Truth be told, I’d never heard of The Grand Seduction before receiving the link to the trailer from eOne Films. After checking the video out, The Grand Seduction‘s moved onto my list of possible sleeper hits of the year.
Starring Taylor Kitsch (Lone Survivor), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges), and Liane Balaban, eOne will be releasing the independent comedy directed by Don McKellar in theaters on May 30, 2014.
The Plot: A small fishing village must procure a local doctor to secure a lucrative business contract. When unlikely candidate and big city doctor Paul Lewis lands in their lap for a trial residence, the townsfolk rally together to charm him into staying. As the doctor’s time in the village winds to a close, acting mayor Murray French has no choice but to pull out all the stops and begin The Grand Seduction.
OneRepublic, Carrie Underwood, and Ellie Goulding have made the cut and will be competing for the Milestone Award to be presented at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards. The awards will take place on May 18th at MGM Grand in Vegas and will air on ABC at 8pm ET/PT, and fans can now cast their votes for the winners at Billboard.com/milestone.
According to Billboard, the Milestone award is presented to an “innovative artist who achieved a notable chart milestone in the past year.”
“The Milestone Award presented by Chevrolet is a 100% fan voted category putting the final selection process in the hands of the music fans themselves,” said Larry Klein, producer of the 2014 Billboard Music Awards. “Carrie Underwood, Ellie Goulding and OneRepublic have made a tremendous impact on music over the past year making it an exciting race completely determined by the fans voting right up through the first two hours of the live broadcast.”
Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in the drama/biopic “JIMI: All Is By My Side” an XLrator Media release. (Photo credit: Patrick Redmond)
Jimi: All Is By My Side starring Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix has been chosen as the Opening Night Film for the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival. 12 Years a Slave screenwriter wrote and directed the Jimi Hendrix biopic which will screen at the festival on May 15th at McCaw Hall.
Announcing the opening night film, SIFF’s Artistic Director Carl Spence said, “I can’t think of a more fitting film to open our 40th – as SIFF looks back on where we’ve come from and forward to where we’re going, we’re inviting everyone to come together to see a film that traces the origins of a Seattle music legend. The film and music communities of Seattle have proved to be a source of incredible creative expression capable of garnering attention worldwide, and Jimi encapsulates that.”
“I am thrilled to kick off the Festival with such an exciting film and guests,” added SIFF’s Managing Director Mary Bacarella. “2014 has been an incredible year for Seattle, with the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl and Macklemore taking the world by storm – SIFF’s 40th Festival will keep the party going!”
The Plot:
It’s 1966 and James Hendrix is an unknown backup guitarist in New York City. One night, Linda Keith (Imogen Poots) – girlfriend to Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards – happens to catch a set he’s playing and, mesmerized by his skills, brings Hendrix into her inner circle in London. There, Hendrix has the freedom to develop his craft and personal style. Before long, however, he finds himself caught between Linda’s protective grasp and the charms of a new admirer (Hayley Atwell). With these two women by his side, Jimi, as he is now known, navigates the London music scene and begins to make his mark in the world of rock ‘n’ roll – the rest is history.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb participated in the first movie-themed Google+ Shoppable Hangout on April 21, 2014. The cast sat down with Fandango’s Dave Karger to discuss the action-packed Spidey sequel coming to theaters on May 2nd and during the half-hour event, the cast answered questions from fans, and fans were even able to purchase their advance tickets to the Spider-Man sequel.
The Plot:
We’ve always known that Spider-Man’s most important battle has been within himself: the struggle between the ordinary obligations of Peter Parker and the extraordinary responsibilities of Spider-Man. But in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker finds that a greater conflict lies ahead.
It’s great to be Spider-Man (Garfield). For Peter Parker, there’s no feeling quite like swinging between skyscrapers, embracing being the hero, and spending time with Gwen (Stone). But being Spider-Man comes at a price: only Spider-Man can protect his fellow New Yorkers from the formidable villains that threaten the city. With the emergence of Electro (Foxx), Peter must confront a foe far more powerful than he. And as his old friend, Harry Osborn (DeHaan), returns, Peter comes to realize that all of his enemies have one thing in common: Oscorp.
Will Henry get his memory back? Will the Wicked Witch’s storyline wrap up during the season three finale? How about those rumors of Frozen characters visiting Storybrooke? And what about killing off a fan-favorite character? Once Upon a Time co-creators and executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis answered/dodged those questions during our interview at the 2014 WonderCon in Anaheim, CA.
