Philip Seymour Hoffman

Jennifer Lawrence Pouts and Protests Through ‘Mockingjay – Part 1’

November 21, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

“Now I’m condemned to a life of jumpsuits,” complains Tribute Escort Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) early on in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. She might have been referring to the entire third part of what is now, unlike the book trilogy, a four-part saga in the Twilight mold. And this dark-and-dour installment suffers from saga sag, which is the effort of the Hollywood studios to stretch a stirring girl power series with a monster fan-base beyond reasonable limits for the sake of lucre.

As the movie opens, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is in a state of nervous collapse having been plucked by rebels and dumped in the totalitarian District 13 in the middle of the rigged Quarter Quell. Since it has been twelve months since the audience saw her in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, it’s an awkward emotional pitch at which to reconnect. She’s freaking out but we just sat down with our popcorn.

The good news: Katniss, a potential poster child for the rebels against the fascist forces of the Capitol, has been reunited with her family and big hunk Gale (Liam Hemsworth). The bad news: her home district has been levelled to pixie dust and Panem’s reptilian President Snow holds little hunk Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) captive.

I’m a fan of the books, which are so much better written than Twilight, not to mention emotional satisfying and less drippy. (I know I’m inviting haters, so hate away). But even Katniss, who enters the movie at such a level of despair, seems diminished in Part 1 by all the efforts to replace narrative momentum with unconvincing CGI action set pieces.

Many of the familiar characters have returned along with Trinket, including Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch Abernathy, Sam Claflin’s Finnick Odair, and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Plutarch Heavensbee. But they enter and exit like guests on The Love Boat. Even the fabulous Stanley Tucci as ringmaster Caesar Flickerman is seen at a remove – an image on a television screen within the larger action.

Returning Director Francis Lawrence seems more concerned with making it appear that the late Hoffman lasted through the entire production, than in breathing life into the surviving human interaction. The intimate moments between characters seem unaccountably rushed. A scene where Katniss and Gale pause while hunting seems unnecessarily brief – are the sparks still there? What, besides history, does Gale offer Katniss that Peeta cannot? They only just alight at a romantic stream when his beeper goes off. Is that CGI action calling?

Meanwhile, Julianne Moore appears as President Alma Coin (oh, that name – soul versus money). Moore plays the leader through a veil of two-toned gray hair, sexless and drab as those jumpsuits, all taut looks and emotional control. This may be consistent with Coin’s killjoy persona in the books, which invited the involvement of Everdeen’s more charismatic Mockingjay as a focal point of the rebellion, but I would have welcomed Tilda Swinton as Coin to give her some contrast. Not quite Swinton’s clownish Snowpiercer character but one equal to the smarmy evil of President Snow.

While I praise the fictional inclusion of a female political leader (rather than de facto male), I would have liked Coin to be less shut-down emotionally – to be a woman and a leader. How did she become top dog in District 13 – where is that backstory written on her flawless face?

On the subject of gender, it’s interesting that the character of the video director within the movie is female: Natalie Dormer’s tattooed and asymmetrically coiffed Cressida. And we know that Suzanne Collins wrote the source material. And, yet, in actuality, a man stood behind the camera making the movie, flanked by male screenwriters Peter Craig and Danny Strong. And they are supported by largely male studio heads and financiers in the Hollywood machine.

Why should this gender imbalance be important, I mean, it’s an archer goddess heroine with a chick political leader? When will I be satisfied? Isn’t this enough?

Well, no, if that flaming girl power spirit has been co-opted. The female empowerment that drove the series’ popularity has been effectively neutered in this third outing under a sensibility that values action over intimacy.

I never thought I’d be missing those violent-yet-riveting Hunger Games that dominated the first two films and are missing here. But, for the most part, the violence in those long gladiator sequences was intimate. Each time Katniss pulled her bow, or Peeta covered her ass, it tied back into her character’s coming of age. Like the novels, we were miraculously in the head of this prickly, unpretentious teenaged girl struggling to assume adult responsibility and assimilate mature emotions of love and desire.

In Part 1, blockbuster CGI spectacle overshadows Katniss and, by extension, the merely mortal Lawrence. When, early on, Trinket promises Katniss that “we will make you the best dressed rebel in history,” it reflects the beginning of the end of the revolution, the mass absorption of a radical ideal.

Interview: Jessica Chastain Discusses Surviving a Painful Year — and how Seeing ‘Interstellar’ Made Matthew McConaughey Weep

November 10, 2014 By Thelma 1 Comment

Chastain on fire with “Interstellar,” “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” and “A Most Violent Year.”

