The dog days soon will be upon us, and with them the dregs of American cinema dumped unceremoniously into the local multiplex. But you could do a lot worse than The Gift, a creepy, crafty throwback to early ’90s stalker thrillers like Pacific Heights, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female and Unlawful Entry. Taken on its own undemanding terms and considered within its not very original framework, Joel Edgerton’s feature-length directorial debut is a pleasant — or pleasantly unpleasant — surprise, hitting its genre marks in brisk, unfussy fashion and raising a few hairs on the back of your neck along the way. It’s comfort food for fans of films in which mysterious presents appear on doorsteps, beloved pets go ominously missing, and an attractive woman taking a shower is the surest sign that something wicked this way comes.
Refreshingly free of expository frills, The Gift gets right down to business with Simon and Robyn running into an old high school classmate of Simon’s, the amusingly named Gordo (Edgerton, sporting orange-ish hair, an earring and ill-fitting flannel), at a store. "That was awkward," Simon whispers to Robyn as they walk away, but soon enough Gordo is invited for dinner and the three are exchanging pleasantries over plates of pasta in a quietly unnerving scene shot mostly in alternating facial close-ups.
Read more Joel Edgerton to Headline Film About Famous Loving v. Virginia Civil Rights Case
Things get weird, as they always do when a quirky outsider bonds with a couple of shiny, happy yuppies in these films. It starts innocuously enough with a bottle of wine sent as a thank-you, then takes a more unusual turn when fish appear in Simon and Robin’s once-empty backyard mini-pond. Before long, Gordo has turned into an incorrigible unwanted-gift giver, violating all codes of new-friend etiquette and prompting the slick, somewhat snarky Simon to nickname him "Weirdo."
The gentler, more melancholy Robyn is not as quick to write him off, seeming to relate on some unspoken level to his oddballness and air of vulnerability. Still, when it becomes irrefutably clear that Gordo has developed an unhealthy fixation on them — and is a pathological liar to boot — even she goes along with her husband’s decision to cut him off. That is, until a letter arrives from Gordo, saying he’s willing to "let bygones be bygones." Curious about what, exactly, Gordo is referring to — what wrong might Simon have committed against Gordo when they were in school together? — Robyn starts playing detective.
Edgerton, who wrote recent Australian noirs The Square and Felony, has a somewhat cut-and-dry approach to plot and character, and indeed The Gift doesn’t do much with the relationship between Simon and Gordo. The slight frisson of homoeroticism is never teased out (this is no Chuck & Buck, despite broad similarities), and there’s little genuine mystery or depth to the queasy rekindling of the bond between these two men.
But the writer-director knowingly plays on our familiarity with tropes of the genre, both stylistic (smash cuts, insinuating music, scenes that begin with the camera creeping down empty hallways) and narrative (interrupted dinner parties, confrontations in dimly lit parking garages, intrigue related to the main female character’s fertility/maternity) — and just when you peg The Gift as pure pastiche, you notice the film doing things a bit differently. Robyn’s conflicted feelings toward both Gordo and her own husband emerge as the movie’s driving force; what first looks like a typical male-dominated revenge fantasy turns into the story of a woman coming to understand which flaws in her partner she’s willing to live with and which she’s not. Edgerton also slyly alters the template, blurring the lines between villain and victim and building to a bleak, ambiguous denouement rather than the usual bloody cat-and-mouse climax.
Read more Jason Sudeikis, Rebecca Hall Rom-Com 'Tumbledown' Nabbed By Starz
The Gift’s dialogue is movie-ish — especially when Simon and Robyn are trading domestic banalities in the kitchen — but not egregiously so. Besides, that kind of corny blather ("There’s just something a bit off about him" and the like) is one of the reassuring pleasures of this kind of film.
The movie also benefits from a trio of sturdy lead performances. Edgerton exudes both menace and fragility, keeping us guessing as to whether Gordo is unraveling or in supreme control. Bateman shifts seamlessly back and forth between affable charmer and sinister snake. And Hall’s watchful intelligence and reserve make her an ideal moral compass and audience surrogate. The small supporting cast features, most notably, Allison Tolman (FX’s Fargo) as a welcoming neighbor and Busy Philipps (Cougar Town) as one of Simon and Robyn’s friends.
The ’90s vibe is reinforced by a conspicuous lack of smartphone use, though the socioeconomic clash implicit in Gordo’s face-off with Simon feels of-the-moment, as does the underlying subtext about bullying and its long-term effects. Still, The Gift isn’t to be taken too seriously; it is, above all, a nasty good time.
