Oscar winner Melissa Leo has always been one to keep busy, and in Robert Zemeckis’s Flight she fills her dance card with yet another brief but potent supporting turn. “‘There are no small parts, only small actors,’” she quoted to Movieline as we sat to discuss her Ellen Block, the key investigator and the lone figure standing between alcoholic pilot-hero Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) and a prison sentence in the addiction drama. “Sometimes there are small parts, actually,” she laughed, “but this was no small part.”
Leo, one of the go-to character actresses working today, has made an art out of popping up to deliver crucial supporting roles when she’s not carrying her own indie movies. (She earned her first Oscar nod for her work in Frozen River and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Fighter, while Francine, an intimate study of a woman newly released from incarceration, is the rare film featuring Leo in the lead; it’s in select theaters now.) In Flight, she manages to do no one else in the film can, and what few have done in the movies, period: Intimidate Denzel Washington.
Movieline caught up with Leo in Los Angeles, where we spoke in-depth about Flight, what President Obama has in common with Washington’s Whip Whitaker, how she came to play Robin Williams’ wife twice in one month in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and Lee Daniels‘ The Butler, and why mixed messaging is a clever way to get audiences to experience the terror in Flight more frightening than a plane crash: “There are all kinds of people in the world, but the way that addiction can grip a talented human being…
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People sitting in and around the business class section of an American Airlines flight leaving from LAX today got a beautiful gift in the form of watching Alec Baldwin getting shown the exit door on the plane for playing Words with Friends on his iPad. Alec Tweeted that the flight attendant lit their tongue on fire and then poke at his b-hole as he ran off the plane. Alec then went on to declare that he and American Airlines are fucking done professionally (and personally):
#theresalwaysunited
But, oddly, 30 Rock plays inflight on American. #theresalwaysunited
United Airlines should buy Words With Friends.
Now on the 3 o’clock American flight. The flight attendants already look…..smarter.
#theresalwaysunited Last flight w American. Where retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950’s find jobs as flight attendants.
The former COO of MTV Michael J. Wolf was also Tweeting about this as it was happen. So there’s an image to carry you to the dinner table. An old butch flight attendant with a ginger fro barking up Alec Baldwin’s b-hole while Michael J. Fox’s uncle watched.
Getting kicked off a plane for playing Words with Friends makes zero sense, but when you throw Alec Baldwin’s name into it, it suddenly makes so much sense.
Last time we saw Liam Neeson in a trailer for the upcoming survival drama The Grey, he was preparing to battle a few angry wolves. In the new kickass preview for Joe Carnahan’s wilderness adventure, Neeson is not only preparing to wage a full-scale attack on all of the wolves that stand between him and civilization, but he heroically maintains the morale among a group of fellow stranded plane crash survivors on their long walk home.
Courtesy of Moviefone, the new promo shows the deadly plane crash that takes down Neeson’s character, an Alaskan pipeline worker, and a few of his colleagues (Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, James Badge Dale), stranding them in the middle of an endless stretch of white wilderness. As the group struggles to make fire, maintain hope and ultimately make the long, freezing trek towards civilization, they must battle nature’s creatures and perilous landscapes while maintaining their own will to survive.
The Grey, which rolls into theaters January 27, marks the first reunion between Neeson and his A-Team director Joe Carnahan.
VERDICT: I’ll watch any plane crash survival movie as long as the characters don’t resort to Donner party survival tactics.
[via Moviefone]
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Those fun hating twats at Southwest have already told Kevin Smith that he was too fat to fly, told Billy Joe Armstrong that he was too saggy to fly, told some other chick that she was too slutty to fly and now they’ve told Leisha Hailey of The L-Word that she’s too lezzie-ish to fly.
Leisha raised her fist on Twitter and demanded an apology from Southwest after she says she and her girlfriend were told to get the fuck off of the plane for arguing with a flight attendant who told them to stop kissing in front of everyone. Leisha says that Southwest played the THINK OF THE CHILDREN card on her and now they’re officially dead to her.
I have been discriminated against by @SouthwestAir. Flt. attendant said that it was a “family” airline and kissing was not ok.
4 hours agoThis is an outrage. I demand a public apology by @SouthwestAir and a refund. Hate is not a family value. I will never fly this airline.
4 hours agoWe were escorted off the plane for getting upset about the issue. @SouthwestAir endorses homophobic employees. No one made her accountable.
4 hours agoSince when is showing affection towards someone you love illegal? I want to know what Southwest Airlines considers as “family”.
