Interview with Brittany Curran

Posted on December 4, 2008 at 8:00 am

One of the best moments for any movie critic is the discovery of a bright new talent. Brittany Curran, who co-stars with Lucas Grabeel in The Adventures of Foodboy, caught my attention from her first moment on screen because she did something many actresses with twice as much experience cannot do — she created a vivid and relatable character in a role that could have just been as the usual “girlfriend of leading male.” She projects a combination of confidence and sweetness that is very appealing and has a superb sense of comic timing. Curran and Grabeel have a nice onscreen chemistry that left me hoping to see them together again. Her upcoming projects include “The Ghost Whisperer” and a straight-to-DVD sequel to “Legally Blonde” called “Legally Blondes.”

I was very happy to get a chance to talk to Brittany about “The Adventures of Foodboy” and her other projects. I began by asking her what she did to create such an appealing performance.

My first read was in my room. I knew I needed to do something to make her something more. It’s so easy to slip into just being the girl and I wanted to make her more whole. I only had a week leading up to work on it. So, I read it over a bunch of times, just kept reading it to think about what kind of naturally came out of the lines. I wrote down some notes, letting the natural quirkiness that comes in everyday life guide me, and then later when we were filming tried to let myself go and be spontaneous.

What is it about food fights that makes them so much fun? And was the huge food fight in the movie fun to film?

They’re fun because you can throw all this junk around and not worry about it. It’s a non-lethal way of having fun and fighting, like a silly fight I got into with my friend where we threw ice cubes at each other, or like a pillow fight. But when we did it in the movie, it ended up looking really gross. It was all over and in my hair but the worst was the smell. I constantly had so much stuff in my face and I was aware I was making unflattering facial expressions just when I was supposed to be in the shot. I am usually not conscious of the camera but this time because so much was going on there was a lot of direction to “turn this way,” “look over here” so I was aware of it.

What scene was the most fun to film?

I liked kissing Lucas! The most fun was when it was just the two of us, talking like regular kids. We got along really well and I enjoyed working with him.

What’s on your iPod?

A lot of Led Zeppelin! They’re my favorite band of all time. And the Beatles and the Who and my dad, he’s a musician, too. I’m a major classic rock fan.

You’ve worked on a variety of projects. Has anyone given you some especially memorable advice?

I just worked on a episode of “The Ghost Whisperer” with Jennifer Love Hewitt. The director said, “I know what you want to do. You have the freedom to go where the words take you.” If you know the goal of the scene, you should find your own natural way to get there.

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Wanted

Posted on December 1, 2008 at 7:00 am

Nasty, twisted, pulpy, and brutally violent, “Wanted” is like a cross between Kill Bill, The Matrix, and The Terminator. Angelina Jolie, smokey-eyed and a little bit leaner, plays the assassin who grabs cubicle galley slave Wesley (“Atonement’s” James McAvoy) when he is picking up a prescription for anti-anxiety pills just as a lot of gunfire is about to start wrecking havoc on the pharmacy aisles.

It turns out that our Wesley, who has been inwardly stewing and outwardly doing nothing as he is hounded by his supervisor and cuckolded by his best friend, is, in the grand tradition of heroes from King Arthur to Luke Skywalker to Neo to Harry Potter, the chosen one who must discover his hidden powers. The woman’s name is Fox (“Is that a call sign? Like Maverick in “Top Gun?” he asks) and she takes him to a secret citadel where textiles are woven and assassins are trained. Wesley learns to use guns, knives, and fists. He is often critically injured, but fortunately they have some nifty little healing tanks and a soak or two puts him back on his feet and learning how to shoot around objects and race along the top of the El train. He understands that learning how to do something that makes full use of his unique talents is the only way to know who he truly is.

And the director knows enough to get that part out of the way quickly and get to the good stuff, some low-down and nastily twisted action that includes some bullet-cam shots of bodies that are about to be hit very, very hard. Russian director Timur Bekmambetov of the very successful “Night Watch” movies knows how to make violence stylish without becoming overly stylized, nudging the pulpiest elements into myth.

James McAvoy shows himself as able at nerd-into-action-hero as he was at faun (“The Chronicles of Narnia”) and tragic romance (“Atonement”), and Jolie seems delighted to shake off the beatific Madonna role she has played on- and off-screen most recently. She moves like a panther, bringing an ecstatic grace to a ducking move on top of the El train just before it gets to a tunnel. Morgan Freeman is all gravelly exposition and Common has marvelous screen presence as members of The Fraternity. The plot twists are less successful onscreen than on the page and the violence goes over the top but by that time the fanboys will be so satisfied (did I mention that there’s a scene with Jolie getting out of the tub and showing off her tattoos?) that they might not mind, especially with the hint of a sequel.

