“THE WOLVERINE” in a maze of powerful foes and allies

The most iconic character in the X-Men universe embarks upon on an epic journey in modern-day Japan in “The Wolverine.”  Inspired by the celebrated Marvel comic book arc, Logan (Hugh Jackman), the century-old mutant known to the world as Wolverine, is lured to a Japan he hasn’t seen since World War II – and into a shadowy realm of Yakuza and Samurai. 

Director James Mangold embraced the opportunity to take Logan directly into the heart of present-day Japan, which is as full of sleek, high-tech modernity as it is rife with deep traditions and hidden codes of honor.  “This story takes Logan into a kind of fever dream of today’s Japan, full of Yakuza, Ninja, Samurai, Industrialist crime, mystery and mysticism,” the director explains.

The Japanese setting allowed director Mangold and Jackman to re-imagine Logan in a fresh guise:  as a Rōnin. “In feudal Japan, the Samurai belonged to a master, and a Rōnin is a Samurai who no longer has a master to serve.  So, he is a kind of a warrior without a purpose, without a cause,” Mangold explains.  “Many of the people who made Logan feel part of a cause are now gone.  So, he’s essentially a lost man, capable of doing anything, with no mandate. That’s an iconography that American Westerns and Samurai films share and now we’re bringing a comic book character into it.” 
   
First-time actor Rila Fukushima, plays Yukio - the fiery, sword-wielding bodyguard of Logan.  A native of Tokyo, Rila Fukushima says it was Yukio’s colorful intensity that intrigued her.  “What interested me were her physicality and her ruthless nature,” she muses.“I was really excited to have the chance to do such strong action sequences– but I also saw great potential for humor with her.”

Fukushima threw herself into the high spirit and trials of the role.  “It was an amazing, challenging journey for me,” she says.  “I trained with our terrific stunt team, learned all the physical stuff, including sword work, kick-boxing and fighting, and also did lots of weight training.  I’d never done anything like this before, but it was great fun.”

Tao Okamoto plays out Mariko’s complicated love story with Logan.  Okamoto was drawn to the background of her character as the daughter of a powerful industrialist who was never there for her, and has arranged a marriage for her to a man she does not love.  “Mariko could never be a normal woman,” Okamoto observes.  “At the start of the story, she is someone very desperate. Then she meets Logan, and she starts to realize what she wants in life, and she begins to change.  That transformation was very interesting to me.”
   
Another powerful and complex woman is brought to life by Svetlana Khodchenkova, who takes on the green-eyed Viper, a cunning and treacherous mutant.  Khodchenkova, who hails from Russia, is best known in the West for her recent breakout role in the acclaimed spy story Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as the Soviet operative Irina. 

“The Wolverine” in 3D opens July 25 in more than 200 screens nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

Check out “THE WOLVERINE’S” heart-stopping action here http://youtu.be/Kx9JhjtM3Rk

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Turn up "The Heat"!

Turn up "The Heat"

Budding comedy scribe Katie Dippold loved cop movies growing up.  Now a grown up, her love for cop movies continues and had successfully penned the latest Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy starrer “The Heat” directed by Paul Feig.   The estrogen-filled comedy features Sandra Bullock as the uptight FBI agent Sarah Ashburn and Melissa McCarthy as the unorthodox Boston police officer paired together to hunt down a ruthless drug lord.

“The Heat” is the first produced screenplay by Katie Dippold, who has written for television shows like Parks and Recreation and MadTV.  The film was born from Dippold’s love of buddy-cop movies.  She has many favorites, but singles out the 1986 comedy-action film Running Scared, starring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as wisecracking Chicago street cops.  “I’ve always enjoyed those kinds of movies,” says Dippold, who recently signed a deal to write another comedy for director Paul Feig.  “The characters and actors always seemed like they were having so much fun.”

Dippold’s love of buddy-cop films provided the foundation for a script that ultimately transcended the genre with outrageous humor and heart.  Feig sparked to the script, calling it “one of the funniest I’ve ever read.”

“It turns the genre on its head by adding some breasts,” jokes Bullock.  “It’s gonna surprise people what women with breasts can do.”

