(0:32) Gaby Hoffmann drops her towel after taking a shower in a room full of guys. We see full frontal breasts and bush as well as buns. The scene goes on for about 2-3 minutes and Michael Cera cannot resist calling her "Crystal Hairy."
Alex Suskind @ClassicSource
Crystal Fairy, a drugged out South American adventure full of magic, mysticism and sex. I enjoyed it #sundance
David Poland @DavidPoland
“Crystal Fairy” is lovely Chilean mumblecore with a remarkable turn by Gabby Hoffman. IFC here it comes.
Lisa Schwarzbaum @lisaschwarzbaum
Starring w/ Michael Cera in the Chilean stoner charmer Crystal Fairy, blithely nekkid Gaby Hoffmann lets her freak flag fly. #Sundance2013
Examiner
Jamie makes fun of a girl named Crystal Fairy(Gaby Hoffman), a wild-haired, uni-browed free spirit accurately described as a "lonely tornado". After she showers and returns to the room naked, in a rather awkward and unsexy scene, he renames her Crystal Hairy because of excess tufts of hair pretty much everywhere.
Indiewire
Soon, he's admonishing her for running around naked in their shared hotel room and recoiling at her hairy armpits. Hoffman's admirably passionate delivery goes great lengths to provide Jamie with his ultimate foil. Frequently baring all and never quieting down, her tendency to get a rise out of Jamie provides fodder for an enjoyable mismatch that never fully develops.
Joblo
Indeed, the whole first half of CRYSTAL FAIRY borders of being uncontrollably hilarious- especially once the titular character is introduced. I remember Gaby Hoffmann from the run of movies she did as a child star in the nineties, so it was a shock to the system to see her as the free-spirited Crystal, who frequently walks around completely naked- au natural (meaning, unshaved in all regards- yikes). She's very funny in a part that could have been insufferable, and her anti-chemistry with Cera is pitch-perfect.
NYPost
After taking a shower, she hangs out with the boys naked, in one of Sundance’s trademark unsexy nude scenes, and given the tufts under her arms that resemble a Civil War general’s beard, Jamie rechristens her Crystal Hairy.
LA-Times
Michael Cera goes to Chile with a naked hippie. The titular Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann), an over-the-top hippie as socially inept as Jamie (well, almost). Crystal is seeking her own kind of spiritual enlightenment, and has as much of an aversion to razors as she does clothing. But give Cera points for trying--it's not every American actor who'll hug a cactus on a Chilean beach with a naked hippie.
Hitfix
She’s the kind of girl who is willing to walk around naked in front of a room full of people she just met because she doesn’t have any hang-ups, while Jamie is the kind of person who has no idea where to look when she does that, immediately ready to crawl out of his own skin.
Hollywood Reporter
Interest and focus thus shift over to Crystal, who quite spontaneously gets naked, ill-advisedly wanders around the desert and tries to climb rocks. That night, sitting around a bonfire after the drug’s effects have mostly worn off, she lets loose with a painful personal revelation that serves to awaken a compassionate streak in Jamie he may never have known he had.
Gaby Hoffmann, former ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ child star, resurfaces at Sundance Film Festival
Gaby Hoffmann, who as a child actor starred in several films, including "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Uncle Buck," showed up at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday to support her new film, "Crystal Fairy."
In the largely improvised comedy, Hoffman plays the eponymous fairy, a hippie who joins Cera's character on a trip to find the infamous San Pedro cactus, which produces mescaline.
"Hoffmann’s Crystal is a distinctive creation, a seeker who might not be that bright either but whose dedication to the search cannot be questioned," the Hollywood Reporter says about the film. "It’s a self-effacing, pretty out-there performance."
On the red carpet, the 31-year-old New Yorker cut an elegant figure in a black blouse, jeans, and a tweed jacket as she posed for photos with her Canadian co-star.
Though she had her on-screen start in 1989 opposite Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams," Hoffman reportedly began taking her career seriously only after receiving praise for her role three years later as the daughter of a stand-up comic in the dramedy "This Is My Life."
In 1994, she got her own short-lived sitcom, "Someone Like Me," which was loosely based on her own life as a resident of the Chelsea Hotel. (She is the daughter of actress Viva Hoffmann, who appeared in Andy Warhol's movies in the 1960s.) The series, however, was cancelled soon after it started.
As a teen star, Hoffmann went on to appear in other films, including "Now and Then" (1995), "All I Wanna Do" (1998), "200 Cigarettes" (1999), and "You Can Count on Me" (2000), but then took time off to complete a degree in literature at New York's Bard College, which she finished in 2003.
After graduation, she pursued a career on the New York stage and began making her way back to the screen a few years later. In 2009, Hoffman appeared in Todd Solondz's indie comedy "Life During Wartime" and took small guest roles in big series like "Private Practice," "The Good Wife," "Homeland," and, most recently, an episode of "Louie" last year.
"I've only really just decided to wholeheartedly embrace acting," Hoffmann told Hollywood and Fine in August 2012, adding, "I’m taking the work I can get. I shot a couple of other independent films. We’ll see if they surface."
Looks like they have! Congratulations, Gaby -- it's nice to have you back.
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This is a nice surprise. Gorgeous 28-years old Natalie Martinez likely did her first nude scene in Broken City (2013). The movie is rated R with 'some sexual content' so the nude scene must been very brief. Could also be blurry as it's seen on a theater screen. Please be warned there is also a possibility of a body double. Natalie is after all a Cuban and the community is very conservative when it comes to sex. But times are changing and the new generation are far more open-minded.Twitchfilm
Despite Taggert's inability to maintain a steady stream of income, he lives in a very decent apartment with his girlfriend Natalie (Natalie Martinez), an actress whose first starring role in an indie film is about to have its premiere. And there are very few hints given that Taggert and Natalie are having any trouble in their relationship until Taggert blows up at the premiere of her movie, when he decides she's enjoying her naked, on-screen sex scene a little too much for his taste.
SFGate
The real pleasures of "Broken City" can be found in the tangential elements: The detective (Wahlberg) goes to a movie premiere with his girlfriend (Natalie Martinez) to see the independent film she has starred in - and discovers that the artistic, mildly suggestive sex scene she described to him turns out to be nude, lewd and low down. Wahlberg is good at rage and mortification, and this movie gives him the chance to show it.
Parentpreviews
Sexual Content:
- Breast nudity seen in a sexual content.
Boston Herald
In one of the film’s less credible subplots, Billy, who has been on the wagon for seven years, lives with young Hispanic beauty Natalie (Natalie Martinez of TV’s CSI: NY”). Natalie is an aspiring screen actress with an independent film opening. We are asked to believe that Natalie would take her tough-guy boyfriend Billy to her new movie’s premiere without telling him she has a torrid, nude sex scene with her leading man in the film. Surprise, honey.
AP
At the center of these dizzying double crosses is Wahlberg as Billy Taggart, a former New York police detective who got kicked off the force after a questionable shooting. Seven years later, Billy is barely getting by as a private eye in Brooklyn. He is, however, sober these days and enjoying life with his gorgeous actress-girlfriend (Natalie Martinez) who's just starred in her first film. (Clips of the movie, which we see at the premiere, have the glossy, stilted look of a commercial for erectile dysfunction medication, just one of many elements of director Allen Hughes' film that feel distractingly unconvincing.)
Indiewire
For instance, there's a lengthy, emotionally tortured subplot involving Wahlberg's resistance to his girlfriend's movie because it features an explicit sex scene between her and a costar.
Slantmagazine
In a revealing and inadvertently hilarious scene midway through Broken City, director Allen Hughes and screenwriter Brian Tucker offer up their dismissive view of the American independent film. When police detective turned private investigator Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) attends the premiere of his actress girlfriend's big-screen debut, he's faced with a movie that alternates between beach-set scenes filled with inanely affected dialogue and shot like a Lifetime movie of the week and sequences of rather graphic sex, titillation under the guise of art. Predictably, a delighted cast member enthuses about the movie's Sundance prospects.
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* The ultimate cock-teaser in showbiz. Goddamnit Jenn!
Jennifer Love Hewitt shooting 'Client List' scenes in the nude, report say
Published January 17, 2013 | FoxNews.com
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| Jennifer Love Hewitt is upping the sexy ante on her Lifetime show "The Client List." |
The actress is taping some scenes for Season 2 in the buff, and the network is then going back to blur out the naughty parts, the National Enquirer reports.
Love Hewitt, 33, is reportedly working out four days a week to get her body nude-scene ready.
This is not the first time the actress' assets have taken center stage on the show. While promoting the first season of "The Client List," it was found that some magazines that ran print ads for the show had reduced the size of Love Hewitt's breasts.
Love-Hewitt herself pointed out the discrepancy between an ad in Entertainment Weekly (smaller) and the same exact ad that ran in The Hollywood Reporter (bigger).
“Somebody sent me a copy of the photograph, and I was like, ‘Um, what happened?” she said on a radio show. “I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but apparently somebody wanted me to have a boob reduction. The thing that’s even crazier is that usually when they do that stuff, I had to see the photograph before they went out anywhere, and I never saw a new version of it.”
The actress has long touted her ample curves as an asset for her career.
"It's horrible to say, but I like my boobs. They've always served me well. They're good," she told Maxim magazine.
In the show Love-Hewitt plays a single mom who turns to prostitution to make ends meet.
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Meet The Artists: Stacie Passon on "Concussion" Sundance Film Festival 2013
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Howard Stern grills Lena Dunham: will Allison Williams get naked on 'Girls'?
Howard Stern is now in full support of Lena Dunham and her nudity on "Girls," but he'd like to know when why her hot co-star Allison Williams has yet to strip down.
Williams plays the sexually repressed character Marnie on the critically acclaimed (and now Golden Globe winning) HBO comedy series. She is also the daughter of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. Howard Stern says he suspects that the well-respected news anchor has had a hand in his daughter keeping covered up on camera.
Stern grilled Dunham on Wednesday's satellite radio broadcast for details on whether Williams will ever strip down for "Girls".
