Interview: Jade Pettyjon of the New American Girls Movie: McKenna Shoots for the Stars

Posted on July 22, 2012 at 3:48 pm

I absolutely loved the new American Girls movie, McKenna: Shoots For The Stars. Based on the stories about the American Girl of the Year doll for 2012, a young gymnast. So it was a treat to get to interview the girl who plays McKenna, Jade Pettyjohn. Her co-stars include Nia Vardelos of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” who plays her mother, and real-life gymnastics champion Cathy Rigby, who plays her coach. In the movie, McKenna’s challenges include an injury and a learning disability but her family and friends provide a lot of support. I especially appreciated the way that kids with disabilities are portrayed — in addition to McKenna’s learning issues, her tutor is in a wheelchair — it is frank and sympathetic but not at all condescending or marginalizing.

I have one copy of the DVD to give away! If you want to enter, send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “McKenna” in the subject line and tell me your favorite doll. Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I will pick a winner on July 28.

What was your audition like? And how did it feel to get the part?

It wasn’t a gymnastics movie when I did the audition. They didn’t want to give away the idea, so I thought it was a dance movie. They gave me lines to memorize and had me read them with the casting director. I was in the car when I found out I got the job and so I couldn’t jump up and down but I was super-excited! And it shot in Canada and that was really exciting because I had never been out of the country before, so that made it even better.

My favorite thing in the movie is the way it portrayed the friendships between the girls, even those of different ages and those who were competing against each other. Are your friends like that?

My friends don’t have as much drama! But I liked that the characters in the movie all made up in the end and were better friends. And the girls on the film had a lot of fun together on set and off set. We would invite each other to where we were staying and watch movies and have classes with my mom and we celebrated Canada Day and watched the fireworks!

It was great to see disabled characters in the movie. Do you have disabled friends?

I do. I was in a group called Kids on Stage for a Better World and one of the girls was in a wheelchair.

What surprised you about working on the film?

I knew gymnastics was hard but I did not know how much hard work and dedication it takes. I was amazed by it. I did a little bit before. I could do cartwheels and a few things but they flew me out a few weeks before so I could learn the gymnastics. One thing me and my character have in common is that we both love to make something come out right and work until it is perfect — for me it’s acting and for her it’s gymnastics.

What movies do you like?

It changes but right now I love “We Bought a Zoo.” And I love “The Help.” And the “Step Up” movies. I am so excited for the new one!

You wore some great clothes in this movie!

I loved my characters outfits and stuff. They were amazing! I loved the dress at the end. But it was really hectic on set and I had seven or eight costume changes in one day!

Did Cathy Rigby give you any pointers?

She is so amazing! She is my role model. I love her! She helped with double cartwheels and splits — it was really cool to work with her.

What’s the best advice you ever got about acting?

It is really important to understand every word in the script. I’ve learned a lot of new vocabulary words that way!

What do you want people to learn from this movie?

I want them to learn that it is important to have balance, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You can’t do just one thing because you might stop loving it and getting fun out of it.

(photo credit: Jessica Pettyjohn)

Savages

Posted on July 5, 2012 at 5:23 pm

Oliver Stone’s new movie about drug dealers and drug users seems to assume that its audiences may be watching in an altered state of consciousness as well. Stone has never been known for subtlety, but just to make absolutely sure that everyone watching the film knows what is what, he makes a very clear distinction between our heroes and our villains. The good drug dealers are two guys and a girl who live together in an almost Edenic state of polyamorous bliss on Laguna Beach and donate money to African villages. The villains are the bad drug dealers, who chain-saw off the heads of seven people before the opening credits are over and are led by viciously evil Selma Hayek with a hairstyle that makes her look like a demented Veronica from the Archie Comics.

Our narrator cautions us that just because she is telling the story does not mean she is alive at the end of it. O (for Ophelia) is a California girl from a wealthy but dysfunctional family whose primary occupations are shopping and having sex with her two boyfriends. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle, a cynical former military guy. Ben (Aaron Johnson of “Kick-Ass”) is the idealistic botany/business guy. Together, O tells us, they make the perfect boyfriend, and they love each other, too, so it’s just one happy cuddle puddle.

But the very thing that makes them so successful — the exceptional quality of their weed — has made them a threat to the big, bad drug dealers from Mexico. When they make an offer Ben and Chon can’t refuse, Ben and Chon refuse anyway. They are willing to turn over the business but they are not willing to work for Elena (Hayek) and her group. So O gets taken hostage, and if Ben and Chon do not start cooperating, they will chop off her fingers.

