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Cannes: The 10 hottest movies

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:28:00 +0000

CANNES, France -- A chilly downpour greeted arrivals on the Côte d'Azur this week, with the promise of more un-beach-friendly weather to follow. Parties, interview sessions and other manufactured events were feverishly rescheduled to more sheltered locations. But while the sunny weather and picture-postcard scenery of the Riviera are usually a lot more pleasant this time of year, they aren’t the real reason why the entire film industry descends on this overgrown resort town for 10 days every spring. Now we all have an excuse to head indoors and watch movies.

I’ve already read other critics proclaiming in advance that this 66th Festival de Cannes -- which got underway on Wednesday night with the star-studded but rain-soaked European premiere of "The Great Gatsby," followed by murky midnight fireworks -- will be a memorably great one, with one of the strongest lineups in years. OK, sure, maybe. But more than anything, that’s a film-industry reaction to the fact that this festival has premiered several movies in recent years that made a big impact in America, “The Artist” and “Amour” being the most obvious examples. It’s certainly possible that this year’s festival will produce Oscar-winning films or culture-condensing moments, and a lot of people are looking forward to Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” and “Jimmy P.” -- the first English-language film from the great French director Arnaud Desplechin -- with that in mind. (Should I work in a gratuitous mention of James Franco's Faulkner adaptation, "As I Lay Dying"? Sure, why not? Puzzlingly, that is officially Franco's fifth feature as a director.)

Jessica Biel, Jason Bateman and Josh Gad join Matt Damon in toilet strike

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:37:00 +0000

Celebrities are offering support to Matt Damon, who has co-founded Water.org, a charity meant to increase awareness about the worldwide water crisis. In a new video released today, actors Jessica Biel, Jason Bateman and Josh Gad film a PSA in which they announce that they are going on strike against toilets (although Jessica Biel has actually never need to use one).

Straight stars protest too much

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:24:00 +0000

Perhaps the most revolutionary thing a straight actor can do is play gay.

While gay actors like Zachary Quinto, Ian McKellen and Neil Patrick Harris are compelled to play heterosexual roles as a matter of course -- that's the bulk of what's out there -- straight actors get Oscars and praise for bravery.

The latest actors to join the fraternity of the courageous are Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, who respectively play Liberace and his lover in the HBO film "Behind the Candelabra." Damon told Entertainment Weekly that the film's revealing costumes embarrassed his wife: "I really wish she didn’t see that. That’s too much." As for the sex scene between Douglas and Damon, "The scene where I’m behind him and going at him, we did that in one take," said the younger actor.

"We do it. Cut. There’s a long pause. And then you just hear Steven [Soderbergh, the director] go, 'Well … I have no notes.'"

Must-see morning clip

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:21:00 +0000

Last night, late night TV had one of its most inventive moments in recent memory when Matt Damon pulled a Jason Bourne and took over "Jimmy Kimmel Live," turning it into "Jimmy Kimmel Sucks." With Kimmel bound and gagged in a chair, Damon then brought in a host of celebrity guests, including Robin Williams, BFF Ben Affleck, Nicole Kidman and others.

Of what it felt like to finally get his revenge on Kimmel for repeatedly being "bumped" off the show — a running gag between the two — Damon said, "This is like, when I lost my virginity." Watch the intro, below:

Mark Ruffalo: Actors must be political

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:25:00 +0000

Mark Ruffalo, the standout in last year's biggest hit "The Avengers," has been dividing his time of late between acting and advocacy: He's worked with New Yorkers Against Fracking to raise awareness of the environmentally destructive drilling method.

On occasion of the release of "Promised Land," Matt Damon's anti-fracking drama (which opened softly at the box office and hasn't won over critics), Ruffalo called from the set of Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher" to discuss the challenges of merging art and politics.

Have you seen "Promised Land"?

