Category: Interviews/Articles

2011 Apr 19

Evan Rachel Wood says she’s into Kate Winslet

Written by Annie
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Interviews/Articles

Actress Evan Rachel Wood says she’s bisexual, and if she could, she would marry her Mildred Pierce co-star Kate Winslet.

Wood, the co-star of HBO’s hit vampire drama True Blood, told men’s glossy Esquire magazine that she likes both men and women.

“I’m up for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl…” the 23-year-old actress said.

Wood plays the Vampire Queen of Louisiana in the HBO series set to return for its fourth season in June.

When asked if she’s dated women, Wood proudly responded: “Yeah, I’m more kind of like the guy when it comes to girls. I’m the dominant one. I’m opening the doors, I’m buying dinner.”

“Yeah, I’m romantic,” she said.

Referring to her rocky relationship with rock star Marilyn Manson (it’s currently off), Wood said she’s had a long affair with androgynous singers.

“I grew up in love with David Bowie,” she said. “So I was always into very androgynous things. Guys, girls… I’m into androgyny in general.”

Source: On Top Magazine

2011 Apr 18

Kate Winslet feels guilty about free time

Written by Annie
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Interviews/Articles Personal/Career

Kate Winslet finds it hard to make time for herself without “feeling guilty about it”.

The Revolutionary Road actress devotes so much time to her children — 10-year-old Mia, her daughter with first husband Jim Threapleton, and seven-year-old Joe, her son with second spouse Sam Mendes, who she split from in March 2010 — she has joked she has forgotten how to “sit down”, and has to force herself to make time to just relax.

She said in an interview with Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “Any mother knows the last person you think about is yourself. I’ve been a mother for 10 years and I’m still trying to figure out how to give time to myself without feeling guilty about it.

“Sometimes I’ll sit down and I’ll go, ‘Oh it’s just nice to sit down,’ because truly, I’ve forgotten how to do that.

“You forget to sit down and not worry about what needs to be done for the kids, just take time for yourself and pick up a book or read a recipe. I tell myself ‘Just. Sit. Down.’ it’s a challenge.”

Kate, 35, also revealed she is enjoying her 30s and feels much more secure in herself and prepared for the challenges of life than she did in her 20s.

She added: “I think that for a lot of women, our 20s are a time of really figuring things out and figuring out what we’re really about. Of course, at the time, we think we know exactly who we are, we think we’ve done all the growing emotionally . And then along come our 30s and it’s all different again.

“I’m really enjoying my 30s, actually. I have so much more life experience than I did when I was 25 and that’s a real luxury.”

Source: The Independent

2011 Apr 14

Roman Polanski’s “Carnage” will hit the U.S.

Written by Annie
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Films Interviews/Articles News

Ready for another round of debate as to whether or not Roman Polanski should be allowed back into the United States in order to attend awards shows? Well then good news, because Polanski’s latest movie Carnage is all set up to get a distribution deal, and it looks like a film that will be getting a lot of attention come awards season. Deadline Topanga Canyon reports that Michael Barker and Tom Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics are close to signing a deal to release the film, that was packaged by ICM, here in the US.

Carnage is an adaptation of a Tony Award winning play by Yasmina Reza. It tells the story of the aftermath of a schoolyard brawl between two 11 year-old boys. The boys’ parents turn out to be just as irrational as their children, and when they meet to talk over the scuffle a series of arguments and chaotic disagreements over various hot-button issues becomes the norm for the night. The stage play’s original cast consisted of James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, and Hope Davis, but none of those actors reprise their roles for Polanski’s film version. That would probably be seen as a huge disappointment, except for the fact that Polanski got Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, and Kate Winslet to replace them. Wow, way to be a one-upper Roman.

Source: Film School Rejects

2011 Apr 12

JWTV Quickie: “Mildred Pierce” – Part Three through Part Five

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Interviews/Articles

Sunday night brought the last two segments of the new HBO five hour miniseries, Mildred Pierce. Rather than writing out paragraphs of detailed review, here’s a list of ten things, both good and bad, of note within the last three hours, in no particular order. Please feel free to add to the list if you think something important was missed, or debate why something is included.

1. Same as the previous list. Kate Winslet, who plays the title character, will win the Emmy. She just will, sorry, no contest. She is doing a fantastic job in a miniseries that is attracting attention and praise. There will be other actresses as good this year, but you would be hard pressed to find one better, and she will win.

2. The whole miniseries is a palindrome. Mildred begins married to Bert (Brian F. O’Byrne), divorces, loses a daughter (Ray, who dies), takes a lover, starts a business, find success, loses the business, loses the lover, loses a daughter (Veda runs out on her), divorces, marries Bert again. Ah, symmetry!

