An advance screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master brought out the glitterati to New York’s Ziegfeld Theater on Tuesday night. Walking the red carpet before show time were cast member Amy Adams, actors Adrien Brody and Edward Norton, plus a few of our favorites from everyone’s latest HBO obsession, Girls.
During the frenzied step-and-repeat, reporters referenced the film’s story — which involves an L. Ron Hubbard-like cult founder — to pose questions about Scientology. This didn’t exactly go over well, and a lot of those questions went unanswered. Given the film’s title, Movieline decided to let our interview subjects be the, um, masters of their own domains and asked them a single question: if you were going to start a cult, what would be its core idea or principle?
Read on for responses from Master cast member Madisen Beaty – who plays the object of Joaquin Phoenix’s affection, Doris – fashionista Derek Blasberg and Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington.
Also, make sure to check out the video of Movieline pal Grace Randolph’s interviews with Adams, who talks about playing Lois Lane in next year’s Superman movie, Beaty, and Across the Universe director Julie Taymor.
Madisen Beaty
Dylan Baker, actor: “Peanut-butter-and-jelly Fridays. Maybe chips, if you’d insist.”
Geoffrey Fletcher, screenwriter: “Tolerance.”
Madisen Beaty, actress (Doris in The Master): “To accept people as they are. I know that might sound cliché but, a lot of times today, it’s all about your looks and what you do. I think it should be more about who we are as individuals. Whatever you believe, everyone should be accepting.”
Olivia Culpo, Miss USA 2012: “A cult?!…
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In Tuesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, the actor who played George Jefferson has died. Russell Crowe will direct a film about a cult comedian. Disney is moving a 3-D re-release to the holidays; NATO is taking donations for Aurora shooting victims and Netflix sees its shares dive.
Actor Sherman Hemsley Dead at 74
He first came into America’s living rooms as Archie Bunker’s neighbor George Jefferson in All in the Family. The Jeffersons later spun off into a long-running and very successful sit-com in its own right making his character and his beloved Louise Jefferson, aka “Weezey,” household names. Hemsley died in what appears to be natural causes at his home in El Paso, TX, TMZ reports.
Russell Crowe to Direct Biopic
Crowe will direct a biopic about Bill Hicks, the cult comedian who died at 32. Originally it was thought Crowe would play Hicks, but the part is apparently up for grabs, The Guardian reports.
Disney Ups Monsters Inc 3-D to December
Originally slated for a January release, the 3-D re-release will now head into the holidays with a roll out set for December 19th. Finding Nemo 3-D is still due in September. Last year the studio cashed in on the 3-D version of The Lion King to the tune of $92M, Deadline reports.
Exhibitors Begin Donations Drive for Shooting Victims in Colorado
The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) sent a release asking for donations to help victims and families of the Aurora, CO shootings, Deadline reports.
Netflix Shares Down 14%
Revenue last quarter rose 12.8% to $889M, but profit fell to $6.1M vs $68M the year before, Variety reports.
A war veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) with a “nervous condition” finds himself entrenched in a cult — if not a religious cult, at least a cult of personality — built around a charismatic leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. At long last, after a series of enigmatic teases, the first full trailer has hit the web offering more than just abstract, beguiling peeks at the rumored Scientology drama. So how much L. Ron Hubbard is there in Hoffman’s Master?
The trailer alights on Phoenix’s Freddie Sutton as he wanders into the world of writer, doctor, nuclear physicist, and theoretical philosopher Lancaster Dodd, whose Hubbard-esque writings are glimpsed. (The way Dodd pens the dedication of his novel — “As a gift to Homo Sapiens” — is a bit of scripting brilliance that hints at Dodd’s grandiose, bombastic personality in just a single glance.)
Things seem innocent enough as Dodd and his wife (Amy Adams) welcome his new charge into the fold. “We’ll urge you toward existence within a group, a society of family,” Dodd says. Like Scientology, this group promises self-improvement through community, though suspense kicks in as an accuser drops the c-word — “cult” — sending Dodd’s group onto a more sinister path. “The only way to defend ourselves is to attack,” Adams spits.
It all certainly seems to be calling out Scientology and its founder, moreso the unflattering public image of its followers in the eyes of the outside world — organized faith-peddlers masking dubious claims behind their eccentric figurehead, desperate to protect themselves against scrutiny or worse. It might not seem so Scientology-esque if the tales of ex-members exiting the group weren’t so dramatic, or if Katie Holmes hadn’t reportedly been
When you get a chance, go read Dennis Hensley’s interviews with Elizabeth Berkley and Paul Verhoeven from the days before Showgirls was a cult cause célèbre. It’s worth every minute: “Oh my God, I just saw it like a week ago. You have to understand, I’ve been working at this since I was like 5 years old so it was pretty overwhelming. I sat in the screening room by myself. The lights went down and I started to cry because it was just overwhelming at first. I’m such a perfectionist, but a certain point, was able to get lost in the story, which was a good sign to me. I really thought that I was watching another girl.” Oh, you wish, honey. [Dennis Hensley via The Hairpin]
Screening the first 12 minutes of Sound of My Voice and a dynamic new trailer, Fox Searchlight opened WonderCon 2012 with everything they’ve got — footage, star/co-writer Brit Marling and director Zal Batmanglij, that viral secret handshake, and an in-character appearance by the film’s cult members Klaus and Mel, who addressed the Anaheim Convention Center crowd with a pitch to join them on a spiritual journey. Their invitation: Join them at Booth #348 today, where they’ll be happy to meet you, discuss their beloved leader from the year 2054, and “answer any questions and help you with your future.”
Fox Searchlight has a lot more to work with here than they did with Marling’s previous film, Another Earth… will the cult viral elements and the played up sci-fi angle they’re working here today at WonderCon help entice audiences?
