Thompson on Hollywood

#SXSW: Matthew Vaughn Holds Off on Kick-Ass Sequel

You couldn't ask for a more obvious set-up for a sequel than the end of Kick-Ass. Yet director Matthew Vaughn--who cannily set out to make a $50-million commercial hit--won't count his chickens until the movie opens on 3000 screens April 16. Lionsgate wants to talk sequel--they have first-look rights. But Vaughn, who has plenty of ideas for how to go about reforming his pint-size killer Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz)--think Terminator 2, with Schwarzenegger's cyborg assassin shooting folks in the knees--isn't ready to sit down and make a deal. (See two-part flip-cam interview below.)

By Anne Thompson
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March 17, 2010 5:22 AM
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#SXSW : Gondry Goes Animated with Daniel Clowes' Megalomania

Michael Gondry is a marvel--and I would have loved a longer chat than this flip-cam quickie, which skates across his SXSW doc The Thorn in the Heart, about his school teacher aunt Suzette, who the family used to visit deep in the country in the summer. He wanted partly to capture a vanishing world.

By Anne Thompson
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March 15, 2010 4:59 AM
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SXSW Preview: Rodriguez, Kick-Ass, Predators

Gold Film/Interactive Badge and packet of party tickets in hand, I'm plugged into a power strip in the main courtyard at the Austin Convention Center. (The wi-fi sucks.) On my way downtown, I drove the wrong way onto several one-way streets, including a train track. I am safely parked in the convention lot, which costs $7 a day, but the guy let me in for free when I offered an out-of-state check.

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 12:06 AM
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Oscar Red Carpet Fashion: Firth, Parker, Cruz, Banks

On the red carpet at the Oscars, as Hollywood's Beautiful People glided by in their Oscar designer duds, a few came over to talk to Jeanne Wolf, the BBC and the In-Style reporter, whose job it was to flag as many people as possible about what they were wearing. I picked up a few of them on the flip cam.

By Anne Thompson
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March 10, 2010 12:50 AM
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Oscar Video Round-Up: Opener, Chartier, Hurt Locker Victory Laps, Parties, Fashion

There's some juicy Oscar material out there about the most-watched show in five years. At the Governor's Ball, Sandra Bullock was among the nominees getting her Oscar engraved (everyone got their own statues engraved except Jeff Bridges; notable no-shows were Tivi Magnusson, producer of short The New Tenants, and Sandy Powell, costume designer of Young Victoria). Exhausted producer Bill Mechanic said that he and Adam Shankman had aimed for a more populist show (his red carpet interview is below).

By Anne Thompson
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March 9, 2010 1:19 AM
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Oscar Red Carpet Video: Psyihoyas Talks The Cove

On the red carpet before his documentary feature Oscar win, The Cove director Louie Psyihoyas previewed some of the things he would try to say on stage--before being played off--and backstage as well.

By Anne Thompson
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March 8, 2010 11:05 AM
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Oscar Red Carpet Video: Weinstein, Villaraigosa, Gaiman, Banderas

It was thick and fast on the Oscar red carpet, so rather than take notes, pictures or tweet, I whipped out my handy flip cam:

By Anne Thompson
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March 8, 2010 11:00 AM
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Oscar Red Carpet Video: Media Moguls

"The lines are still open," said Disney chairman Robert Iger of the Cablevision/ABC dispute that is shutting the Oscar broadcast down on the Cablevision system in NYC. Local WABC can't be seen on cable in the NYC area. UPDATE: WABC-TV has gone back on in New York.

By Anne Thompson
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March 8, 2010 12:55 AM
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Dennis Lehane Talks Shutter Island

The thing to remember about Shutter Island is that it's closely based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. James Cameron collaborator Laeta Kalogridis wrote the adaptation that lured Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese. Read the book and you will see how closely she hewed to the original. Whatever the movie's strengths or weaknesses--and it has both--they come from the book. I'd argue that as cinematic as this paranoid thriller is, it works better as a book than a movie. That's because Scorsese faced the challenge of making this high-wire reality vs. fiction puzzle into a plausible, believable narrative that didn't throw the audience for a complete loop. Some buy it, some don't.

By Anne Thompson
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February 24, 2010 1:34 AM
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Oscar Watch: Nick Hornby's Hollywood Education

Brit author Nick Hornby discovered the Lynn Barber memoir An Education and showed it to his producer wife, Amanda Posey, as a possible movie. He liked it so much he adapted it for the screen himself, something he has avoided doing with his own novels, three of which--High Fidelity, Fever Pitch, About a Boy--have been turned by other writers into damned good Hollywood movies. He did adapt his first novel Fever Pitch into a British movie starring Colin Firth. But otherwise he has kept some distance from Hollywood adaptations of his novels.