"My character is the one sort of having the most sort of sexual pratfalls, if you will," said Dunham. "But also it runs really counter to my nature--I think people who want to be nude should be nude. I don’t want to be like a 57-year-old creepy man producer and pressure anyone into it...[Williams] plays a character who’s super closed to her own sexuality, so she’s not really playing somebody who’s supposed to be running through the streets with no bra on. We’re all doing our jobs...You never know what the future of the show will hold, but Allison is—I would say she is less excited about wielding those parts of herself than I am, but you know, she’s really open to the sexual content of the show.”Stern says he suspects that Brian Williams would step in and protest if Dunham ever asked his daughter to go nude.
"Don’t you think Brian Williams her dad is going to be like: ‘Listen honey, I’m the anchorman. I’m with NBC I’ve got a heavy job here. No way you’re showing your boobs on camera’?” asked Stern.Dunham called in to the Howard Stern show on the heels of her big win at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards where girls was named "Best TV Comedy". Dunham and Stern became the subjects of a media frenzy last week when Stern panned the show and called Dunham a "camera hog" and a "little fat chick who looks like Jonah Hill". Stern reversed his opinion the next day after watching several more episodes and now refers to himself as a "super fan".
“I haven’t delved into the intricacies of their relationship. I have a dad who paints large pictures of penises. So that’s my experience.”
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Sundance Film Festival's 13 must-see movies
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| ‘The Way, Way Back,’ starring Liam James, Amanda Peet, Toni Collette, Rob Corddry and Steve Carell. |
If there’s one word that unites many of the movies making their debuts at the Sundance Film Festival this year, that’s probably the best: Hilariously, beautifully, tragically awkward.
Imagine you’re a teenage kid in the merciless grip of puberty and your “new dad” turns to you one day and — by way of trying to help you manage your expectations with girls — informed you that, sorry … you’re kind of ugly.
Awkward.
Or picture a 30-something, book-loving lonelyheart who ventures to a British resort where people are hired to reenact Jane Austen’s novels, and all you really, really, really want is to convince one of the Mr. Darcys to have sex with you.
Awkward.
And frankly, “awkward” doesn’t quite cover it for the movie about two moms who are longtime friends … and who each start having an affair with the other one’s son.
These are four of the 119 feature films a the festival, which starts today and runs through Jan. 27.
It’s hard to tell from the outset which movies might break through to become the next Beasts of the Southern Wild, but here are 13 worth a look:
• The Way, Way Back
• Austenland
• Breathe In
• Blue Caprice
• The Spectacular Now
• Upstream Color
• Before Midnight
• Lovelace
• Prince Avalanche
• Don Jon’s Addiction
• In a World …
• Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes
• Two Mothers
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Sundance 2013: Juno Temple holds on by a thread in 'Magic Magic'
In Magic Magic, Juno Temple and Emily Browning play best friends whose rendezvous in the Chilean countryside with some boys takes a turn for the worse when Temple’s Alicia is plagued by insomnia. Chilean writer-director Sebastián Silva has teased that it’s a disturbing psychological thriller that is meant to confuse the audience, so it’s a perfect movie for the Park City at Midnight slate at the Sundance Film, Festival, which begins today.
For Temple, who has three films at this year’s festival, playing unbalanced, unpredictable women is becoming something of a hobby. Her father, Julien, is an accomplished director who filmed the Sex Pistols, and some of that wild punk DNA seemingly was passed on to Juno. She got her first big role in Notes on a Scandal, playing Cate Blanchett’s rebellious daughter, and she’s never flinched from the unflinching, starring in films like last year’s NC-17 rated Killer Joe, opposite Matthew McConaughey. Her choices are bold and she never seems to take the same role twice. Magic Magic promises to keep both of those trends going.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You co-star with Michael Cera in Magic Magic, but it doesn’t seem like the sequel to Year One I was expecting.
JUNO TEMPLE: No, we actually had a lot of fun with that. We were like, “Ummmm, no, definitely not a sequel to Year One.”
So what’s it about?
My character visits her best friend, who is dating a Chilean boy, and the Chilean boy has a friend who’s a diplomat’s son, who’s living in Chile and speaks Spanish. My character comes in from the outside of the group and she feels kind of threatened by it from the get go, but she’s got her best friend there, so… Ultimately what happens is they end up going to this house in the countryside in Chile and my character unravels. She’s struggling a little mentally. And what I find so exciting about the movie itself is that sometimes you’re very frustrated by my character and just want her to shut up and get on with it, and sometimes you really hate the other characters around her who are doing the things that are absolutely destroying her. So it’s cool because it keeps toying with that. It’s upsetting because you can’t just leave the theater afterwards and walk away and be like, “Anyone hungry? You wanna go get some grub?” It’s definitely a movie that makes you think after you’ve watched and you feel so shaken. But I like that. It’s definitely not a romantic comedy.
Was it upsetting to live in the skin of this character as she starts to melt down?
At some moments, yeah. Definitely. But Sebastián [Silva] the director was incredibly gentle and patient with me, and I guess I was thankful that I wasn’t really going through that in my real life. Plus I had such an amazing group of people around me. We all lived in a beautiful house in southern Chile together so it wasn’t like at the end of the day, you went to your hotel room and sat down on your own. At the end of the day, you went and had dinner with everybody. There was an amazing sense of community, an amazing sense of support.
You seem to be drawn toward rebellious, extreme, somewhat fringe characters. When you see something like that on the written page, is that part of the allure for you or do you fear certain scenes?
I definitely fear a bunch of the scenes that the characters I’ve played have to go through. But I want to be challenged. I want to keep my heart pumping and my blood rushing. That’s definitively part of it. I also think that every character I’ve played so far, I’ve really wanted to play her. I want to be a chameleon, and you know pretty instantly if you want to play a person or if you don’t. And who I’m going to be working with, the director especially — it’s a key, key, key reason to take a role for me.
One of the your other Sundance characters is a stripper-turned-nanny in Afternoon Delight. I’m guessing you really wanted to play her.
I read it and I thought it was brilliant because the thing’s that so genius about Afternoon Delight is you would expect my character to be the one who’s really really f–ked up, and she’s not. It’s the [other] people. It was such a brilliantly written script because it’s funny, but it’s about pretty serious subject matter. It’s about relationships, it’s about communications, and it’s about women when they’re going through different moments in their life, what they want, what they feel, how they look at the world.
Was the character on the page enough, or did you also do some homework for this role?
I met with an amazing, amazing woman who shared her experiences with me and I listened to her a lot for that character. Obviously, there is so much tragedy in that line of work. If you’re forced into it I can’t imagine the sadness. But my character enjoys what she’s doing. So that was an interesting thing to talk about and get into the mind space of. Because there are so many cons to that business, but there can also be some pros: if you enjoy it, you enjoy it for so many reasons.
You mentioned the importance of trust in the director. This was Jill Soloway’s first movie.
I had such a lovely time working with her. She is born to be a director. She gave such amazing direction, and the script is so honest. There was so much of her in the script that I think there were moments where she was so taken by what was happening in front of her. I really enjoyed working with her and would do it again in a heartbeat.
Do you play a similarly off-kilter character in Lovelace, the movie about Deep Throat porn star Linda Lovelace?
I play Linda’s best friend, Patsy. They lose touch for a little while and then I end up coming back into her life, to see if she’s okay. It was an exciting thing for me to be in a film like this but actually not be the one who’s taking her clothes off and not be the one who’s the temptress or the victim. Because I haven’t really played a lot of roles like that. I play such a normal girl and I was really excited by that. I actually didn’t really know the ins and outs of the story of Linda Lovelace. It’s such a heartbreaking tragic one, it really is.
So no lingerie for you. I’d read you wanted to design your own lingerie one day.
It’s an obsession.
Did you find a way to incorporate such fashion into your characters?
Lingerie? I play a stripper [in Afternoon Delight], man. Oh, yeah. There’s lot of me in lingerie in that movie.
You’re still in the early stages of a promising career. Are there any actresses you especially admire whose resumes you’d like to emulate?
Michelle Williams is someone that I’m amazed by right now — her honesty as an actress. Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet. And I’ve been a big Marilyn Monroe fan since I was a tiny, tiny, tiny girl. My bedroom wall at my parents home is still covered with posters of her.
You can’t do much better than Some Like it Hot. Are there others that you love?
Seven Year Itch is such a great one. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is such a great one. Misfits. She just can kind of do no wrong in my eyes. Her incredibly ability to be so vulnerable yet so sexual, she was the queen of that.
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director: giorgio z gatti
model: nicole trunfio
model: nicole trunfio
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This is not sexual flesh, designed to titillate. It's matter-of-fact, the kind of shape and size you wouldn't be surprised to see in your mirror
Series two of HBO’s Girls has just started airing across the pond, and with it comes a return of the palaver surrounding Lena Dunham’s oft-disrobed body. American shock-jockey Howard Stern this week caused controversy by declaring that being subjected to Dunham in the altogether “kind of feels like rape” (yes, Howie, that is exactly what rape is like – something you can flip off with a switch), and the New York Post was only slightly less offensive, referring scathingly to her on-screen nudity as “pathological exhibitionism”. For all the howls of enraged anguish, you’d think that the girl had literally barged into everyone’s kitchens whilst they were having breakfast and whacked her baps out all over the table.
But no: the only thing that Dunham is ‘guilty’ of is not having the type of body we’re used to seeing on television sets and in the media. This isn’t the picture-perfect, unrealistically-proportioned body that’s been airbrushed to within an inch of its life. It’s a body that you wouldn’t be particularly surprised to see in your mirror, or inhabiting the outfits of friends - and which is all the more remarkable for its being unremarkable.
For all the championing of “healthy body image” and so-called “real women” that women’s mags often cynically pretend to employ (whilst simultaneously ripping celebrities to shreds for having the merest hint of cellulite), the range of what variety of female body is deemed attractive is still as narrow as the women defined within it. This week, for example, Grazia is running a “Happy Body” issue, featuring a covershoot with Daisy Lowe. Lowe is described variously as “curvy”, “not skinny” and having “thunder thighs”, and is thus deemed suitable as the face of the campaign. And yet the next paragraph tells you that she is a tiny size eight - size eight, yet still regarded as being larger than what’s deemed usual or acceptable for female celebrities. And this is a campaign that is ostensibly claiming to challenge negative body image.
