Opening Night

Opening Night

Video - Coen Brothers' True Grit Stays Faithful to Spirit of Classic Novel

by Sara Cardace on Dec 23 2010
Video - Coen Brothers' True Grit Stays Faithful to Spirit of Classic Novel

The Western film True Grit, written and directed by the Coen brothers (The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man), already has a big-screen history. The novel on which the film is based -- True Grit, by American author Charles Portis -- was published in 1968 and is revered by many readers as an American classic. A year later, the film adaptation of the book was released starring actors Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, and John Wayne. Wayne won an Oscar for his role in the film as U.S. marshal Rooster Cogburn. While the book is told from the point of view of young frontier girl Mattie Ross, the 1969 film version told the story from the point of view of Cogburn. For their take on True Grit, the Coens decided not to remake the 1969 film. Instead, they chose to stay faithful to the Portis novel and tell the story through the point of view of Ross -- played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld.

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Opening Night

Video - First-Time Feature Director Joseph Kosinski Upgrades the Tron World

by AMC News on Dec 16 2010
Video - First-Time Feature Director Joseph Kosinski Upgrades the Tron World

For Tron: Legacy, the highly anticipated sequel to 1982's Tron, producers took a big risk in hiring Joseph Kosinski as director. He had never helmed a feature film before, but he had directed high-end commercial campaigns for Xbox, Chevrolet, and Nike. Kosinski's diverse background in engineering, product design, music, and architecture was necessary and crucial in creating the Grid -- a layered virtual world of glass and light within a video game where a battle for power has been waging for years. Utilizing numerous design and technical specialists from outside the traditional film industry, Kosinski and his team (some with architecture and automotive-design backgrounds) achieved several technological firsts in the film:

• The first 3-D movie shot with 35-mm. lenses and chip cameras (updating what Avatar had used)
• The first 3-D movie to integrate a fully digital head and body (to create the younger version of Jeff Bridges's character, Clu)
• The first to make extensive use of self-illuminated costumes
• The first to create molded costumes from computer files using CNC (computer numerical control) technology

As for directing actors like Michael Sheen, Garrett Hedlund, and Tron alum Jeff Bridges, Kosinski told AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff he was slightly wary: "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous stepping into the role of a director on a Jeff Bridges movie."

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Opening Night

Video - Mark Wahlberg Plays His Hometown Hero in The Fighter

by AMC News on Dec 9 2010
Video - Mark Wahlberg Plays His Hometown Hero in The Fighter

When actor Mark Wahlberg was 18, he met his local hero, "Irish" Micky Ward -- a Massachusetts boxer who went on to become a two-time titleholder in the World Boxing Union. Twenty years later, Wahlberg is portraying Ward and his battle to become an eventual boxing legend in The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings). Wahlberg, who was also a producer on the film, made a promise to Ward to bring the boxer's hardscrabble life story to the big screen. It was a difficult promise to deliver on: while the film was in development several directors and co-stars came and went, and financing was hard to attain. But Walhberg believed in the project -- so much so that he trained in the ring for almost five years to keep in top boxing shape for when cameras would eventually roll. In our AMC News interview, Wahlberg reiterated his respect and admiration for Ward, saying, "I would trade all the success and all the things that I've done to be the champ for an hour."

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Opening Night

Video - Amy Adams Roughs It Up in The Fighter

by AMC News on Dec 9 2010
Video - Amy Adams Roughs It Up in The Fighter

In Amy Adams's biography on her IMDb page she's described as an actress who "often plays optimistic characters with cheerful dispositions." In her latest film, The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees, Flirting With Disaster), Adams plays against that sunny type as Charlene Fleming -- the scrappy local bartender and love interest of Lowell, Massachusetts, boxer Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg). Charlene goes toe-to-toe with Ward's tight-knit family to help the amateur boxer break away from their dysfunctional grip so that he'll have a better shot at becoming a professional titleholder. Along the way, she gets in a fistfight with Ward's seven sisters and goes several rounds verbally brawling with Ward's salty mother (Melissa Leo).