[Warning: This interview includes a specific question about a major character who was killed off this season.]
Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz Interview
We want all the secrets from next season.
Edward Kitsis: “You have to watch this season first or else next season will make no sense.”
How can you top this season?
Edward Kitsis: “I don’t know. That is what keeps us up at night.”
Adam Horowitz: “But the challenge is it’s to always raise the bar, to try to keep developing and deepening the story and take it different places. That’s what we push ourselves to do and we hope to continue doing that.”
Speculation on Twitter is that you’re looking into getting Frozen characters on the show.
Adam Horowitz: “There are a lot of rumors.”
Edward Kitsis: “We were asked a question, ‘Do we like Frozen?’ and we said, ‘Oh my god, we love Frozen. That would be awesome,’ and somehow that has become a story. I mean, I also like Darth Vader but he’s not coming on. But you know, you never say never.”
Adam Horowitz: “We’re fans of Frozen, we’re fans of Brave, we’re fans of a million Disney properties and fairy tales and stories that we feel would be great parts of this show. But what we’re doing right now this season is we’re really focusing on the characters you’ve seen and the ones we’ve introduced. And where we might go in the future is stuff that we’re hoping to mull over and hopefully surprise people.”
Why did you make the Wicked Witch so powerful that it will take Regina and Emma working together to fight her?
Edward Kitsis: “Well, for us, there was a sense of the Wicked Witch, you will find out that she’s a product of severe dark magic so you will need light magic to counteract that. But for us what we really liked when we came up with the Wicked Witch is somebody that for magic she was just a natural at. Her being so proficient at magic and Regina realizing that would kind of throw her off her game. When you think you’re the best and then you find out that the person who told you you were the best really didn’t think you were the best, how do you come back from that?”
Adam Horowitz: “And also just purely what’s the fun in a villain that’s easy to defeat? We wanted to find a villain or an antagonist like the Wicked Witch who is more than a match for all of our characters, and to give her hopefully a really deep, psychological reason for why she’s doing the things she’s doing and have those things touch all of our characters and force them to have to figure out ways to battle a tougher adversary than they’ve ever seen before.”
What can you tease about the rest of the season and will Henry get his memory back?
Adam Horowitz: “The issue of Henry and his memory…”
Edward Kitsis: “…gets revolved.”
Adam Horowitz: “It gets resolved and it comes to the forefront rather quickly, obviously before the end of the year. What happens with Henry is really key to what happens as the climax between our heroes and the witch.”
Edward Kitsis: “What I can say is we designed this season as to be two separate seasons. There’s the Neverland and as we said, there’s a beginning, middle, and end. And so for the Wicked Witch it’s the same thing. We plan to complete this season’s arc so that what we set up in the beginnings of 12 episodes in the beginning will finish the story by the end.”
Is there any character who has gotten more time on screen based on fan reaction?
Adam Horowitz: “I wouldn’t say that. Look, we love to listen to our fans and to hear from all of our fans on what they’re thinking and feeling but…”
Edward Kitsis: “When we originally wrote the pilot, our idea was that Prince Charming didn’t get out of the coma until episodes three or four. We felt that would be a great thing to build to, and Josh [Dallas] was so good in the pilot that we woke him up in the next episode. So oftentimes characters will get…it’s based on excitement. That’s a perfect example. We hadn’t even aired, it was a pilot, but we were so excited by Josh and the way he portrayed this character that we started writing for him more.”
Adam Horowitz: “Right. And it’s a balancing act of we want the fans to be happy, we want create a show that they appreciate and like, but we have to go with our gut. The example Eddie just explained is a perfect example of that where it’s like Josh was so amazing in the pilot that it kind of shifted a lot of the thinking about when the character would wake up and all that, that it forced us to act in a different way.
It has to come from the gut and you have to go with your instincts. And, also, the way that the show is produced particularly this year when we did 11 episodes and 11 episodes, by the time we aired the first episode of the second run this year, we were writing the finale. So we really have to learn to trust our instincts and hope the fans trust them as well and go along with them.”
Edward Kitsis: “You can’t adjust that quickly. We don’t do it live. So if they’re like, ‘Wow, we really want more of somebody,’ you can’t just change the next week’s episode because that’s been locked and cut for months.”
Adam Horowitz: “It’s that thing where you want to know what the fans think and feel and appreciate that, but you also can’t write by polling.”
Edward Kitsis: “If we listened to everything, every character would be alive, dead, married, and single. [Laughing] I don’t know how to do all four.”