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It's not your imagination; Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the fifth movie in the Mission: Impossible movie series, will arrive an impressive 19 years after the first, demonstrating once again that Tom Cruise's super-spy movie franchise is one that bucks a number of trends when it comes to summer blockbusters.
The Mission: Impossibles are almost a stealth series; they're released some distance apart (Mission: Impossible II followed four years after the first, with the third six years after that; Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol arrived five years later, making this summer's Rogue Nation seem almost rushed with just a four year window between movies), and lack the tight self-referential nature of modern genre franchises. You really can go into each movie entirely fresh and learn all there is to know within a matter of minutes. (Mostly because all you really need to know is "Tom Cruise plays an unstoppable super spy.")
In many ways, the M:I franchise is the anti-Marvel; while that studio has built a seemingly unstoppable empire out of movies that have an almost incestual level of connections to each and every other movie in the family, with a release rate that ensures that the audiences always knows exactly when the next chapter will hit theaters (Complete with post-credit sequences to act as early trailers), Mission: Impossible has quietly, ever-so-slowly built a franchise out of coming out of hibernation every few years to deliver an exhausting, thrilling action movie that will leave its viewers waiting for more. And waiting. And waiting.
If it weren't for the fact that each movie in the series has been handled by different directors — including Brian DePalma, J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird — there could be a case to be made for Mission: Impossible being the auteur's take on the blockbuster franchise: a series that allowed for movies to be made in their own time, each able to stand on their own despite the shared continuity and characters that bring them together. (That argument could still be made, mind you, if you wanted to consider Cruise as the auteur in question.)
Given that Mission: Impossible has proven that a movie series can disappear for some time before returning to an eager (and profitable) reception, it's unexpected that no other movie series has attempted to follow its lead. Not every movie series needs to be modeled after the Marvel Cinematic Universe and release schedule, after all, and some — The Man from UNCLE, for example, where Henry Cavill has another high-profile, popular role — might even benefit from being rested for a few years off in between installments, so as to not outstay their welcome. (Star Trek, interestingly enough, is almost accidentally following this model, although I suspect that's more to do with schedules than an intent to keep things slow.)
Following the Mission: Impossible model might not make many executives happy in the short terms; one movie every four years isn't anywhere close to the two-movies-every-year profit bonanza that's currently in vogue. But, on the other hand, Mission: Impossible is still a going concern almost two decades after the first installment, without the need for a reboot, repositioning or refresher. Slow and steady might just win the race, it seems — the question is, is it a race that movie studios are currently interested in running?
The end product must offer eye-popping action, gripping spy thrills and tense character-based drama with razor-sharp gags.
And it has to be a lot more entertaining than the last Bond movie.
Perhaps it’s overstating it to suggest Tom Cruise’s career would have self-destructed in seconds if he hadn’t pulled off this seemingly impossible mission.
But after a disappointing opening for his sci-fi tale Edge Of Tomorrow, many thought his star was on the wane. Delivering the best Mission:Impossible yet should silence his critics.
The opening scene heralds what’s to come from its star and producer.
A giant military cargo plane is hurtling down a runway. In a nearby fi eld, Simon Pegg’s Benji is trying to hijack the controls on his laptop while Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell growls something about hacking a Russian satellite.
Cruise’s Ethan Hunt has a far less hi-tech solution. He vaults on to the wing, sprints towards the fuselage and makes a death-defying leap for a hatch.
As the jet soars into the clouds we watch open-mouthed as the biggest movie star on the planet dangles from a door.
There’s a reason this stunt looks so horribly real…it is. Cruise may be well into his 50s but he still firmly believes CGI is for wimps.
He wasn’t winging it when he chose his director. Cleverly, he stayed loyal to the man behind his supposedly disappointing sci-fi.
Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects and directed Cruise in Jack Reacher, is the master of the intelligent action movie. Here he produces a tense heist, thrilling motorcycle chase and a string of crunching fist fights.
But it’s his clever writing that raises the stakes from the spectacular Ghost Protocol.
Paramount
CRUISE CONTROL: Tom still insists on performing his own stunts at 53
Paramount
DEADLY: Hunt meets his match in Rebecca Ferguson's Isla Faust
It turns out Hunt, like Greece, is having trouble with the IMF.“As a blockbuster, this comes pretty close to perfection.”
After levelling the Kremlin in the last film, the US government has decided the Impossible Missions Force threatens world peace.
While Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji and Luther are co-opted into the CIA,Hunt embarks on a one-man mission to bring down a shadowy criminal organisation.