Inappropriate Trailer Shown Before ‘Twilight’

Posted on November 24, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Critics usually do not see trailers in our special screenings, so many thanks to the commenters who brought this problem to my attention. Some “Twilight” fans are seeing the disturbing trailer for “The Unborn” before the movie.
The choice of trailers is made by individual theater owners and managers. In general, they usually try to make sure the movie they are advertising will appeal to the same audience. It is unthinkable to me that anyone who knows what “Twilight” is about — a tender love story and the triumph of better angels over base desires — would want to show that audience a trailer for a film about a demonic spirit.
Parents should check with the theater manager to make sure this trailer will not be shown when they decide where their teenagers will be seeing “Twilight.” And I also recommend a protest to the authorities:
National Association of Theatre Owners
750 First Street, NE
Suite 1130
Washington, DC 20002
Tel. 202.962-0054
Fax: 202.962-0370
E-mail: nato@natodc.com
Office of the Chairman and CEO
Washington, DC
1600 Eye St., NW
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 293-1966 (main)
(202) 296-7410 (fax)

Grrrrl Power at the Box Office: ‘Twilight’ Sales Set Records

Posted on November 23, 2008 at 9:54 pm

To the surprise of no one but the Hollywood insiders, none of whom apparently have ever spoken to a teenage girl, “Twilight” set records at the box office this weekend, exceeding all predictions to bring in over $70 million, almost doubling the previous record for a movie directed by a woman. Blockbuster films have always been directed at teen boys. “Twilight” shows that teen girls are just as eager to buy tickets — often more than one — for movies that speak to their lives and interests.
E! noted:
“This is a game-changer. This is an industry-changing performance,” Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock said today. “…With the success of Sex and the City, and Mamma Mia!, we’ve awoken a sleeping giant at the box office.”
The Associated Press spoke to an expert who saw a trend:
“Teen girls rule the earth,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. “If you look back at the `Hannah Montana’ movie, how well that did, and now this movie, the teen girl audience will never be ignored again or underestimated. It was always teen boys who were the coveted ones, but someone finally caught on to the idea that girls love movies, too, and if you create something that they’re into, that they’re passionate about, they will come out in big numbers and drive the box office.”
One of my favorite reviews of the film was from my pals at the Kansas City Star, who run my parental advisory capsules each week and occasionally invite me to write reviews. My email pen pal, “resident fangirl Sharon Hoffman” added her comments to the negative review from the paper’s critic, responding to his complaints about the story and the actors by explaining what she liked about the movie. In every case, I was on her side.

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Commentary Teenagers

Tropic Thunder

Posted on November 18, 2008 at 6:07 pm

With constant coverage of every baby bump and trip to rehab, we all feel like show business insiders these days. And co-writer/director/star Ben Stiller makes the most of that with this pointed but ultimately sweet take on Hollywood excess.

The characters are brilliantly introduced via a stream of what at first appear to be pre-feature shorts, until we realize that they are hilarious and only slightly exaggerated parodies of a rap star’s soda commercial and trailers for movies featuring a fading action star (“Global Meltdown Part VI: Here we go again. Again.”), a tubby comic who plays all the parts in low comedies — very low (“The Fatties: Fart 2”) and wants to do drama but is battling a substance abuse problem, and a Serious Actor from Australia who throws himself completely into every role (a trailer for “Satan’s Alley” about the forbidden love of a pair of friars) and has had a controversial medical procedure to darken his skin to play an African-American. They are Alpa Chino (say it aloud) (Brandon T. Jackson), Tugg Speedman (Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.). And they are joined by newcomer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) in a huge career-building Viet Nam War epic, based on the true story of “Four Leaf” Tayback (Nick Nolte) and directed by first-timer Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan).

Everything, of course, goes very, very wrong. When they’re a month behind after five days of shooting and the studio executive (a very funny performance by a major star I won’t reveal) is very colorfully threatening to do many very bad and painful things, Cockburn decides to go commando, so to speak, and take the actors out into the jungle like it was “The Blair Witch Project.” And that is when things really go wrong and the actors get mixed up in some real fighting they think is part of the movie.

Stiller is great at nailing the way that the actors and the people back in Hollywood have such a permeable sense of reality that they buy into whatever is happening at the moment. That may be the way to get an Oscar, but it makes it difficult to deal with actual reality when it occurs. The overlay of these pampered stars (Speedman’s agent is frantic about the failure to provide his client with TIVO) playing tough guys (and they are not the only ones pretending to be tough) is very funny and the inside humor (“I stay in character until the DVD commentary”) is choice. A movie about a fake movie has the truest laughs of the summer.

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Action/Adventure Comedy War