In his 2000 feature debut “Fighter,” doc filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev followed two Czech Holocaust survivors as they revisit a notorious labor camp, one of whom begins poking holes in the other man’s narrative. As the director himself explains: “It’s about the tension between two friends when one of them begins to question how much of…
When he’s in his birthplace of New York City, actor Paul Dano says he’s most recognized for playing Daniel Day-Lewis’s evangelical nemesis, whose proverbial “milkshake” of oil gets drained in “There Will Be Blood.” Outside of major cities, the 26-year-old is more instantly familiar as the mute Nietzschean road-tripper from lighter Best Picture Oscar nominee,…
During actor Mark Ruffalo’s early career struggles, the handsome and humble star of “Zodiac,” “The Brothers Bloom” and “Shutter Island” admits to having performed strange jobs for money (“things that weren’t exactly above board, but weren’t hurting anybody”), but donating sperm wasn’t one of those. However, if you’d care to imagine what Ruffalo’s good genes…
Not since 1985′s “White Nights” has California-born director Taylor Hackford (“Ray,” “An Officer and a Gentleman”) worked with Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren. That isn’t to insinuate any animosity from that first collaboration since, well, the two eventually got married. Loosely based on the real-life story of America’s first legal brothel, Hackford’s ’70s-set drama “Love Ranch”…
Before American audiences can get their greedy eyes on Oliver Stone’s long-anticipated sequel “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” this fall, the three-time Oscar winner will release an even more politically minded film, if you don’t mind Hugo Chávez standing in for Shia LaBeouf. As genial as it is revealing, “South of the Border” sees Stone…
Comedic actor and up-and-coming screenwriter Jonah Hill has brightened every feature Judd Apatow has yet directed (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,” “Funny People”), and would like you to stop thinking he’s the vulgar loudmouth he played in “Superbad.” If anything, he thinks his recent gig as the hapless liaison to Russell Brand’s rock star in…
An unconventional, saturnine sex symbol in his native Denmark, actor Mads Mikkelsen has become an adored presence in international productions both indie and blockbuster-sized. He wept blood as the villainous Le Chiffre in the 007 reboot “Casino Royale,” assassinated Nazis as the latter half of the Danish Resistance duo “Flame & Citron,” managed an Indian…
It’s tempting to still think of Leelee Sobieski as that underage ingénue from “Deep Impact,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “The Glass House” and her Emmy-nominated role in the TV miniseries “Joan of Arc,” but according to the fair-skinned beauty (who turns 27 this month and, as of December, is a new mother), the opposite is true:…
“True Blood” star Alexander Skarsgård has gained American heartthrob status as the show’s thousand-year-old Viking vampire Alex, but even if the role is clearly make-believe, the Nordic charm is all his. Son of famed actor Stellan Skarsgård, the Stockholm-born thespian has a long and storied career in his homeland, from becoming a child actor to…
From the disconcertingly funny, weirdo Americana of “Gummo” to the vaudevillian drama of a celebrity-impersonator commune in “Mister Lonely,” the beautifully grotesque films of indie auteur Harmony Korine always become, without fail, cult treasures that get audiences talking. Whether you think his is the work of an insincere hipster or an eccentric provocateur, you can’t…
You might imagine there’s a lot to live up to in a showbiz career when your half-sister, father and grandfather have each won at least one Academy Award, but one peek at Danny Huston’s acting résumé (“The Proposition,” “Birth,” “The Aviator,” “Children of Men”) illustrates he’s primed to take over the family business. (And for…
If his widely perceived reputation is deserved, you never know what “30 Rock” star and former “Saturday Night Live” funnyman Tracy Morgan might say or do next. For instance, who would have guessed that his next film role would be in the ensemble cast of “Death at a Funeral,” a remake of Frank Oz’s 2007…
Roguish 37-year-old actor Alessandro Nivola may not be a household name yet, perhaps because he gets so lost in the diverse roles he’s claimed, whether he’s the blithe English businessman wooed by Audrey Tautou in “Coco Before Chanel,” the paleontology protégé who redeems his thieving ways in “Jurassic Park III,” the metropolitan husband who can’t…
Music video artist-turned-auteur Michel Gondry, the French fabulist director behind “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Be Kind Rewind,” has reinvented his organic style yet again by ditching the wild visuals and iconic performers he’s typically associated with for the deeply intimate vérité doc “The Thorn in the Heart” (or for those don’t need…
Since his 1984 directorial debut “Next of Kin” and throughout his long and twice Academy Award-nominated career, Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan (“Exotica,” “The Sweet Hereafter”) has regularly and artfully explored familial and marital dynamics through the filters of disconnection, struggle and cultural identity — personal motifs that reflect his Egyptian birth to Armenian parents. However,…
Downtown NYC cool kid-turned-actress Chloë Sevigny (“Boys Don’t Cry,” “The Brown Bunny,” HBO’s “Big Love”) is well known for turning down high-paying roles in favor of the kind that simply appeal to her indie-arty sensibilities. Her latest project is writer-director Chris D’Arienzo’s comedic feature debut “Barry Munday,” making its world premiere at this year’s SXSW.…
Though best known for his lyrically stunning work as the director of photography on “Afterschool” and “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell,” Jody Lee Lipes would rather be known as a filmmaker than as a cinematographer. His directorial feature debut, the provocative doc “Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same,” premiered at…
“Revolutionary Road” actress Zoe Kazan understands why people still bring up her being the granddaughter of filmmaker Elia Kazan, but the Brooklyn-based beauty should be taken on her own terms, having quietly banked an impressive résumé of stage and screen credits (including “Me and Orson Welles,” “Fracture” and “It’s Complicated”). Currently, she co-stars on Broadway…
Having won a Golden Globe for his iconic role on TV’s “Mad Men” as the conflicted ad executive Don Draper, St. Louis-born actor Jon Hamm might seem like he’s most at ease in a sharply pressed suit and with a stiff drink in his hand, but that’s acting, isn’t it? In the new indie murder…
Maybe the French crime drama “A Prophet” is actually fulfilling some prophecy, having won the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes, two BAFTAs last weekend, and a most deserved Oscar nomination for best foreign language film. Co-written and directed by Paris-born auteur Jacques Audiard (“The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” “Read My Lips”), this ambitious…
It’s been a while since we’ve heard actor Ewan McGregor (“Trainspotting,” “Moulin Rouge!”) speak in his native Scottish accent, yet so much remains enigmatically unfamiliar about his nameless character known simply as “The Ghost” in director Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer.” Adapted by former journalist Robert Harris from his own novel, this fantastically nutty political…
Though you might remember Anna Chlumsky as the perky child star of “My Girl” and “Gold Diggers,” you can stop pretending that the 29-year-old actress is still a kid. After some years off from acting, during which she pursued a different career altogether, Chlumsky resurfaced on both the small screen (with appearances on “30 Rock”…
Leaping from fiction to nonfiction and back again may be an astonishing directorial feat, but those who have followed British filmmaker James Marsh (“Wisconsin Death Trip,” “The King”) before he won his best documentary Oscar for “Man on Wire” last year know he’s long led such a high-wire career. For “The Red Riding Trilogy,” screenwriter…
Somewhere around the late summer of 2005, actor Romany Malco seemingly materialized out of nowhere to find breakout success in both “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and TV’s “Weeds,” and has continued to be a sly comedic force to be reckoned with in such films as “Blades of Glory,” “Baby Mama” and “The Love Guru.”…