Described by Luther as “the anti-IMF”, The Syndicate is a network of rogue agents determined to destabilise governments.
They are so well hidden, Alec Baldwin’s CIA boss Alan Hunley suspects Hunt has made it up.
Hunt’s globetrotting search for Syndicate boss Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) takes us to Vienna, Morocco and London. It also takes him out of his comfort zone.
Before he can reassemble his crew he must forge an uneasy alliance with British agent Ilsa Faust (Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson).
Until now, Mission: Impossible women have been mostly window dressing or supporting players. But Ilsa isn’t just a match for Hunt
physically.
As the plot thickens the usual business of “will they, won’t they?” turns into an intriguing game of cat and mouse.
And McQuarrie knows exactly how and when to puncture the tension with comedy.
I’ve found Pegg can grate a little as a Hollywood movie’s comic relief but here he reels it in beautifully. The laughs are a lot louder when his kookiness is restricted to the occasional shrug and salty one-liner.
We also get a very funny sequence involving the kidnapping of the “Prime Minister of Great Britain”.
McQuarrie may never have heard of the United Kingdom but he defi nitely knows our actors. Rev star Tom Hollander is perfect as a
PM bewildered by the film’s intricate plot.
But unlike Brian De Palma’s 1996 original, I doubt this will be branded Mission:Impenetrable.
McQuarrie knows he must throw us the occasional red herring to keep us guessing. It’s a difficult puzzle but not an impossible one.
And, for once, you won’t feel cheated by any of the twists when you chew them over on the way home.
In October, Bond might find Hunt a tough act to follow. As a blockbuster, this comes pretty close to perfection.
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Ezeoma Obioha was arrested around 7:15 p.m. Friday for the July 5 murder of Carrie Jean Melvin, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
The 31-year-old male is being held at the Los Angeles downtown detention center on $1 million bail, officer Liliana Preciado told THR. Obioha had a financial dispute with 30-year-old Melvin, who formerly worked as a production assistant in Hollywood and was pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. She moved from Morro Bay, Calif to Los Angeles in 2011.
Obioha shot her in the back of the head with a shotgun while she was walking with her boyfriend, who was unharmed, from her apartment on McCadden Place, close to Highland Avenue, toward a Sunset Boulevard restaurant. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities said the man walked up to Melvin and shot her in the head before getting into a car and fleeing.
According to Melvin's LinkedIn profile, she became CEO of a social media management company in June.
"Everyone you talked to just loved her," Melvin's father told the Los Angeles Times. "She was a joy to be around. When she looked at you, you felt like you were in the spotlight."
Obioha's case will be presented to the district attorney on July 28.
The 31-year-old man accused of shooting a woman in the head in Hollywood worked as a security guard at a marijuana dispensary and offered private security services.
Ezeoma Obioha opened a business two units down from M Barbering on Pico Boulevard and Curson Avenue about six months ago called Hoods Inc., said Moe Manley with M Barbering.
"It was supposed a clothing store and music studio and some other stuff, which was a bit strange because the shop was never open," Manley said. "He would be there sometimes and sometimes it was closed."
He also worked as a security guard for the marijuana dispensary next door. Police searched both locations.
Obioha was arrested Friday night for allegedly murdering Carrie Melvin over a financial dispute. On July 5, Melvin and her boyfriend were walking on Sunset Boulevard and McCadden Place, when Obioha allegedly shot her from behind.
People who knew Obioha say he was friendly, but something about him seemed off.
"Sometimes he seemed like a regular guy and other times he seemed a little weird," Manley said.
"I want to say I'm shocked and I'm surprised, but it's believable, because he always had a gun on him. He was always dressed like a SWAT member or something," said Pooh Datightest with M Barbering.
Obioha was being held on $1 million bail.
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The actress and singer became the 2,555th person to be given a spot on the iconic path, which stretches along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
A theatre veteran before she became a TV star, Chenoweth starred in the role of Glinda in Broadway musical Wicked and later appeared in Glee alongside her co-star, Idina Menzel.
She picked up a prestigious Tony Award for her performance of Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Broadway in 1999.
Her television roles have included Annabeth Schott in The West Wing and Olive Snook on the ABC comedy-drama Pushing Daisies, for which she won a 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
The unveiling of the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame took place on Friday, which was also Chenoweth's 47th birthday.
"I don't think I've ever had a better gift, I never thought I would have a star on the Walk of Fame so for it to happen on my birthday is very special," she said. "This is a memory I will have for as long as I remain on this earth."
