Shared Darkness

Melanie Papalia has been stalked by a web-chatroom killer before, in the execrable Smiley. In the inventive low-budget horror thriller The Den, though, she has a much better vehicle, and a starring role to boot. The Canadian-born actress plays a graduate student who undertakes a study on the eponymous video-chat site, witnesses a gruesome murder via webcam, and soon finds herself trapped in a twisted game in which she and loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate. I recently had a chance to speak with Papalia one-on-one, about the film, bad Skype connections, ChatRoulette nudity, Uwe Boll, and how John Travolta would have pronounced her name at the Oscars. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here.

Did I have a chance to take part in a recent Los Angeles press day for RoboCop, where Gary Oldman shared his thoughts on the film and his use of Google for research purposes? Why, yes, yes I did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop, from 1987, was a singular work of pop art, blending together an intriguing sci-fi concept, biting satire, considerable action violence, social commentary and more. It sparked various sequels and spin-off properties and now, more than 15 years later, a reboot from respected Brazilian-born director José Padilha that uses the same basic conceit as a framework to explore the place of drones and militarized robotics in modern society. At a recent Los Angeles press day, star Joel Kinnaman spoke at length about the challenges of acting in a restrictive full-body suit, and how to strike a balance between homage to the original RoboCop and something different. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Did I have a chance to take part in a recent Los Angeles press day for RoboCop, wherein Abbie Cornish discussed making the film, and her admiration for director José Padilha? Yes, yes I did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Written by Eric Neumeier and Michael Miner, and directed by Paul Verhoeven with a hearty ribbon of satirical social commentary, 1987’s RoboCop is a touchstone film from its decade, as well as a pop-art genre hybrid — ultra-violent, but also surprisingly smart and thought-provoking. The new remake, starring Joel Kinnaman in the title role and Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman in key supporting roles, retains the near-future Detroit setting of the original movie but also uses the same basic conceit as a framework to explore the place of drones and militarized robotics in modern society, explains director José Padilha. For the feature piece interview with him, from ShockYa, click here.

Michael Keaton, who costars in the new RoboCop reboot, of course knows a thing or two about playing an iconic character and dealing with the constraints of a full-body suit which concealed all but a little bit of his face. At a recent press day in Los Angeles, he discussed that, as well as his admiration for RoboCop star Joel Kinnaman.

In December, I had a chance to visit the Los Angeles set of Joe Dante’s independent horror-comedy Burying the Ex, as it was winding down principal photography, to observe a day’s shooting and chat with some of the cast and crew. My one-on-one conversation with erstwhile Twilight franchise costar Ashley Greene, about the peculiar delights and challenges of playing a scorned female zombie, is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read if interested.

In actress-turned-director Maggie Kiley’s engaging feature debut, Brightest Star, New Zealand native Rose McIver plays Charlotte, one of two young women that Chris Lowell‘s recent college graduate has a relationship with as they all attempt to navigate their early twenties. I recently had a chance to speak to McIver one-on-one and in person, about the movie, her new life in Los Angeles, accents and ambition. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Riding around Hollywood in a stretch limousine with actresses Crista Flanagan, Samantha Colburn, Desiree Hall and Eddie Ritchard, it seems oddly appropriate, almost fated, that a hitch truck with a single, upright port-a-potty — almost posed, in glorious artistic exhibit — pulls up next to us at a stoplight. After all, the women of Best Night Ever — a debauched road trip movie which finds a bride-to-be and her three friends descending upon Las Vegas — grapple with unwanted bodily excretions, Jello wrestling and much more in the film. (They also get kicked out of strip clubs, get mugged, kidnap a valet, get boozy, take drugs and croon some 4 Non Blondes, for good measure.) I recently had the chance to catch up with the ladies, and talk with them about their movie, women’s relationship to scatological humor, cupcakes and strip clubs, and what they really think of Las Vegas. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Actor Chris Lowell has an expansive list of small screen credits, including Life As We Know It, Private Practice and the role for which many people still most remember him — Stosh “Piz” Piznarski on the CW’s Veronica Mars, a role he’ll reprise later this spring in the big screen spin-off. He also has a starring role in a new movie in theaters now: Maggie Kiley’s striking Brightest Star, about a young man’s post-college romantic and occupational wanderings. I recently had a chance to talk to Lowell one-on-one and in person, about his new film, twentysomething ennui and what he thinks of how the Veronica Mars movie came to be. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