4 hours
…
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You’ve got to hand it to the gang at Dreamworks — they are really trying to promote the hell out of their $80 million robot boxing movie Real Steel. Earlier this week, the studio stuck the film’s star Hugh Jackman into a WWE Raw ring in front of 15,000 wrestling fans who, it’s safe to say, were not too familiar with the work of the Tony Award-winning Australian. A strained, scripted and shameless six minutes worth-of Real Steel-shilling ensued. Today, meanwhile, mega-scale shows of Real Steel marketing continue — at LAX
There, the studio, Virgin America and Jackman himself will unveil a new A320 aircraft named Real Steel at a press conference shortly before the plane takes off on one of its first commercial flights. The question lingers though: Will this high-altitude marketing ploy sway anyone to actually see this movie?
First though, more details. The press release circulating today explains that the partnership between Real Steel and Virgin actually starts within the film due in theaters Oct. 7: “With tech-forward amenities generations ahead of any other airline in the U.S., Virgin America, will make a cameo appearance in DreamWorks Pictures’ Real Steal.” So Virgin America is also a star in Real Steel, which makes today’s airport event slightly more organic.
But will anyone notice this Real Steel plane and be swayed to see the robo-boxing movie that wouldn’t have seen it beforehand? Probably not. The only people seeing this mile-high ad are the passengers, flight…
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After disappointing most critics earlier this year in Unknown, an ironically familiar amnesia thriller, Liam Neeson returns to the box office this winter with The Grey. As a plane crash survivor who is forced to fend for himself in the Alaskan wilderness, Neeson stars alongside Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo and a pack of angry wolves in the action thriller from Smokin’ Aces director Joe Carnahan. Take a look at the first trailer below.
According to Open Road Films, The Grey features “Liam Neeson [as he] leads an unruly group of oil-rig roughnecks [after] their plane crashes into the remote Alaskan wilderness. Battling mortal injuries and merciless weather, the survivors have only a few days to escape the icy elements — and a vicious pack of rogue wolves on the hunt — before their time runs out.”
The Grey marks a reunion for Neeson and Carnahan, who directed the actor in The A-Team last year. The film, which was shot in British Columbia, was produced by Ridley and Tony Scott and is slated for a January 27 release.
Verdict: As long as no one resorts to Donner Party survival tactics, I’m in.
[Yahoo!]
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Poor Gérard Depardieu… you have one tiny peeing-on-a-plane incident and the whole world chalks it up to your inherent craziness when the real culprit may not have been bad behavior or drunkenness, but prostate issues. We’ve all been there before, stuck on an aircraft with the seat belt light on and a full bladder; can we cut the French acting legend a break and move past what French media have apparently termed “pipigate?”
Wednesday’s reports of Depardieu’s urinary incident on an Air France plane to Dublin suggested that the 62-year-old actor was just rolling honey badger-style, peeing up a storm on the plane carpet just because he could. Not so, says Depardieu’s traveling companion and co-headlining cast mate on Asterix: God Save Britannia, the film sequel they were heading to shoot in Ireland when the incident occurred.
“[Depardieu] couldn’t wait, so I found this solution,” Edoard Baer explained to Europe 1 radio (via the UK Telegraph). “I had a little Evian bottle with me, only it was too small so it overflowed He wanted to clear it up, but the hostess wouldn’t let him. It was naturally very embarrassing and humiliating for him. He didn’t do any grand gestures and shout: ‘I’m going to piss’. Whatever the larger-than-life nature of my friend Gérard, no one is that crazy.”
And further:
“No one is flattered to have a dodgy prostate and be obliged to urinate…I stopped him because he wanted to go and explain to the crew, he was sorry and he was furious but didn’t lose his temper.”
So there you have it. Not so funny now, is it Anderson Cooper?
· Gerard Depardieu’s plane incident down to prostate problems [UK Telegraph]
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When Gérard Depardieu’s gotta go, Gérard Depardieu’s gotta go. The passengers and crew of an Air France flight from Paris to Dublin learned that the hard way today when the legendary French actor, denied entry to one of his plane’s locked lavatories, proceeded to empty his bladder on the floor.
Why? Come on. Are you going to tell Gérard Depardieu where to pee? He is like a wolf — a corpulent, inebriated wolf prowling the carpeted corridors of modern aircraft, but hey. Actually, according to witnesses, Depardieu did attempt to follow puny mortal custom by visiting the plane’s lavatory. There, a flight attendant turned the 62-year-old away, explaining that the doors would be locked for 15 minutes until the plane had taken off. “Je veux pisser, je veux pisser,” he was heard to say; a “disgusted” observer confirmed that Depardieu appeared to have been drinking. Really? What was the first clue? He only proceeded to unzip his pants and piss all over the floor.
The flight was then redirected back to the gate and delayed for two hours while Air France cleaned the carpet. Airline officials confirmed to French TV that Depardieu indeed drained the main vein in the middle of their plane, but they have not yet determined what recourse they will seek, if any. Suggestions?
· Desperate French actor Depardieu urinates on plane [AP via THR]
[Photo: Getty Images]
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