(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
It’s often said that Hollywood is a young person’s game. Although many film and TV veterans are still making waves in the industry, we, at Limité, are taking a look at some of Hollywood’s brightest youth. Our annual “Young Hollywood” feature profiles actors aged 30 and under and filmmakers aged 40 and under. Here’s who we have our eyes on…
NOTE: I edited and partly wrote the following feature for LimitéMagazine.com.
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
Committed to its mission to seek and promote tomorrow’s trending topics, we are thrilled to announce its sixth-annual “Faces to Watch” feature. Compiled by Limité’s film team, “Faces to Watch” presents a curated look at this year’s newest and brightest in film – both in front of and behind the camera – as seen through the lens of Limité.
Ryan Coogler / filmmaker
by Minnie Li
Ryan Coogler rose to critical acclaim with his directorial debut, Fruitvale Station. Its Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award wins at last year’s Sundance Film Festival were the first of a trail of recognition from festivals the world over, including the Prix de l’avenir at Cannes, which recognizes Coogler as a talent to watch. He, along with his star Michael B. Jordan, was named by Time as one of the 30 people under 30 changing the world. In December, the 28-year-old filmmaker took home best breakthrough director at the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards.
Fruitvale Station chronicles the last day of 22-year-old Oscar Grant’s life. A white transit officer shot Grant, who was African-American, in 2002 on the BART platform. A decade later, George Zimmerman shot the unarmed young black man, Trayvon Martin. The film and its timely release suggest that life in post-racial America has changed little. Coogler is an Oakland native and has worked as a counselor at a juvenile hall in San Francisco and as a counselor and security guard in a home for troubled Bay Area youths. Grant’s story hit home.
Coogler’s next project is Creed, a spin-off of the Rocky franchise. Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan have already signed on.
It’s not every day I get the opportunity to fly out to LA for the Oscars, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t post about my experience at this year’s Academy Awards. My friend Stephanie and I ventured to Hollywood primarily for our Red Carpet experience, but we took our extended weekend to meet with friends, see some sites, and tour the Paramount Pictures studios. Still, our Oscar Fan Experience was the weekend’s crown jewel, so I’ll be focusing this post on that.
Our call time was 10am and we arrived a bit early, so we hung out at a donut shop nearby for our “pre-gaming.” (I had been to LA just a few years earlier and didn’t notice all of the donut shops. This time, however, that’s all I could see—for miles and miles. And these aren’t fancy, gourmet donut shops; these are hole-in-the-wall, cheapo places.)
Continue reading Waiting in the Rain: My Oscars 2014 Experience
Each year, both for Oscar and Emmy season, The Hollywood Reporter releases a series of candid and informative roundtable interviews with some of the film and TV industries’ hottest and most respected talent—all of whom are in awards contention for their most recent works. This season, the focus is on movies and the men and women who bring them to life. Visit THR.com to watch or read. So far, the following roundtables have been conducted (with more to come, including some of this year’s actress contenders):
Directors (image above)
L to R: Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips), David O. Russell (American Hustler), Ben Stiller (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity), Lee Daniels (Lee Daniels’ The Butler)
Continue reading THR’s Awards Roundtable Back for Another Go ‘Round
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
Dear Academy,
You get thanked an awful lot by Oscar winners, but you don’t always make the smartest choices (#justsayin). Allow us to help you along a bit so you don’t make another embarrassing blunder (Affleck, anyone?) come February 24th. Here’s who we say should win in some of the key races.
Your friends,
Dan Quitério
Limité Film Editor
Stephanie Dawson
Senior Film Contributor
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
As we continue to seek and capture the essence of modern world culture, Limité is excited to announce its fifth-annual “Faces to Watch” list. This feature focuses on select up-and-coming personalities in various facets of culture and lifestyle, such as film, fashion, culinary, and music. We’ve chosen 12 individuals for this year’s list. They were selected based on their potential to make a significant impact in their disciplines—in short, these are the names we’ll be talking about tomorrow.
by Curtis John
Since starring in a series of big-budget movies and independent darlings over the past six years, British actress Gemma Arterton, fresh off of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, has not only become a favorite of film directors, but of audiences as well. Hansel & Gretel is her third film to open in the number one spot in the US box office—Quantum of Solace (2008) and Clash of the Titans (2010) being the others. In her current box office hit, Arterton plays a grown-up version of the fairy tale heroine Gretel, who with her brother Hansel (Jeremy Renner) become bounty hunters who eliminate witches worldwide, 15 years following their terrifying ordeal at the hands of a witch in a gingerbread house (but you already know thatstory). Celebrated for their travails but bored with the work, the duo is hired to save a small town’s children, who are being abducted by witches. During their investigation, the siblings discover dark secrets about their strange pasts.
This past Thursday, nominations for the 85th annual Academy Awards were announced. In a new twist, the ceremony’s host, Seth MacFarlane, joined Emma Stone on stage at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in LA to read the nominations. It’s rare for the ceremony’s host to present the nominations, as that position is usually filled by the Academy’s President, but clearly, AMPAS had something new and original in mind. It paid off. The comedic banter between the two worked well, as their chemistry felt natural and fresh. It also helped to paint the Academy in a younger, more vibrant light. Could this be a shadow of things to come when the golden statuettes are distributed on February 24?
One thing the Oscars definitely has going for itself this year is that many of 2012’s nominated films are movies that the general public have actually seen. The Oscar telecast is likely to see a bump in ratings after several years in decline. On to my analysis …
Continue reading Analysis: The 85th Annual Oscar Nominations
Gus Van Sant’s new film Promised Land has been getting significant Oscar buzz. The Matt Damon-starring drama about the controversial practice known as “fracking” opens in limited release on December 28, with a larger roll-out on January 4. Other cast includes Frances McDormand, John Krasinski, Scoot McNairy, Rosemarie DeWitt, Titus Welliver, and Hal Holbrook. Check out these stills below.
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
Last week, we unveiled Limité‘s 2012 class of Young Hollywood filmmakers—seven talented directors under the age of 40. The importance of a director can never be understated; however, it’s the actors who bring the story’s characters to life. Actors are more than just pretty faces who stand in front of a camera and recite lines. The best of them are able to emote and embody their characters. They dig beneath the skin to explore the core of each character, and what results (hopefully) is a transformation.
For Part 2 of our Young Hollywood feature, we highlight 10 talented actors aged 30 and under who we believe will be the faces of their industry for years to come.
It doesn’t take much to realize that Alfred Hitchcock is my favorite director (as is established by the giant visual homage to the “Master of Suspense” on my living room wall). So imagine my excitement that two Hitchcock-themed movies are coming out shortly, each delving into one of the first two of his movies that I’ve seen: Psycho and The Birds. (Psycho is my favorite of his films.) Also, each movie is being released by either Fox Searchlight (my favorite film distributor) or HBO (my favorite TV network). Check out the trailers below. Which looks most appealing to you, and who do you think portrays the famed filmmaker best: Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock) or Toby Jones (The Girl)? (And, incidentally, has anyone else noticed that Jones seems to “always” play the “other” person in movies? He played Truman Capote in the “other Capote movie” [Infamous, 2006; in contrast to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal in Capote, 2005] and now he’s playing Alfred Hitchcock in the “other Hitchcock movie.”)
Continue reading Hitchcock vs. Hitchcock: The Battle of the Trailers
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