Jessica Chastain is a sparkly beauty from the inside out. Sitting across from her in the basement of Manhattan’s Crosby Hotel, her red hair is cut in Cleopatra bangs that drape her fair, flawless skin. Her hands, expressive but child-sized, give away how tiny she really is. But the focus of the 37-year-old actress — who counts movies like The Help, Zero Dark Thirty and Mama among her credits — is anything but dainty. Her latest project, in which she costars with James McAvoy, is called The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. It’s a daring three-part film that tells — from multiple perspectives — the story of a marriage collapsing under the grief of a baby’s death. In our conversation, the two-time Oscar nominee is lively and passionate.

Grief – and how people grieve differently – seems to be the central theme of Eleanor Rigby…

Yes, absolutely. Not just how people grieve differently, but how men and women grieve differently. And also: How you can love someone so completely, where they, like, fill you, but not be able to communicate with them, and how that can be the actual straw that breaks the back.

In a marriage, it can be hard when tragedy strikes, to deal with it together.

Yeah, well, to be on the same team. What does the other person need? I did a lot of reading where writers had written about their experiences of loss, and what had happened in their marriage after having [lost a child]. It was devastating. One thing I found fascinating was a pattern in which some women grieved— it was usually about self‑hate, guilt, and wanting to change something. Change their life, or move away from their history, their past. And the way that men dealt with the grief, was trying to fix it: Like, put some glue on it, and fix the problem. And because [these couples] are approaching this problem from different objectives, and in different ways, there’s this inability to communicate, and to actually help the other person.

This year has been especially painful for you, with the untimely deaths of Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Both were pivotal in your life: You went to Juilliard on a scholarship paid by Williams, and played Desdemona opposite Hoffman’s Othello. Can you talk a little bit about those men?

What’s so devastating to me is that I feel like there’s still a stigma in this world about depression. And if they’re really honest about it, most great artists have — can have depressive personalities, and they can have these incredible highs and incredible lows. But yet, some are not giving these artists the freedom to express it, and to talk about it as it’s happening to them. Not as it’s happening to a character. And I’m hoping that [Robin William’s death],starts to change the dialogue, because a lot of people were saying: ‘We’re blaming him, Robin Williams for his suicide.’

Related: We Might Have Robin Williams to Thank for Jessica Chastain

It’s a dark side of celebrity culture that reflects a wider attitude.

To me, that shows that we have a long ways to go. I’m thinking that if someone is dealing with depression, you can’t trust that person to reach out to you in a society that doesn’t really welcome that. So, that’s what I’m hoping changes with organizations that deal with suicide prevention and depression. There’s this particular organization called To Write Love on Her Arms — this one starts in high schools, where it’s especially difficult dealing with bullying, for people discovering their sexuality. There’s so much happening in high schools. I’m really passionate about this organization, and it’s just newly come into my life.

How did you hear about this organization?

I started searching online. I never talk about this, and I can’t believe what I’m going to say right now — I know my publicist is going, “What are you talking about?” But I do have — my sister killed herself. And that is in my history. So, for me, suicide is a very important issue. If I can do anything to help someone move through any darkness that they’re in, I’m gonna do whatever I can to help. It’s so important to begin the conversation when they’re in high school, because that’s when we’re getting programmed as to what’s acceptable in society. It should be acceptable to talk about your feelings.

Two years ago, we discussed Zero Dark Thirty, and how playing CIA officer Maya — a role that got you an Oscar nomination —inspired you offscreen.

Maya was definitely an inspiration to me. I could connect to the idea of being in love with work, and the obsession of it. I’ve reached a different point in my life now. Since the beginning of February 2010, I’ve been going nonstop. And I’ve gone from one kind of dark character to another. At the beginning of this year, I did Crimson Peak with Guillermo del Toro, and J.C. Chandor’s film The Most Violent Year at the same time. I decided I needed a break. And any fears that I had had before — that I can’t stop, that I love it so much, that I don’t want it to go away — I had to overcome. You know what? I can’t be an actor unless I’m allowed to fill up myself. Now, I like feel like a different person. I haven’t worked since the beginning of May. I have nothing scheduled. It’s good to be able to spend time with my family, looking them in the eye, and being with them when they’re not visiting me on a set , whenI have the distraction of a character I’m playing.

We haven’t discussed the other major movie you have coming out this fall, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Are details still top-secret?

I can tell you I saw my costar Matthew McConaughey on Saturday. In his own words, the movie is an “event.” He said he cried three times when he had seen it recently. I’m so excited about my character. She really moved me. And working with Christopher Nolan, it makes sense why people lose their breath around him. He is the real deal, full-stop, technically. And also he’s the kind of director that, when giving an acting note, makes your performance better. He doesn’t just insert himself to do it. He actually makes you better. He’s an actor’s director.