When the filmmaker told Dippold that “The Heat” was going to be his next film, the neophyte screenwriter was flummoxed. “I thought I was being pranked,” Dippold admits.  “I got an email saying that Paul wanted to have lunch with me.  After reading the email, I sat there frozen for several minutes.  Then, I thought it was a joke.”  “Well, that’s Katie,” says producer Jenno Topping.  “She’s incredibly humble and real.”

With Dippold’s first draft in hand, Feig moved at warp speed to cast the film, a task facilitated by his visualizing his “dream team” in the script.  “I’ve always been a fan of Sandra Bullock, and as I was reading I was just like, okay, Ashburn is Sandra.  Ashburn felt like her.  Sandra is so funny in movies and in real life.  She’s confident and cool, but she’s also analytical about things to a point where it’s comical, and which I love.  And that’s how I felt about the Ashburn character.”

“Sandra brings a sweet quality to what could have been an unlikable character,” adds Katie Dippold.  “She really nails that ‘A+-student’ vibe, and she’s hilarious.”  And McCarthy notes that, “Sandra is great, funny and weird.  We are very much in sync.”

It didn’t take much convincing to bring Bullock aboard. She was a big fan of “Bridesmaids,” and eager to work with its director, Feig.  “Watching Bridesmaids was one of those rare moments when I thought to myself that this is a person [Feig] I want to work with because you know he is going to make you better – and that he could turn “The Heat” into something memorable.”

The strength of the Bullock-McCarthy dynamic, evident even then, inspired additional script fine-tuning.  “By the end of that first read, it was obvious that Sandy and Melissa really inhabited these characters, and that it was up to Katie Dippold and me to take all that magic and get it into the script – and really let the women fly,” says Feig.
   
For Dippold, the process was liberating.  “Sandy and Melissa took what was on the page and made it funnier than I thought it could ever be,” she says.  A particular favorite came during a Mullins’ tirade against her captain (played by Tom Wilson) – accusing him of lacking a set of testes – when he refuses her demand to boot Ashburn from the case.  “Melissa really ran with the one scripted line, ‘Have you seen the captain’s balls?’ and turned it into something spectacular.”

Rated R-13, “The Heat” opens June 27 in theaters from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

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Rosario Dawson recovers stolen memories in "Trance"

Rosario Dawson in Trance

In the psychological caper “Trance” directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, Rosario Dawson delves deep into her role as Elizabeth Lamb, a hypnotherapist that she says has broken every mold of a character she’s ever played.

Stolen memories will resurface in “Trance.” Simon (James McAvoy), a fine art auctioneer, teams up with a criminal gang to steal a Goya painting worth millions of dollars.  After suffering a blow to the head during the heist, he awakens to discover he has no memory of where he hid the painting.  When physical threats and torture fail to produce answers, the gang’s leader Franck (Vincent Cassel) hires hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) to reach into the darkest recesses of Simon’s psyche.  As Elizabeth begins to unravel Simon’s broken subconscious, the line between truth, suggestion, and deceit begin to blur.   

Boyle brings a fresh take on the iconic femme fatale in the character of Dawson as Elizabeth Lamb, the beautiful hypnotherapist who proves to be every bit the equal of the men playing power games around her.   The most alluring leg of the movie’s triangle belongs to Lamb which Dawson molded to become a very modern re-model of the classic femme fatale.  At first she seems like she might be just an eye-catching, over-confident pawn in an all-male game, but Elizabeth’s true power begins to emerge as the story unravels.
 

Known for her previous notable works in “Sin City,” “Rent,” “Seven Pounds” and “He Got Game,” Dawson has worked with many of the world’s leading directors, from Spike Lee to Quentin Tarantino, Chris Columbus and the late Tony Scott – but this role is totally different from her previous ones.  “I’ve never played anyone even remotely like her,” says Dawson of Elizabeth Lamb.  “Elizabeth is totally different because she’s hiding everything.  You only get hints of her emotion through her doing things with her hair to show her restraint but when she lets her hair down, she really lets her hair down.  Then, you get to see a different side of her.  It’s subtle; it’s completely unspoken. And she’s a wonderful presence to have between these two guys,” Dawson explains.

One of the most intriguing aspects of “Trance” for Boyle was the chance to present a woman as an equal player in a crime thriller.  “You make all these films and you have great women in them, but they’re basically about guys - Ewan McGregor, Cillian Murphy, Dev Patel, James Franco or Leonardo DiCaprio. So what I love about “Trance” is there’s a woman most definitely right in the thick of it, holding her own.”