In director Joe Dante’s Burying the Ex, Anton Yelchin stars as Max, a twentysomething caught between trying to fully extricate himself from one relationship that has run its course, with the clingy and possessive Evelyn (Ashley Greene), and find stability and success in his relationship with new girlfriend Olivia (Alexandra Daddario). That sounds like a familiar scenario, both on screen and in real life. The twist, though? Evelyn has died and become reanimated as a zombie, which she merely takes as a sign that her love for Max is a star-crossed-and-forever type of thing. Prior to it wrapping up principal photography just before Christmas, I had a chance to visit the film’s Los Angeles set, observe a day’s shooting and talk with the cast and crew about their take on the material. My one-on-one conversation with Yelchin about the film, his helmer Dante’s previous work experience with Roger Corman, and the bracing experience of getting into the editing room on a recent movie is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

In The Invisible Woman, actor-director Ralph Fiennes tackles the salacious tale of noted British author Charles Dickens’ affair with Nelly Ternan (Felicity Jones), an actress much younger than his wife Catherine (Joanna Scanlan). Not too long ago I attended the film’s Los Angeles press day, and had a chance to chat with Fiennes about pulling double duty in front of and behind the camera, as well as what he characterizes as Dickens’ “slightly sociopathological streak.” The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Did I have a chance to take part in roundtable interviews for Ralph Fiennes‘ sophomore directorial effort, The Invisible Woman, and talk to his co-star, Felicity Jones? Yes, yes I did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so if interested click here for the read.

I recently had a chance to visit the Los Angeles set of director Joe Dante’s new film, Burying the Ex, just as it was winding down principal photography before Christmas. There, I observed shooting and chatted with the cast and crew, including screenwriter Alan Trezza. A nice conversation with the latter about the long path to the big screen of his zombie-inflected first produced feature script is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Tales of infidelity make for easy drama on a quite general level, but when one of the parties involved is a huge celebrity, it tends to amplify the intrigue. Such is the case with The Invisible Woman, multi-hyphenate Ralph Fiennes‘ second directorial effort, and the story of author Charles Dickens and his mistress, Ellen “Nelly” Ternan (Felicity Jones). Adapted from a meticulously researched 1991 book by Claire Tomalin, the film chronicles Dickens’ willful dissolution of his marriage to wife Catherine (Joanna Scanlan), the mother of his 10 children, even in the face of the impossibility of a public relationship with Nelly. I recently had a chance to speak one-on-one with Scanlan, about the film, her television writing career and one of the year’s most jaw-dropping big screen confrontations. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

In addition to anchoring one of the country’s most popular TV series, zombies have, in just the past calendar year, done big-screen battle with British East-Enders (Cockneys vs. Zombies), served as the backdrop to a funky tale of adolescent self-doubt and blossoming young love (Warm Bodies), been given the John Hughes treatment (Detention of the Dead), and chased Brad Pitt to the biggest gross of his career (World War Z). So it’s only fitting that they also inspire a tale of obsessive romance taken too far.

That’s part of the core premise of director Joe Dante’s Burying the Ex, in which Evelyn (Ashley Greene) doesn’t let the fact that she’s a newly minted member of the walking dead stop her from stalking her way back into the life of her (normal, living) ex-boyfriend Max (Anton Yelchin), who’s trying to move on with a new relationship, with Olivia (Alexandra Daddario). I recently had a chance to visit the film’s Los Angeles set, in the days prior to the production wrapping principal photography just before Christmas. There, I watched shooting and had a chance to chat with members of the cast and crew. A conversation with Daddario is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read. More will follow in the coming days.

Writer-director Richard Schenkman has had a varied career, encompassing romantic comedies, science-fiction and, more recently, a number of horror movies. His latest film is Mischief Night, a home invasion thriller in which teenager Emily (Noell Coet), still suffering from psychosomatic blindness brought about by a traumatic car accident that claimed her mother’s life nine years earlier, finds herself home alone and terrorized by a masked stranger (or perhaps more) on the night before Halloween. Yesterday I had a chance to talk to Schenkman one-on-one, about his movie, what he loves and hates about the casting process, the state of independent filmmaking, and the script he co-wrote with Jon Cryer but can’t get made. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Actors, even quite successful working ones with deep filmographies littered with big-budget fare, can labor in relative obscurity for years, before just the right role gives them the chance to really “pop.” Such is the case with Oscar Isaac’s superb, anchoring performance as the title character in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s sardonically funny Inside Llewyn Davis, about a week in the life of a struggling folk singer in 1960s New York City, and the slow fade of his despair into outright resignation. I recently had a chance to talk to Isaac at the film’s Los Angeles press day, about his breakout role, preparing for the movie’s live musical sequences and working with the Coens, whose movies, he says, “may not always be what life looks like, but are definitely what life feels like.” The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

As a musician, songwriter and producer, T Bone Burnett has left his mark on the recording industry in indelible fashion. Yet over the past decade in particular, he’s also burnished his reputation and widened his circle of admirers through much work in film — continuing a collaborative relationship over several movies with Joel and Ethan Coen, serving as the music producer on Walk the Line and Across the Universe, and winning an Academy Award as part of his work as a producer, songwriter and composer on Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart.

His latest big screen endeavor is one of his most challenging. For the Coen brothers‘ Inside Llewyn Davis, set against the backdrop of the Greenwich Village folk music scene of the 1960s, Burnett worked with the filmmakers and star Oscar Isaac in capturing the live performances of a talented but seemingly luckless folk singer whose Sisyphusian professional struggles and wrecked personal life combine to elicit a toxic mixture of quiet rage and resignation. I recently had a chance to speak to Burnett at the film’s Los Angeles press day — about the difficulty of capturing the movie’s music live, how he typically works with the Coens, and how (and why) he keeps much of modern-day popular culture at arm’s length. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Throughout a distinguished career that’s seen them duck in and out of various genres, filmmaking brothers Ethan and Joel Coen have maintained an often darkly comedic tone, with their leading characters frequently cast as fated victims in a cruel and unforgiving world, where circumstances just beyond their control doom their best efforts. Their latest film, Inside Llewyn Davis, an evocative portrait of creativity’s grind set against the backdrop of the pre-Dylan 1960s folk scene, tracks loosely along these lines. As the title character (Oscar Isaac), a talented but downtrodden singer-songwriter, works hard to improve his station in life, he encounters a colorful gallery of friends, lovers and peers — hoping a change in luck lurks just around the corner. I recently had a chance to speak to the filmmakers at a Los Angeles press day, about their movie, the unique means they took to capture its wonderful music with T Bone Burnett, and cats. Wait… cats? Yes, cats. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Miranda Otto has co-starred in huge, international blockbusters (The Lord of the Rings, War of the Worlds), but retains an easygoing charm — and, indeed, even a pinch of anonymity. That latter quality served her well when it came time for Brazilian filmmaker Bruno Barreto to cast the starring role in Reaching for the Moon, a smart, well-ordered period piece drama about American poet Elizabeth Bishop’s tempestuous lesbian relationship with Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires). I recently had a chance to speak one-on-one and in person with Otto, about the film, Bishop’s ingrained pessimism and the perils of playing drunk. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Brazilian-born, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Bruno Barreto has over the course of his career tackled everything from political thrillers to comedies and social dramas, but for his 19th feature film he had to look no further than his mother, who supplied the source material for Reaching for the Moon, and served as one of its producers. Inspired by Rare and Commonplace Flowers, a nonfiction book by Carmen Lucia de Oliveira, the movie centers on American poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) and her tempestuous lesbian relationship throughout the 1950s with Brazilian Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires), a renowned architect in her own right. I recently had a chance recently to speak one-on-one with the personable Barreto — who in person resembles an older Moby — about his movie, his leading lady, and battling the urge to make his subject more likeable. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

There are independent filmmakers and then there’s writer-director John Sayles, whose Twitter avatar and biography (“Original Independent”) could scarcely say it better. For more than three decades, he’s used his often lucrative work as a for-hire script doctor to help fund autonomous screen visions that explore a wide range of themes, from race, class and crime to political corruption and labor union turmoil. Go For Sisters is his latest film, his 18th behind the camera, and it stars Lisa Gay Hamilton as a no-nonsense Los Angeles parole officer who leans on the connections of a wayward high school friend (Yolanda Ross) when her adult son goes missing, tripping headlong into a twisted web of human trafficking and other criminal enterprises. I recently had a chance to speak to the warm and candid Sayles one-on-one and in person, about his movie, his career and why he’s not as likely to write things as ambitious as he once did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Lisa Gay Hamilton has had a successful career spanning stage, film and TV, and played more than her fair share of characters of authority — principals, attorneys and the like, including Rebecca Washington for 145 episodes of The Practice, from 1997-2003. But on screen, at least, she hasn’t had a lead role, she says. That changes with the release this week of writer-director John Sayles‘ Go For Sisters, a complex border drama about friendship, redemption and moral relativism. I recently had a chance to talk to Hamilton one-on-one, about the film and working with Sayles. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Almost all of the 18 films John Sayles has written and directed are studded with some measure of political, social or class consciousness. Actor and activist Edward James Olmos, meanwhile, has appeared in dozens of independent productions of his own, a good number with the same sort of thematic interests and preoccupation. Go For Sisters, however, represents their first collaboration. I recently had a chance to speak to Olmos in person and one-on-one, about finally working with Sayles as both an actor and producer, and the challenges of crafting his character. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.