the werewolf. "It's really [expletive] sad. Edward probably isn't a very good idea for her. He's not the guy she should actually be with, because it's not very convenient. And then there's this guy who comes in and oooohh. Ummmmm."

Her favourite part of New Moon is the beginning. "Everything is fine. Edward is there. They're chilling. They're together. Everyone's happy. But there's this eerie feeling like he's gonna go. Has anyone broken up with you, and you know that it's coming? It's weeks before and you're like, 'I'm a nutcase, but I swear to God something is wrong.' And then, however many weeks go by, and it happens. It's horrible. It's the worst."

New Moon is expected to be another major moneymaker. Another upside to Twilight's success is a higher profile for Stewart's art-house films such as Adventureland. She also has The Yellow Handkerchief, playing a stranger who helps an ex-con hitchhiker (William Hurt) reunite with his wife, and Welcome to the Rileys, as a street kid/prostitute who falls into the care of surrogate parents (James Gandolfini, Melissa Leo) whose own child has died. Neither has a release date yet.
Source: www.theprovince.com


"James is soon handing out lame prizes (a stuffed banana with googly eyes?) and mopping up children's barf at a game booth. His fellow reluctant carnies include Joel (Martin Starr), a pipe- smoking, Gogol-reading misfit, and Em (Kristen Stewart), the slinkster-cool tough girl of every indie boy's dreams. Em offers James rides home from work, Lou Reed and Big Star blasting from the car stereo, and confides in him about her miserable family. But she's secretly involved with Mike Connell (Ryan Reynolds), Adventureland's mechanic and chief Lothario, who's both much older and a married man. Frustrated by Em's reluctance to go beyond friendship, James takes up with the park slut, Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), only to discover that beneath her hoop-earringed, gum-snapping exterior lurks a Catholic prude.

All this sounds like a retread of raunchy, deliberately outrageous teen sex comedies—American Pie, say, or Mottola's last film, Superbad. Instead, Adventureland harks back to the introspective teen rom-coms of the 1980s, with Jesse Eisenberg in the John Cusack role. The gangly Eisenberg, with his soulful gaze and unruly mop of curls, is adorable enough to spread on toast, as anyone who saw him in The Squid and the Whale can attest. And the amount of screen time devoted to James' emotional, as opposed to hormonal, fluctuations makes Adventureland as likely to appeal to girls as boys. Kristen Stewart, who gets more ethereally lovely with each screen appearance, plays a darker and richer variant of the
disaffected schoolgirl she played in "Twilight". Source: www.slate.com

Richard Kelly updates "The Box"

Richard Kelly and Jake Gyllenhaal at "Donnie Darko Director's Cut": Hollywood Premiere, on 15th July, 2004, Hollywood.

"Director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) updated his official MySpace page with a few bits of information about his upcoming "The Box" film, as a way to clarify some things.

* WB is releasing the film on October 30th, 2009. The release date has been shuffling around a bit, but this is common with studios, and everyone feels like this is the best date for the film.

* The film is completely finished. Principal photography was completed in March 2008, and it was officially delivered to WB right before Christmas 2008. A March 2009 release was briefly considered, but a Fall 2009 release was always a better fit.

* We shot in Massachusetts and Virginia. The film takes place predominantly in Virginia, 1976.

* The running time is 1 hour 55 minutes long including end credits.

* The film was digitally photographed using the Panavision Genesis camera. In my audio commentary on Tony Scott's Domino, I mentioned that I would never shoot a 1970s period piece using a digital camera. My position on this changed when I saw David Fincher's extraordinary Zodiac. It can be done.

* There is more than 300 visual effects shots, which required eight months of post-production. The digital work-flow of the Genesis was essential to completing these visual effects properly.

* Win Butler, Regine Chassagne (of Arcade Fire) and Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy, frequent collaborator with Arcade Fire) recorded more than 80 minutes of score for the film.* The official website for the film is www.thebox-movie.com - it will unveil sometime this summer.

* This is my most personal film to date, and I'm very proud of how it turned out". Source: www.worstpreviews.com

Happy 44th Birthday, Robert Downey Jr.!

Robert Downey Jr. in The Soloist.Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man.Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow.Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin.Robert Downey Jr. and Catherine Keener in The Soloist.Robert with Jake at The Americans For The Arts' National Arts Awards, on 16th October, 2006, New York City.

Happy Birthday, Heath :)

Heath with Jake at 'Brokeback Mountain' Press Conference - Toronto, on 10th September, 2005.
Heath Ledger kissing Michelle Wlliams in "Brokeback Mountain".Heath Ledger kissing Abbie Cornish in "Candy".