Interstellar is in theaters now: What the trailer here:

Willem Dafoe on Working with Philip Seymour Hoffman and His ‘Fault in Our Stars’ Fame

July 26, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

A Dapper Dafoe

From the Green Goblin to Nosferatu, Martin Scorsese’s Jesus Christ to Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, actor Willem Dafoe has cultivated a career out of taking risks. This year his gambles have paid off handsomely: At age 58, the Wisconsin native is having one of the best years of his career. He recently starred in this summer’s smash weepie The Fault in Our Stars and the ensemble comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel. This Friday, he dons a German accent and a slick suit to play a dodgy banker in John Le Carre’s espionage thriller, A Most Wanted Man (the film, which opens Friday, is one of the last to star the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died earlier this year).

Arguably the hardest-working man in show business, Dafoe discussed five of his latest roles with Yahoo Movies:

A Most Wanted Man

As Tommy Brue, Dafoe serves as a foil to Hoffman’s Günther Bachmann, a German spy on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I didn’t know Hoffman personally before [we made the movie], but to work with him was to feel like you knew him for a long time,” Dafoe told Yahoo Movies. Of their scenes together — some of which take place in a sedan racing through Hamburg, Germany — Dafoe said: “His character bullied me in those scenes. You may be in a car and it may seem deceptively simple, but a lot is going on.”

The Fault in our Stars

In this smash adaptation of John Green’s young-adult hit, Dafoe played Van Houten, an embittered, alcohol-addled novelist who’s sought out by young lovers Hazel (Shailene Woodley) and Gus (Ansel Elgort). “The other day I was walking down the street in New York,” Dafoe says, “and these 11-year-old girls mobbed me and shouted ‘Van Houten!’ It was like the first time I had ever been recognized in my life. It was like starting all over again it was so unexpected. Sure, kids see Spider-Man, but there was a different kind of passion that young teenagers have when they saw me. They didn’t see an actor that played Van Houten. They saw Van Houten [himself].”

The Grand Budapest Hotel

In Wes Anderson’s latest ensemble-comedy, Dafoe played a menacingly silent assassin. “Wes has a way of assuring you of a good life adventure when you work on one of his movies. Wes showed me an animated storyboard with line drawings for the picture, and I remember after seeing it, I joked, ‘Wes, you don’t need any of the actors. You have a movie right here!'” As far as the atmosphere on the set of the film — which co-starred Ralph Fiennes and Bill Murray — Dafoe says it “was like the actors’ retirement home.”

Nymphomaniac: Volume II

When discussing his latest collaboration with renegade director Lars von Trier — in which he plays the scheming superior to Charlotte Gainsbourg — Dafoe downplayed his participation in the sexually explicit movie. “My involvement was minimal, a couple of days… When I watch it, it’s almost a movie I’m not in.” But he had more to say about their previous collaboration: “Looking at Antichrist, Lars was feeling very insecure and a little ill, he had great ideas, but he didn’t know whether he could actually finish the movie. He used to say, ‘I may not come to set tomorrow or I may not finish this movie.’ It was always scary, and required a huge amount of trust on our part.”

Pasolini

In Abel Ferrara’s biopic — which will open this fall, after premiering at the prestigious Venice Film Festival — Dafoe plays the title character, the controversial gay Italian director (The Decameron), poet and writer who was assassinated in 1975. ”Pasolini is someone I admire a great deal,” said Dafoe, who splits his time between New York and Rome. “He fascinates me. I immersed myself in Pasolini for three months, wore some of his clothes and carried a pen that Maria Callas gave him. Those little details connect you like little relics to the material. They put you in touch with the ghosts.”

TIFF11 Day One: Beware the Ides of March

September 8, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

George Clooney,Ryan Gosling,George Clooney Director,Political Drama,Evan Rachel Wood,Oscar,Farragut North

Gosling-Clooney have Time on their hands

There’s a reason that the initial reaction to the George Clooney directed and co-written political drama has been so subdued. Clooney is so damn likeable, and charming, and affable, and amiable, that we don’t want him to feel bad. I certainly don’t. Ides of March isn’t bad. Not at all. It just isn’t Oscar-worthy. It’s flat and safe. It resembles The West Wing without the adrenaline and walk and talk. And it’s no In the Loop, and far from the political sophistication and savage wit of that movie’s blistering BBC TV predecessor The Thick of It.

No one’s bad in March: not Clooney in a key but supporting role as the Governor running for President, not Philip Seymour Hoffman as his fixer or Ryan Gosling as the idealistic staffer whose character is forged in a contested Ohio Democratic primary.

It’s just that when it comes to Oscar contenders, we’ll have to wait for that other Clooney movie, the one he didn’t direct, the one he stars in: Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. I’ll be there to see it Saturday morning — and can’t wait to fall in love again.