Adam Horowitz: “Exactly. And we would still be writing episode 102. We’d still be trying to figure out what to do, based on millions of opinions.”
We’ve found out a little bit about what happened to Hook over the past year. Are we going to get more memories back before the finale?
Adam Horowitz: “I think that the mystery of that missing year will be definitely resolved before the end of this year.”
Edward Kitsis: “We will see a big chunk of that next week in episode 19 called ‘A Curious Thing.'”
You do such a good job of taking your bad characters and making us sympathetic to them (other than Pan). Are we ever going to be sympathetic to the Wicked Witch?
Edward Kitsis: “Pan, what we loved is that at the end of the day we wanted to create…to us, anyone who wants to live 14 forever is the most selfish person in the world. We knew he was Rumpel’s dad, and we wanted his end goal just to be self-preservation.
We loved the idea of just selfishness as opposed to world domination. The Wicked Witch, I think if you felt for her in ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green,’ then you feel for her. If you think that she handled it badly, then you want her to die. I think it’s your interpretation of whether or not had she had more support and love in her life, she’d have gone down a different road.”
Adam Horowitz: “I think as far as the witch goes we’ve shown some of the past that shaped her into who she was. We’re going to delve a bit more into what she’s doing and why, and we’ll see more of that. It’s up to the audience to decide if that’s sympathetic or not.”
Edward Kitsis: “What we can tell you is she’s wicked.”
Adam Horowitz: “She’s wicked. And a lot of our so-called evil characters or bad characters are characters who take adversity and things that happen to all of us and they react in a different way. Hopefully you understand the reasoning behind their reaction, even if you don’t condone what they do.”
Can you talk about the decision to kill Bae?
Adam Horowitz: “Look, it’s not something we take lightly. We love the character, we love Michael Raymond-James. When you’re telling a large serialized story like we’re endeavoring to do, there are ups and downs in that story for those characters. This was one of the most difficult things we’ve had to do on this show the entire run.”
Edward Kitsis: “Yes. For us, we loved the idea of him when he lost Emma and Henry at the end of the first 11 and they went to New York, we loved the idea of him starting to go down the same path his father did which was, ‘I will do anything to get with my son, no matter the cost.’ And then realizing that his father sacrificed himself for him, so the person that he always thought was a coward finally redeemed himself, and so Neal had to honor that. We liked that kind of history repeating itself and then not. Unfortunately that meant he had to die.”
Adam Horowitz: “And I would also say this about his death which is that the ripples of the death have not stopped being felt. As you continue to watch this season you’ll see that play out.”
Any chance August Booth will be back anytime soon?
Edward Kitsis: “Not this year but definitely. We love Eion Bailey and we love that character. He’s always on our mind.”
Adam Horowitz: “August is in our mind and how to incorporate him in the show.”
How far ahead are you thinking?
Adam Horowitz: “I would say this, if we’re lucky enough to continue for however many years we sort of attack that. We try to have a broad sense of where we would want the show to ultimately finish and end – whenever that might be. But we can really only attack it one season at a time. What we try to do is plan out the entire arc of the season with the hope that there’s further seasons beyond that to sort of set the pieces in place for that. But, say, do we have an idea for what season seven would be? No. Do we have an idea of where we would like the show to ultimately go? Yes.”
Edward Kitsis: “We kind of know the last couple scenes and where we want to get to. And what we do is in between seasons – in fact, we’re doing it right now – is we are planning next season and then we all go take a little time off and come back.”
Why do you think parenthood is such a strong motif in this show?
Edward Kitsis: “Well, I think there’s no greater stakes than family. I think family is a very universal theme and I think the things that are interesting about fairy tales is they tell us how to live our life or be with our family, or how we deal with the loss of a family member. And for us this was always about a dysfunctional family trying to come together and get their happy ending. For us, what’s more emotional?
If Peter Pan was just some really snotty kid at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything. But when you realize he’s Rumpel’s father, and you go back to everything that Rumpel’s ever done – ‘I don’t want to be a coward.’ ‘I don’t want to be like my dad.’ – the fact that he let Bae go and it drove him nuts because he did to his son what he did to his father, it makes it richer. People were like, ‘Did Bae have to be Henry’s dad and that?’ If he was just some guy named Steve, who cares? Right? Think that through. ‘Okay, he’s a guy named Steve. He’s living in Detroit.’ Who cares?”
