Thompson on Hollywood

Weekly Wrap: Awards and Festivals, News, Media, Celebs

In the past week, TOH looked at Names That Rule in Moviesphere, considered Recycling at the Cinema [pictured: DiCaprio and Hall, potentials for Great Gatsby remake] and pondered the five things that went wrong with Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

By Sophia Savage
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October 22, 2010 7:23 AM
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Mad Men's Jaw-Dropping Season Four Finale: "A pretty girl walks by and everything's out the window."

Tim Appelo recaps Mad Men's Season Four finale (packed with Spoilers, needless to say). I am not the only one drooping with disappointment that my fave series is going into hiatus. Sigh. “A secretary is not a pet, nor an erector set,” they sang in the 1961 Robert Morse musical How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying -- but try telling that to Don Draper. In Mad Men’s jawdropper fourth-season finale, he drop-kicks his brilliant, drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend Dr. Faye Miller and pops the question to his secretary du jour, Megan –better known as “Who the hell is that?” (as Roger Sterling blurted when Don announced the engagement). Draper secretaries come and go like Spinal Tap drummers, but Megan turned a one-night stand into a giant diamond.

By Tim Appelo
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October 20, 2010 6:50 AM
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Celeb Watch: Saoirse Ronan's Killer Slate, Hamm on Cusp of Movie Stardom, Gibson in Hangover 2

- Vulture chats with Saoirse Ronan, who at sixteen has had more meaty dramatic roles than most actresses twice her age. True, she has played children: she led us into the heart of Joe Wright's Atonement and almost made Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones worth watching. After a turn in Peter Weir's ensemble The Way Back (which rolls out in December and January), she boasts two more adult roles, in Joe Wright's Hanna (Focus) and Geoffrey Fletcher's indie Violet & Daisy. She plays a teen raised by her father (Eric Bana) as a killer in the former (April 2011) and an assassin in the latter (with Alexis Bledel, James Gandolfini and Danny Trejo). Despite the similarities of these two roles (which also call to mind Femme Nikita and Kick-Ass), Ronan insists they are very different: "Hanna is more serious, and funnily enough, it's more realistic. Violet & Daisy is quite surreal." On her relationships with these two directors, she agrees that Fletcher is a "really sweet guy" (directing his first film) and that her working relationship with Wright is now "quite in sync."

By Sophia Savage
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October 18, 2010 5:46 AM
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Director Lynn Shelton Talks AMC's Mad Men, MTV's $5 Cover Seattle

Seattle-based indie director Lynn Shelton (Humpday) directed the latest Mad Men episode. She talks to TOH film critic Tim Appelo, who admires her style.Mad Men hit big this week with “Hands and Knees,” Episode 410, thanks to the last director you’d ever expect: Seattle’s Lynn Shelton, 45, a TV debutante and micro-indie autodidact who never went to film school. A stage actor from 11 to twentysomething, Shelton won Slamdance at 41 with her theatre satire and chick flick We Go Way Back. Todd Haynes and Ira Glass became fans. So did Mad Men main man Matt Weiner, who hired her the same day her Mike Leigh-style (and Judd Apatow-like) improvised 2009 bromance Humpday won an Indie Spirit Award. “I just couldn’t believe my luck,” says Shelton. “I went around for two entire months with a gigantic goofy smile on my face, hugging anyone who would let me.”

By Tim Appelo
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September 29, 2010 8:17 AM
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Casting News: Hendricks in Drive, Renner and Rapace Witch Hunters, Seydoux vs. Bruni in Paris

- Drive just got juicier with Mad Men fixture Christina Hendricks set to join Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Oscar Isaacs and Albert Brooks in the Nicolas Winding Refn film, which shifts into gear at the end of this month. Hendrick's role is unidentified, though The Playlist suggests, following a perusal of the "terrific, noirish script," that she must be the female associate of bank-robber-Mulligan's-boyfriend (presumably played by Isaacs).

By Sophia Savage
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September 9, 2010 12:31 PM
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Director Clooney Casts Political Drama, Affleck "All In" with The Town, TV vs. Cinema

- Occasional director George Clooney announced his intentions to adapt the play Farragut North some time ago. And now this February his movie is set to shoot with a powerful cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and possibly Chris Pine, Evan Rachel Wood and Marisa Tomei (should they accept Clooney's offers). At some point, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio were each attached to play leading roles in the film but schedules didn't work out. Former Democratic politico Beau Willimon, after working on Howard Dean's '04 campaign, wrote the original story and first script draft about behind-the-scenes dirty campaign tricks for a Democratic candidate who will barely be seen on screen. The main characters include a young campaign whiz kid (Pine already won praise for playing the role onstage at the Geffen [pictured]), a veteran boss (Hoffman), a rival campaign manager (Giamatti), a teen staffer (Wood?) and journalist (Tomei?). Though the specifics of funding and distribution are as yet unconfirmed, Vulture says, "finding funding with this cast shouldn't require kissing a lot of babies."

By Sophia Savage
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September 2, 2010 3:23 AM
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Lively vs. Johansson for Cuaron's Gravity; Aniston vs. O'Reilly on Parenthood; Hendricks Talks

-Two young actresses are pitted against each other for the lead role in Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity as the lone survivor of a failed space telescope repair mission who is trying to get home. Scarlett Johansson and Blake Lively are vying for the part in the project, reports THR's Heat Vision blog, which was originally set up at Universal as an Angelina Jolie vehicle. The Cast Away-esque film is now set to push either Johansson or Lively out of a sidekick role and into the spotlight; Robert Downey Jr.'s character in the film takes a back seat to the astronaut trying to get home to her daughter.

By Sophia Savage
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August 11, 2010 5:29 AM
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Inception is Mad Men: Dom is Don

Pop Watch's Jeff Jensen argues that Mad Men's Don (Draper [Jon Hamm]) is in fact the same "heroic anti-hero" as Inception's Dom (Cobb [Leonardo DiCaprio]) - and not just because of the varying consonant. He insists that the TV show and film are very much the same thing, with only a few differences ("period setting" and "Lionel Richie-inspired dancing-on-the-ceiling special effects").

By Sophia Savage
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August 4, 2010 5:22 AM
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Mad Men's Manly Hamm in Movies, Braff's Garden State Follow-Up, Quinto Talks Star Trek 2

New York Magazine profiles Mad Men womanizer Don Draper - or rather, they profile the man who channels him: Jon Hamm. While many of us already know that Hamm is funny (SNL show-stealer) and manly (he grows a beard in two hours), New York wanted to find out just exactly what Hamm is worth. Word on the street (the side where agent, managers and publicists hang out) is that while Mad Men fans love him, there are still plenty of people who need to discover Hamm. With a handful of film roles coming up, including supporting roles in Ben Affleck's The Town and Judd Apatow's Bridesmaids, Hamm's range and accessibility is growing. While he may not be an overnight leading man, he has Clooney-esque better-with-age sex appeal and good looks that can bide him some time as a long term investment.

By Sophia Savage
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July 26, 2010 5:30 AM
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Betty Draper: Model Parent

For anyone needing to brush up on their parenting skills, Mad Men's Betty Draper (January Jones) sets a hell of an example. New York collects some choice bits: