-
Which of this year's actors are worthy of the industry's highest honor?
If the screenplay is the backbone of a movie and the director its eyes, the actors and actresses who bring the characters to life on screen are its heart and soul. A bad script in the hands of wonderful actors can still make for a pretty decent movie, but give a wonderful script to bad actors and you're gonna get a bad movie every time. This year, there were a considerable number of exceptionally well written movies starring talented actors and actresses released by both independent studios and the majors so there are almost too many eligible candidates to consider for Academy Award nominations. We already asked you to tell us which actresses deserve consideration come Oscar time — so far, you've chosen Jennifer Lawrence for her leading role in Silver Linings Playbook and Anne Hathaway for her supporting role in Les Miserables — now tell us which actors are worthy of the movie industry's highest honors, whether Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor.
Rate the Top 10 Most Oscar-Worthy Actors of 2012 >>
Posted 12.15.12 by BrentJS -
There's little doubt that Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie is about Scientology's L. Ron Hubbard
It's been five whole years since Paul Thomas Anderson's last movie, the near-perfect There Will Be Blood, but based on the new trailer for his new project, The Master, the writer-director seems to be still be at the top of his game. Starring Joaquin Phoenix (his first starring role since 2008), Amy Adams, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the movie tells the story of a charismatic intellectual (Hoffman) who launches a faith-based organization after World War II. A young drifter (Phoenix) becomes his right-hand man, but as the faith begins to gain a fervent following, the onetime vagabond finds himself questioning the belief system he has embraced, and his mentor.
watch the new trailer >> Posted 07.24.12 by Chris -
Last month saw the first teaser trailer for director Paul Thomas Anderson's (There Will Be Blood) upcoming drama The Master. Supposedly based — however loosely — on Scientology, the surreal trailer revealed Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely drifter who is prone to violence and breaking the rules.
Nowhere to be found was Philip Seymour Hoffman's character, the intellectual leader of the faith-based organization who eventually brings in Phoenix as his right hand man. Hoffman does appear in the latest teaser trailer, and quickly shows that the reports of the story being based on Scientology aren't unfounded. Hoffman's character of Lancaster Dodd admits that he is a writer and (among other things) a "theoretical philosopher," which sounds an awful lot like Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, to say nothing of The Master's 1950s setting (Hubbard founded Scientology in 1952). Add to that Dodd's wife, Mary-Sue (Amy Adams, who also appears in the trailer), seems likely named after Hubbard's third wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, and the association is that much stronger. Other than those facts, however, the latest trailer is another excellent exercise in surreal enchantment, alluring the viewer while never fully explaining just what exactly is going on.
watch the trailer >> Posted 06.19.12 by Ryan -
It's been a while since either director Paul Thomas Anderson or actor Joaquin Phoenix have made or appeared in a movie — 2007's There Will Be Blood was Anderson's last, while Phoenix's was the 2010 faux-documentary I'm Still Here. The upcoming The Master will see them back on the big screen in a collaboration that emulates both of their unique careers.
Anderson, who became a sensation with 1997's Boogie Nights, has never been one to speedily churn out movies. He's been working on The Master for some time. A version of the script was leaked over two years ago. Then known as "Untitled Scientology, the movie follows Phoenix as a former Navy soldier who becomes the right-hand of a family man (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who happens to be the leader of his own cult-like religion (reportedly thought to be based on Scientology). The trailer offers no sight of Hoffman, instead focusing on a surreal Q&A between Phoenix and a Naval officer.
watch the trailer >> Posted 05.21.12 by Ryan -
In 2003, actor Jeremy Renner co-starred in what could have been the beginning of a franchise with S.W.A.T. Almost a decade later and after appearing in independent and lower-budgeted fare like The Hurt Locker and The Town (both of which earned Renner Academy Award nominations), Renner is in four established or potential franchise movies — Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Avengers and The Bourne Legacy.
As Renner explained to ComingSoon, being a part of so many franchises was not something the actor anticipated.
I never went after a big franchise. I never went after a big action movie. They just sort of kind of manifested in a way... It started off by me saying, "Why not be in a movie that will play all over the world, but that still has something that I can do in it? Why not?" It was kind of impossible for me to say no [to these movies] as long as there was stuff for me to do character-wise, selfishly, it's just a bigger setting. A bigger stage.
Renner on his many, many projects >> Posted 11.30.11 by Ryan -
Screenwriter Steve Kloves, who worked on seven of the eight Harry Potter movies, was brought in to polish the script for the upcoming live-action adaptation of Akira, Warner Bros. is looking to cast the two leads of the movie.
Based on the popular, Japanese manga series by Katsuhiro Otomo, follows Shotaro Kaneda, the leader of a biker gang in a dystopian Tokyo, who has to stop his best friend Tetsuo Shima after he gains psychic abilities that slowly send him over the edge. Akira was adapted into the, now classic, animated version in 1988.
who's up for the roles? >> Posted 03.22.11 by Ryan -
The documentary I'm Still Here supposedly documented Joaquin Phoenix's retirement from acting and his attempt to become a hip hop sensation, until director Casey Affleck revealed it wasn't a documentary after all. With Phoenix not retired from acting, it's only a matter of time before he appears in another movie. An offer is already on the table.
Deadline reports that 20th Century Fox has offered Phoenix a role in director Timur Bekmambetov's adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Should he accept, Phoenix would play Henry Sturges, Lincoln's mentor who tutors the President in the ways of killing vampires. Broadway actor Benjamin Walker was recently cast in the role of Lincoln.
Grahame-Smith wrote the script for the movie, which will be produced by Bekmambetov and Tim Burton.
Posted 02.02.11 by Ryan -
Director Casey Affleck finally admitted what many have suspected: That the seeming meltdown of actor Joaquin Phoenix depicted in Affleck's I'm Still Here was not a documentary after all.
"It's a terrific performance, it's the performance of his career," Affleck told The New York Times. Affleck admitted that the entire movie was a set-up, even if it wasn't intended to be a prank. "I never intended to trick anybody," said Affleck. "The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind."
clearly, many reviewers didn't think it was a hoax >> Posted 09.17.10 by Ryan -
When Casey Affleck picked up a camera to follow the train wreck/hoax/burgeoning hip hop career of Joaquin Phoenix, nobody knew what to expect. More than a year later, people are still scratching their heads. Is the project a set up? Does the movie really exist? Does Phoenix really have his own recording studio above his garage?
With both Affleck and Phoenix keeping mum (apart from an infuriatingly un-candid interview with the director), moviegoers and truth seekers have had to rely on speculation and that bizarre David Letterman interview for clues.
Now, with I'm Still Here slated for release in a few days, a lone clip has emerged featuring a conversation between Phoenix and Sean "P. Diddy" Combs ... and we're still not sure what to think. And from the looks of it, neither is Diddy.
Watch the clip >> Posted 09.08.10 by reelz -
Joaquin Phoenix's last movie was 2008's Two Lovers, after which he promptly announced his retirement from acting so he could concentrate on his rap career. Phoenix's brother-in-law Casey Affleck decided to shoot a documentary (or, perhaps a "mockumentary") about Phoenix's transition from actor to rapper called I'm Still Here, which no one is sure is real or a prank. Speculation that Phoenix was involved in an elaborate prank stemmed from his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2009, with Phoenix's Two Lovers costar Gwyneth Paltrow admitting that she wasn't convinced that he was truly quitting his acting career for hip hop stardom. Still, no one seems to know for sure.
Is Phoenix still here, or is he reel gone? >> Posted 08.18.10 by Ryan