He knew he needed an actress capable of evoking Elizabeth’s underlying strength.  “I’d always had Rosario in mind for the role,” he says.  “I’d always wanted to work with her. She won’t thank me for saying this, but everything I’ve seen her in, I don’t think people have used her fully; I don’t think her talent as an actor has been fully exploited.  We wanted someone who had a real commanding presence: an ability with words and an independence – a stand-alone quality.” 

Dawson researched her character’s profession by attending hypnosis classes and poring through books on hypnotherapy and psychology. “I met with a couple of hypnotherapists.  I even got hypnotized,” she explains.  “I noticed that every single person in the profession that I met exuded this confidence.  They give off this feeling of ‘I know the secrets to your brain, and you don’t understand how you think or why you behave that way but I do and I can help you.’  So that was really interesting and it wasn’t an accident I played her that way.”

“Trance” opens May 1 in cinemas nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

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Life of PI showing on January 9

ONLY IN CINEMAS STARTING JANUARY 9: 
VISUALLY STUNNING WONDER “LIFE OF PI”

From 20^th Century Fox, the studio behind “Titanic” and “Avatar” comes an epic motion picture that will allow audience to experience the grand spectacle of nature and gasp at a young boy’s coming of age through disaster and salvation in “Life of Pi” directed by Academy Award winner Ang Lee. 

Based on the book by Yann Martel that has sold more than seven million copies and spent years on the bestseller lists, “Life of Pi” takes place over three continents, two oceans and a wide universe of imagination.  Lee’s vision, coupled with stunning 3D visuals, has turned a novel long thought un-filmable into a thrillingly audacious mix of grand storytelling and powerful and provocative themes.

“Life of Pi” is Ang Lee’s first foray in 3D filmmaking starring newcomer Suraj Sharma who takes on the titular role of Pi.  The story revolves around Piscine Patel, (known as Pi) who lives with his zoo keeping family in Pondicherry. They decide to emigrate to Canada, taking their animals along with them and set off on a huge freighter ship, steaming from India across the Pacific. But a terrible storm destroys the ship. The family and most of the animals perish. Pi survives, stranded on a lifeboat with several animals. Ultimately it is just Pi and a Bengal tiger who miraculously survive 227 days at sea.

The two castaways face unimaginable challenges, including nature’s majestic grandeur and fury, which lash their small lifeboat.  One particularly monstrous storm becomes a spiritual experience for Pi, leading him to question God’s plan for him.  “I’ve lost everything!  I surrender!  What more do you want?” Pi rails at the sky. But through it all, he never loses hope.  Pi finds joy from something as simple as an old survival manual, as well as from the solace of the ocean’s beauty: the bioluminescent, rainbow hues of magnificent schools of flying fish; the shimmering blues of the ocean’s swells; and a radiant humpback whale that streaks to the surface of the ocean. 

In telling Pi’s story, Mr. Lee pushes the boundaries of cutting-edge motion picture technologies.  “Life of Pi” represents a moment when the science and art of filmmaking have jumped forward, as it did with the visual effects of “Titanic,” the 3D revolution of “Avatar,” and the CGI work in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” which brought unprecedented emotion and depth to the character of Caesar.  And like Caesar, LIFE OF PI’s Richard Parker is a fully-realized, accessible character, whom you’ll believe was actually on that lifeboat with Suraj Sharma, who portrays Pi.

The attention to detail throughout LIFE OF PI is also impressive.  Production designer David Gropman based Pi’s lifeboat “on archival drawings of a 1940s steel life boat”. He commissioned Haan Lee (Ang Lee’s son) to design Pi’s raft, that the character builds to separate himself from Richard Parker. ”I asked Haan to imagine himself as Pi, using the materials he would have had on the lifeboat: oars, life jackets, floorboards, etc.  What Hann crafted was amazing, a triangle with a circle in the middle, which was a beautiful expression of ‘pi’.”

And through Mr. Lee’s use of 3D, the audience will be with Pi and Richard Parker, experiencing these extraordinary and visually stunning moments, immersed like never before in an epic movie adventure interwoven with an emotional and spiritual journey.

Click HERE to see the trailer.  “Life of Pi” opens January 9 in cinemas nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

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