Amy Ryan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

August gave us the voice of Matt Damon in Ponyo, September gave us the inner voice of Matt Damon in The Informant!, and now October has brought us a look at his next two performances.

Clint Eastwood's Invictus is one of the last big likely contenders of the awards season, though it is as of yet unseen (unless those very few who have seen it are very good at being very quiet). Damon plays real-life rugby captain Francois Pienaar, whose team saw the support of Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) as a rallying point around which they might lift the spirits of South Africa in the wake of apartheid. It's political! It's underdog! It's opening in December! It's Oscar bait for certain, and Apple has the exclusive trailer.

Paul Greengrass' Green Zone, on the other hand, was shuffled out of the Oscar race once Universal decided to sort out its slate after a lackluster summer at the box office, and that may have been a wise move. Yahoo's trailer (which is also embedded below) comes across as more of a straight-up actioner than a ready-made contender, with Damon back in Bourne mode as a betrayed soldier on the hunt first for WMDs, and then for answers. Based on the best-seller Imperial Life in the Emerald City, it opens on March 12, 2010.

The Missing Person, playing at Sundance even as its star Michael Shannon earns an Oscar nomination for his work in Revolutionary Road, isn't merely a clever, cool spin on the classic private eye story, but it also works as a private eye story. It showcases a lurching, hunched, quietly lived-in performance by Shannon but offers more than just that performance. It has the knowing, humane touches of Paul Auster's brilliant urban fiction but still manages to rope in familiar crime genre characters like the rich widow, the collaborating cabbie, the wanted man, the ethical crimelord, the unethical businessman, the femme fatale and -- most importantly -- the sad-sack, mercenary-but-moral private eye.

John Rosow (Shannon) lives and works and drinks -- and does a far better job of the last thing in that list than the first two -- in a shabby office in Chicago. The phone rings. Get to the train station by 7, he's told. Board the Zephyr Express from Chicago to L.A.; there's a man to follow. An old friend in New York recommended him, and he's got the job if he wants it: "Five hundred dollars a day, plus expenses ... not including gin." After Miss Charlie (Amy Ryan) gives him the dossier of background and some cash, Rosow shaves, puts on a brown suit, goes to the train and takes the job. Because that's what a private eye does, as near as he can tell. And aside from the ringing phone being a cell, we could be in the 30's or the '40s or the '50s with the train and the gin and the cash and the job. But, of course, we're not.

When actors grab the directorial chair, my response is usually dictated by two things: the person's charisma, and their film choices. Considering how awesome Philip Seymour Hoffman is, and how his recent roles include Synecdoche, New York, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Savages, and Capote, the thought of him as a director is downright lovely. And now Variety reports that he's going to helm Jack Goes Boating -- an adaptation of Bob Glaudini's Off Broadway play.

The play is "an unconventional romantic comedy about two misfits in New York City, laced with cooking classes, swimming lessons, and illegal drugs." Hoffman will divide his time between directing and starring as the stoner limo driver, alongside Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan. Finishing off the cast is John Ortiz and Daphne Rubin-Vega, who are both reprising their roles from the stage.

At the very least, this will be a slice of laughs and romance without the trite and overused stereotypes. But I'm betting it will also be one heck of a fun film -- it's not everyday that Manhattan-based drug films deal with cooking and swimming classes, nor is it everyday that a romcom gets Hoffman and Ryan as the leads.

Does this whet your cinematic appetite?

The 25th annual Sundance Film Festival is finally upon us (opening night is this Thursday), and while we dig ourselves out from under piles upon piles of publicist emails, here's another trailer for a film that just made our extremely-selective 10 most anticipated list. Cinematical has a 10 most anticipated? Where? I didn't see it. That's because we haven't posted it yet -- look for the list to arrive tomorrow night. That said, The Missing Person stars Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan and Frank Wood, and it was written and directed by Noah Buschel.

Here's a snippet from the Sundance film guide description (more over here): "John Rosow is a private detective prone to sardonic wit, gin, and the endless repercussions of what happens when you mix the two. Powerful lawyer Drexler Hewitt wants Rosow to tail a mysterious middle-aged man who is traveling with a Mexican boy from Chicago to Los Angeles. Hewitt's loyal, stern assistant, Miss Charley, waits at the door with cash and instructions. But when Rosow hits Santa Monica, his objective changes: now he has to bring the man back to New York-for a cool half mil. Through his various dealings with an odd cast of characters-a cabdriver who knows his Catholic saints, a Segway-riding L.A. cop, meddling FBI agents, and femme fatales-Rosow begins to unravel the strange tale of the missing middle-aged man and learns something about himself along the way." Very cool modern-day noir caper -- check out the trailer below.

