Tribute: Natasha Richardson

Posted on March 20, 2009 at 8:03 am

The loss of the lovely, charming, elegant, and talented Natasha Richardson is terribly sad. Her greatest opportunity to show what she could do as an actress was on stage. She won a Tony award for her performance in “Cabaret” on Broadway. She was the daughter of one of the great acting families, with both parents Oscar-winners. Her mother is Vanessa Redgrave and her father was the late Tony Richardson, director of “Tom Jones.” On film, she is perhaps best known as the mother in the Lindsay Lohan remake of “The Parent Trap.” I loved the way she and co-star Dennis Quaid brought a bittersweet but tender and very dear quality to their scenes together as the estranged couple who were increasingly unable to deny their powerful connection. The poignancy of the Ray Charles song, “Every Time We Say Goodbye” on the soundtrack is even sharper now.

Related Tags:

Actors Tribute

21 Accents with Amy Walker

Posted on January 24, 2009 at 8:00 am

Actress Amy Walker’s astonishing virtuosity with accents is on display in this popular YouTube clip. Can you guess which one is her real native-born accent?

Related Tags:

Reception for ‘The Wrestler’

Posted on November 19, 2008 at 9:31 am

It was a thrill to attend a small reception in honor of the new film, “The Wrestler,” and get a chance to talk with director Darren Aronofsky and co-star Marisa Tomei. The title role is played by Mickey Rourke, in a sensational comeback performance almost certain to get an Oscar nomination. I spoke with Aronofsky about the long development process for the film, as the script went through 25 drafts, and how this film differed from the intensity and scale of his most recent film, “The Fountain.” The intimate, documentary style of filming makes its drama even more heart-wrenching as we feel we are witnessing something very raw and very real. Tomei gives a brilliantly brave and exquisitely vulnerable performance that may earn her another nomination as well.

Related Tags:

Actors

‘There’s Something About Ben’ — MMI’s Tribute to Ben Stiller

Posted on November 18, 2008 at 2:32 pm

David Schwartz of the Museum of the Moving Image has a thoughtful essay on the showbiz satires and family psychodramas of Ben Stiller to accompany the museum’s salute at their annual gala last week.

It has often been said that show business is in Ben Stiller’s genes. If that’s true, then so is a healthy–and seemingly neurotic–disdain for Hollywood glitz. Indeed, the 42-year-old star’s profound and playful understanding of the way that movies and TV shows can be both alluring and alienating is at the heart of his prolific body of work….

So what is behind this constant impulse to satirize show business, to make fun of the industry that provides Stiller’s livelihood? The answer, beyond the surface of the sheer entertainment value of his movies (and Stiller’s films have earned nearly two billion box-office dollars) is that he sees show business as the perfect arena in which to explore, in amplified form, many of the neuroses of modern life. In show business, such foibles as vanity, insecurity, pretension, ego inflation, and feelings of inadequacy are all on display in heightened, occasionally ridiculous form. Our laughter at Stiller’s characters usually comes along with a bracing dose of self-recognition. This is because the public spectacle of show business becomes the ideal forum for an intimate exploration of the most basic psychodramas.

Schwartz notes that Stiller delivers a real performance, even in the broadest comedies, and has been successful in a remarkable range of roles and genres. He concludes that Stiller “has been able to find success in Hollywood while also turning a mirror on it. He lets us laugh knowingly at show business, but he also reveals that show business is a reflection of both our dreams and our imperfections.”

Related Tags:

Actors

Interview: Tannishtha Chatterjee and Sarah Gavron of ‘Brick Lane’

Posted on July 25, 2008 at 10:00 am

Sarah Gavron is the director and Tannishtha Chatterjee is the star of the new British film “Brick Lane,” based on the best-selling novel by Monica Ali. While the book covers three decades in the life of its heroine Nazneen, a Bangladeshi girl who comes to London for an arranged marriage, the movie shows us just one transitional year. I spoke with Gavron and Chatterjee in Washington D.C.

In the US, everyone but the Native Americans is very aware of his connection to the immigrant experience, though that does not necessarily translate into being welcoming of newcomers. How is it different in the UK, which had a very homogeneous and colonialist way of looking at the world for so long?

SG: London is now a fascinating place to live because it has so many cultures, even if you’re a born and bred Londoner, you’re growing up around people who have been displaced, so you get it once removed. Sometimes you have to wait quite a long time to hear English being spoken.

Naznnen is homesick for much of the movie and yet when she has a chance to go back, she does not. Why not?

TC: There is an image she has of Bangladesh, but that Bangladesh is gone, it’s changed. The image they have in their minds is not what it was.

Do women and men find different challenges in navigating a path between assimilation and identity?

TC: In certain ways yes, especially women like Nazneen who are homemakers and don’t have an outlet outside their home or make friends through work or get to know the culture from outside. Creating a home is a bit claustrophobic because they don’t connect to anyone outside. Men in some ways have a connection but in other ways face the harsh reality of the outer world, and feel more like an outsider. Nazneen does not even know their world.

Related Tags:

Actors Directors Interview