Ellen Page Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Drew Barrymore's Whip It (260 screens) opened seven weeks ago and still hasn't broken even on its initial cost. What's going on? When I walked out of the press screening, the critics were all buzzing about how much fun they'd had. The reviews were stellar: it has an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. But somehow this critical enthusiasm just didn't translate for viewers. Something about tough chicks beating each other up during roller derby games just didn't appeal to the masses. Maybe it's because the movie is supposed to be set in Texas and was actually shot in Michigan. Maybe it's because our hero Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) was supposed to fall in love with a cute boy (Landon Pigg) who really wasn't very interesting, and you actually root for them to break up.

Bronte and Austen movie adaptations are cyclical things. Every young actress seems to get her shot at playing Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, Jane Eyre, or Catherine Earnshaw. Five years later, they're now Mature Actresses, and watching the next crop come through the English classics. Right now, we're on the Brontes (spurred undoubtedly by Bella and Edward) and Ruby Films' adaptation of Jane Eyre spurred a lot of talk when it hooked Ellen Page as its poor and plain heroine. Variety reports that Page has officially dropped out of the project, but that it's landed Cary Fukunaga as its director.

Fukunaga has earned a lot of positive buzz for his feature debut Sin Nombre, which nabbed him a Best Director award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Since then he's landed writing-directing deals at Universal and Focus, and it will undoubtedly surprise many that he's eying an English classic as his next film. But hey, if Gothic dramas are good for young actresses, why not young directors too?

As the project now boasts Fukunaga and Moira Buffini (one of Britain's rising screenwriters) Ruby Films now plans to "ramp up casting" for the roles of Jane and Rochester. With Page uninterested, which ingenue will leap at the chance to be one of literature's finest heroines? What brooding hunk will they cast as Rochester? As a lifelong Bronte addict, I await the news with fluttery, Victorian breaths.

While Whip It has been having some box office problems, Ellen Page and Alia Shawkat are on a roll, adding whole new paths to their careers. The Hollywood Reporter has posted some pretty awesome news -- Page and Shawkat are whipping up a single-camera comedy for HBO along with fellow Whip actor Sean Tillman.

Titled Stitch N' Bitch, the show "follows two painfully cool hipster girls as they relocate from Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood to Los Angeles' Silver Lake enclave in hopes of becoming artists -- of any kind." Funny enough -- that's the whole description. No talk of the title's ties to a certain knitting movement. Or rather, ultra-cool knitting movement that gets needle-owners whipping up their own mini Henry Rollinses (3rd pic down).

The trio are writing the show, executive producing it, and could possibly star in the show as well. I think this is the first time that I've actually been excited for some actors to hit the small screen. It would be beyond excellent to see some youthful fare on TV that's not about 90210 or vampires, to potentially see knitting get love, and to watch two girls in their very early twenties creating their own shows and throwing on all the hats of the biz.

It's no Citizen Kane. It's not meant to win awards. I watch movies to enjoy them. These standbys are frequently trotted out before us fuddy-duddy critics whenever we decide that a movie ostensibly meant to be two hours of pure mindless fun simply isn't very good at doing just that. More often than not, it seems that films are championed for their laziness, their relentless adherence to formula, and rarely do these formulas serve a story that's worth more than the sum of its beats. School of Rock managed to work wonders with its wholly predictable plot; I'd vouch for Fever Pitch in much the same way. And joining their ranks of surprisingly satisfying comedies is Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It, a coming-of-age tale fused with an underdog sports story that hits all the expected developments with unexpected personality and grace.

Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game that whips out funny captions faster than it takes me to fall down while rollerskating (ie: pretty damn fast). Last week we asked you to churn out your best "Let's make fun of those artsy kids" captions for a photo from the remake of Fame, now in theaters. Congrats to our three winners, all of whom will graduate our non-existent caption school with honors.

1. "Coming this fall... Matrix: Dance Dance Revolutions!" -- Zach B.

2. "This is what the world's largest game of "The Floor is Lava" looks like." -- John R.

3. "This is what happens when a group of arachnophobics all see a spider at the same time." -- Amanda P.

See full image and all captions



This week we're speeding down the skate-track with Ellen Page and her crew in Drew Barrymore's coming-of-age directorial debut, Whip It. The folks behind our three favorite captions this week will skate away with one Whip It poster and one Whip It soundtrack. (And in case you're not lucky enough to win our spandex happy caption contest, definitely make sure you pick up this pretty killer soundtrack right over here.) Now lace up and show us what you got!