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Broadway icon Kristin Chenoweth has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Attending Friday's dedication ceremony were comedy legend Carol Burnett, producer Kenny Ortega and songwriter Diane Warren.
The 47-year-old Oklahoma native is known for her stage roles in Steel Pier, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Wicked and On the 20th Century.
The actress and singer has appeared on the TV shows The Good Wife, Glee, Pushing Daisies, The West Wing and GCB. Her film credits include Bewitched, The Pink Panther and RV
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Jake Gyllenhaal is getting what Hollywood calls Oscar buzz for his
performance in "Southpaw." Wang Jianlin is getting some too, because
Wanda Pictures financed the movie -- a first for the company controlled
by the richest person in China.A first, apparently, for any Chinese company.
Wang heads Dalian Wanda Group Co., which owns the second- largest U.S. cinema chain and is building the world's biggest studio-plus-theme park, at Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis on China's eastern coast. Last year Wanda bought land in Beverly Hills, calling the $1.2 billion complex it plans to erect there its "first important step into Hollywood."
Actually, it may have taken that with the check it wrote for "Southpaw," an R-rated Weinstein Co. drama about a boxer. Wanda's role as financier puts it a beat ahead of Chinese rivals including Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings that are staking their Hollywood claims with investments and deals but haven't yet carried the full freight of a U.S. film.
The partnership with the award-winning Weinstein studio has moved Wanda closer to becoming "a complete international entertainment company," said Marc Ganis, co-founder of Jiaflix Enterprises, which helps market and distribute films in China.
"Southpaw" might not be a big movie, with forecasts it'll sell about $45 million in tickets during its U.S. run. But it's generated media attention since studio Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein showed a clip at the Cannes Film Festival that revealed Gyllenhaal's startling transformation into a ripped prize-fighter; he has said he gained 15 pounds of muscle.
The movie, which premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival, cost more than $25 million to make, with Wanda Pictures picking that up and the Weinstein studio covering $35 million in marketing expenditures, according to a person familiar with the matter.
For Wanda, "Southpaw" was a "rare experience" to study Hollywood's modus operandi, the company said in a press release, in which it declared itself the first from China to "solely finance an American movie." Film budgets aren't public, but no other investors from China have made the claim.
Alibaba, Tencent, Huayi Brothers Media Corp. and more have been busy doing other deals. They want stakes in the American entertainment business to gain content for their outlets at home, and for expertise. "The Chinese are looking to the U.S. for 'know how' in making films with international appeal," said John Burke, head of the entertainment and media practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
Wanda said in the release that the Chinese movie business "badly needs industrialization." Maybe so, but the country's movie market is the second-largest by box office receipts and growing annually by 40 percent, according to the Chinese Film Producers' Association. China could overtake the United States in cinema ticket sales before 2020.
Wang, whose net worth the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index put at $41.8 billion on Thursday, told Bloomberg Markets magazine in March that buying Hollywood studios would give him the content and distribution outlets to conquer that market.
He said then that Wanda was in talks to buy a stake in Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the studio behind "The Hunger Games" films, but nothing has come of the negotiations.
A former People's Liberation Army soldier, Wang started talking to the Weinstein studio about investing in a movie before Wanda's 2012 purchase of the AMC Entertainment theater chain, said David Glasser, the studio's president. "We met to discuss what Wanda wanted to do, how we can find a movie they can be proud of."
"Southpaw," he said, "was the one that resonated most." It was directed by Antoine Fuqua, known for "Training Day," for which Denzel Washington won a best-actor Oscar.
"We really did this movie together," Glasser said. "We went through a lot of modeling, education of the process, how the business works. They were involved -- it wasn't just a silent investment."
A gritty, violent drama about a one-time champion fighter who's hit bottom and stages a comeback, "Southpaw" is a telling choice for the Wanda Group unit, said Janet Yang, a producer and consultant who splits her time between the U.S. and China. "They aren't just making conventional moves."
Yang predicted more alliances between Hollywood and Chinese companies, and more money flowing from east to west. "We are going to see funds and private equity players from China," she said. "They see this as a great arena to play in."
Partnerships aren't new; U.S. studios have long used them to market and distribute in China, where regulations restrict the number of foreign films that can be shown in theaters. And Hollywood is as eager as ever for Chinese money, courting investors, including state-owned enterprises, aware the government may censor their productions.
This weekend, one of the movies "Southpaw" will compete against is Sony Corp.'s "Pixels" with Adam Sandler, partly financed by state-owned China Film Group, the country's largest film producer and distributor.