Adam Horowitz: “You know, it’s not to say that everybody has to be related or anything like that. It’s that that kind of bond, the familial bond, is so strong, so powerful, that there’s no greater state at least for us to think about when you’re writing which is how do you interact with your family? How do you raise a family? How do you be a part of a family? Or, how do you find a family, because you’re family doesn’t have to be blood? That’s the greatest thing you can see with the characters is when they find each other and come together and form their own family.”
What does the future hold for Hook and Emma?
Adam Horowitz: “As far as Hook and Emma…”
Edward Kitsis: “…there’s more to be told.”
Adam Horowitz: “There’s more to be told and there’s a lot of craziness going on in Storybrooke right now that they’ve both got to deal with.”
Edward Kitsis: “Unfortunately, Emma wants to go back to New York and Hook wants her to stay, so we’ll see what happens.”
Jon Favreau, Emjay Anthony and Sofia Vergara in 'Chef' (Photo Courtesy of Open Road Films)
Jon Favreau’s Chef offers up this new 45 second clip featuring Favreau on the phone with Sofia Vergara while he and Emjay Anthony man a grill. Favreau co-wrote, produced, directs, and stars in the comedy Chef which Open Road Films is set to release in theaters on May 9, 2014.
In addition to Favreau, Vergara, and Anthony, the cast includes John Leguizamo, Dustin Hoffman, Bobby Cannavale, Oliver Platt, Scarlett Johansson, and Robert Downey Jr.
The Plot:
Chef Carl Casper (Favreau) suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner (Hoffman), he is left to figure out what’s next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife (Vergara), his friend (Leguizamo) and his son to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen — and zest for life and love.
The cast of The CW’s sci-fi series Star-Crossed took part in one of the more popular panels at the 2014 WonderCon in Anaheim, CA, with Stargazers (yes, that’s what hardcore fans are called) learning more about potential romances and break-ups as well as what viewers of the series can expect from the season one finale.
In addition to the panel, the cast and producers took part in interviews to shed more light on this new sci-fi series.
Jesse Luken and Malese Jow Interview
Are you sci-fi fans to begin with? Was that part of the appeal of Star-Crossed?
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Jesse Luken: “Yeah, it was definitely an appeal of the story. The world, you could read in the pilot, was just very incredibly interesting. It’s an interesting world in dealing with concepts that humanity has faced for hundreds and hundreds of years, and now we’re in the future and now we’re prejudice, we’re ignorant, we don’t know, fear of the other, and that’s a lot of fun.”
Malese Jow: “I’ve been a part of the sci-fi world for a while now, going from Vampire Diaries to this. So it’s kind of in the same genre, which I really enjoy. I mean, it’s so thrilling to kind of have the relatable aspects of high school and stuff like that and then there’s that twist with either vampires or aliens. So, it’s a lot of fun and it makes things really interesting. We get the liberty of our own world and invite people into that which is really exciting. I feel like we’re on the cutting edge of that.”
Do you ever feel like because it is a big ensemble cast that they won’t be able to spend enough time with each of the characters?
Jesse Luken: “Yeah.”
Because we haven’t really gotten to know everybody yet.
Jesse Luken: [Smiling] “I feel that all the time. I’m usually on the phone with the writers yelling at the time.”
Asking for more lines.
Jesse Luken: “Yes!”
Malese Jow: “And then he offers them money.”
Jesse Luken: “Or I improvise a monologue in the middle and they go, ‘Cut.’ No, I think that actually paints the world in a beautiful way. You do get to know the characters and there is, even with 10 characters, there’s an evolution. 10 characters plus villains and the outside of the core group in high school. You get to see an evolution with everybody and everybody has a unique perspective, and a unique changing perspective which I think is great.”
Malese Jow: “And the cool thing about a show like this is, it does some kind of scattered in the beginning with an ensemble cast but then as you watch a season…I think that’s what people love about a show like this is that you grow with the characters. They are all intertwined somehow. So like by the end of this season, we’re all in scenes together when we weren’t before. It’s really exciting.”
Did they give you any heads-up about what could happen if there’s a season two so that you could plan out your character?
Malese Jow: “They are so sealed when it comes to that but I know that they have been brainstorming, and our season finale is epic. I will say that. It definitely leaves you wanting more.”
Jesse Luken: “You very much see where it is going to start to go, going into season two.”
How has the fan response been so far?
Jesse Luken: “It’s been great. Everybody seems really passionate and very supportive. I think we’ve got a little bit of an underdog thing going for us and I think fans appreciate that, and they’re really behind the show. I’ve been very flattered and humbled by it.”