Read the official rules for this contest

Imagine taking the writer of the classic Troma flick Tromeo and Juliet, the Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead remake, and the web series PG , and giving him a superhero to work with. What could possibly be the result? A trusty wrench-swinging super power-free hero called the Crimson Bolt in the shape of Rainn Wilson.

Variety reports that Wilson, Ellen Page, and Liv Tyler will star in James Gunn's comedy Super -- which has got to be the "f'd up low-rent Watchmen piece" being shopped to indie outlets back in March. Zeroing in on the superhero genre, the flick will focus on an average guy who finds his "pseudo-superhero alter ego" after seeing that his wife (Tyler) is falling for a charming drug dealer. There's no mention of who Page will play in this story, but it would make for quite an interesting twist if she's the one doling out the drugs.

Okay... So this isn't the first time Gunn has tackled the superhero genre. In 2000, he wrote The Specials -- a film I hunted for for about 5 years before giving up finding it anywhere (although now I think I know just where to find it). One can only hope this will do better. And with Wilson's early description of the project, it'll probably be a whole lot better than those Scooby Doo flicks.

These days, Ellen Page seems to be taking the Nicole Kidman cinematic route -- signing up for a lot of interesting gigs, then backing out of them before they come to fruition. It's not exactly new news that Ellen Page has left the lesbian werewolf movie Jack and Diane -- Kim Voynar discovered her removal from the film's info last summer. But now it's official, with a new actress slipped in. As Arrow in the Head reports: Alison Pill has taken over the sexy saddle.

The film follows two teen girls who start snogging in New York City. But when Jack learns that Diane is leaving the country, she tries to cool things off. But Diane wants to keep things going -- while also having to keep it secret that these sexy shenanigans are turning her into a werewolf. There's no word on who will play who, but Pill will be one while Olivia Thirlby will play the other.

Call it Juno on Wheels. The first image of Ellen Page in the upcoming roller derby flick Whip It has been released, showing her strapped into a girl scout uniform as she skates around a track with Drew Barrymore and Kristen Wiig. The photo above, and several others, can be viewed at USA Today (additionally, check out two extra images below)

The film represents Barrymore's directorial debut. Page stars as 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, who is tired of competing in beauty pageants at the insistence of her mother (Marcia Gay Harden). She rebels by joining the Hurl Scouts, a women's roller derby team in Austin, Texas, and finds her true calling -- or, at least, a good place to unleash some pent-up aggression. Barrymore skates with the Scouts, as does Saturday Night Live's Wiig and the great Zoe Bell (Death Proof). Juliette Lewis is described as the villain of the piece, an opposing player determined to defeat Page and the Scouts, and the players all have cool nicknames: Smashley Simpson, Maggie Mayhem, Bloody Holly, and so forth.

As Jenni Miller advised, Fox Searchlight will distribute the film, which is set for release on October 9. Roller derby vet Shauna Cross (AKA Maggie Mayhem) wrote the screenplay, based on her own novel, Derby Girl. A very good doc about the Austin roller derby scene, Hell on Wheels, is available to view at SnagFilms (we also embedded it after the jump), and if Whip It can approach that real-life excitement, it could break out of the fall pack. Since nicknames are de rigeur for roller derby players, what nickname will you choose if you decide to see Ellen Page Whip It?

Here's what we currently know about Christopher Nolan's between-Batmans project, Inception:

• It is not, as initially asserted by a commenter, concerning "a war for the colonization of Venus."


• It is more likely along the lines of a sci-fi action film "set within the architecture of the mind" (which, coming from the brains behind The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Memento, is a scary-thrilling thought).


• Currently on board are Leonardo DiCaprio (as some sort of CEO), Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, and Michael Caine...

...and, according to THR, rounding out the ensemble (for now) are Ken "Batman Begins" Watanabe as a blackmailing villain and Tom "apparently awesome in Bronson" Hardy as a colleague of DiCaprio's.

Sorry to be Avatar-level vague, but with a cast like this and a crew like that, there's little left to do but twiddle our thumbs and hope for the best between now and next summer. Either that, or Nolan just recast most of the third Batman film and doesn't want Christian Bale to know...