And coming soon, "Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation." Alibaba Group, whose chairman, Jack Ma, is China's second- richest person, said in June that the Tom Cruise thriller marked its first-ever U.S. film investment, and that it will help Paramount Pictures with marketing in China. It opens July 31.
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If you live in North America, you probably don’t know Omar Sy by name. But chances are, you’ve seen him.
Four years ago, Barack Obama was packing L.A. hotel ballrooms for fast cash for his re-election campaign. But Hillary Clinton is taking a different approach in her second bid for the White House. The former secretary of state is opting for more intimate gatherings in the backyards of such longtime Hollywood friends as producer Steven Bochco and HBO's Michael Lombardo, where she's able to spend more one-on-one time with guests willing to donate $2,700 apiece.
Clinton's approach has served to build a deeper list of small donors who can be tapped again as the campaign progresses and to reintroduce herself to Hollywood — which largely abandoned her for Obama in 2008 — as a warmer, more approachable candidate.
So far, both efforts seem to be working for Clinton, 67, who raised a record $47.5 million during the second quarter, including $4 million from such L.A. donors as Tobey Maguire, Robert Iger, Harvey Weinstein, former ambassador (and wife of Netflix's Ted Sarandos) Nicole Avant, Lionsgate's Jon Feltheimer and Rob Friedman. CAA was particularly active, with more than 50 employees donating, including Kevin Huvane and new Clinton bundler Michael Kives. Even the pickiest Obama supporters have come away from Clinton's events feeling better about her candidacy
Wang heads Dalian Wanda Group Co., which owns the second- largest U.S. cinema chain and is building the world's biggest studio-plus-theme park, at Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis on China's eastern coast. Last year Wanda bought land in Beverly Hills, calling the $1.2 billion complex it plans to erect there its "first important step into Hollywood."
Actually, it may have taken that with the check it wrote for "Southpaw," an R-rated Weinstein Co. drama about a boxer. Wanda's role as financier puts it a beat ahead of Chinese rivals including Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings that are staking their Hollywood claims with investments and deals but haven't yet carried the full freight of a U.S. film.
The partnership with the award-winning Weinstein studio has moved Wanda closer to becoming "a complete international entertainment company," said Marc Ganis, co-founder of Jiaflix Enterprises, which helps market and distribute films in China.
"Southpaw" might not be a big movie, with forecasts it'll sell about $45 million in tickets during its U.S. run. But it's generated media attention since studio Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein showed a clip at the Cannes Film Festival that revealed Gyllenhaal's startling transformation into a ripped prize-fighter; he has said he gained 15 pounds of muscle.
The movie, which premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival, cost more than $25 million to make, with Wanda Pictures picking that up and the Weinstein studio covering $35 million in marketing expenditures, according to a person familiar with the matter.
For Wanda, "Southpaw" was a "rare experience" to study Hollywood's modus operandi, the company said in a press release, in which it declared itself the first from China to "solely finance an American movie." Film budgets aren't public, but no other investors from China have made the claim.
Alibaba, Tencent, Huayi Brothers Media Corp. and more have been busy doing other deals. They want stakes in the American entertainment business to gain content for their outlets at home, and for expertise. "The Chinese are looking to the U.S. for 'know how' in making films with international appeal," said John Burke, head of the entertainment and media practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
Wanda said in the release that the Chinese movie business "badly needs industrialization." Maybe so, but the country's movie market is the second-largest by box office receipts and growing annually by 40 percent, according to the Chinese Film Producers' Association. China could overtake the United States in cinema ticket sales before 2020.
Wang, whose net worth the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index put at $41.8 billion on Thursday, told Bloomberg Markets magazine in March that buying Hollywood studios would give him the content and distribution outlets to conquer that market.
He said then that Wanda was in talks to buy a stake in Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the studio behind "The Hunger Games" films, but nothing has come of the negotiations.
A former People's Liberation Army soldier, Wang started talking to the Weinstein studio about investing in a movie before Wanda's 2012 purchase of the AMC Entertainment theater chain, said David Glasser, the studio's president. "We met to discuss what Wanda wanted to do, how we can find a movie they can be proud of."
"Southpaw," he said, "was the one that resonated most." It was directed by Antoine Fuqua, known for "Training Day," for which Denzel Washington won a best-actor Oscar.
"We really did this movie together," Glasser said. "We went through a lot of modeling, education of the process, how the business works. They were involved -- it wasn't just a silent investment."