When O and Elena have an elegant dinner and O starts prattling on about her failed effort at community college as though she is talking to her parents’ friends at the country club, we get a sense of the grand guignol possibilities of this story, based on novel by Don Winslow, who co-scripted. Hayek’s relish in the role is entertaining and John Travolta has a good turn as a paunchy FBI agent with no illusions. But Benicio de Toro’s portrayal of Elena’s sociopathic henchman is just icky. Stone’s re-re-re-treading of the same issues that have pre-occupied him since he was fighting in Vietnam — drugs, corruption, military, power — is tired. The butchery and dissolution of the bad guys is over the top and the heroes give us no reason to root for them. A final fake-out is an insult to any remaining goodwill left from the audience and the overall preposterousness finally feels like an insult.

Parents should know that this film has extremely graphic and disturbing violence including torture and rape, explicit sexual situations, nudity, drinking, smoking, extended drug use (marijuana and cocaine) and drug dealing, very strong language

Family discussion: Why do the different characters refer to each other as savages? Do you agree with the definition used at the end? What kept O, John, and Ben together?

If you like this, try: “American Gangster” and “Blow”

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Based on a book Crime Drama

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence throughout and brief sexuality
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, scenes in bar
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive, intense, graphic, bloody violence including Civil War battles, vampires, stampede, guns, knives, ax, sad deaths of parent and child
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 22, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIHYU

Now, that’s a President. Abraham Lincoln, previously best remembered for the penny, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, the Gettysburg Address, the humor, the honesty, and the height, is now re-imagined with all of that plus a rail-splitting ax tipped with silver that he swings like the grand marshall of a marching band to chop off the heads of vampires.

Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov is known for hyper-violent films with striking visuals (“Wanted,” “Daywatch,” “Nightwatch”), here working with superstar cinematographer Caleb Deschanel as director of photography, is well suited to telling this story. It is surprisingly absorbing for an idea that sounds like it could easily be all concept and pointy teeth.

We meet young Abe as a boy, risking his life to defend his best friend Will, an African-American boy about to be whipped by the cruel man who oversees the docks. This rebellion gets Abe’s father fired, and also inflicts a more insidious revenge. Those who are familiar enough with Lincoln’s history well enough to know that the mother he loved, Nancy Hanks, died when he was nine will guess what is going to happen when she is stricken with a mysterious illness. Those who expect to see his step-mother, his first love, Anne Rutledge, or more than one of his sons will have to wait for the Steven Spielberg biopic coming out next year. As the title suggests, his one is more about killing vampires in a lot of different settlings, with a lot of spurting blood. In 3D.

At first, it is about revenge. But then Lincoln meets the dissolute but somehow trustworthy Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), who cues up the training montage by telling Lincoln he must learn how to swing his ax with enough force to knock down a tree with one blow — and teaches him to do it by thinking about what he hates most. “It’s quite a feat to kill that which is already dead.” Sturgess warns Lincoln that if he is going to hunt vampires he cannot have any friends or romantic connections. But after Lincoln moves to Springfield, Illinois, he soon has both, with Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) and pretty Mary Todd (the always-winning Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The head vampire, meaningfully named Adam (Rufus Sewell), is planning to take over America from his decaying plantation in New Orleans. When he invites some of his slaves to a party, it’s not “Mandingo;” it’s “Soylent Green.”

The attempt to weave the vampires into historical events is less gimmicky than it sounds because slavery is so abhorrent it makes more sense that it would require supernatural evil for something so essentially inhumane. But this is all about the fight scenes, and they are striking, even beautiful seen as abstractions, if you stop thinking of them as decapitations and impalings. Like its source material, its effort to straddle genres is sometimes awkward, its storyline overwhelmed by too many action set-pieces. Star Benjamin Walker’s stiff make-up does not allow for much acting. Despite some murkiness from the post-production 3D, the visuals are powerful and the action scenes impressively staged. And it is refreshing to see a politician who is so good at getting things done.

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Coming Soon: American Girls’ “McKenna: Shoots for the Stars”

Posted on June 11, 2012 at 3:59 pm

Here’s an early sneak peek at a wonderful new DVD, based on the American Girls series about McKenna, the young gymnast, and the American Girls “Girl of the Year.”

Contest: 10th Anniversary “Princess Diaries” Original and Sequel

Posted on June 10, 2012 at 3:55 pm

Has it really been ten years since Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews starred in The Princess Diaries? It is a delightful movie about an awkward teenager who discovers that she is the heir to the throne of a small but charming and delightful country, based on the books by books by Meg Cabot. Disney has released Princess Diaries: Two-Movie Collection , including the original and the sequel, with DVD, Blu-Ray, and extras that include “regal bloopers,” deleted scenes, music videos, and features about tea parties and makeovers. You can even “find your inner princess” with a quiz.

I have one copy to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “princess” in the subject line and tell me your favorite princess in movies, books, or real life. Don’t forget your address! (US adresses only.) I’ll pick a winner a week from today. Good luck!