So there’s something progressive – almost revolutionary, in fact - about the approach to nudity in Girls. Rather than being sexualised flesh, designed to titillate, this is matter-of-fact flesh; uninhibited flesh that owns its own sexuality, and reminds us that there can be other reasons for nudity other than satisfying the male gaze. Dunham is as likely to be seen naked on screen eating cake as she is to be seen naked within a sex scene. More refreshing still is her refusal to apologise for not having the so-called “perfect shape”. “My response is, get used to it because I am going to live to be 100, and I am going to show my thighs every day till I die”, is her unapologetic reply to critics. APPLAUSE.
“Seeing the flab and the flaps and the veins and the cellulite and all those other little so-called 'flaws' that make a body a human body can be quite a shock when you're used to the plasticised vision of femininity that we're constantly bombarded with by magazines and advertising,” says Rhiannon Cosslet, editor of popular feminist blog Vagenda, “When you see another woman's body in real life, you suddenly think 'oh, I'm normal.' It's not just comforting, but a bit empowering too. You realise that it is, after all, just a body, and that we all have them.”
Personally, I like to take every opportunity to get my boobs out; they are a constant source of amusement to me. There is nothing that I ever don’t find hysterical about the fact that there are fleshy meat-sacks hanging off the front of me, billowing and dangling away down there. We have to live in our skin, every day, and my feeling is that we might as well get used to it. But that matter-of-factness is something that I’ve had to work on: attempting to feel free in my own skin, after a lifetime of being told that I shouldn’t be. I’m getting there.
The naked human body is a wonderful thing. It can be many things at once, some of which at first glance might seem contradictory. It can be grotesque and yet compelling; powerful and yet fragile; sexual and yet hilarious. And yet almost invariably, the version of it that we see in the media is a doctored, diminished one, stripped of all variety and charm. I think it’s high time we saw more unapologetic flesh, of every shape and size, represented on our screens.
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Playing With a New Deck
House of Cards is Netflix's first original series. But the real difference is that David Fincher and a team of five directors are calling the shots.
By Robert Abele
PLAYING POLITICS: David Fincher (center) with Corey Stoll, directed two episodes of Netflix's House of Cards including the pilot. (Photo: Patrick Harbron for Netflix)
Director David Fincher doesnt mince words when he describes the changing nature of audience behavior regarding small screen episodic storytelling, or, as it has mostly been known, TV-viewing. "The world of 7:30 on Tuesday nights, thats dead," Fincher said during an interview at his offices in Hollywood. "A stake has been driven through its heart, its head has been cut off, and its mouth has been stuffed with garlic. The captive audience is gone. If you give people this opportunity to mainline all in one day, theres reason to believe they will do it."
"This" is House of Cards, an original 13-part series that not only marks the first foray for the DGA Award-nominated director of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network into [something like] television, its Netflix's debut as a creator of scripted programming. And by "mainline," Fincher is referring to the fact that if viewers want the binge-watching experience, they'll have that option when Netflix makes the entire House of Cards first season instantly available on its website in February. "It was an option from the beginning," says Fincher. "Eventually [Netflix] came to say, 'Were looking at the data of how we screen stuff, and we believe the world is prepared for this idea that you can have it all [at once].'”
"This" is House of Cards, an original 13-part series that not only marks the first foray for the DGA Award-nominated director of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network into [something like] television, its Netflix's debut as a creator of scripted programming. And by "mainline," Fincher is referring to the fact that if viewers want the binge-watching experience, they'll have that option when Netflix makes the entire House of Cards first season instantly available on its website in February. "It was an option from the beginning," says Fincher. "Eventually [Netflix] came to say, 'Were looking at the data of how we screen stuff, and we believe the world is prepared for this idea that you can have it all [at once].'”
Alan Coulter (center) reviews a shot with series star Kevin Spacey and DP Tim Ives.
What viewers will also get is a series uncommon as a creative enterprise, in that it marries the production efficiency of multiple-episode television with the directorial control typically associated with moviemaking. Working off a two-season, 26-episode commitment from Netflix, Fincher looked to implement a creative process that was liberating for directors. After directing the first two episodes himself, he handed the reins to a succession of five established talentsJames Foley (At Close Range, Glengarry Glen Ross), Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth, A Time to Kill), Charles McDougall (Desperate Housewives, The Office), Carl Franklin (One False Move, Devil in a Blue Dress) and Allen Coulter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire) and told them they could steer their assigned episodes as they saw fit. Directors were able to cast their own day players and people who were introduced in their episodes. As executive producer, Fincher would be there as a sounding board. But unlike most television programs, which are set up to give writers, producers and executives final word, House of Cards was going to be a director-centric playground, filming on several massive sets in a 150,000-square-foot Baltimore warehouse, I felt like we were telling 13 stories that are all part of one big story, and I was handing off movements to people whose work I admire, says Fincher.
An American reworking of the 1990 British miniseries of the same name about power plays in Parliament, it stars Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood, a deviously intelligent House of Representatives Majority Whip who will do anything to secure his own political standing, but also punish anyone who stunts his rise. A mixture of backdoor deals, underhanded arrangements and upfront nastiness, House of Cards aims to bend the political drama idealism of The West Wing over its lap and spank it.
For McDougall, whose television experience is extensive, House of Cards was a welcome shake-up. "It didnt have the culture of broadcast TV or even cable networks, it didnt have that involvement through the whole process," says McDougall, who directed episodes seven and eight. "There were no script notes, no involvement on set, and no notes during edits, which made it unique. Its a great privilege to be working on material you know to be good, and to try to do it in a way you feel it should be done. David was forthright about that from the beginning.”
Its uncertain whether any of the pay-cable channels Fincher and his producing partners Joshua Donen and Eric Roth initially went to would have been able to abide Finchers vision of unimpeded directorial authority. But when Netflix said yes, the understanding was that the directors would be left alone. "Netflix has been incredibly respectful," says Fincher. "They've actively looked for ways to put themselves in business with people [with whom] they could say, 'Go make the thing we just talked about.' Its how the movie business was described to me in the early 70s at Warner Bros. If you could come in and tell your story, and a reasonable number [to make] it, youd go do it."
Fincher professes to have entered the world of episodic storytelling with no knowledge of how television operates, only a desire to treat directors the way hed want to be treated as a guest on a series. "I'm way too much of a director advocate," he says. "This isn't TV, because we dont have the studio, we dont have standards and practices, we dont have people breathing down your neck saying, 'Remember, kids love bright colors!' We dont have people militating against collective disinterest. I wanted to create an environment where you go in, point at the left field wall and swing as hard as you can."
An American reworking of the 1990 British miniseries of the same name about power plays in Parliament, it stars Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood, a deviously intelligent House of Representatives Majority Whip who will do anything to secure his own political standing, but also punish anyone who stunts his rise. A mixture of backdoor deals, underhanded arrangements and upfront nastiness, House of Cards aims to bend the political drama idealism of The West Wing over its lap and spank it.
For McDougall, whose television experience is extensive, House of Cards was a welcome shake-up. "It didnt have the culture of broadcast TV or even cable networks, it didnt have that involvement through the whole process," says McDougall, who directed episodes seven and eight. "There were no script notes, no involvement on set, and no notes during edits, which made it unique. Its a great privilege to be working on material you know to be good, and to try to do it in a way you feel it should be done. David was forthright about that from the beginning.”
Its uncertain whether any of the pay-cable channels Fincher and his producing partners Joshua Donen and Eric Roth initially went to would have been able to abide Finchers vision of unimpeded directorial authority. But when Netflix said yes, the understanding was that the directors would be left alone. "Netflix has been incredibly respectful," says Fincher. "They've actively looked for ways to put themselves in business with people [with whom] they could say, 'Go make the thing we just talked about.' Its how the movie business was described to me in the early 70s at Warner Bros. If you could come in and tell your story, and a reasonable number [to make] it, youd go do it."
Fincher professes to have entered the world of episodic storytelling with no knowledge of how television operates, only a desire to treat directors the way hed want to be treated as a guest on a series. "I'm way too much of a director advocate," he says. "This isn't TV, because we dont have the studio, we dont have standards and practices, we dont have people breathing down your neck saying, 'Remember, kids love bright colors!' We dont have people militating against collective disinterest. I wanted to create an environment where you go in, point at the left field wall and swing as hard as you can."
Directors were each handed two sequential episodes with 20 days to shoot them. Foley, who was assigned the third and fourth installments, was also given the ninth episode (since the run called for 13 episodes). Block shooting was also employed, which made one of the more important jobs for each director to keep actors and crew aware of the order of events. "It almost felt like shooting an independent feature," says Carl Franklin, who tackled episodes 10 and 11. "With a 20-day shoot, you got a chance to develop a rhythm and get some momentum going, as opposed to starting and stopping and starting again. It gives the actors a chance to get familiar with you."
STATE BUSINESS: Charles McDougall (holding pages), working with Michael Gill, predicts House of Cards will be the first of many made-for-Internet series. (Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix)
Each director got to see Fincher's first two episodes as a sort of orientation process, as well as read every script leading up to their own episodes, so it was clear where their stories fit into the overall scheme. Explains Joel Schumacher of his episodes, five and six: "The first four plant a few seeds, but by five and six, shit is hitting the fan. I got some juicy stuff." McDougall says one of his episodes was unusual in that it took place away from Washington and explored a new side of the lead characters typically tightly controlled demeanor. Carl Franklin lets on that he directed some of the seasons most emotionally explosive, crescendoing moments, while his handoff in the relay to Coulter brought the series to a close with reactive episodes that "set the table for the next season."
A team was put in place to help ensure continuity as each director hopped on the moving train of a March-to-November shoot. 1st ADs H.H. Cooper and Frank Ferro alternated each two-episode stint, while DP Eigil Bryld was on board for nearly the entire run, except for the final two episodes, which featured DP Tim Ives. Coulter, who Fincher knew from their days shooting commercials, says working on House of Cards was far from the "day player" vibe many shows give off toward guest directors. "On shows where I have a long relationship, like Boardwalk Empire, I do feel creative respect, but as most television directors will attest, that is not often the case," says Coulter. "Sometimes one feels its almost a favor you're being given by the writers and producer, who in many cases can't wait for you to get out of the room so they can do whatever they do. This was unusual in that from the beginning David said directors would have final cut. He'd have his comments, but we'd be able to address those comments."