A gritty, violent drama about a one-time champion fighter who's hit bottom and stages a comeback, "Southpaw" is a telling choice for the Wanda Group unit, said Janet Yang, a producer and consultant who splits her time between the U.S. and China. "They aren't just making conventional moves."
Yang predicted more alliances between Hollywood and Chinese companies, and more money flowing from east to west. "We are going to see funds and private equity players from China," she said. "They see this as a great arena to play in."
Partnerships aren't new; U.S. studios have long used them to market and distribute in China, where regulations restrict the number of foreign films that can be shown in theaters. And Hollywood is as eager as ever for Chinese money, courting investors, including state-owned enterprises, aware the government may censor their productions.
This weekend, one of the movies "Southpaw" will compete against is Sony Corp.'s "Pixels" with Adam Sandler, partly financed by state-owned China Film Group, the country's largest film producer and distributor.
And coming soon, "Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation." Alibaba Group, whose chairman, Jack Ma, is China's second- richest person, said in June that the Tom Cruise thriller marked its first-ever U.S. film investment, and that it will help Paramount Pictures with marketing in China. It opens July 31.
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If you live in North America, you probably don’t know Omar Sy by name. But chances are, you’ve seen him.
The tall, handsome French actor has popped up
in a few small roles in major blockbusters over the past few years. He
played the energy-wielding, dreadlocked mutant Bishop in X-Men: Days of Future Past and Chris Pratt’s fellow velociraptor trainer in this summer’s box office smash Jurassic World.
But this isn’t just any international
transplant working his way up the Hollywood ranks; he’s already one of
France’s biggest stars.
In 2012, Sy became the first African to win a Best Actor Cesar — France’s equivalent of an Oscar — for The Intouchables,
a comedy-drama about a quadriplegic and his caretaker (Sy). It became
one of France’s highest grossing films and earned over $426 million
(U.S.) worldwide.
His latest, the immigrant drama Samba, which came out Friday in limited release, takes him back to his home country and his Intouchables directors, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano.
Despite his recent foray into international
stardom, a career in the movies was never a given for Sy, who gained
fame in France as one half of the sketch comedy duo Omar and Fred.
Access to movie theatres was difficult in his
childhood and most of his entertainment was relegated to what was on
television. While he never dreamed of acting in movies, he did drop out
of high school to pursue comedy. The decision baffled his parents.
“They thought I was losing my mind leaving
high school to be a comedian,” he said. “My father was a manufacture
worker, my mother was a maid. For them work was hard labour. It was
difficult for them to understand working and having fun at the same
time.”
Success came relatively easy for Sy once he
hooked up with his comedy partner, Fred Testot. They had a popular
television show and things were going well.
Then The Intouchables changed
everything. He was now recognized as an individual, separate from his
Omar and Fred origins. He also began thinking about his career
differently.
“I started to consider myself as an actor after Intouchables, not before,” said Sy. “I was a comedian. It was different.”
He relocated to Los Angeles with his wife and
children and took meetings with agents to see what he could do in
Hollywood. He also had to learn English in the process, which remains an
ongoing challenge.
The transition hasn’t been seamless or easy.
Sy might have had his pick of parts in France, but he essentially has to
start over in America. He has a bit of a leg up on the competition
because of his international clout, but he still has to audition and
fight for parts — even the small ones.
“I don’t want to be blasé when I come back to
France. I don’t want to think that it’s normal what I have in France,”
he said. “Working hard here makes me work harder when I come back to
France. It reminds me to stay grounded.”
With credits in X-Men and Jurassic World, and a role in the upcoming Dan Brown film Inferno,
opposite Tom Hanks, Sy recognizes that the films he does in the U.S.
are quite a departure from those he gets to do in France. For him,
that’s a good thing.
“I can’t do a franchise in France. That’s why I
have a good balance doing franchise movies here and other movies in
France,” he said.
Samba is one of those “other movies”
that he’d only get the chance to do in France at this point. Sy plays a
Senegalese immigrant struggling to work and skirt deportation.
“We wanted to introduce an immigrant to
people,” said Sy, whose parents are immigrants. “We’re talking about
immigrants, but we don’t know them. The movie can maybe help us to learn
who they are.”
He’s also working on Chocolat about Cuban artist Rafael Padilla and has a part in the Bradley Cooper chef movie Adam Jones.
Though comedy is in his blood, Sy doesn’t necessarily want to go that route in U.S. films until his English has improved.
Sy insists that he doesn’t have any specific goals for his career as he takes his place in the Hollywood ecosystem.
“Having precise goals is the best way to be
disappointed. I do that to protect myself,” said Sy. “I just hope for a
lot of things and wait for a good opportunity and try to not miss it.”
