Jul 16, 2010
By Chris Tinkham
Web Exclusive
When Irish writer/director Lance Daly talks about the production of his splendid third feature Kisses, he uses terms such as “magic” and “blind faith.” This is not to suggest, however, that he was whimsical in his approach to making the film. Daly was confident enough in his carefully written script, about a boy and a girl who run away from home on Christmas, that he allowed himself to take risks that would lend Kisses both authenticity and a youthful air of enchantment. More
Jun 26, 2010
By Chris Tinkham
Web Exclusive
In her most recent films, 19-year-old Jennifer Lawrence has portrayed resilient, mature-minded teens who, by default, have assumed the mother role in their respective families. In Winter’s Bone, which won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, an impoverished 17-year-old living in the Missouri Ozarks who is hellbent on keeping her preteen brother and sister out of the hands of unreliable surrogate parents. Though Lawrence is the youngest in her family, she admits that her maternal instincts are evident in real life. “I’ve always been a babysitter and a nanny,” she says. “All my friends call me mom.” More
May 28, 2010
By Chris Tinkham
Web Exclusive
Grégoire Canvel, the lead character in French writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve’s second film, The Father of My Children, is based on Humbert Balsan, the French film producer who was chairman of the European Film Academy when he hanged himself in 2005. Balsan intended to produce Hansen-Løve’s first feature, All Is Forgiven, but his death left the film in limbo until it was completed with other producers in 2007. It’s no accident that The Father of My Children shares a kinship with Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours, which was released to critical acclaim in the States last year. Hansen-Løve, 29, is the fiancé of Assayas, who hired her for her first film work—as an actress—when she was 16 years old. More
Apr 05, 2010
By Chris Tinkham
Issue #32 - Summer 2010 - Wasted on the Youth
“I still have an obsession with my bunny,” admits 13-year-old actress Chloë Grace Moretz. “I can’t sleep without it, and every time I travel, I go with my bunny. It’s a stuffed bunny, it’s a fake bunny, but it’s my favorite thing in the world, basically.” More
Mar 26, 2010
By Chris Tinkham
Web Exclusive
Danish director Niels Arden Oplev didn’t seem like an obvious choice to direct The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the screen version of the first book in Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson’s immensely popular Millennium trilogy. Oplev’s previous film, Worlds Apart, was an intimate family drama about a teenage girl confronting the doctrines of her religious denomination, Jehovah’s Witnesses. Oplev initially declined producer Sören Staermose’s overtures to direct the much-anticipated film adaptation, but Staermose’s persistence paid off. Prior to its release in the U.S. and UK, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo grossed over $100 million worldwide, easily becoming Sweden’s most successful film. More
