Before They Were Stars: Maika Monroe and Jeremy Allen White
Posted on July 20, 2024 at 8:00 am
Maika Monroe stars in one of the highest-profile horror films of 2024, “Longlegs,” following her role in a thriller, “The Watcher.” And Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White is now one of television’s biggest stars, with the third season of “The Bear.” (Also in the film is Sasha Lane, who appears in this week’s blockbuster, “Twisters.”)
After Everything Copyright 2024 Yale Productions
Just six years ago, Monroe and White played a romantic couple in a small, independent film called “After Everything,” written and directed by Hannah Marks and Joey Power. I gave the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4 in a review for rogerebert.com: ” a bittersweet love story, bitter because the couple meet just as the guy is diagnosed with cancer, but sweet because the young couple is so believably tender and loving….White and Monroe create imperfect but always likable characters and the direction is brisk but assured.”
Here Hannah Marks and Joey Power, and Jeremy Allen White talk about the film.
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with movies starring some of the greatest stars in movie history. If you haven’t seen all of these, you deserve a pinch!
Two of the most talented and charismatic up and coming actors, Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, appeared in last year’s tenderest love story (about the love between parent and child as well as romantic love), “All of Us Strangers.”
Maureen O’Hara — her fiery red hair was made for technicolor and she was ideally cast opposite John Wayne in films like “The Quiet Man” and “McLintock.” I especially loved her as the mom in “Miracle on 34th Street” and “The Parent Trap.”
Colin Farrell — he is electrifying as a bad guy but willing to go all out in a comedy like “Horrible Bosses” or the wonderfully weird “The Lobster.” I especially loved him as a sensitive gay man in “A Home at the End of the World,” and his appearance with Elmo on “Sesame Street.”
Saoirse Ronan — one of the most talented young stars working today, she first gained international stardom in “Atonement” and has shown astonishing range in films like “Hanna” and “Brooklyn.”
Liam Neeson — an Oscar winner for “Schindler’s List,” Neeson is equally at home in serious drama and in action films like “Taken.”
Pierce Brosnan — the most elegant of the James Bonds, Brosnan also played a very different kind of spy in “The Matador” and sang (or tried to) in “Mama Mia.”
Peter O’Toole — best known for “Lawrence of Arabia,” but his most endearing performance is probably the swashbuckling movie star guesting on a live television show in “My Favorite Year.” And don’t miss him as a movie director in “The Stunt Man” and an art expert turned thief in “How to Steal a Million.”
Jonathan Rhys Meyers — he was Henry VIII on HBO’s “The Tudors” and the soccer coach in “Bend it Like Beckham.”
Chris O’Dowd — Kristen Wiig could not resist him in “Bridesmaids,” and he was equally appealing in “Pirate Radio” and the British sitcom “The IT Crowd.” He plays the manager of a girl group in “The Sapphires” and created the very funny series “Moone Boy.”
Daniel Day-Lewis — he played Abraham Lincoln, but he has also played real-life Irish icons Christy Brown (“My Left Foot”) and Gerry Conlon (“In the Name of the Father”).
Pat O’Brien — this dependable character actor starred as Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne.
MVPs of the Month: Nicholas Galitzine and Ayo Edebiri
Posted on August 22, 2023 at 3:06 pm
Each August, if we’re lucky, we get to see breakthrough talent in the August movie releases, where the indie darlings and festival hits make it to theaters. This month there are two actors making sensational appearances in two different films and I can’t wait to see more of them.
Here’s a glimpse of both of them in “Bottoms.”
Copyright 2023 AmazonIt’s hard to imagine a bigger chasm between the two roles played by Nicholas Galiztne this month. In “Red, White & Royal Blue” he plays a prince, the grandson of the King of England and the brother of the heir to the throne. In his bespoke suits (made by the same firm that does the suits for the real royals), he is an elegant exemplar of discretion and diplomacy. The movie shifts from a rom-com vibe to a more serious romantic drama, and Galitzine gracefully shifts with it, showing us how the prince yearns for what his duty tells him he cannot have.
Copyright 2023 MGMIn “Bottoms,” he plays Jeff, an American small-town high school quarterback who is dumb, arrogant, obnoxious, and constantly unfaithful to his girlfriend. Galitzine perfectly nails not just the character but the heightened tone of the film. The film is wildly funny, mostly very dark, satiric comedy, and again he is tonally perfect every bit of the way.
Ayo Edebiri is one of the leads in “Bottoms,” a high school student who starts an all-women fight club with her best friend. Her supremely expressive face and perfectly calibrated dialogue are a highlight of the film. You can also see her in the hit series about the Chicago restaurant, “The Bear.”