Follow Movieline on Twitter today for updates from WonderCon.
Full Story »The first trailer for Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows was unveiled today, revealing what Burton really has up his sleeve for his adaptation of the cult soap opera. Namely: Gothic guffaws! 1970s humor! Johnny Depp playing vampire Barnabas Collins with that unmistakable Johnny Depp quirk! Seriously, is every Depp role for the rest of time going to feel like some variation on his Hunter Thompson? Anyway: Check out the trailer and unleash your thoughts.
Head to Apple to watch the trailer in hi-res.
I’m sure hardcore Dark Shadows fans will have the most to pick over here, seeing as Burton’s take isn’t quite exactly a straight translation of the ’60s-era melodrama to the big screen. And yet the tone feels so very Burtonesque, the sets and cinematography are lush and vintage, and despite the soundtrack of disco cliches it’s starting to grow on me. Plus, how can anyone resist sardonic teenager Chloe Moretz?
Dark Shadows is in theaters May 11 and also features Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, Bella Heathcote, Gulliver McGrath, Christopher Lee, and Alice Cooper as himself, because of course.
[via Apple]
Full Story »Everyone wants to be the one to discover the next low-budget and/or indie supernatural shocker, the stylish, wicked little thing that scares the bejesus out of you and sends you running to your friends, saying, “You’ve gotta see this!” UK filmmaker Ben Wheatley’s Kill List isn’t that wicked little thing — not by a long shot. Yet it’s a frustrating case. Wheatley drops enough unnerving bread crumbs in the first two-thirds to leave you wondering where the hell he’s headed, and even the big finale should be satisfying enough: It just belongs to a different movie, and it’s unsettling in a way that doesn’t feel earned.
That Kill List begins, seemingly, as a standard domestic drama is just one of Wheatley’s intentional red herrings. (He co-wrote the script with Amy Jump.) In the movie’s opening scene Jay (Neil Maskell) is bickering with his wife, Shel (MyAnna Buring), in the presence of their somewhat daft-looking young son, Sam (Harry Simpson). It turns out Jay, an altogether regular-looking and somewhat doughy husband type, hasn’t worked for months: He’s a hit man and the hits just haven’t been coming, since he botched his last job. Then buddy and former associate Gal (Michael Smiley) shows up at the couple’s home for a dinner party, a leggy stretch of girlfriend in tow: He wants to loop Jay into a gig he’s been offered, which requires offing a number of targets. Meanwhile, the sultry, doe-eyed girlfriend, Fiona (Emma Fryer), who looks pretty friendly and normal-like (she explains to her hosts that she works in “human resources”), slips into the couple’s bathroom, removes a mirror from the wall, and does something funny to the back of it.
It’s the first of the movie’s numerous “What the — ?” moments, some of which involve episodes of…
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Edgar Wright’s geek fantasy epic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World may have biffed with mainstream audiences last year, but it’s earned a dedicated fan following since, granting it bona fide cult status. That cult will have the opportunity to worship at the altar of Scott Pilgrim starting next month, when L.A.’s New Beverly Cinema begins screening it in a monthly midnight residency.
The news comes courtesy of the theater’s Twitter feed, while programmer Julia Marchese tells Movieline the monthly midnight screenings begin Friday, September 23. (New Beverly owner Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs also screen regularly.)
So mark your calendars and dust off those hipster tees and Ramona Flowers wigs, kids! Scott Pilgrim cos-play will be encouraged.
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Ever since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Movieline — as well as pretty much anyone who has seen Martha Marcy May Marlene — has been predicting an Oscar nomination for its breakout leading lady Elizabeth Olsen. Now, thanks to two more haunting trailers from Fox Searchlight, you can double dose on Olsen’s apparently brilliant work as a young woman trying to move past her eerie cult experience and wonder again, “Will Olsen be this year’s Jennifer Lawrence?”
Either way, one thing is for sure: John Hawkes, who appears in both Martha Marcy May Marlene and Winter’s Bone (for which Lawrence, as well as he, was nominated last year), has cornered the market on backwoods creepy.
Martha Marcy May Marlene was directed by Hollywood newcomer Sean Durkin and co-stars Hugh Dancy and Sarah Paulson as the family members who take Olson’s character in after she leaves the cult. The drama arrives in theaters Oct. 7.
VERDICT: Fear is the most amazing emotion of all.
[via FilmStage]
Full Story »· As if your crush on Mila Kunis wasn’t big enough, the Friends With Benefits star used fluent Russian during a press conference last week to dress down a female reporter who wondered why Justin Timberlake stopped being a musician. Sure, you could deduct points from Kunis’s badass scorecard because she was actually born in the Ukraine — thus making her Russian language skills slightly less impressive — but don’t be a hater. Click ahead to watch, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
Per Hollywood.com, Kunis says something along the lines of, “Why movies? Why not? What kind of question is that? Why are you here?” Burn. [via Hollywood.com]
· The non A-list cast of Wet Hot American Summer (read: not Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks) got together in Brooklyn last night to celebrate the 10th anniversary of that cult film. Rudd and Poehler sent videos along, however, while cast members Ken Marino and Janeane Garofalo showed up in character. [Vulture]
· Melisa Wallack — the writer on the Relativity Media version of Snow White — has been hired by Universal for Emily the Strange. Chloe Moretz is attached to star in adaptation as the “punky goth cult figure.” [THR/Heat Vision]
· Morgan Spurlock and Hulu are teaming for the online viewing hub’s first ever series, A Day in the Life. The documentary-y series will focus on days in the lives of famous people like Richard Branson, will.i.am and Girl Talk. [Deadline]
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