Liberace’s homosexuality makes Hollywood squirm

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:07:00 +0000

This is everything that's ridiculous about Hollywood in a single sentence. You can put together an acclaimed, hit-making director and two A-list, Oscar-winning actors, promise a low budget and an intriguing subject matter, and have the whole industry run away. The whole liberal, diversity-loving industry. Because, as director Steven Soderbergh explains, "They said it was too gay."

Too gay. That's the reason that Michael Douglas and Matt Damon's "Behind the Candelabra" biopic about Liberace is coming to HBO instead of a theater this year. Because in 2013, apparently the entertainment industry believes we can still only watch stories about homosexuals in the privacy of our homes. Soderbergh told the Wrap, "Nobody would make it. We went to everybody in town. We needed $5 million. Nobody would do it. They said it was too gay. Everybody. This was after 'Brokeback Mountain,' by the way. Which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us." Maybe he could have gotten green-lighted with a movie about a gay star who died of AIDS that was just a little bit gay?

Making liberal hearts bleed in anytown, U.S.A.

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Political issues come and go, but message movies never change. Thanks partly to a relatively novel subject—fracking—and partly to an elliptical set-up, Gus van Sant's Promised Land, written from a story by Dave Eggers by its stars, Matt Damon and The Office's John Krasinski, varies from the norm only in fooling you for almost half an hour into thinking it actually might be up to something interesting. Too bad the movie turns into the same Ibsen for Idiots combo of a burning deck and a stacked one that was creaky when Jane Fonda was just another lonesome gal with a few New York modeling gigs to her credit.

Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic deemed “too gay” for theaters

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 17:00:00 +0000

"Magic Mike" director Steven Soderbergh's new film, "Behind the Candelabra," is a "beautiful and relatable" film about "a real relationship -- a marriage -- long before there was gay marriage," according to Matt Damon, who plays the entertainer's (Michael Douglas) young lover in the Liberace biopic. But that didn't matter to Hollywood, apparently, who considered an in-depth look at a homosexual relationship too risky for theaters. In a recent interview with the New York Post, the Oscar-winning director said that “Nobody would make it.” “We went to everybody in town," he said. "They all said it was too gay.”

“And this is after ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ by the way, which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us," Soderbergh added.

Instead, HBO has picked up the film and will premiere it this spring. “The whole package to them looked ... like a slam dunk. The studios didn’t know how to sell it. They were scared."

“Good Will Hunting” starring Morgan Freeman?

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:45:00 +0000

As actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck prepare to team up for another Boston-based movie, this one about kingpin Whitey Bulger, Boston Magazine celebrated their homecoming with a riveting oral history about the original local project that started it all, "Good Will Hunting." The sprawling interview brought together "Good Will Hunting's" original crew, including Damon, Affleck, director Gus Van Sant and others, and illustrated the full, raw drama-behind-the-drama that went on to win two Academy Awards in 1998.

We all know that it started with a first draft that Damon wrote as a thesis when he was at Harvard in the early 90s. But it took several years to get the movie produced, even after most of Hollywood knew the script was gold.

Here's how it happened: Damon moved out to L.A., sleeping on Affleck's floor, where the two hacked out a thriller story, originally writing Robin Williams' character, psychiatrist Sean Maguire, with Morgan Freeman or Robert De Niro in mind:

How fracking is corroding small-town America

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 01:00:00 +0000

This isn't an article about the method of extracting natural gas from deep subterranean rock called hydrofracturing, or fracking, because you either already know where you stand on that issue or you're not much interested. And it's not exactly an article about Matt Damon and Gus Van Sant's fracking drama "Promised Land," even though the movie surprised me with the grace and sophistication of its portrayal of small-town America, along with nice supporting performances from Frances McDormand, Rosemarie DeWitt and John Krasinski. (I wish it hadn't been crammed into the most crowded season of the year, amid all kinds of movies with more star power and sizzle.) It might be about why "Promised Land" hit me so hard, and may hit you hard too if you spend time in the parts of America where the fracking debate is defining the future.

Must-see morning clip

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:46:00 +0000

Matt Damon tells Jay Leno what it was like to meet Bill Clinton for the first time at a screening of "Good Will Hunting":