As we've started to get our fair share of trailers for the coming prestige projects -- Frost/Nixon, The Soloist, Zack and Miri Make a Porno -- I was curious as to why we'd yet to get one for Clint Eastwood's period drama, Changeling, if it were set to open by the end of next month. Particularly after Kim's Cannes review, I wanted to get a proper glimpse beyond a brief clip...

Perhaps hearing my prayers or just tiring of my complaints, Yahoo! Movies saw fit to post the trailer (watch it after the jump as well), in which a young mother (Angelina Jolie) in 1928 Los Angeles finds herself standing up against a corrupt police department when her missing son is returned, or rather replaced by a different child altogether.

Even if the same piece of score hadn't been used in both of their trailers, I'd still have felt a need to draw a correlation between this and last October's missing-kids-and-corrupt-cops powerhouse, Gone Baby Gone (of course, it doesn't hurt that Amy Ryan shows up in both of them). From Eastwood's end comes a particular tinge of Mystic River, and so far as I'm concerned, all of those signs point to something substantial waiting for us when Changeling opens in limited release on October 31.

From a magical private school to the heart of the Iraq war is quite a jump. Luckily, Jason Isaacs is just the kind of versatile actor to pull it off. (If you don't believe me, take a look at the man's IMDB page -- talk about well-rounded!) Variety reports that Isaacs (aka Lucius Malfoy of Potter fame) has signed to star in Paul Greengrass' military drama, Green Zone. Isaacs will play an American officer in Iraq in the days following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Matt Damon stars as an investigator searching for weapons of mass destruction, Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) plays as a foreign correspondent from the NYT, and Greg Kinnear makes an appearance as a CIA agent.

Zone is based on the non-fiction book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, titled Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone. For those of us who maybe don't watch the nightly news as much as we should, here is a little reminder: "The Green Zone, (the common name for the International Zone of Iraq), is a 10 km² (4 mile²) area in central Baghdad that was the center of the Coalition Provisional Authority and remains the center of the international presence in the city." Chandrasekaran's book highlighted the "absurdities, incompetence, and bureaucratic failings which prevented a timely transfer of power to the Iraqis and bred the growing insurgency" -- you know, just your usual fun bedtime reading.

Greengrass wrote the original script for the military thriller, but eventually L.A. Confidential scribe Brian Helgeland was brought aboard to help smooth out some of the rough edges. Green Zone started filming in Spain last month, and will then move to Morocco (the two locations have served as stand-ins for Iraq, since the production could obviously not work in the actual area). The film has yet to secure a release date, but is scheduled to arrive in theaters sometime in 2009.

My pick of the week is Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, which far exceeded my expectations. Casting his younger brother Casey Affleck as a savvy private eye investigating a child kidnapping might have been a disaster, but Casey turned in an exceptional performance, as did Amy Ryan as the missing girl's severely damaged mother. The film has a handsome, autumnal look, and the surfeit of close-ups should make it ideal on the small screen. Miramax's DVD includes an audio commentary by Ben Affleck and his co-scenarist Aaron Stoddard, behind the scenes footage, a casting featurette, deleted scenes, and an extended ending. (See Erik's DVD review here)

Our own James Rocchi said that In the Shadow of the Moon is "one of the best science documentaries in recent memory, and also much more." Directed by David Sington, the film features new interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts and archival footage of the moon missions. I'm a space nut from way back and I'm sorry I missed this in theaters, but I plan to sit very close to the television when I watch this. ThinkFilm's DVD appears to be a bare-bones edition.

In the mood for a coming-of-age tale from Australia? Introducing the Dwights might tickle your fancy. Revolving around a "somewhat eccentric family" of entertainers, Erik Davis called it "sweet, quirky, sincere." (You'll have to read his review again to be reminded why he was left blushing at one point.) Warner Independent's DVD doesn't appear to have any additional features of note, so a rental might do the trick.

