Thompson on Hollywood

'Farewell My Queen' Director Jacquot Takes a Sapphic Turn with Marie Antoinette

Features

There's a reason why French director Benoit Jacquot's "Farewell My Queen" (July 13) was chosen to open the Berlin and San Francisco Film Festivals, as well as making its North American debut at COLCOA this week. The period movie, set in 1789 on the verge of Bastille Day, is a sexy period spectacle that takes us backstage at Versailles...

By Anne Thompson
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April 19, 2012 4:23 PM
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Rachel Weisz Talks 'Deep Blue Sea,' Consuming Love

Features

Rachel Weisz is a terrific actress at the height of her beauty and power who is trying to push good roles up the hill, with varying results, from "The Whistleblower" to "Agoura." (More mainstream thriller "Dream House" yielded husband Daniel Craig, but was not a critics' picture.)

By Anne Thompson
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March 21, 2012 8:47 PM
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Rising Star Tom Hiddleston Talks Davies' 'Deep Blue Sea,' Spielberg's 'War Horse,' Marvel's 'Thor' and 'Avengers'

Features

Five years ago rising star Tom Hiddleston could not have imagined that he would have a year like 2011. At the time, as the theater actor was shooting the "Wallender" crime series with Kenneth Branagh in Sweden, he went to see Marvel's "Iron Man" and asked himself if he could ever star in a film like that.

By Anne Thompson
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March 21, 2012 8:10 PM
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Will Baz Luhrmann's 3-D 'Great Gatsby' Find New Intimacy in Film?

Features

When we learned that Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" was going to be done in 3-D, we weren't happy. Now, with the success of Martin Scorsese's 3-D "Hugo," it seems a 3-D "Great Gatsby" would have indeed been much safer in his hands. The New York Times now has a defense piece up for Luhrmann and the film...

By Sophia Savage
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January 17, 2012 1:14 PM
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Awards Circuit: Octavia Spencer Gets PSIFF Breakthrough Performance Award; Dujardin and Bejo Share SBIFF Cinema Vanguard Award

Awards

Film festivals play a key role in highlighting Oscar contenders during this crowded and noisy awards season. The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will honor "The Artist" actors Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo with their Cinema Vanguard Award on February 4. The award recognizes "an actor who has forged his/her own path - taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film." Past winners include Christoph Waltz, Vera Farmiga and Ryan Gosling. SBIFF's exec director Roger Durling states: "In an age of sight and sound spectacle, there is great risk in a silent film. Jean and Bérénice's acting is an amazing pas des deux both physically and emotionally - recalling classic Hollywood pairings like Hepburn and Tracy, and of course indelibly Ginger and Fred." Dujardin notes the rest of the film's ensemble -- James Cromwell, John Goodman, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle and Malcolm McDowell --and adds, "This award is just as much for them as it is for us.”

By Sophia Savage
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December 7, 2011 12:07 PM
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Oscar Watch: Wasikowska Talks Romancing Fassbender in Jane Eyre and Close in Albert Nobbs

Mia Wasikowska

I first met Mia Wasikowska at the Cannes Film Festival, where she walked the red carpet for Gus Van Sant's Restless, in which she played a young teen with cancer squeezing every ounce of pleasure out of her young life. The 22-year-old Aussie world traveler's timeless beauty works in both period and contemporary films such as The Kids Are All Right and HBO's In Treatment, which catapulted her into a series of enviable gigs indeed.

She snagged the title role Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, the upcoming period ensemble Wettest County in the World, in which she plays Shia LaBeouf's girlfriend, as well as back-to-back costume dramas that are getting year-end awards buzz: Cary Fukanaga's film version of Charlotte Bronte's romantic classic Jane Eyre and Glenn Close's labor-of-love, Albert Nobbs. While the clear-eyed, self-reliant orphan governess Jane Eyre falls in love with brooding employer Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender), in Albert Nobbs, Wasikowska plays a flirty servant who is wooed by Close's Nobbs, in the guise of a man. She has no idea.

I first met Mia Wasikowska at the Cannes Film Festival, where she walked the red carpet for Gus Van Sant's Restless, in which she played a young teen with cancer squeezing every ounce of pleasure out of her young life. The 22-year-old Aussie world traveler's timeless beauty works in both period and contemporary films such as The Kids Are All Right and HBO's In Treatment, which catapulted her into a series of enviable gigs indeed.

She snagged the title role Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, the upcoming period ensemble Wettest County in the World, in which she plays Shia LaBeouf's girlfriend, as well as back-to-back costume dramas that are getting year-end awards buzz: Cary Fukanaga's film version of Charlotte Bronte's romantic classic Jane Eyre and Glenn Close's labor-of-love, Albert Nobbs. While the clear-eyed, self-reliant orphan governess Jane Eyre falls in love with brooding employer Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender), in Albert Nobbs, Wasikowska plays a flirty servant who is wooed by Close's Nobbs, in the guise of a man. She has no idea.
We range around all of the above in the interview below.

We range around all of the above in the interview below.I first met Mia Wasikowska at the Cannes Film Festival, where she walked the red carpet for Gus Van Sant's Restless, in which she played a young teen with cancer squeezing every ounce of pleasure out of her young life. The 22-year-old Aussie world traveler's timeless beauty works in both period and contemporary films such as The Kids Are All Right and HBO's In Treatment, which catapulted her into a series of enviable gigs indeed.

I first met Mia Wasikowska at the Cannes Film Festival, where she walked the red carpet for Gus Van Sant's Restless, in which she played a young teen with cancer squeezing every ounce of pleasure out of her young life. The 22-year-old Aussie world traveler's timeless beauty works in both period and contemporary films such as The Kids Are All Right and HBO's In Treatment, which catapulted her into a series of enviable gigs indeed.

By Anne Thompson
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November 8, 2011 11:05 PM
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AFM News EXCLUSIVE: Keira Knightley To Star In Effie Gray Biopic Untouched

News

Keira Knightley is in talks to play the role of artists’ muse Effie Gray in period drama Untouched for Brazilian director Andrucha Waddington (House of Sand), reports Liza Foreman.

By Liza Foreman
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November 7, 2011 10:38 AM
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AFM News: Sony Takes 1890s Paris Tale Bel Ami, with Pattinson, Thurman, Scott Thomas & Ricci

News

At AFM, Sony has acquired North American rights to Bel Ami, which stars Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci. The film, now completed, was co-directed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod (the pair worked together on 1992 short The Big Fish, which must have been good if they attracted this cast), and is based on Guy de Maupassant's 1885 novel of the same name, adapted by Rachel Bennette. The story explores themes of ambition, power and seduction, with Pattinson starring as a broke ex-soldier who ascends 1890s Parisian society by manipulating its women.

By Sophia Savage
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November 3, 2011 8:29 AM
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War Horse Takes Preview Screening Route to Build Buzz

Disney/DreamWorks is borrowing a page from Paramount's Young Adult pop-up screening playbook by previewing Steven Spielberg's drama War Horse around the country via sneaks, starting Tuesday November 1 (see cities and dates below). (Long-lead press and key critics groups will also see the film ahead of most media, who won't screen it until the end of November.) Positive heartland reactions are already coming in.

By Anne Thompson
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November 2, 2011 9:27 AM
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Weinsteins to Rerelease Holocaust Drama Sarah's Key In Theaters, During Award Season

As if The Weinstein Co. didn't have enough going on right now--with a plethora of releases hitting theaters inside the crowded awards season corridor, including The Iron Lady, Coriolanus, W.E., The Artist and My Week with Marilyn --the company is rereleasing summer movie Sarah's Key, clearly hoping for some awards attention.