Fincher acknowledges that he would suggest trims to the directors when he was confused by something but, adds, "I'm always happy to write on my emails, 'This is from me to you, do what you want with this, and know always that I know how to go fuck myself.'"
As for self-imposed parameters in kicking off the series, Fincher describes shooting his own episodes as a study in scaling back his usual movie preparation approach, but not foregoing working methods he knows are well-remarked upon within the industry. "A lot of people had a smile in the corner of their mouths when they said to me, 'Dave, if you think you're going to get 20 takes, you're just not going to make your day.' But I think I averaged somewhere around 35 setups and 14 takes per setup. It's about how you manage your time. Obviously, shooting digitally helps, [House of Cards was shot using the RED camera] because I never had to cut. I could say, 'Go back out and come in again,' and its amazing the pace you get. It's a Frank Capra trick from way back. Because he could only print so many takes, he used to say, 'Keep it rolling, go out and come in.' What he found was people were more energized, and it gave this effervescence, and I ended up having to do that. But I had three more days [per episode] than the other directors in order to set the tone."
The tone Fincher was after stemmed from a belief that the camera should take a backseat to the performers, which include Robin Wright as Spacey's Lady Macbeth-like wife, Kate Mara as a young, ambitious journalist, and Corey Stoll as a vice-loving congressman. One of the few things Fincher spoke to each director about before they began work was to be respectful of the main actors who were doing the heavy lifting. Another was that handheld shooting and Steadicam usage was frowned upon, which for anyone familiar with Finchers work; rich in elegant, symmetrical compositions and spare, gliding camerawork; shouldn't have come as a surprise.
"I remember David saying something like, he would only move the camera if there was a damn good reason to," recalls Foley. "So I found myself with a self-imposed discipline to work within because I felt it should be stylistically consistent."
Schumacher, who has been friends with Fincher for over 25 years, says, "This is very classical, where framing is important. It allows actors to fill the space and play out the scene without cutting a lot. It's the way movies used to be shot. There's plenty of space to dolly and do the voodoo we do, but without handheld or Steadicam, which are sometimes used in lazy filmmaking. We really tried to shoot it like a film."
One visual model bandied about between Fincher and the guest directors was another film about dirty poltics. "[David] shot the newspaper office [in House of Cards] very similarly to how it was shot in All the Presidents Men," says McDougall. "In terms of the low angles, the wide lenses, the lighting style, it's from that era of American filmmaking when such great films were made. Its a very stripped-down [approach] toward design, lighting and performance."
A team was put in place to help ensure continuity as each director hopped on the moving train of a March-to-November shoot. 1st ADs H.H. Cooper and Frank Ferro alternated each two-episode stint, while DP Eigil Bryld was on board for nearly the entire run, except for the final two episodes, which featured DP Tim Ives. Coulter, who Fincher knew from their days shooting commercials, says working on House of Cards was far from the "day player" vibe many shows give off toward guest directors. "On shows where I have a long relationship, like Boardwalk Empire, I do feel creative respect, but as most television directors will attest, that is not often the case," says Coulter. "Sometimes one feels its almost a favor you're being given by the writers and producer, who in many cases can't wait for you to get out of the room so they can do whatever they do. This was unusual in that from the beginning David said directors would have final cut. He'd have his comments, but we'd be able to address those comments."
Fincher acknowledges that he would suggest trims to the directors when he was confused by something but, adds, "I'm always happy to write on my emails, 'This is from me to you, do what you want with this, and know always that I know how to go fuck myself.'"
As for self-imposed parameters in kicking off the series, Fincher describes shooting his own episodes as a study in scaling back his usual movie preparation approach, but not foregoing working methods he knows are well-remarked upon within the industry. "A lot of people had a smile in the corner of their mouths when they said to me, 'Dave, if you think you're going to get 20 takes, you're just not going to make your day.' But I think I averaged somewhere around 35 setups and 14 takes per setup. It's about how you manage your time. Obviously, shooting digitally helps, [House of Cards was shot using the RED camera] because I never had to cut. I could say, 'Go back out and come in again,' and its amazing the pace you get. It's a Frank Capra trick from way back. Because he could only print so many takes, he used to say, 'Keep it rolling, go out and come in.' What he found was people were more energized, and it gave this effervescence, and I ended up having to do that. But I had three more days [per episode] than the other directors in order to set the tone."
The tone Fincher was after stemmed from a belief that the camera should take a backseat to the performers, which include Robin Wright as Spacey's Lady Macbeth-like wife, Kate Mara as a young, ambitious journalist, and Corey Stoll as a vice-loving congressman. One of the few things Fincher spoke to each director about before they began work was to be respectful of the main actors who were doing the heavy lifting. Another was that handheld shooting and Steadicam usage was frowned upon, which for anyone familiar with Finchers work; rich in elegant, symmetrical compositions and spare, gliding camerawork; shouldn't have come as a surprise.
"I remember David saying something like, he would only move the camera if there was a damn good reason to," recalls Foley. "So I found myself with a self-imposed discipline to work within because I felt it should be stylistically consistent."
Schumacher, who has been friends with Fincher for over 25 years, says, "This is very classical, where framing is important. It allows actors to fill the space and play out the scene without cutting a lot. It's the way movies used to be shot. There's plenty of space to dolly and do the voodoo we do, but without handheld or Steadicam, which are sometimes used in lazy filmmaking. We really tried to shoot it like a film."
One visual model bandied about between Fincher and the guest directors was another film about dirty poltics. "[David] shot the newspaper office [in House of Cards] very similarly to how it was shot in All the Presidents Men," says McDougall. "In terms of the low angles, the wide lenses, the lighting style, it's from that era of American filmmaking when such great films were made. Its a very stripped-down [approach] toward design, lighting and performance."
Carl Franklin (left) with Michael Kelly, says directing House of Cards with a 20-day shoot was like making an independent feature. (Photo: Patrick Harbron/Netflix)
Fincher also made sure to remind his fellow directors that they could be minimal in their coverage. A shot of somebody reading a business card, for example, was about believing the actors face, not having to see an insert of the card. Such guidance gave Carl Franklin the freedom to avoid the emphasis on close-ups that network television requires, and be more subtle with choreography, allowing scenes to play out in carefully orchestrated master shots. "A lot of times television is master shot then bang, bang, bang, just heads. So I was happy to hear that they were not interested in that," Franklin says. "That really allows for you to design interesting shots, shots that have a lot of information communicated in different ways. It's trusting the pacing within the scene and not feeling that you have to manipulate it later with a lot of cuts."
Coulter, long a fan of assembling an episode in his head before filming, recalls his House of Cards editor telling him he'd "white-knuckled it" with footage. Says Coulter, "I asked him, 'Was there too little?' And he said, 'No, but there was just enough. There will be nothing lying on the cutting room floor when were done.' I'm not a big promoter of shooting a bunch of footage and leaving it on the doorstep of the producer. I'm far more interested in shooting those pieces that I need to tell the story."
What was most interesting for Fincher as an executive producer was his access to other directors dailies. It was an eye-opening experience in how other filmmakers operate. "There were times I'd say, 'That's so interesting. That doesnt seem like where the drama is,' and then you watch a scene get honed and cut and then you say, 'That's somebodys instinct.' I watched Jamie [Foley], and hes like a pit bull. He follows the drama. Its not an imposed thing. It has to present itself. Hes going to shoot through the gristle and get to the thing, and thats so different than my style, which is much more pre-vivisection and going in, saying, 'You're doing this, and you're doing this and I'm not interested in that moment because it doesn't fit into my overall scheme.' Jamie is much more full contact. He'd say [to the actors] 'No, tell me your thing.'"
Schumacher, notes Fincher, is "very much about the proscenium and axis angle. You'd watch the dailies and think, 'It's so economical.' He knows how to make things beautiful, and hes great with actors. After Jamie and me, I think everybody was really exhausted, and then Joel comes in and suddenly everybodys having a great time again."
One of the more wickedly fun elements of House of Cards are Spacey's addresses to the camera: fourth-wall-busting moments in which his character parses a situation for its underlying meaning, or witheringly delivers a trenchantly cynical (and usually funny) aphorism about politics. Sometimes, the aside is merely a knowing glance to the viewer, acknowledging that a gambit is in play. "You're there with Machiavelli as he plans his chess moves," says Schumacher of the device, a key ingredient from the original British miniseries. "For instance, Kevin's character could be in a conference room with a lot of people rattling on, someone may say something, and then he'll turn to the camera. But that camera is only there for that specific reason. It doesn't include anyone else, or if it does, theyre out of focus."
Of course, when you have an actor of Spacey's caliber, says McDougall, such moments just naturally sing. "The glance to the camera is something that became increasingly cheeky as the series went on," he adds. "It's enormously enjoyable to watch because [Spacey] is a master of that interaction with the lens. When youve got people like Spacey and Robin Wright, their instincts are always in the right place."
Fincher says Spacey was everyone's "first and only" choice when the project was hatched. He admits it might have been foolhardy to begin developing the pilot script with writer Beau Willimon with only Spacey in mind. "Imagine if you dont get him, you are well and truly screwed," Fincher remarks. But the actor quickly committed upon seeing the material. The same fortune happened with the key players. "I said to the cast at the first read-through, 'The good news and the bad news is everybody here is our first choice, so expectations are high.'"
What surprised Fincher about the production process on an episodic series, however, was the opportunity to recognize a day player's worth and let it alter the storytelling in future episodes; something that isn't readily available in the world of moviemaking.
Coulter, long a fan of assembling an episode in his head before filming, recalls his House of Cards editor telling him he'd "white-knuckled it" with footage. Says Coulter, "I asked him, 'Was there too little?' And he said, 'No, but there was just enough. There will be nothing lying on the cutting room floor when were done.' I'm not a big promoter of shooting a bunch of footage and leaving it on the doorstep of the producer. I'm far more interested in shooting those pieces that I need to tell the story."
What was most interesting for Fincher as an executive producer was his access to other directors dailies. It was an eye-opening experience in how other filmmakers operate. "There were times I'd say, 'That's so interesting. That doesnt seem like where the drama is,' and then you watch a scene get honed and cut and then you say, 'That's somebodys instinct.' I watched Jamie [Foley], and hes like a pit bull. He follows the drama. Its not an imposed thing. It has to present itself. Hes going to shoot through the gristle and get to the thing, and thats so different than my style, which is much more pre-vivisection and going in, saying, 'You're doing this, and you're doing this and I'm not interested in that moment because it doesn't fit into my overall scheme.' Jamie is much more full contact. He'd say [to the actors] 'No, tell me your thing.'"
Schumacher, notes Fincher, is "very much about the proscenium and axis angle. You'd watch the dailies and think, 'It's so economical.' He knows how to make things beautiful, and hes great with actors. After Jamie and me, I think everybody was really exhausted, and then Joel comes in and suddenly everybodys having a great time again."
One of the more wickedly fun elements of House of Cards are Spacey's addresses to the camera: fourth-wall-busting moments in which his character parses a situation for its underlying meaning, or witheringly delivers a trenchantly cynical (and usually funny) aphorism about politics. Sometimes, the aside is merely a knowing glance to the viewer, acknowledging that a gambit is in play. "You're there with Machiavelli as he plans his chess moves," says Schumacher of the device, a key ingredient from the original British miniseries. "For instance, Kevin's character could be in a conference room with a lot of people rattling on, someone may say something, and then he'll turn to the camera. But that camera is only there for that specific reason. It doesn't include anyone else, or if it does, theyre out of focus."
Of course, when you have an actor of Spacey's caliber, says McDougall, such moments just naturally sing. "The glance to the camera is something that became increasingly cheeky as the series went on," he adds. "It's enormously enjoyable to watch because [Spacey] is a master of that interaction with the lens. When youve got people like Spacey and Robin Wright, their instincts are always in the right place."
Fincher says Spacey was everyone's "first and only" choice when the project was hatched. He admits it might have been foolhardy to begin developing the pilot script with writer Beau Willimon with only Spacey in mind. "Imagine if you dont get him, you are well and truly screwed," Fincher remarks. But the actor quickly committed upon seeing the material. The same fortune happened with the key players. "I said to the cast at the first read-through, 'The good news and the bad news is everybody here is our first choice, so expectations are high.'"
What surprised Fincher about the production process on an episodic series, however, was the opportunity to recognize a day player's worth and let it alter the storytelling in future episodes; something that isn't readily available in the world of moviemaking.
NO FRILLS: (above) Joel Schumacher (left) with DP Eigil Bryld, says the series was made in a classical style where the framing of shots was veruy important. (below) James Foley, who had taken many years off from feature directing, said the freedom of the series "reawakened his sense of discovery." (Photos: Patrick Harbron/Netflix)
“When I did television commercials, I never thought, ‘Oh screw it, it’s only two days out of my life.’ You’ve got to want to be there. I didn’t want people feeling like they were slumming. The actors gave a year of their lives and moved to Baltimore because they believed in what we were selling, so you’ve got to believe in it, too. And if we have the opportunity to create a place for more storytelling to be made, that seems to be what we should be doing.” Looking back on his experience, McDougall sees a business model for investment, focus on quality and same-day distribution that thrillingly flies in the face of so many “illogical” processes ingrained in regular television. He adds, “My guess is House of Cards will be the first of many productions like this.”
For Foley, who had taken many years off from feature directing, the freedom-within-limitations exercise was the ideal re-engagement project. “I feel like my directorial brain expanded from doing this process. It has reawakened my sense of discovery.”
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* In US, the producers opt for foreign talents for nude and risque scenes if local girls backs out. Same in Hong Kong. And it's a similar practice in India.
Sara Loren on bad acting, racy scenes and Murder 3
Her role is expected to raise quite a few eyebrows. DESIGN: KIRAN SHAHID
KARACHI: Sultry Sara Loren, formerly known as Mona Lizza, is a beautiful and resilient woman. But despite the gifts that nature has bestowed, Kajraare — her first stint in Bollywood alongside Himesh Reshamiya in 2010 — was a mega flop. Luckily for Sara, Lady Luck smiled upon her and she was approached for Murder 3, one of the most popular franchises in Bollywood.
In the recently released trailer of the film, Sara sizzles on screen as she is romanced by Randeep Hoda (last seen with Bebo in Heroine). While her latest offering might showcase her on a global platform, acting remains her weakest link.“I know I am a bad actor, but I am learning how to act better with every film,” Sara tells The Express Tribune in an interview. She is on set shooting for a local film. While preparing for a scene where she is dressed as a bride, Sara continues to talk despite the make-up artist’s persistent attempts to apply lipstick.
“I don’t mind if Kajraare was a failure,” she admits, adding: “At least it was a step in the right direction.”
“Amitabh Bachchan is my all time favourite actor and with the number of flops that he had to face before becoming a mega star, I am very satisfied with what I am doing,” she says with confidence.
It must be noted that Sara is the first female Pakistani actor to feature in a well-known Bollywood franchise. Mahesh Bhatt’s Nazar starring Meera was a flop, while Veena Malik seems to have resorted to raunchy item songs and C-grade movies like the remake of Dirty Picture and Gali Gali Mae Chor Hai for attention. Sara must be feeling the pressure of being given such an opportunity.
“I hope and pray that I am able to deliver what is expected of me, because this is Mahesh Bhatt’s son Vishesh’s debut film and they both trust me,” she says. “In India, it’s the artist that matters, not his or her nationality. As long as you know your work, it pays off and is recognised,” she says, sounding overwhelmed.
Her role in the film will undoubtedly raise more than a few eyebrows at home; with love-making scenes and bathtub moments included in the trailer, there is no doubt that the movie will get a restricted audience viewing stamp from the censor board. Keeping in mind the ‘bold’ scenes in Murder and Murder 2, one can safely predict that the third installment will not move far from the ongoing theme in terms of sensuality.
Sara jumps to defend herself, saying, “To make a career in Bollywood, you need to play all sorts of roles. With Vishesh, it’s a different role and if Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Manti Ratnam were to offer me something, then it would be entirely different too. They are catering to an industry worth 1 billion people, not just 160 million.”
In a serious tone, she continues: “It’s 2013! People shouldn’t get personal about my professional work. My work demands what I am doing in the film.”
Jumping to the subject of her wardrobe in the film, Sara says: “Given a choice, I would always wear shalwar kameez. But my dear, it’s not always my choice,” she says with a smile. “If my fans don’t like what I have done in the film, then they should just go and update their status on Facebook,” she said in an I-don’t-care tone.
Murder 3 is set for an international Valentine’s Day release. With Randeep Hooda and Aditi Rao Hyderi in the cast there, will be some serious competition. If Aditi is the better actor, Sara beats her by a mile as far as physical appearance is concerned. While Murder 3 is a Vishesh Films debut, the Bhatt camp has been adventurous enough to have signed a three film contract with Sara, displaying its generosity towards and faith in Pakistani actors.
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First Look At New Chiller ‘Haunt’
“The feeding never ends…”Bloody Disgusting has your first ever look at Haunt, which recently completed principle photography. Starring Harrison Gilbertson, Jacki Weaver, Liana Liberato, the chiller was directed by Mac Carter.
In it, “A family that moves into a new home with a dark past. When their son becomes involved with a beautiful girl next door, and together they begin to explore their sexual awakening, they unwittingly invoke an alternative dimension of the house.”
Oh and there’s also a viral website for the film that’s worth checking out, Morello House.
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Emmy Rossum: Nudity isn't brave
Friday Jan 18 2013The Shameless star is puzzled by the idea that stripping for the camera constitutes courage.
Emmy commented on the attention her role in the US TV series has generated as a result of her character Fiona's often near naked scenes. This has led to Girls creator Lena Dunham complaining last year that while she is labelled "brave" for stripping on screen, Emmy doesn't get the same treatment as she has a "perfect butt".
"I don't have a perfect butt," Emmy protested to the Chicago Sun-Times. "I don't think it's brave to take off your clothes. I think it's brave to be emotionally bare. I think it's brave to play unlikable, and I think it's brave to put on prosthetics and make yourself ugly. I think it's brave to be vulgar. Whether Lena and I are taking our clothes off on cable is of no consequence. We're just trying to tell stories. I love her on Girls, and she clearly appreciates my bottom as well. But it's just your body. It doesn't matter."
Emmy has learnt to feel comfortable getting naked in front of people as a result of her role. She recalled how the show's crazy production schedule forces her to change outfits in strangers' bathrooms, church basements and even on the train.
"I was fully changing clothes [and the train was pulling into a crowded platform], ducking down behind the seats, trying not to be seen," she laughed.
The 26-year-old revealed some of her favourite shopping haunts in Chicago, where Shameless is filmed. She explained how vintage stores are her preferred clothing destinations as well as her co-star Joan Cusack's Gold Coast boutique.
"I buy lots of funny knickknacks there [at Joan Cusack's store]," Emmy finished. "It's like entering the brain of Joan Cusack. Creative overload, weird, happy."
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Prepping the Gladiators
![[image]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/AR-AB130A_BACKS_G_20130117224502.jpg)
Matt Klitscher/Starz
Though "Spartacus" is the pay-cable channel's top-rated show, executives and producers decided to end it. Rather than stretch the show's budget and story line across two seasons, they're jamming all the action into one. The final 10-episode run, subtitled "War of the Damned," starts Jan. 25
The writers had to hustle Spartacus (played by Liam McIntyre, above) and his small army of rebels, including a German slave turned warrior named Saxa ( Ellen Hollman, center left), toward a showdown with Roman forces and an ascendant Julius Caesar. That left little time for leisurely dialogue and subplot, says executive producer Rob Tapert, who reasons, "Kirk Douglas's 'Spartacus' wrapped it up in two hours."
Producers are blowing out the battle scenes, spending twice as much to hire, feed and costume extras, compared with previous seasons. Many extras spend their days horizontal to portray corpses (bottom left), as in a battle scene that opens the first episode of season three.
"Spartacus" is one of the most effects-heavy shows on television. It's shot exclusively on indoor sets in New Zealand, and the heavy use of green screens gives the action and carnage a graphic-novel look. Referring to a rival fantasy series, HBO's "Game of Thrones," Mr. Tapert says, "They elect to go to some of the most spectacular locations in the Western Hemisphere, while we never leave three stages."