Other indie releases include John Turturro's musical drama Romance & Cigarettes, with an audio commentary and deleted scenes, and comedy / drama / romance Blue State, featuring Anna Paquin and Breckin Meyer.

It's easy to finger Amy Ryan's performance in Gone Baby Gone as one of the best of the year, however I'm surprised more notice hasn't been given to the entire cast. After all, this is an ensemble film, with fantastic performances from Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Amy Madigan and a host of Boston locals plucked from obscurity; all of whom were, essentially, asked to play themselves. Gone Baby Gone is a tough film to review, because there are so many plot twists, and criticisms of said plot twists, that it's hard to discuss without giving away some major spoilers. I will say that Gone Baby Gone is a good film; a solid film -- and one that will definitely leave you debating the outcome with whomever you choose to watch it with.

Set and filmed entirely in the Boston area known as Dorchester, Gone Baby Gone revolves around the kidnapping of a little girl and the subsequent investigation into her disappearance. Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan play a pair of local private investigators/lovers who are hired by the missing girl's aunt and uncle in an attempt to solve the case by going through the folks who won't talk to the cops. Ed Harris and John Ashton play the main detectives on the case, Morgan Freeman plays the police captain heading the entire investigation and Amy Ryan plays the little girl's delinquent, drug-addicted mother. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Gone Baby Gone will certainly hit you emotionally, but how much depends upon whether you buy into the story as it unravels.

Don't even get me started on last night's crapfest. I tuned in to NBC thinking they were going to air this so-called press conference, only to get an abbreviated Access Hollywood special that left out certain awards like best foreign language, best score and best song. And because I was still high on my Giants beating the Cowboys, I didn't realize NBC was on a delay, or that other channels had the press conference, etc ... It was awful. The entire thing was horrific. And then, to boot, the Hollywood Foreign Press clearly screwed over American filmmakers (moreso this year than in year's past), opting to shovel out several awards to individuals and films that were simply not the best of the year. Atonement wins over No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood? Julian Schnabel wins best director over the Coen Brothers and P.T. Anderson? Cate Blanchett wins best supporting actress over Amy Ryan?

It's still too early to tell whether this whole debacle will hurt the Globes moving forward. And we still don't know whether something similar will happen with the Oscars (though I imagine the writers will have a much harder time f**king with Hollywood's grandest circle-jerk). The good news is that it's finally over. No more Golden Globe nonsense to deal with. But assuming you actually care about who wins and who doesn't, what was the biggest surprise/mistake of the evening in your mind?

I get very excited about the upturns some actors and actresses' careers take following awards season, especially when those performers end up Oscar winners. I always enjoyed reading the post-Oscar write-ups on "What's Next for ____?", though it's less of a thrill nowadays because I typically already know what is in their pipeline. For example, thanks to Variety, I now know that Amy Ryan will be co-starring in Paul Greengrass' "untitled Iraq war thriller". She joins the movie, along with Greg Kinnear, which already starred Matt Damon (who has worked with Greengrass on two Bourne films) and which reportedly began filming in Spain yesterday. While Kinnear and Damon will both play CIA agents involved in the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Ryan has been cast as a New York Times correspondent investigating the WMD investigation.

A front-runner for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (for Gone Baby Gone), Ryan has already had one heck of a year (she also appeared in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and Dan in Real Life). In fact, I'm sure I'm not the only one to admit I'd never heard of her until 2007. But she may still not be a household name, and that should surely change following her expected win (she's also the best bet for the Golden Globe this Sunday). The supporting actress category is sometimes a bit of a joke, as it was throughout most of the 1990s (starting with Whoopi and ending with Angelina, with a Mira in the middle), but Ryan is hopefully going to be one of the few actresses that shows us how much she deserves the accolades by continuing to take respectable roles. In addition to Greengrass' film, Ryan will be co-starring in Clint Eastwood's The Changeling, which also stars Angelina (whose "What's Next ... " in 1999 included Gone in 60 Seconds and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider). By the way, for those not keeping track, after making The Changeling, Ryan will have worked with four of the ten 1990s supporting actress Oscar winners (Marisa Tomei is in Before the Devil; Juliette Binoche and Dianne Wiest are both in Dan). Perhaps Greengrass can find a part in his new film for Anna Paquin?