Malese Jow: “And our cast is great because every Monday we have our weekly live tweet party. Not only do we have fun and bond as a cast still outside of filming, but we get to talk to our fans and hear their responses first-hand which if social media is accessible to you, why not take advantage of it? We’ve been trending every week; it’s been awesome.”
If the show wasn’t doing tweeting with fans, would you be on Twitter a lot?
Malese Jow: “Oh, definitely. I’ve been on Twitter since the beginning.”
Jesse Luken: “No.”
Malese Jow: “I would make you because he has the funniest tweets I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”
Jesse Luken: “I’m terrible.”
Malese Jow: “No you’re not!”
Why?
Jesse Luken: “I’m basically Amish. Like I’m just a dumb redneck. I signed up for Twitter…Titus signed me up on set. He was like, ‘You’ve got to get a Twitter.’ I was like, ‘Okay…’ And then apparently you can do videos on Twitter. I still haven’t figured that out. I’m an idiot. I can barely work a computer.”
The show was originally described as Romeo and Juliet/sci-fi. How would you describe it?
Malese Jow: “Well, one of our producers in the beginning actually called it a District 90210. It kind of has the edginess of the whole District 9 alien sci-fi because when we have a fight scene, we have a fight scene. We have the coolest weapons and the sector is nitty-gritty. But then we also have beautiful people in high school who fall in love with each other and make out and take their clothes off willingly. That’s Star-Crossed.”
Jesse Luken: “But then also it deals with these great issues like integration, like how long have we been seeing integration in society whether it be from like Greek and Romans all the way to now. You’re seeing those intellectually stimulating metaphors that go along with the sci-fi and with the high school and everything else.”
And sci-fi is huge on TV right now.
Jesse Luken: “For sure, and I think we’re trying to carve out the alien niche because the vampire, that went, and then the zombies, that went.”
And because the show deals with aliens, do you believe?
Veep will be back for a fourth season and Silicon Valley will return for season two as just announced today by HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo. The two comedy series earned renewal orders even though their current seasons just kicked off on April 6, 2014.
Veep was created by Armando Iannucci and stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky, Reid Scott, Matt Walsh, Timothy C. Simons, Sufe Bradshaw and Kevin Dunn. Louis-Dreyfus plays Selina Meyer, the Vice President who is plotting a run for President.
Silicon Valley is set in the world of Silicon Valley engineers and is inspired by series creator Mike Judge’s experiences as an engineer back in the 1980s. The series stars Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Zach Woods, Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, Josh Brener, Amanda Crew, and the late Christopher Evan Welch.
Noah Wyle in episode one of 'Falling Skies' season 4 (Photo Credit: James Dittiger/TNT)
“A great battle is coming and humanity’s end has not yet been written”
TNT will premiere the fourth season of Falling Skies on June 22, 2014 at 10pm ET/PT and the network’s just revealed a new trailer for the sci-fi alien invasion series. The cast is led by Noah Wyle and includes Moon Bloodgood, Will Patton, Drew Roy, Connor Jessup, Sarah Carter, and Seychelle Gabriel.
The Plot:
TNT’s epic drama Falling Skies tells the extraordinary story about life and survival in the wake of a catastrophic alien invasion. Noah Wyle stars as Tom Mason, a college professor who became an unlikely resistance leader. Moon Bloodgood is Dr. Ann Glass, a pediatrician who became the survivors’ primary physician and eventually fell in love with Tom. Will Patton is Colonel Weaver, the gruff and emotionally scarred commander leading the battle against the invaders.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be bringing back Neil Meron and Craig Zadan to produce the 2015 Oscars set for February 22nd on ABC. Meron and Zadan previously produced the 2013 and 2014 Academy Awards, with last year’s ceremony hosted my Ellen DeGeneres drawing in 45.4 million viewers. That’s the best viewership numbers since 2000, and the 2014 Oscars also set a new record on Twitter when DeGeneres posted a celebrity-filled selfie that was viewed more than 32.8 million times.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to have Craig and Neil back to produce the Oscars again in 2015,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Their showmanship has elevated the show to new heights and we are excited to keep the momentum going with this creative partnership.”
“This year’s show reached viewers of all ages and set social media records, proving that Craig and Neil are masters at tapping into the zeitgeist and capturing the hearts of movie fans around the world,” said Academy CEO Dawn Hudson.
“We are delighted to work with Cheryl, Dawn and the Academy to produce the Oscars for a third time,” said Zadan and Meron. “We’re proud of the show’s success over the last two years and are eager to embark on another entertaining show to honor this year’s motion pictures.”
Source: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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