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10 predictions for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival
Bonus: It won't be snowing this year
PARK CITY - The 2013 Sundance Film Festival is only hours away from kicking off with four premieres tonight: the documentary mystery "Who is Dayani Cristal?", U.S. dramatic competition entry "May in the Summer," "Crystal Fairy" with Michael Cera and the music doc "Twenty Feet from Stardom" (oh yeah, and "Shorts Program 1"). The early buzz is all about James Franco and his two sex movies ("Interior.Leather.Bar." and "Kink"), but by Saturday night the conversation will likely have shifted to the "big surprise" and hot acquisition targets. With that in mind, here are 10 predictions for the next week of festival going in Park City.The "excuse me, I need a moment before I can stand up" festival
There are going to be some hot and bothered audiences in Park City this weekend. From "Interior.Leather.Bar" to "Kink" to a rumored sex scene (the gayish kind?) with Daniel Radcliffe in "Kill Your Darlings" to Amanda Seyfried as Linda "Lovelance," Sundance is ready for quite an erotic ride.
The return of the Oscar mojo
After a very down showing in 2012 (at least among narrative films), Sundance roared back in the Academy's good graces with best picture, best director and best actress nods (among others) for festival favorite "Beasts of the Southern Wild" last week. This year buzz is already swirling around "Ain't Them Bodies Saints," "Before Midnight" and "The Spectacular Now," just to name a few. And, as it has been since the late '90s, the documentary competition will continue to rack up the Oscar pedigree of the festival.
Flu panic
Get ready twitter and Facebook. Anyone you know near Park City, Utah will soon be tweeting for their life over the fear of germs and catching the nasty flu that's going around. The city has already told attendees to use hand sanitizer as much as possible over concerns those East Coast visitors will bring the epidemic their way. Of course, a nasty Sundance flu bug is a right of passage every other year or so, but 2013 appears to be causing higher anxiety than usual.
The year the party died
This is my ninth Sundance in a row. I began at the height of the celebrity gifting suites and ambush marketing and have seen the festival slowly push all the party crashers out of town. This year there is less buzz for the party scene than I can ever remember. The big weekend performers are just DJ's such as Avicii and Afrojack. The days of Beyonce performing at ESPN parties and Beastie Boys giving mini-concerts seem long, long gone.
New buyers make a mark at the table and some old ones are quiet
Familiar faces return with Bob and Jeanne Berney behind a newly invigorated "Picturehouse" and A24 has already made noise with "Ginger and Rosa" and the upcoming "Spring Breakers." Expect both to be major players in the acquisition market this year. Don't expect Summit Entertainment (too big a slate in 2013) or The Weinstein Company (if Harvey can control himself) to jump headfirst into the acquisition game, however.
Strong premieres past the first weekend
Like it's cousin in the Great White North, TIFF, Sundance has a reputation of debuting much weaker films past the first weekend and Monday night. This year should see a marked improvement with potential acquisition targets "A.C.O.D." starring Adam Scott and Amy Poehler premiering on Wednesday, "Very Good Girls" with Dakota Fanning and Elisabeth Olsen on Tuesday and - fingers crossed - "Lovelace" with Seyfried, things could be looking up midweek. (And yes, closing night film "Jobs" was purposely not included. We'll believe Ashton Kutcher can pull of playing the Apple genius when we see it.)
It will feel like old home week at times
Impressively, this year's festival features the return of previous narrative alums Drake Doremus, Zal Batmanglij, Richard Linkletter, Sarah Polley, Michael Winterbottom, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, David Gordon Green, Jane Campion, Lynn Shelton and Shane Carruth. What's even more exciting is that both Carruth and Shelton's films, "Upstream Color" and "Touchy Feely" respectively, will be competing in the U.S. dramatic competition. It's rare that any previous filmmaker make the competition cut, but two? That's superb. The more former filmmakers who screen in this category the more prestigious it will end up being.
Controversy will heat up the documentary categories...again
Anita Hill, Dick Cheney, third trimester abortion doctors, S-and-M, the Wisconsin recall election, covert U.S. military operations, hate crimes and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Yep, just another year of button-pushing Sundance docs. Wouldn't have it any others way.
Second year in a row with no secret screening
The HitFix team has scoured the schedule, but we cannot find any hint of where a "secret screening" could take place this year. If that is the case, it would mark the second year in a row without one. That's pretty surprising considering the fact Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience," "Exit Through the Gift Shop" and "Red State" (yeah, that wasn't much of a secret, but still…) all created quite a ruckus over the previous three years. Are filmmakers less interested in the publicity burst? Has the festival just found itself too booked with confirmed films? We're hoping we're wrong on this one.
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A Drama’s Streaming Premiere
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| Featured in “House of Cards,” from far right, Michael Kelly, Robin Wright and Kevin Spacey. |
EARLY in the new Netflix series “House of Cards” the narrator and card player Representative Francis Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, looks straight into the camera and tells viewers: “Power is a lot like real estate. It’s all about location, location, location. The closer you are to the source, the higher your property value.”
Underwood is speaking at a presidential inauguration, just outside the Capitol in Washington. As viewers observe the swearing-in he asks in a delicious Southern drawl, “Centuries from now, when people watch this footage, who will they see smiling just at the edge of the frame?” Then Underwood comes into frame again. He’s just a few rows away from the president. He gives the camera a casual wave.
Underwood, having been spurned in his bid to become secretary of state, is on a quest for power that’s just as suspenseful as anything on television. But his story will unspool not on TV but on Netflix, the streaming video service that is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in original programming. Its plan for showing “House of Cards,” an adaptation of a 1990 BBC mini-series set in Parliament, will itself be a departure from the usual broadcast approach. On Feb. 1 all 13 episodes will be available at once, an acknowledgment that many of its subscribers like to watch shows in marathon sessions.
Another 13 episodes are already in production. Odds are, then, that viewers are going to spend quite a while inside Underwood’s head as he tricks, coerces and sometimes intimidates his opponents. “He makes you complicit in an odd way,” said David Fincher, the acclaimed filmmaker who directed the first episode of the new series.
This is accomplished by having Mr. Spacey break the fourth wall, or address the audience directly. The original “House of Cards” did it too.
“I loved the idea of being intimately part of the thought process of this lead character, because he could take you aside and explain to you what he was doing and why he was doing it and where it was headed,” Mr. Fincher said.
He and the other producers won’t reveal exactly where their modern-day “Macbeth” ends up, though a shot at the presidency isn’t a bad guess. The characters introduced in the first two episodes include Representative Peter Russo, a pawn for Underwood, played by Corey Stoll (Hemingway in “Midnight in Paris”); Linda Vasquez, the president’s chief of staff, played by Sakina Jaffrey; and Underwood’s conniving wife, Claire, played by Robin Wright. “In politics there’s ambition, desire, lust, betrayal — all the same kinds of things we exhibit and experience in our own everyday lives,” said Beau Willimon, the show runner. Mr. Fincher, Mr. Willimon and many of the other players — all basically television novices — were brought together by Media Rights Capital, an independent studio that had optioned the rights to “House of Cards” thanks to an intern who recommended it to Mordecai Wiczyk, the studio’s co-founder.
Mr. Fincher was finishing “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” when he was introduced to the BBC mini-series by an agent. “David said, ‘I’d love to executive-produce this, and I’d like to bring Eric Roth with me,’ ” Mr. Wiczyk recalled. “Generally speaking, when you get that phone call, you just say yes. Which I did.”
Mr. Roth had written the screenplay for “Benjamin Button.” Next, Mr. Fincher said, they had to “find a writer who would do the due diligence to transplant parliamentary politics to Washington.” Enter Mr. Willimon, who had written the play “Farragut North” and turned it into the film “The Ides of March.” After watching the BBC mini-series, he said, “I saw tons of great opportunities to make it our own, to make it contemporary, to broaden its scope and deepen its story.” It’s a “reinvention,” he added, not a mere remake.
By the time Mr. Willimon completed the pilot in early 2011, Mr. Spacey’s agent had started asking about the project. (Artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London, “Kevin is an Anglophile,” Mr. Wiczyk said.) The actor was part of the package Media Rights Capital brought to HBO, Showtime, AMC and other possible television buyers.
But before the studio met with any of them it put out a feeler to Netflix, thinking that fast-growing service might bid for the rights to repeat the show after a television premiere. The Netflix chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, a fan of the original, did what Netflix executives tend to do: He looked at the data. He found that Mr. Spacey and Mr. Fincher’s films were pretty popular among subscribers to Netflix’s streaming service. So were the films and TV shows in the category Netflix called “political thrillers.” And if that wasn’t enough evidence that a “House of Cards” reboot would fare well, there was this: The DVDs of the original mini-series were popular among subscribers to the company’s DVD-by-mail service.
Mr. Sarandos also sized up the project qualitatively. “It looked incredibly promising,” he said, “kind of the perfect storm of material and talent.”
He wanted exclusive rights to the show — a jaw-dropper at the time, since Netflix wasn’t in the exclusives business yet. His $100 million commitment to license 26 episodes, two seasons, sight unseen clinched the deal.
Since the deal was struck in March 2011 Netflix has taken a couple of tentative steps into original programming, picking up overseas shows that had never been seen in the United States before. But “House of Cards” is the first show that can be called made for Netflix. It’s also the first to be considered, by those that do such considering, as prestigious as the programs on HBO and other top-tier cable channels. Netflix plans to have premieres of several other original shows this year, including a new season of the canceled Fox comedy “Arrested Development”; “Hemlock Grove,” a horror series produced by Eli Roth; a comedy, “Orange Is the New Black,” from the “Weeds” creator Jenji Kohan; and another called “Derek” from Ricky Gervais.
For “House of Cards” what was almost as important as the two-season commitment was Netflix’s promise of zero interference. “We’re placing our faith in you,” Mr. Sarandos told Mr. Fincher and the other producers.
Mr. Willimon said that he and his writing staff wrote drafts of all 13 episodes of the first season before filming commenced on a soundstage outside Baltimore last April — in contrast to most television shows that have a much more compressed timetable. What is compressed, in this case, is the release of the first season.