Adams told AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff that she loved playing Charlene and that, contrary to popular belief, she does have an inner tough girl, saying, "It's maybe not what I lead with, but she lives inside me somewhere."

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Opening Night

Video - Writing and Directing a Thriller No Longer on Paul Haggis's To-do List

by AMC News on Nov 18 2010
Video - Writing and Directing a Thriller No Longer on Paul Haggis's To-do List

In the new thriller The Next Three Days, actor Russell Crowe plays John Brennan -- an ordinary guy thrown into extraordinary circumstances when he hatches an intricate criminal plot to break his imprisoned wife (Elizabeth Banks) out of jail, where she's serving a life sentence for a crime she says she didn't commit.

The film is written and directed by Paul Haggis, who's best known for writing and directing critically acclaimed dramas like the Oscar-winning Crash and 2007's In The Valley of Elah, starring Tommy Lee Jones. Haggis is no stranger to the thriller genre -- he wrote the screenplay for 2006's James Bond-franchise relaunch, Casino Royale -- but The Next Three Days is the first thriller that he's both written and directed. Haggis noted that he's always wanted to direct a thriller, saying, "It's more exciting."

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Opening Night

Video - Rachel McAdams Visited Morning News-Shows for Her Morning Glory Prep

by AMC News on Nov 11 2010
Video - Rachel McAdams Visited Morning News-Shows for Her Morning Glory Prep

In the new comedy Morning Glory, actress Rachel McAdams plays Becky -- a harried news producer trying to raise ratings at her bottom-ranked morning news-show, Daybreak. The story is set in a particularly specific work environment not known to many people -- the world of early-morning television news.

With that unique setting, obviously the film will be scrutinized by those who work in the field -- some of whom will surely come in contact with McAdams and co-stars Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford while they're promoting Morning Glory. So to ensure a realistic tone for the script and especially its lead character, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada) and McAdams individually spent time embedded in those work environments.

McAdams, who told AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff that she doesn't own a television, shadowed several executive producers (at very early hours) at the three big networks in New York City: NBC (Today), ABC (Good Morning America), and CBS (The Early Show).

McAdams told AMC News that she learned a lot about the "crazy" job the producers, talent, and staff perform each morning and said that several of the high-profile anchors told her -- referring to the task of portraying morning news on the big screen -- that she'd better "get it right."

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Opening Night

Video - James Franco Is Not Your Typical Action Hero in 127 Hours

by AMC News on Nov 4 2010
Video - James Franco Is Not Your Typical Action Hero in 127 Hours

In the new Danny Boyle-directed film 127 Hours, which is based on a true story, outdoorsman Aron Ralston (portrayed in the film by actor James Franco) falls into a deep crevice in the Utah desert, and his right arm becomes pinned under a boulder. For the next 127 hours (over five days), Ralston tries to figure out a way to escape while time ticks forward toward the end of his water supply, the end of his sanity, and the end of his life.

For most of the film Franco remains in the same stationary space -- trapped under a large rock -- as he tries to free himself using items and tools in his backpack. On paper 127 Hours wouldn't immediately be considered an action film, one that could join the ranks of Die Hard, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or this summer's Expendables. But Boyle believes this film is an action film, telling AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff that it's an atypical action flick, one "where the hero can't move."

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Opening Night

Video - Unbreakable Sibling Bond Motivated Hilary Swank's Conviction Role

by AMC News on Oct 14 2010
Video - Unbreakable Sibling Bond Motivated Hilary Swank's Conviction Role

Actress Hilary Swank has a penchant for choosing roles based on actual people. In 1999 she won her first Oscar for portraying Brandon Teena -- a Nebraska transgender male who was murdered six years earlier -- in the indie drama Boys Don't Cry. In 2005 Swank earned Golden Globe and SAG nominations for her work in the HBO movie Iron Jawed Angels, in which she played suffragette Alice Paul. Since then, Swank portrayed California school teacher Erin Gruwell in the 2007 drama Freedom Writers and legendary airplane pilot Amelia Earhart in director Mira Nair's 2009 biopic, Amelia.

