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Lincoln (2012)
(voting begins after release)
As the Civil War nears its end, President Abraham Lincoln clashes with members of his cabinet over the issue of abolishing slavery.
Director:Steven Spielberg |
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Monday, September 17, 2012
David Strathairn plays Secretary of State William Seward
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Last Year’s Best Supporting Actress winner Melissa Leo is still fighting
http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/the-reel-breakdown/last-best-supporting-actress-winner-melissa-leo-still-211233505.html
By Thelma Adams | The Reel Breakdown – Thu, Sep 13, 2012 5:12 PM EDT
Photo: Factory 25
By Thelma Adams | The Reel Breakdown – Thu, Sep 13, 2012 5:12 PM EDT
Photo: Factory 25
Melissa Leo's latest independent film dares the audience to look away because it is so unflinching and gloss free. "A small gem of bleak, neorealist portraiture," wrote New York Times film critic Stephen Holden today. "Melissa Leo plays a granite-faced, taciturn woman who connects more easily with animals than with people." The very first scene of "Francine" shows the 51-year-old Leo taking a shower in a way that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. Directors Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky shot the micro-budgeted indie in upstate New York -- Leo has a house in Ulster County -- in the summer of 2010 before the actress earned her Oscar for "The Fighter."
She plays the title character: an anti-social New York animal lover who gets out of prison for an unspecified crime and discovers that living free and earning a living has challenges that may be beyond her ability to cope. At the Berlin International Film Festival, where I first saw "Francine" last January, the buzz was about the scenes where Francine lives in an increasingly filthy crash pad surrounded by a growing number of cats and dogs. Her situation inspired a gag reflex in some audience members, and deep empathy and awe in others. The movie opens theatrically in limited release and contains an unforgettable performance from an uncompromising actress, a raw, honest, and disturbing portrait of a woman living precariously on the edge of society.
Melissa Leo: We shot "Francine" in the giddy-up-go to the Oscars. "Francine" was shooting in the Hudson Valley, so I was home for the summer.
Thelma Adams: So, it was your summer job. After your best-actress nomination for playing Ray Eddy in "Frozen River," you were itching to play a lead role again.
ML: With Ray Eddy, I was carrying the ball. It was more fun. I love acting. What I do is called playing, like a child. I get to go to work and play. It's not about the most and more. As the character that the story is about, you are more integrally bound to the magic of storytelling.
TA: And how does that differ when you are playing a supporting role, as you did in "The Fighter"?
ML: As a supporting player, the fun is aiding and abetting the lead. It's fun. Don't get me wrong. I'm just not "The Fighter." I probably could have played them both -- Dicky and Micky. Just don't tell Mark [Wahlberg]. I also take my work very seriously, and there is greater responsibility. I am old and wise, and I enjoy rising to that responsibility.
TA: Which is something that you did as an animal lover with people issues just out of prison in "Francine." To say you're stripped bare is not an understatement …
ML: It was oddly self-conscious to watch "Francine" while at Berlin with an audience and take in how I handled that responsibility. The work was difficult and hard, but what it has wrought is a very beautiful movie -- not me, not them [the filmmakers], that fiery combination.
TA: Who is Francine?
ML: She might in some degree live in all of us in the way that people incarcerate themselves and live by only the rules they understand.
TA: What about all those cats and dogs and gerbils Francine collects? The audience audibly gasped to see how she lives covered in pets.
ML: The animals were awesome. A lady and her kids in the Hudson Valley rescue beasts, and they come from her home, where they live together -- tidily nonetheless and loved. Extraordinary care was taken with the animals while portraying some of the most in-your-face acting. The dog that dies is only pretending the truth like the rest of us.
TA: So, tell me, Melissa, what has been the biggest change in your career since you won the Academy Award for "The Fighter"?
ML: The biggest change is deep inside my heart, Thelma. The respect, admiration, and inclusion of my fellow thespians and other industry members envelops me as much as family. I'm feeling connected. My work is my religion, and to be honored by the Academy is like being honored by the pope.
TA: "Francine" is a daring opportunity, not the first thing that came along after your Oscar and, certainly, not a big paycheck for you. It's not quite like Mickey Rourke going from "The Wrestler" to playing the villain in "Iron Man 2."
ML: As with Ray Eddy in "Frozen River," "Francine" tells a story that's interesting and unique. She has the specificity that makes the film very universal.
TA: David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film and wrote: "'Francine' is a legitimate discovery." He concluded: "The stealth impact of 'Francine' is tremendous given its simplicity and strangeness. The same goes for Leo's performance, an exceptional demonstration of power in silence." In my opinion, the performance has so little dialog, it's almost a contemporary silent movie.
ML: If I'd have known that, I'd have had a funnier walk, with a cane, like Charlie Chaplin.
Melissa Leo Is a Fighter
TALK
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/magazine/melissa-leo-is-a-fighter.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share
Interview by ANDREW GOLDMAN
Published: September 14, 2012 Comment
Your new film, “Francine,” is about a woman, fresh out of jail, who seems destined to become one of those people on “Hoarders,” with a home piled with animal carcasses and feces. What is your own biggest eccentricity?
What you see is what you get.
What you see is what you get.
Misty Keasler for The New York Times
Melissa Leo
Related
Movie Review | 'Francine': Bonding With Pets, Not People(September 12, 2012)
More Talk Columns
Readers’ Comments
That’s eccentric?