“We approached this creatively as a 13-hour movie,” said Mr. Willimon, who eschewed cliffhangers at the ends of some episodes because, well, he could. “Knowing we had two full seasons in advance, I didn’t feel the pressure to sell the end of each episode with superficial cliffhangers or shock tactics in order to keep coming back, in order to jack up the ratings week to week,” he said. “I hope our version of a cliffhanger is compelling, sophisticated characters and complex storytelling.”
Since the series is set in Washington, some viewers will surely wonder if the characters are stand-ins for a real political animals. “Yeah, people will be tempted to think that it’s a real-life portrayal of life in D.C.,” Mr. Sarandos said. “It’s not at all. It’s a piece of fiction that is incredible. It’s not an attempt to portray the nastiness of Washington. It’s an attempt to portray the nastiness of mankind.”
Underwood, having been spurned in his bid to become secretary of state, is on a quest for power that’s just as suspenseful as anything on television. But his story will unspool not on TV but on Netflix, the streaming video service that is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in original programming. Its plan for showing “House of Cards,” an adaptation of a 1990 BBC mini-series set in Parliament, will itself be a departure from the usual broadcast approach. On Feb. 1 all 13 episodes will be available at once, an acknowledgment that many of its subscribers like to watch shows in marathon sessions.
Another 13 episodes are already in production. Odds are, then, that viewers are going to spend quite a while inside Underwood’s head as he tricks, coerces and sometimes intimidates his opponents. “He makes you complicit in an odd way,” said David Fincher, the acclaimed filmmaker who directed the first episode of the new series.
This is accomplished by having Mr. Spacey break the fourth wall, or address the audience directly. The original “House of Cards” did it too.
“I loved the idea of being intimately part of the thought process of this lead character, because he could take you aside and explain to you what he was doing and why he was doing it and where it was headed,” Mr. Fincher said.
He and the other producers won’t reveal exactly where their modern-day “Macbeth” ends up, though a shot at the presidency isn’t a bad guess. The characters introduced in the first two episodes include Representative Peter Russo, a pawn for Underwood, played by Corey Stoll (Hemingway in “Midnight in Paris”); Linda Vasquez, the president’s chief of staff, played by Sakina Jaffrey; and Underwood’s conniving wife, Claire, played by Robin Wright. “In politics there’s ambition, desire, lust, betrayal — all the same kinds of things we exhibit and experience in our own everyday lives,” said Beau Willimon, the show runner. Mr. Fincher, Mr. Willimon and many of the other players — all basically television novices — were brought together by Media Rights Capital, an independent studio that had optioned the rights to “House of Cards” thanks to an intern who recommended it to Mordecai Wiczyk, the studio’s co-founder.
Mr. Fincher was finishing “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” when he was introduced to the BBC mini-series by an agent. “David said, ‘I’d love to executive-produce this, and I’d like to bring Eric Roth with me,’ ” Mr. Wiczyk recalled. “Generally speaking, when you get that phone call, you just say yes. Which I did.”
Mr. Roth had written the screenplay for “Benjamin Button.” Next, Mr. Fincher said, they had to “find a writer who would do the due diligence to transplant parliamentary politics to Washington.” Enter Mr. Willimon, who had written the play “Farragut North” and turned it into the film “The Ides of March.” After watching the BBC mini-series, he said, “I saw tons of great opportunities to make it our own, to make it contemporary, to broaden its scope and deepen its story.” It’s a “reinvention,” he added, not a mere remake.
By the time Mr. Willimon completed the pilot in early 2011, Mr. Spacey’s agent had started asking about the project. (Artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London, “Kevin is an Anglophile,” Mr. Wiczyk said.) The actor was part of the package Media Rights Capital brought to HBO, Showtime, AMC and other possible television buyers.
But before the studio met with any of them it put out a feeler to Netflix, thinking that fast-growing service might bid for the rights to repeat the show after a television premiere. The Netflix chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, a fan of the original, did what Netflix executives tend to do: He looked at the data. He found that Mr. Spacey and Mr. Fincher’s films were pretty popular among subscribers to Netflix’s streaming service. So were the films and TV shows in the category Netflix called “political thrillers.” And if that wasn’t enough evidence that a “House of Cards” reboot would fare well, there was this: The DVDs of the original mini-series were popular among subscribers to the company’s DVD-by-mail service.
Mr. Sarandos also sized up the project qualitatively. “It looked incredibly promising,” he said, “kind of the perfect storm of material and talent.”
He wanted exclusive rights to the show — a jaw-dropper at the time, since Netflix wasn’t in the exclusives business yet. His $100 million commitment to license 26 episodes, two seasons, sight unseen clinched the deal.
Since the deal was struck in March 2011 Netflix has taken a couple of tentative steps into original programming, picking up overseas shows that had never been seen in the United States before. But “House of Cards” is the first show that can be called made for Netflix. It’s also the first to be considered, by those that do such considering, as prestigious as the programs on HBO and other top-tier cable channels. Netflix plans to have premieres of several other original shows this year, including a new season of the canceled Fox comedy “Arrested Development”; “Hemlock Grove,” a horror series produced by Eli Roth; a comedy, “Orange Is the New Black,” from the “Weeds” creator Jenji Kohan; and another called “Derek” from Ricky Gervais.
For “House of Cards” what was almost as important as the two-season commitment was Netflix’s promise of zero interference. “We’re placing our faith in you,” Mr. Sarandos told Mr. Fincher and the other producers.
Mr. Willimon said that he and his writing staff wrote drafts of all 13 episodes of the first season before filming commenced on a soundstage outside Baltimore last April — in contrast to most television shows that have a much more compressed timetable. What is compressed, in this case, is the release of the first season.
“We approached this creatively as a 13-hour movie,” said Mr. Willimon, who eschewed cliffhangers at the ends of some episodes because, well, he could. “Knowing we had two full seasons in advance, I didn’t feel the pressure to sell the end of each episode with superficial cliffhangers or shock tactics in order to keep coming back, in order to jack up the ratings week to week,” he said. “I hope our version of a cliffhanger is compelling, sophisticated characters and complex storytelling.”
Since the series is set in Washington, some viewers will surely wonder if the characters are stand-ins for a real political animals. “Yeah, people will be tempted to think that it’s a real-life portrayal of life in D.C.,” Mr. Sarandos said. “It’s not at all. It’s a piece of fiction that is incredible. It’s not an attempt to portray the nastiness of Washington. It’s an attempt to portray the nastiness of mankind.”
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Viewpoint: Blowing off sex education
By Jesse Klein
At the 70th annual Golden Globes, the HBO series "Girls" took home some big awards, including Best Actress in a TV Comedy for Lena Dunham and Best TV Comedy. The show has been both criticized and praised for its honest portrayal of 20-something women who supposedly exemplify our generation. Most of the controversy surrounds the awkward and sometimes extremely disturbing sex scenes. While these sex scenes include weird fantasies, masturbation and jerks who only care about getting themselves off, they’re lacking in one area that seems absent from almost every television show, movie and media exposure in general: oral sex and hand jobs. While oral sex has made appearances in "Game of Thrones" and in one scene of "Girls," sexual acts beyond vaginal intercourse are rarely seen or insinuated.
From teen dramas like "Gossip Girl" and "Glee," to reality TV shows in the "Jersey Shore" genre and even to highly respected movies, any mention of non-coital sexual activity is inexplicably left out of scripts. Even more puzzling is the leap many of these TV shows make from making out to intercourse. The fall-out-of-frame-onto-bed that usually indicates sex is only preceded by hot make-out sessions — an unrealistic jump in reality that doesn’t necessarily match up with off-screen sexual progression.
College can be one of the most promiscuous times for young adults, and with advancements in birth control, young women may have hit their sexually liberated peak. While this may point to an increase in a young person’s sex life, the age when the average person loses their virginity is actually rising. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 1991, 54.1 percent of high school students had lost their virginity. A decade later, only 47.4 percent of high school students had done the deed.
While traditional sex may appear to be on the decline, oral sex is growing in popularity among young adults. 41 percent of females and 47 percent of males, ages 15 to 19 have participated in oral sex, which increases to 80 percent for ages 20 to 24. While vaginal intercourse decreased in the past two decades, sexually transmitted infections that can be transferred by oral sex didn’t. This points to the probability that teens are foregoing vaginal intercourse for oral sex.
Many young adults choose this type of sexual contact because they believe is it safer, both emotionally and physically. When it comes to casual sexual encounters, many young people feel more comfortable having oral sex or fondling than having intercourse. In 2002, 22 percent of females and 24 percent of males reported having oral sex but had not lost their virginity. In 2011, 49 percent of non-Hispanic white females had oral sex before vaginal sex, compared to 40 percent who had oral sex after intercourse. 44 percent of non-Hispanic males had oral sex before intercourse, compared with 36 percent of males that had oral sex after intercourse.
A noteworthy exception in this trend is found in black and Hispanic adults, where a majority of adults between the ages of 15 and 24 had intercourse before oral sex.
There wasn’t even data on hand jobs from the CDC. Though it’s discussed often in social environments, research and media exposure of this part of our generation’s sex life is completely lacking.
This change in sexual progression demonstrates a changing mentality for Millennials. While virginity has been put on a pedestal only to be given to someone special, oral sex and fondling has become a socially acceptable alternative. However, this was not the case in past decades. For many older generations, oral sex was considered more intimate than vaginal sex.
It’s surprising that a large part of a young adult’s sex life has been left out media, and especially surprising that it lacks mention in research, statistics and education. In my high school’s sex ed classes, vaginal intercourse was repeatedly expressed to be an important decision to be made between partners. The physical and emotional consequences of oral sex and other types of “non-traditional” sex were never discussed and still aren’t today.
The lack of communication about these topics increases the perception that anything that isn’t intercourse isn’t important, special or possibly damaging. I learned about the STDs that could be transferred from vaginal sex but none from oral sex. We all heard statistics that most people who lose their virginity before 18 regret not waiting. But other sexual acts were never discussed. Even though these subjects are freely expressed in any college dorm room, there's still a taboo surrounding them outside of the gossip sphere.
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The return of Meghan Markle on last night's Suits : my precious freckled queen....