Swank's latest real-life project is the Tony Goldwyn-directed drama Conviction. In the film she dramatizes the extraordinary journey of Betty Anne Waters -- a Massachusetts woman who spent eighteen years fighting to exonerate her imprisoned brother, Kenny. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for a crime she believed he didn't commit.

When AMC News talked with the two-time Oscar-winning actress at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival -- where Conviction had its world premiere -- she told correspondent Jacob Soboroff that she didn't want to meet Waters right away after taking on the role. Instead, Swank began her preparation by attempting to decipher the unbreakable bond Betty Anne had with her older brother -- one that propelled Waters to devote such a large part of her life to securing his freedom.

Swank marveled at their relationship, saying, "It's a love that most people want and are searching for."

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Opening Night

Video - Diane Lane Commandeers the Horse-Racing World in Secretariat

by AMC News on Oct 7 2010
Video - Diane Lane Commandeers the Horse-Racing World in Secretariat

Based on a true story, the new film Secretariat dramatizes the journey of the 1973 Triple Crown winner, whom many consider the greatest racehorse ever, and its owner, Penny Chenery -- portrayed in the film by actress Diane Lane (Unfaithful, Nights in Rodanthe).

Despite Chenery's lack of horse-racing experience and a vocal push back from the male-dominated horse-racing industry, she led Secretariat to the first Triple Crown win in 25 years with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich).

AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff talked with Lane, her co-stars Malkovich and Kevin Connolly, and director Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers) at the Santa Anita Park in California about presenting Chenery's (and Secretariat's) extraordinary story on film.

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Opening Night

Video - Aaron Sorkin Says His Social Network Script Is Thoroughly Researched

by AMC News on Oct 1 2010
Video - Aaron Sorkin Says His Social Network Script Is Thoroughly Researched

At last weekend's promotional junket for The Social Network, at New York City's exclusive Harvard Club, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson's War) defended the controversial script he wrote for the David Fincher-directed film, including during a very heated discussion with a writer from the Daily Beast that took place within earshot of the AMC News team. At one point during the junket, we watched as Network's producer, Scott Rudin, stopped Sorkin's round-robin television interviews to give him a "pep talk."

At issue for some of the journalists interviewing Sorkin was the delineation between fact and fiction in his razor-sharp 162-page screenplay, one that weaves together three different accounts of the story behind the creation of social-networking giant Facebook.

In July, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg -- who's portrayed in the film by actor Jesse Eisenberg -- told NPR in an onstage interview that the "movie is fiction." Sorkin disagrees, but he empathizes with the 26-year-old billionaire's response, telling correspondent Jacob Soboroff, "If I were Mark [Zuckerberg] and Facebook, I'd want only my point of view presented."

But there are three conflicting versions of the creation (and ownership) of the Web site presented in the film, not just Zuckerberg's. Sorkin said he thoroughly researched all of them and vetted the film "within an inch of its life" with a Sony Pictures legal team to ensure that Facebook will not "own Sony" once the film is made public.

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Opening Night

Video - Justin Timberlake Sees the Irony in His Social Network Role

by AMC News on Sep 30 2010
Video - Justin Timberlake Sees the Irony in His Social Network Role

In the David Fincher-directed ensemble drama The Social Network, musician-actor Justin Timberlake plays Sean Parker -- the real-life controversial co-founder of file-sharing Web site Napster. Parker was Facebook's first president until his firing in 2005 for a cocaine-related arrest.

In the film, Timberlake portrays Parker as a hard-partying, smooth-talking Internet kingpin who teams up with Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) to bring Zuckerberg's start-up social-networking Web site to the next level with the help of venture capitalists.

When Napster debuted its free file-sharing platform in 1999, both Parker and his site were blamed by the music industry as the preliminary cause of nose-diving profits for record labels and musical artists.

Timberlake -- who found success and fame around 1999 as a member of the pop group *NSYNC -- told AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff that, as a musician, he saw the irony in taking on the role of Parker but that he didn't get "caught up in a projection" of Parker's status in the music industry and instead just played the part as written.