3. I thought I would like Evan Rachel Wood better as Veda than Morgan Turner, the younger version. I was wrong. While Wood did fine, she had less to work with than Turner, who played Veda for a longer period of time. Wood got the juicy finale, but Turner deserves to get a supporting actress Emmy nomination.

4. Veda screws everything up. Veda ruins Mildred’s relationships and her chain of restaurants. Veda distracts Mildred from what she should be focusing on. If Mildred had had an abortion, or given Veda up for adoption, none of the bad things in her life would have ever happened. The story would have a happy ending.

Continue reading JWTV Quickie: “Mildred Pierce” – Part Three through Part Five

2011 Apr 12

JWTV Quickie: “Mildred Pierce” – Part One and Part Two

Written by Annie
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Interviews/Articles

Sunday (March 27) night, we got to see the first two hours of the new HBO’s five hour miniseries, Mildred Pierce. Rather than writing out paragraphs of detailed review, which I will reserve for after the entire run is complete in three weeks, I want to list ten things, both good and bad, of note within the first two hours, in no particular order. Please feel free to add to the list if you think I missed something important, or debate why something is included.

1. Kate Winslet, who plays the title character, will win the Emmy. She just will, sorry, no contest. She is doing a fantastic job in a miniseries that is attracting attention and praise. There will be other actresses as good this year, but you would be hard pressed to find one better, and she will win.

2. I thought Mildred was supposed to be unlikable. Why hasn’t she been unlikable yet? Am I under a false impression? She has been shown with pluck and determinating, struggling to support her family, with only a trace of enabling her bratty daughter. Speaking of…

3. Young Veda (Morgan Turner) and the older Veda that will be showing up later (Evan Rachel Wood) are a perfectly cast pair. While Wood has not yet made an appearance, just thinking back to her run on True Blood last year will point to the fact that people are about to be blown away by just how similar the two are in looks and mannerisms. PERFECT!

4. Why is Melissa Leo talking in that annoying voice as Lucy? She just won an Oscar, and she already blew away HBO audiences with her fantastic turn in Treme. All she has been on MP is annoying.

5. Other than cheating on his wife, Bert (Brian F. O’Byrne) seems to be the perfect father, and he’s become a fine friend to Mildred post-split. I am having trouble reconciling those two different aspects. Which is kind of neat, because life is complicated, and this way he’s presented as a full man, rather than a caricature.

Source: Examiner.com

2011 Apr 12

A grand finale for “Mildred Pierce”

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Career Interviews/Articles

A poisonous mother-daughter relationship dominates the end of HBO’s haunting miniseries

There was so much great filmmaking in Sunday’s Mildred Pierce finale that I could spend all morning appreciating it, but for illustration’s sake, I’ll let one example suffice: the scene where Mildred (Kate Winslet) and Bert (Bryan O’Byrne) eat at the new seaside restaurant and hear the voice of Veda (now an opera singer and played by Evan Rachel Wood) coming through the radio. Director Todd Haynes, his cinematographer Ed Lachman, and the actors are at peak strength. I love the shot over Mildred and Bert’s shoulders of the radio broadcasting the music (it has talismanic power), and the close-up of Mildred staring at the radio and listening to it, half the frame blocked out by the back of the radio. I love the long tracking shot of the stunned Mildred walking to the seaside. Most of all I love that final profile shot of Mildred staring out at the sea at night, after which the camera tracks right. The screen fills up with blackness that expresses the void Veda’s absence created in her mother; there’s also a concurrent sense that Mildred’s emotions are casting themselves out into the blackness, or onto the ocean, in a kind of cosmic reaching-out.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: This miniseries is a masterpiece.

Continue reading A grand finale for “Mildred Pierce”

2011 Apr 12

Catherine Deneuve: “I admire young actresses”

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Interviews/Articles

Catherine Deneuve has revealed that she holds many of today’s top actresses in great esteem.

In an interview with The Philippine Daily Inquirer, the acclaimed French star disclosed that she particularly enjoys those who can easily tackle both stark drama and light comedy.

“I admire Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet,” she said. “I like a lot of comedians. I like Cameron Diaz — she’s funny and has a very light spirit. That’s quite rare nowadays. There are many actresses I admire.”

The two-time Academy Award nominee also revealed that Marilyn Monroe ranks as her favorite actress of all time.

She remarked: “Marilyn Monroe has my greatest admiration… She was able to do everything! I saw her as one of the best actresses; she could go from comedy to drama. Being great at both is very difficult. And she was so beautiful. On screen, it was like the light was coming from her.”

Deneuve has ranked as one of France’s most prominent stars for more than 50 years, winning two César Awards and working with the country’s most respected filmmakers, including François Truffaut, Andre Techine, Jacques Demy and Alain Corneau.

The actress is currently starring with Gérard Depardieu in Potiche, which is now playing in US cinemas and opens on June 17 in the UK.

Source: Digital Spy