Why, oh why, Elisabeth Hower is still guesting on shows at age of 27? She is way too talented to be on the peripheral of acting recognition. Career panic going to set in by the time she closes home on her third decade and she will be forced to make poor choices, ending up naked on a cable show still doing guest roles. Take risks while you're still in control. Playing it safe (and modest) in Hollywood won't get you anywhere these days if you're not willing to work hard and grind it out day in day out hoping to land the 'role' that will catapult you to stardom thus no-nudity zone the way it did for Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock.
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| What's the deal with pasty (or nipple guard thingy) overkill? |
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I’ve just left the House of Cards premiere. They showed us the first two episodes and there was a short Q-and-A afterwards with the producers, writer, Kate Mara, Robin Wright, Kevin Spacey and David Fincher. I waited outside for a while then in the distance saw a car drive up and I could see it was Fincher getting out. So I fast-walked over to him and just walked straight up and asked for a picture. I don’t think I said anything else to him, just thanks and then he walked onto the red carpet. The cool thing was, I just walked on literally straight behind him, onto the red carpet and then walked casually past the press and inside. The premiere was in aid of the OldVic theatre, Kevin Spacey is the artistic leader there, so tickets were available to the public. Once inside Spacey gave a cool introduction. He is very cool, charismatic, he’s a proper film star, smiling, laughing, witty jokes. Then they screened the first two episodes.
House of Cards is everything I wanted it to be and more. Of course it’s a perfectly crafted, beautifully shot and phenomenally acted political thriller. Spacey is deliciously evil, a manipulative bastard you love to love as he addresses the camera, winks at you and gives you inside information. Kate Mara is fantastic - I’m sure more will happen as the series progresses, at the moment she is literally like the nicer American reporter sister of Lisbeth Salander from TGWTDT - a reporter but one who isn’t afraid to be in the ‘morally grey area,’ meeting Spacey in the shadows “a deep-throat moment”, and fucking politicians careers with her articles.
There are unexpected, great moments of humour - but it feels suitably dirty, corrupt, yellow: perfect Fincher territory. Lots of his usuals in the credits. Fincher has directed the first two episodes but from the Q-and-A afterwards it seems his ‘stamp’ is felt throughout - him being an exec producer as well. It’s still settling. It certainly feels like Dragon Tattoo. The fast talking political spew reminds me of West Wing. Spacey’s pieces to camera make me think of Ferris Bueller. But it works, and I really love it.
The Q-and-A - although relatively short - had some great moments. Fincher talked about how if he didn’t get Spacey he wouldn’t have done it, and how he has turned down TV offers in the past. Everyone in the cast was his first choice. He talked about how films don’t really allow characters to be more than one thing. In TV you can have characters that are four things, with space for them to develop, and that was what was interesting to him. Spacey was brilliant - I’m paraphrasing - “when I talk to people I ask them what they did over the weekend, they say I watched 3 seasons of Breaking Bad, 2 seasons of Game of Thrones. Netflix allows the film industry to do what the music industry didn’t, to give the audience the content they want when they want it, at a good price and legally.” He also said the word motherfucker at some point and explained how on Se7en he only shot for 14 days or so days, so to actually work with Fincher was great. They have been talking about House of Cards since The Social Network. Kate Mara talked about how Spacey would draw penises and stick them by the lens of the camera to help her feel less daunted by acting with a very experienced cast.
More may come back to me later. My brief encounter with Fincher, what was not more than fifteen seconds and a couple of words, hasn’t really sunk in just yet. He made Zodiac. He made Fight Club. He is one of the reasons I love and make films. Okay, so he didn’t hire me, but it’s an overwhelming surge of inspiration to be so close to him and his work.
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Sundance 2013: Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood on 'Charlie Countryman'
We haven’t seen much of the new movie The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman, which premieres at Sundance this week — not even the trailer is out. But we do know that it takes place in Romania and tells the story of a young man (Charlie Countryman, played by Shia LaBeouf), who falls for a Romanian girl (played by Evan Rachel Wood). The girl, however, is already spoken for by a vicious Romanian mob boss, hence the title’s prophecy. Check out a gruesome photo of LaBeouf from the film, below.
Wood compares the film to 1993 Quentin Tarantino-penned romantic crime thriller True Romance. “It has a vibe of True Romance. It’s a passionate, tender love story surrounded by chaos, violence, and crime,” she says. And, like True Romance, it also has moments of humor. Wood said Rupert Grint’s part in the film helps the actor shed his Harry Potter stigma and added a lightness to the dark movie. “Rupert Grint is amazing in this film. It was such a brilliant idea to cast him. It’s hilarious.”
Wood says she was excited to work with her co-star, noting that he comes onto set “like a hurricane.” “It’s refreshing to work with an actor who’s willing to throw himself so deeply into the role, into the project.”
Both actors were enamored with the film’s setting, shooting for six weeks in Bucharest, Romania. While LaBeouf’s character is an American who travels to Romania, Wood had to adopt the accent, with the help of a dialect coach. ”I really tried to listen to the locals, she says of the accent.”Kids would hear me do a scene and come up to me and start speaking Romanian to me and I wouldn’t understand. They thought I was playing a game with them,” she said.
“Romania was amazing,” LeBeouf added. ”It really is a character in the movie and brings an authenticity to the film and helps the audience to escape into the world that our characters are living in.”
Wood, who recently announced that she and husband Jamie Bell are expecting their first child, is known for her daring roles, starting with 2003′s controversial film Thirteen and running throughout her career, including last year’s HBO film Mildred Pierce. But Wood insists motherhood won’t change her choices. “I think I’ll still take whatever roles inspire me, whether they be daring or not. I think I want to keep being me.”
The Sundance Film Festival runs January 17-24 in Park City, Utah. The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman is also entered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.
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Dakota Fanning in Now Is Good
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Neil Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ to make television debut on HBO
Neil Gaiman and Playtone productions have confirmed a new series for HBO.One of Gaiman’s most popular novels, "American Gods," is slated for a late 2013 or 2014 release as a six-season television series, featuring 10-12 one-hour episodes in each season.
"American Gods" follows the story of ex-convict Shadow, who accepts a job from a mysterious stranger after his release from prison.
Shadow is immediately pulled into the world of his bizarre employer, and as extraordinary events begin to unfold, all of his conceptions of the world are thrown into question.
The novel features characters inspired by many mythologies and religions, as well as modern-day deities created by Gaiman, such as a god of technology and of media.
According to Collider.com, Playtone announced this new development in 2011 and appointed Gaiman to write the series.
Gaiman already has some experience writing for television; an episode he wrote for the sixth season of "Doctor Who" quickly became a fan favorite.
Another of Gaiman’s novels, "Stardust," was also adapted to screen as a film in 2007 and was generally received well by audiences.
The seasoned writer feels this particular novel will do much better as a television series than a movie, but the challenge of adapting the script to television has complicated its release.
"Over the years, I’ve had phone calls from major directors or major actors. They say, ‘I want to make it into a movie,’ and I say, ‘Great. How?’" Gaiman said in an interview at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in 2011.
"And at that point, I would always have to apologize for the fact that I wrote it while I was doing a couple of screenplays and was incredibly grumpy at the idea of doing 124-page stories with beginnings, middles and ends and several beginnings, and middles all over the place. So I actually like the idea that HBO are doing it."
Robert Richardson, who worked on Quentin Tarantino’s "Kill Bill" and "Inglorious Basterds," is set to make his directorial debut with the series.
Playtone also announced the tentative budget for the series – a whopping $35-40 million per season. Playtone’s Gary Goetzman assures it will be used well, however.
"There are some crazy things in (American Gods). We’ll probably be doing more effects in there than it’s been done on a television series," Goetzman said.
Some fans of the novel may be wary of the extended onscreen adaptation, since the novel itself is only 624 pages.
That adds up to about 10 pages per episode, if you were to divvy it up.
Keep in mind, though, Gaiman himself will be writing the episodes, and he already expressed a desire to expand on the material in the book.
"I want to make it faithful, but also would like it to have a few surprises for people who read the book," Gaiman said in an interview with Collider.com. "I hate that thing where people have read the books and they go, ‘Oh, I know everything that’s going to happen.’ I want to be like, ‘Okay, no you don’t.’
"I want there to still be some surprises."
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Sundance Bondage Documentary Kink Releases Red-Band Trailer
The best part about tracking the Sundance Film Festival from afar is that studios do a decent job about releasing trailers for the programmed films so that we can play along and pretend like we are in Park City, Utah without braving the cold and the snow.
Director Christina Voros, for example, will premiere her documentary kink (which James Franco has produced) on Saturday night in Sundance, and a red-band trailer arrives online (via SlashFilm) to give you an idea of the movie’s intent. It catches up with the filmmakers and BDSM aficionados who work for the Web site Kink.com, the largest producer of bondage pornography in the world – according to this teaser trailer:
As you might expect, the point of kink (with an intentional lowercase) is to prove that people who are into BDSM are normal, functioning members of society. It also wants to clear up misconceptions that BDSM is “abuse.” It should be an eye-opening film-going experience, no matter what side of the fence you fall, and we’re likely to hear more about the film as it makes a splash at Sundance, so continue to track our festival coverage right here.
Franco, meanwhile, strikes a unique balancing act by moving from kink to Walt Disney’s Oz: The Great and Powerful, where he plays the title character – a magician who’s carried to the Emerald City by the winds of a Kansas tornado. Here’s hoping audience members don’t confuse the two once Oz reaches theaters in March.
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MSN lists Zhang Zetian as the prettiest university student
Internet celebrity Zhang Zetian topped the list of China’s prettiest university students, known as school flowers in Chinese, compiled by the Chinese-language website msn.com.
Zhang Zetian earned her nickname “Milk Tea Girl” early in 2009 when she was still a student of Nanjing Foreign Language School, because a photo of her holding a cup of milk tea, posted by her admiring classmate to Baidu bbs, quickly made the rounds on the Internet.
In 2011, the innocent and pure looking girl was accepted by Tsinghua University, the top university in China, to study their humanlities program.
Check out other beautiful “school flowers” below:
Bai Suxin
Chai Liuyi
Gulnazar
Hong Han
Liu Chengcheng
Liu Jiaxin
Liu Shanshan
Weng Xinying
Wu Yichen
Yang Lu
Yang Manbo
Zeng Xinzi
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