She has a small but vital part in one of my favorites of the year, “Theater Camp,” as a counselor brought in at the last minute who has no idea what she is doing. She shows enormous range and understanding of tone in each of these very different works. For a treat, try some of her stand-up clips on YouTube, showing us she is adorable as herself. Copyright 2023 Hulu
Andrea Riseborough: See the Surprise Oscar Nominee
Posted on January 30, 2023 at 10:38 am
Copyright 2022 Momentum Pictures
The biggest surprise among the acting Oscar nominations this year was Andrea Riseborough as Best Actress. There were three reasons awards-predictors did not expect to hear her name. First, the movie she starred in, “To Leslie,” was made for under one million dollars and made about $30,000. Very few people saw it. This is the kind of film that is overlooked, possibly a candidate for a Spirit award but not in the same category as big-budget, big-stars Oscar movies. Second, there was no big-budget FYC (“For your consideration”) publicity campaign to make sure Academy voters saw it. Third, her performance got unprecedented support from industry insiders like Gwyneth Paltrow who took to social media to urge Academy voters to consider her.
The part that is not a surprise for anyone who has seen her is that Riseborough’s performance was extraordinary. She always is. You may have seen her before but not realized it because she inhabits every role so completely it is easy to forget it is the same actress.
There is some controversy about the way her nomination was supported. One social media post compared her to another actor, which is not allowed under the rules. But that has nothing to do with Riseborough, who did nothing wrong. Whatever happens to the nomination, I hope audiences watch “To Leslie” and seek out some of her other performance. Here are some I especially recommend.
Riseborough starred opposite Tom Cruise in a film set in 2077. A veteran assigned to extract Earth’s remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself.
She was a hairdresser who becomes romantically involved with Billie Jean King in “Battle of the Sexes.”
She plays an awful mother in “Matilda: The Musical”
She was a woman who might be a lost daughter who was kidnapped as a child in “Nancy”
Behind the Scenes — Hotel Transylvania: Transformania
Posted on January 12, 2022 at 8:00 am
Copyright Sony 2021The fourth “Hotel Transylvania” is my favorite of the series. There are some new voices, with Brian Hull taking over for Adam Sandler as Drac, Brad Abrell filling in for Kevin James as Frankenstein, and Keegan-Michael Key as The Mummy, replacing CeeLo Green.
The first three films were centered on the difficulty Drac, a vampire (Hull), had in accepting Johnny (Andy Samberg), the human who married his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). In this movie, there’s a switch. Johnny wants to become a monster and gets Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) to turn a transforming ray on him. So, the human becomes a monster and, through a malfunction, the ray gets turned on the monsters — the Invisible Man (David Spade), Murray the Mummy (Key), Wayne the wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Frankenstein (Abrell) and his Bride, Eunice (Fran Drescher). They become human, so we get to see what the Invisible Man, the Wolfman, and the Mummy really look like and how they respond when they don’t have their special powers. But Mavis has to find a way to get Johnny back to his human self before it is too late.
In a virtual press event, the actors talked about becoming “monsterfricationized” (Samberg’s term) and the freedom of animation. “I loved the new design,” Samberg said, “Burning Man back-packer meets Godzilla, a dream come true for me.” Spade said his character is “a bit of a scene-stealer” and a “goofy ding-dong who hangs out with the monsters.” He said the animators originally wanted the surprise to be how handsome his character was, but he urged them to make him funny-looking. “It’s a cartoon! It should be funny.”
Key was surprised by what his always-wrapped character looked like under it all. “I expected him to be bigger, with one revolution of wraps.” His favorite thing was the way his character was “really working the jowls,” which gave him a different idea about the voice. He loved the concept of not having any limitations. The look of the characters is so exaggerated that you can do anything, like when you’re a kid and playing with other kids. You get to channel all that abandon and it’s only not frowned upon; it’s encouraged.”
Drescher and Gomez urged the audience not to worry about pressure to fit in. Gomez advised taking a break from social media and focusing on a small group of real friends. Drescher said “compassion should be your compass.”
“You pretty much know they want you to go huge and insane, and then they’re going to go further with the animation,” Samberg said, and the others agreed that they enjoyed never being asked to tone it down.
Gomez said “it’s been wonderful to grow with this character. She’s tough and she’s always worrying, and that matches my personality well. I know what it’s like to have differences between family members and it is nice that we’re touching on a real thing in such a crazy way.”
Drescher loves physical comedy and the way it is even bigger in animation. “You can so so much because it’s a make-believe world. You can contort the how far can we physically take these characters to do funny and surprising things.”
Samberg said he did not expect the first movie to inspire three sequels, but he is delighted. “They’re so infused with joy and positivity. Everyone grew up loving this classic monsters and it’s a new spin on it. That’s why it endured.”
Key appreciates the combination of imagination, humor, and character. “An adult can be laughing at a hard joke in this film, but the way all the relationships play out, it’s well-observed and very relatable.”