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Opening Night

Video - Jesse Eisenberg Believes Universal Themes Drive The Social Network

by AMC News on Sep 30 2010
Video - Jesse Eisenberg Believes Universal Themes Drive The Social Network

"Get it in writing." That's the cautionary tale at the heart of the story scripted by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) in The Social Network. Directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac), the ensemble drama starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake centers on the conflicting stories behind the creation of social-networking giant Facebook.

Even though the film's title graphic is identical in style to Facebook's logo and the promotional trailer is peppered with shots of online profiles, the nuts and bolts of creating the site take a (very far) backseat to the more drama-friendly universal themes: friendship, connection, loyalty, love, revenge, and ambition.

In our AMC News interview at the tony Harvard Club in New York City, correspondent Jacob Soboroff talked with Eisenberg and the cast of the film about how those themes intertwine to drive the story.

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Opening Night

Video - Gritty World of Bank Robbing Permeates Ben Affleck's Town

by AMC News on Sep 16 2010
Video - Gritty World of Bank Robbing Permeates Ben Affleck's Town

Actor Ben Affleck returns to his Boston-area roots with his second directorial effort, The Town. Based on the Chuck Hogan book Prince of Thieves, Affleck's film centers around a group of guys (led by Affleck and Jeremy Renner) who rob banks and armored cars in the square-mile neighborhood of Boston called Charlestown. According to the film's production notes, Charlestown "has produced more bank and armored-car robbers than anywhere in the U.S." To bring gritty authenticity to the story (he was also a co-writer of the screenplay), Affleck shot most of the film in Charlestown, hired some of its locals as extras, and sought out the advice of real bank robbers and ex-cons from the neighborhood.

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Opening Night

Video - The Long Journey of Hollywood's First Mexican Superhero, Machete

by AMC News on Sep 2 2010
Video - The Long Journey of Hollywood's First Mexican Superhero, Machete

Actor Danny Trejo and writer-director Robert Rodriguez have worked together since the days of Rodriguez's Desperado, where Trejo played knife-wielding bad guy Navajas.

During the shooting of that film, Rodriguez mentioned to Trejo the idea of a movie based on a Mexican superhero he created named Machete, who also has an arsenal of sharp objects at his disposal.

Over a decade later Rodriguez brought his superhero to life when he spent three weeks shooting a fake Machete trailer, which ran in 2007's Grindhouse. The trailer became one of the most popular segments in the film, so much so that when Trejo was in England after the film's release he saw guys with Machete tattooed on their backs. After seeing his likeness permanently inked on skin, Trejo e-mailed Rodriguez from England, saying, "We better make this movie."

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Opening Night

Video - Bateman and Aniston Aim to Make The Switch to Directing Feature Films

by AMC News on Aug 19 2010
Video - Bateman and Aniston Aim to Make The Switch to Directing Feature Films

Both stars of The Switch, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman, have had similar career paths over the years. They got their breaks on network sitcoms -- Bateman with Silver Spoons in 1982; Aniston, twelve years later, in Friends -- and both eventually left television and found success acting in movies. And now, as they told AMC News recently, they both want to step behind the scenes and direct a feature film.

Aniston has been in the director's chair before. In 2006, she co-directed a short film, Room 10, as part of Glamour magazine's award-winning series Glamour Reel Moments. The short starred Robin Wright as a nurse who reexamines her failing marriage after spending time with her patient. The film also starred actor and musician Kris Kristofferson.

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Opening Night

Video - Julia Roberts's Growing Family a Factor in Her Joining Eat Pray Love

by AMC News on Aug 12 2010
Video - Julia Roberts's Growing Family a Factor in Her Joining Eat Pray Love

The last decade was a good one, professionally, for actress Julia Roberts. During that time, she co-starred in a number of successful films, including Ocean's Eleven, Charlie Wilson's War, and Valentine's Day. But, surprisingly, none of her projects in the past ten years has rested on her shoulders. She's chosen films that have been team efforts, instead of starring in vehicles like 2000's Erin Brockovich, for which she won an Oscar.