Today? Yeah. People often expect me to be something other than what I am. They think I’m vegetarian; they’re surprised that I smoke. I’ve promised myself I’ll quit for my 52nd birthday.
Today? Yeah. People often expect me to be something other than what I am. They think I’m vegetarian; they’re surprised that I smoke. I’ve promised myself I’ll quit for my 52nd birthday.
Acting seems like the last profession in which smoking is considered socially acceptable.
Yes, a surprising amount of actors smoke. Female actors in particular.
Yes, a surprising amount of actors smoke. Female actors in particular.
Because it suppresses your appetite?
It’s even sicker than that. It’s a friendship thing, a companionship thing. An actor’s life is fairly lonely. There might well be more working female actors who live single lives, and that exacerbates the loneliness of being an actor. For me, a lot of it is the companionship of your little friends in a box. It’s reliable.
It’s even sicker than that. It’s a friendship thing, a companionship thing. An actor’s life is fairly lonely. There might well be more working female actors who live single lives, and that exacerbates the loneliness of being an actor. For me, a lot of it is the companionship of your little friends in a box. It’s reliable.
Why do you think male actors are more often in relationships?
Because 80 percent of female actors are pretty strong, powerful women, and that’s a very hard relationship for men to have. Even today, in 2012, the guy is supposed to be in charge. I see it in every heterosexual relationship I know, the acquiescence of the female. When I observe people being coupled, I see too many compromises that I don’t know that I could make or would want to make.
Because 80 percent of female actors are pretty strong, powerful women, and that’s a very hard relationship for men to have. Even today, in 2012, the guy is supposed to be in charge. I see it in every heterosexual relationship I know, the acquiescence of the female. When I observe people being coupled, I see too many compromises that I don’t know that I could make or would want to make.
You live alone in upstate New York. Are you in favor of on-set hookups?
No. But invariably there will be some on-set gaffer who will have caught my eye. To my very best friends, I refer to him as my boyfriend. I never touch the guy. Never talk to him even. He has no idea he’s my boyfriend. This is much easier than actually having to deal with somebody.
No. But invariably there will be some on-set gaffer who will have caught my eye. To my very best friends, I refer to him as my boyfriend. I never touch the guy. Never talk to him even. He has no idea he’s my boyfriend. This is much easier than actually having to deal with somebody.
Before you won an Oscar for “The Fighter,” you paid for ads in trades that featured glamorous shots of you with the word “Consider,” after you were unable to land magazine covers. You were criticized for it, but were you happy with the result?
It was not a fun shoot. Had I met the photographer before, I would not have hired him. I wanted a sense of fun and glamour. The one with me bending forward I find personally offensive. It’s very in-your-face. It’s not what I wanted the ad to be.
It was not a fun shoot. Had I met the photographer before, I would not have hired him. I wanted a sense of fun and glamour. The one with me bending forward I find personally offensive. It’s very in-your-face. It’s not what I wanted the ad to be.
Considering the hardscrabble background of your character in “The Fighter,” I actually had a more negative reaction to the shot of you in a floor-length white faux-fur coat, standing by an indoor pool.
I wasn’t advertising Alice Ward in “The Fighter.” What I was attempting to do was exactly the opposite. I was going for, “I can be a movie star, too.”
I wasn’t advertising Alice Ward in “The Fighter.” What I was attempting to do was exactly the opposite. I was going for, “I can be a movie star, too.”
You were literally shooting the magazine covers you weren’t able to get?
The difference being that it didn’t say Vogue or Esquire over my head. I had been the brassy little thing that did it myself.
The difference being that it didn’t say Vogue or Esquire over my head. I had been the brassy little thing that did it myself.
You once said: “There is a truthfulness in my acting. It gets me fired all the time.” What does that mean?
It goes way back to my first firing from “The Young Riders.” I was breast-feeding when I began the job, and my child was weaned during the shooting. By the end of the season, my bust was much smaller. I was fired at the end of the year. I wasn’t sexy enough. If she was the local madam in the whorehouse, that’s what I would have given them. But she was a single woman, living on the plain by herself. If she’d had a bust, she would have been strapping it down so she could take care of the horses.
It goes way back to my first firing from “The Young Riders.” I was breast-feeding when I began the job, and my child was weaned during the shooting. By the end of the season, my bust was much smaller. I was fired at the end of the year. I wasn’t sexy enough. If she was the local madam in the whorehouse, that’s what I would have given them. But she was a single woman, living on the plain by herself. If she’d had a bust, she would have been strapping it down so she could take care of the horses.
You once said you were fired from “Homicide: Life on the Streets” after five seasons because you didn’t fit into the network’s “tight-sweater format.”
The network was never happy with Kay Howard. Breasts and females, there’s a subject we could talk about for a long, long time. How our place in the world and our sense of self is shaped by the size, shape, tone and texture of our breasts. Mine worked really good. They fed my infant.
The network was never happy with Kay Howard. Breasts and females, there’s a subject we could talk about for a long, long time. How our place in the world and our sense of self is shaped by the size, shape, tone and texture of our breasts. Mine worked really good. They fed my infant.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
More Showtime dates!
Thu, Sep 13 8:30 AM
SHO WOMEN
Thu, Sep 13 3:30 PM
SHO WOMEN
Tue, Sep 18 4:30 PM
SHO WOMEN
Wed, Oct 03 6:00 AM
SHO 2
Mon, Oct 15 4:30 AM
SHO 2
Mon, Oct 22 7:45 AM
SHO 2
Wed, Oct 31 6:15 AM
SHO 2
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