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Obama filled ballrooms, but Clinton is using backyard meet-and-greets to reintroduce herself to industry donors — and it's working.
This story first appeared in the July 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.Four years ago, Barack Obama was packing L.A. hotel ballrooms for fast cash for his re-election campaign. But Hillary Clinton is taking a different approach in her second bid for the White House. The former secretary of state is opting for more intimate gatherings in the backyards of such longtime Hollywood friends as producer Steven Bochco and HBO's Michael Lombardo, where she's able to spend more one-on-one time with guests willing to donate $2,700 apiece.
Clinton's approach has served to build a deeper list of small donors who can be tapped again as the campaign progresses and to reintroduce herself to Hollywood — which largely abandoned her for Obama in 2008 — as a warmer, more approachable candidate.
So far, both efforts seem to be working for Clinton, 67, who raised a record $47.5 million during the second quarter, including $4 million from such L.A. donors as Tobey Maguire, Robert Iger, Harvey Weinstein, former ambassador (and wife of Netflix's Ted Sarandos) Nicole Avant, Lionsgate's Jon Feltheimer and Rob Friedman. CAA was particularly active, with more than 50 employees donating, including Kevin Huvane and new Clinton bundler Michael Kives. Even the pickiest Obama supporters have come away from Clinton's events feeling better about her candidacy
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PROMINENT AS black artists have been in American entertainment, this TV One series makes a strong case that some still haven’t gotten full props.
The new season kicks off with Bernie Mac, the comedian who earned two Emmy nominations for “The Bernie Mac Show” on Fox before he died tragically young, age 50.
Mac went to school on the likes of Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. He came to comedy late, not really making it a career until he was into his 30s, but he quickly established himself as a performer who would say what was on his mind first, no matter what sensibilities it might shock.
“Unsung Hollywood” argues that for many years this got him labeled a “black” comedian — the box into which Foxx had been placed a half century earlier.
It notes that when Mac headlined the “Kings of Comedy” tour with Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, Guy Torry and later D.L. Hughley, the group sold out venues with tens of thousands of seats, yet got the minimal coverage from mainstream media.
Mac thought his comedy could work for everyone, the interviewees say here, and he strove for years to land something like the Fox sitcom.
Drawing heavily on Mac’s own early life on the South Side of Chicago, his character was a man who had to raise his sister’s three children when she went into rehab. The character was unorthodox, but decent and good-hearted.
His family and friends remember him that same way in real life. His fellow comics also say that on the "Kings of Comedy" tour and elsewhere, he was a cut above everyone else, and the clips here do nothing to disprove that.
Bernie Mac wasn’t unsung. He could have been sung more loudly.
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Emma Thompson has added her voice to the chorus of dissent over the entrenched sexism in Hollywood.The two-time Oscar winner says sexism and ageism are more prevalent today than when she first started out in the acting industry more than 30 years ago."I think it's still completely s--- actually," the 56-year-old actress told Radio Times magazine in a new interview. The Sense and Sensibility star claimed there has been no substantial improvement in the industry's treatment of women, and that the focus on looks is "worse than it was" when she was young.The British actress recalled her early days in the acting industry when, she said, she believed "we were on our way to a better world."
"When I look at it now, it is in a worse state than I have known it, particularly for women, and I find that very disturbing and sad," she said. Thompson admitted in the interview that her most recent film, The Legend of Barney Thompson – in which she plays a 77-year-old prostitute – "is a bit ageist." "It would be really nice to get someone who is actually 77 to play her," Thompson said of the role, "but it's a wildly comic role and I couldn't resist."
Thompson is among a slew of actresses who've recently spoken out against Hollywood's gender double standards, following takedowns by Anna Kendrick, Amanda Seyfried and Patricia Arquette.
Now a veteran in the industry, Thompson lamented that "some forms of sexism and unpleasantness to women have become more entrenched and indeed more prevalent," she told Radio Times."So I get behind as many young female performers as I can," she explained, "and actually a lot of the conversations I have with them are about exactly the fact that we are facing and writing about the same things and nothing has changed.
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Irrfan Khan is probably the best known Indian face in Hollywood and now he says that the Indian cinema is being "dominated" by foreign films and this has "affected" the business of Bollywood films.
Hollywood films like Furious 7, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World have proved their mettle at the box office in India earlier this year.
"I'm working in both the industries as I'm enjoying my work on both sides. Hollywood demand different kind of skills. They have a different set of audience. So, as an actor it's fortunate that I get chance to do different kind of work," said Irrfan.