Eat Pray Love reverses that pattern, marking Roberts's return to a headlining role in a character-driven drama. The film, co-written and directed by Glee creator Ryan Murphy, is based on the global best-selling travel memoir by writer Elizabeth Gilbert. In the film, Roberts portrays Gilbert, whose marriage has ended, leaving her with a growing sense of ennui that she attempts to remedy with a yearlong trip around the world. It's an epic story revolving around one woman's transformation -- and Roberts is in every scene, which is a big change from her recent ensemble projects. more »
Opening Night

Video - Mark Wahlberg Tackles Tunas, Improv With Will Ferrell in The Other Guys

by AMC News on Aug 5 2010
Video - Mark Wahlberg Tackles Tunas, Improv With Will Ferrell in The Other Guys

Three words that come to mind when referring to actor Mark Wahlberg might be "tough," "intense," and "Boston." But now he's aiming to add "funny" to that list, with his first comedic starring role, opposite funnyman Will Ferrell in the buddy-cop spoof The Other Guys.

In the film, Wahlberg plays Terry Hoitz, a pencil-pushing New York City cop who spends his days at his precinct desk after mistakenly shooting New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter during game seven of the World Series. To get his mojo back, Hoitz joins with fellow officer Allen Gamble (Ferrell) to take down a billionaire Wall Street crook (Steve Coogan).

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Opening Night

Video - Salt: Written for a Man (Tom Cruise), But Starring a Woman (Angelina Jolie)

by AMC News on Jul 22 2010
Video - Salt: Written for a Man (Tom Cruise), But Starring a Woman (Angelina Jolie)

The ten highest-grossing spy films of all time share a common theme: a male spy as their main character. In keeping with a tried-and-true box-office tradition, that's how the new Angelina Jolie espionage thriller, Salt, originally started out. In the film, which is directed by Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games, Rabbit-Proof Fence), Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent on the run after she's accused of being a Russian spy within the storied American intelligence agency.

Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (The Recruit, Sphere) first wrote the script with a fictional male CIA agent, Edwin Salt, as the title character. Tom Cruise was in talks to take on the role. But, after several story revisions, Cruise decided that Edwin Salt was a little too close to Ethan Hunt -- Cruise's spy character in the megasuccessful Mission: Impossible franchise -- and he dropped out of the project.

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Opening Night

Video - Inception Cast Traveled the Globe to Shoot Stunning Dream Sequences

by AMC News on Jul 15 2010
Video - <em>Inception</em> Cast Traveled the Globe to Shoot Stunning Dream Sequences

Inception writer-director Christopher Nolan tells AMC News that the premise of his multilayered story revolves around a shared universal experience that most of us have when we sleep, namely that "dreams feel real while we're in them." Bringing that experience from the mazelike depths of the human mind to the big screen required building and shooting on massive moving sets to create zero-gravity effects and embarking on a global trek to bring faraway dreamscapes to life. Instead of shooting his actors against a green screen and adding in location footage during postproduction, Nolan, cast, and crew endured extreme wind, rain, snow, and heat while shooting sequences in Tokyo, Carlington, Paris, Tangier, Calgary, and Los Angeles. The Dark Knight director feels he achieved the creation of those tactile experiences in our dreams where everything is real to us, no matter how unusual or unfamiliar it is, until we wake.

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Opening Night

Video - Writer-Director Christopher Nolan on How He Got Lost in His Labyrinthine Story Line

by AMC News on Jul 15 2010
Video - Writer-Director Christopher Nolan on How He Got Lost in His Labyrinthine Story Line

What would happen if multiple people could share the same dream? That's the high-concept idea at the center of Christopher Nolan's action thriller Inception -- a story that, Nolan told AMC News, he occasionally got lost in himself. But, he says, that's a good thing, because the film is about getting lost in the layers of the mind. Inception stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb -- an "extractor" who can join in the dreams of others, steal secrets from the darkest corners of a person's subconscious, and plant ideas within dreams. DiCaprio told AMC News that Nolan and his "highly ambitious film" about the power of the mind motivated him (and, sometimes, confused him) during shooting. While working on the film, Inception co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt said he became more intrigued by the mind's ability to create visually and sonically lush dreams and wondered how much of that ability we could harness for use in our waking lives.

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