Inglorious bastards

Brad Pitt as the Nazi-hunting Lieutenant Aldo Raine.Diane Kruger as the stunning German screen actress Bridget von Hammersmark.From left, Laurent, Christopher Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa, Omar Doom as P.F.C. Omar Ulmer, Daniel Brühl as Frederick Zoller, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth as Sergeant Donny Donowitz, Kruger, and Pitt.

"The spellcheck-defying Inglourious Basterds, premiering this month in Cannes, has been described as Pulp Fiction meets The Dirty Dozen meets The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, set in Nazi-occupied France. Brigitte Lacombe invades the set of the latest from Quentin Tarantino, who provides an exclusive scene from his script for the May issue of Vanity Fair".

Source: www.vanityfair.com

Caleb Followill from "Kings of Leon".

I dig Kings of Leon, but one of the members of the band, Caleb, made a mock commentary about my hot crush Emile Hirsch during an Australian gig, calling him "a little bastard". Here you can listen to the complete interview.

That hurt one corner of my fangirl-pumping heart. Why do these guys insist on acting in such a bratty mode? That's the same when it was rumoured a sort of feud in Sundance between Michael Cera and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, please don't ever make me choose a side when we are dealing with such fine specimens, ok?
Emile Hirsch is a beau gosse and he must provoke gobs of male cattiness. I remember a lame romance movie starring Amanda Peet, and she told Ashton Kutcher how she was climbing in her dating profile having replaced musicians for actors. And he agreed with her, because actors were way better (at least in the looks department) than rockers. That's quite the truth, weirdos. There are some that can play in both fields, as Ryan Adams (who dated Wynona Ryder, Parker Posey, Mandy Moore and other Hollywood hotties), sometimes even "indie" folk rockers as Beck, Paul Westerberg, Jeff Tweedy, etc. have been chased by silver screen dames, but Hollywood movies' scale is bigger and wider than music circuits. If Michael Cera only had a band, would he be so awkwardly desired by so many chicks? Even in a mainstream band, you don't usually reach the exposure of one "en masse" hit as "Juno". And the image attachment, the story that a film contains within is tops when compared to the most vibrating concert of a band executing their record. Well, rant is finished... so I'm going to listen to a couple of songs of Kings of Leon while I browse some piccies of the King of hotness Mr. Hirsch.

extra tidbit:

Emile Hirsch's ex Amanda Seyfried is also a fan of The Kings of Leon.

James Franco and Emile Hirsch. James Franco with guitar.
Jake and his trumpet.

Alexander and Mumblecore projects

"From director Joe Swanberg (NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS, HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS) comes a sexy drama about a married actress, her sister, and their various temptations. A sensual and intimate portrait of a young marriage, the film sheds light on the challenges of monogamy amidst sexual and creative impulses.

“The lo-fi purity of Swanberg’s style is a conduit to something that transcends youth…what looks like a drama of adultery turns out to be an exploration of how the spaces between people can separate them or join them, often at the same moment.” -Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“The story, in its formal symmetries, suggests one of Eric Rohmer’s narratives of advance and retreat in SIX MORAL TALES.” -David Denby, NEW YORKER
“It’s a truly cinematic achievement, gorgeously shot by Swanberg with intriguingly symbolic mise-en-scene.” -Eric Kohn, indieWIRE
Source: www.tft.ucla.edu

"Focus Features announced that shooting has begun on Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, a Los Angeles-based relationship costarring Ben Stiller and a Joe Swanberg mumblecore hyphenate (actress-screenwriter-director) named Greta Gerwig. Gerwig is the second Swanberg blonde to penetrate mainstream Hollywood ranks following Alexander The Last's Jess Weixler.
Baumbach has authored the original screenplay from a story created by Leigh and himself. It's basically about a guy named Roger Greenberg (Stiller) housesitting at his brother's home in Los Angeles, and striking up a relationship with his brother's assistant Florence (Gerwig), who's an aspiring singer. Leigh will costar along with Rhys Ifans, Mark Duplass (another mumblecore guy whose last mumblecore film was Humpday), Brie Larson (United States of Tara), and Juno Temple (Atonement)".
Source: hollywood-elshewhere.com

Real-life characters

"Edie starred in a series of artist Andy Warhol's films (Vinyl, Kitchen, Beauty Part II). Chloe [Sevigny] starred in the film KIDS, directed by Larry Clark and written by former "One to Watch" boy Harmony Korine".
Source: www.blairmag.com

"Factory Girl", about tragic style icon Edie Sedgwick and her relationship with Andy Warhol.

The small-budget independent picture could become an important boost to Sienna's acting career. Those who have seen early rough-cut versions tell me the performances of Sienna and leading man Guy Pearce, as Warhol, are brilliant.

Certainly, playing Edie Sedgwick took its toll. "The more I delved into her, the more I realised she'd had this traumatic life," Sienna, left as Sedgwick, told me, explaining how her childhood was an emotional nightmare.
She was popping Valium at eight, had electric shock treatment at 14, and was sexually abused by her father. "You can see why she went so wild," Sienna noted, alluding to Sedgwick's s society antics in Sixties New York.