"Both the industries have their own uniqueness. But Hollywood has a bigger reach and has its own universal language. It is more powerful. It has dominated our cinema. It can affect the business of Bollywood. But, our films are not affecting their business. Its Hollywood, which is affecting Indian cinema," he added.
Starting his career in Bollywood with character roles in films like Salaam Bombay and Drishti, Irrfan went on to carve out his own space on the silver screen by showing his versatility in acting though films like Haasil, Life in a... Metro and The Namesake. But he says roles that he has played up till now were not of his choice, as he was not offered romantic roles before Piku.
"People usually think of me as a serious actor, but roles that I have done so far were not of my choice. Whatever roles I was being offered, I chose my part from that."
"I was not offered such roles earlier. If given a choice I would have rather done comedy and romantic films earlier. But I don't had a chance earlier. I don't have a particular group of directors of my own. I don't have any gang. Whatever roles come to me, I take them. I'm not much active socially," Irrfan said.
Asked whether he would like to do another biopic film after his National Award-winning performance in Paan Singh Tomar, Irrfan said: "I would love to do more of them if the script is good because Paan Singh Tomar started this trend of biopics. We came out and started this trend in cinema and received success. We were recognised that way in Bollywood. So if something interesting like that comes then I would love to do it and I enjoy doing it
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Producers NBC and NBCUniversal International are currently searching for a writer to board the reboot, which hails from original executive producers Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi.Twenty years after it first premiered as a Hercules spinoff, Xena: Warrior Princess could be returning to television.
See more Broadcast TV's New Shows 2015-16
Sources say the new Xena would have to have the charisma and charm of Lawless and the smarts of The Hunger Games' Katniss as producers are said to be looking for a sophisticated and smart superhero for a new generation.
The original series was produced by Studios USA and international producers Universal Worldwide Television and was distributed by Universal Television. Xena ran in syndication for six seasons from September 1995 to June 2001 and originally started as a spinoff from Hercules after producers realized how popular the Xena (Lawless) character was and opted to launch a new series built around the Amazon warrior on a quest for redemption and her trusted companion Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor).
Xena was created by John Schulian and Tapert — Lawless' husband — and produced by Tapert, Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell's Renaissance Pictures, Studios USA and Universal Television, the latter of which distributed the series in more than 108 countries around the globe. The drama was a cult favorite and ratings hit, ranking in the top five syndicated programs during each of its six seasons.
An extension of the Xena franchise comes as Lawless recently signed on to co-star in Starz's Evil Dead sequel Ash vs. Evil Dead, reuniting her with Xena — and Spartacus — alums Raimi and Tapert.
For her part, Lawless recently told HitFix at Comic-Con — where she was supporting Ash — that "they've got to bring [Xena] back."
"I've been pitching that show … because … there's a swell of interest still," she said. "I'm always being peppered with questions [about] when the Xena movie is coming. Guys, I'm pitching my ass off to make it happen, whether it's with me or not. I think it'd be funny to have a reboot like Ash vs. Evil Dead — like middle-aged Xena in a muumuu with a bad attitude and a smoking habit. … Bring [actor] Ted Raimi [who played Joxer] in … [and maybe] Bruce Campbell."
"I don't know what the hold-up is; it's about who has got the rights," she added. "But that's a piss-poor excuse anymore. Find who has got the rights, freakin' pay it. It's better to have 80 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing. Don't waste this opportunity; reinvigorate that franchise!" she said, stressing the show's international appeal. It's an insane international character. They're fools not to bring it back. It's funny, it's sexy, it's action."
The actress also has been vocal about wanting to play the character again — despite the fact that Xena (spoiler alert) died in the series finale.
For NBC, a Xena reboot could give the network a perfect companion for fellow genre player Grimm on Fridays. The network in recent years has attempted to launch several shows on Fridays at 9 p.m. after Grimm — Constantine, Crossbones, Dracula — none of which have made it to a second season.
Revisiting Xena comes as reboots continue to be in high demand as broadcast and cable networks alike look to proven commodities (and fan bases) to cut through the clutter in an increasingly competitive scripted landscape. Key to their success is having the original producers involved. For its part, NBC is also readying a Coach follow-up with star Craig T. Nelson. Fox, meanwhile, is bringing The X-Files back in January and has plans to produce another run of Prison Break after successfully reviving 24 on top of its film-to-TV take on Minority Report. Over at CBS, the network will launch a TV remake of Limitless with Bradley Cooper attached and will bow its Rush Hour adaptation come midseason.
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