The actress, 24, was fascinated by Sedgwick, spending the best part of a year researching her life, and admits she became "totally obsessed" with the model-turned-muse.
"I found it really hard to take my black tights off," she joked, referring to Sedgwick's trademark nylons. But then, more seriously, she added: "Actually, I didn't want to let her go."
Finally, though, Sienna's mother told her to pull herself together. "She said: 'You've got to stop this now.' I took myself off to Mexico on my own for a week and just chilled out, but it was several more weeks before Edie escaped my system. I think there's still a bit of her in me." Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

"In 2007, Emile Hirsch garnered attention for his captivating performance in “Into the Wild”, directed by Sean Penn. Based on the best-selling book by Jon Krakauer and adapted for the screen by Penn, “Into the Wild” starred Hirsch as real-life adventurer Christopher McCandless. The portrayal earned him the National Board of Review award for Breakthrough Performance by an Actor; the Rising Star Award from the Palm Springs International Film Festival; Gotham and Critics’ Choice Award nominations for Best Actor; and two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, in the lead actor category as well as the ensemble category. Hirsch’s additional film credits include two more true-life stories, Nick Cassavetes’ “Alpha Dog” and Catherine Hardwicke’s “Lords of Dogtown". Source: www.moviesonline.ca
“I enjoy playing real-life people. I’ve always had a knack for taking on characteristics or mannerisms. And I was the most spoiled actor on the movie because I was able to spend every day with the real Cleve,” who was on set as a historical consultant. “Cleve would watch me and be like, ‘I don’t do that.’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah, you do, baby.’ People don’t always know how they act.”
Source: nymag.com

"Peter Sarsgaard on Researching His Role: Each of the characters in “Jarhead” is based on a real person, but Sarsgaard said he never did any research on the guy he plays in the film prior to playing the part.Sarsgaard said, “You know, it's the greatest thing that ever happened to us, I've got to say. I mean, going in - I always tell this story - my aunt had my uncle once landscape her property and they didn't speak for a year after that. And I told Jake that before we started. I said, 'You know, if we're not careful, this could be very bad.' Source: movies.about.com
"Jake Gyllenhaal Explains His Decision Not to Meet with the Real Tony Swofford Before Shooting “Jarhead:” “I think I felt like…Sam said to me two weeks into rehearsal, he said, ‘Now it’s time to put down your books and now it’s going to become your own experience. I don’t want you coming up and referencing, you know, the book and what happened here and there. It’s going to be our own process and our own experience.’
I think Bill Broyles wrote the script, and also Tony who wrote [the book], recognizes a sort of artifice in the character. Recognizes that I had to also personally say, ‘This is going to be half me and half him. I’m going to go through his experiences and see how I respond and try and be as honest and as present as I can.’ …If I kept asking Tony, if I called Tony up in the middle of the night and said, ‘How did you feel here? What happened here and what was really going on?,’ I think that one) it would have taken the helm away from Sam as a director. And I think for me it would have taken my personal response of the experience away.”
Source: movies.about.com

Alice in Wondeland motif

"One need only think of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, who guides Alice down the hole and thence into a wider world; in Donnie Darko the rabbit also leads Donnie to a golf course with its own holes. The Alice in Wonderland rabbit motif is basically copied wholesale in the recent film The Matrix, and we can therefore strongly suspect that the same is true in Donnie Darko (whether it is also true in ‘Harvey’ is more tenuous!).

The journey into knowledge parallels the theme of death and rebirth, and the links to Christian practice is clear: physical death and rebirth are linked with spiritual rebirth (this is why converted Christians are often called ‘twice-born’). The first thing that the rabbit says to Donnie is ‘wake up’, linking it to spiritual awakening. By the way, the rabbit also appears in the form of a car (a Volkswagen Rabbit) to guide Gretchen".
Source: corycia.net

Edie Sedgwick in "Ciao Manhatan" (1972).

“I do love Alice in Wonderland though. That’s something I think I could do very well. Don’t you think we ought to do an A.W.? A.W.’s Alice in Wonderland? Andy Warhol’s Alice in Wonderland? A.W. stands for a lot of things, I understand. It, uh, it would make a fantastic film. So I wanted somebody to write the script for it, in a modern sense. Think it would be the most marvelous movie in the world. If it could be done. Don’t you think? Really I don’t think they’ve done one since they did a Walt Disney one- which isn’t really doing it. In a sense it is, but not in the way it really should be done. What’s needed right now is a real scene. I mean not just cartoon characters but the actual character of people because there’s so many fantastic people that you might as well use the people.”
– Edie Sedgwick, 1965, "Edie: Girl on Fire".