JuliaRoberts Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Julia Roberts' Neighborhood Sleepover & New Production Life
Filed under: Comedy », Deals »
Was Julia Roberts pigeon-holed into a career she didn't want? Did motherhood and a break from Hollywood change her? Or, does she simply have a much different eye for projects to produce than projects to star in?Variety reports that Roberts' Red Om Films has grabbed the rights to a nonfiction book called In the Neighborhood. Written by Peter Lovenheim, the book focuses on his concern over the disappearance of community. When he realizes his suburban hometown is lacking it, he decides to get to know his neighbors better. But rather than simply befriending these people, he proposes sleepovers and
The sleepover party is the latest in a really diverse list of projects set up between Roberts' Om and Reliance Big. There's Jesus Henry Christ, where a petri dish boy follows Post-It notes hoping to find his biological father, My Mother the Cheerleader, about a 13-year-old girl whose mom is part of a group that harasses the first black student after court-ordered integration during the Civil Rights era, Mallory, a look into the life of English mountaineer George Mallory, and The Journey of the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon, the story of a young photographer who chronicled Somalia's famine until he was chased down and murdered by a Somali mob at the age of 22.
Julia Roberts Gets to Eat, Pray, and Love Javier Bardem
Filed under: Drama », Romance », Casting »
Julia Roberts' upcoming romance may have just gotten its best hope -- another rugged paramour. Variety reports that Javier Bardem is in negotiations to co-star in Roberts' pet project, Eat, Pray Love -- the Elizabeth Gilbert memoir that Ryan Murphy will direct.The account follows Gilbert's post-marriage life. When she realized she didn't want to be married or have a kid, she got divorced and set off on a three-stop, year-long journey. Step one: widening the waistline in Italy while indulging in wonderful eats (I bet anything the waistline part will be forgotten). Step two: find her inner spiritual energy at an ashram in India. Step three: balance in Bali, where she slips into a love affair; enter Bardem, should he officially sign on.
It doesn't seem like the kind of fare worthy of Bardem's talents, but if there's one thing that Clive Owen has taught us, it's that Ms. Roberts does her best with a darker, rugged man. So, this could be a blessing for the film. (Then again, this is probably my inner Closer fan wishing that Julia would grab more fare like that and less chick fluff.) But just to make things even more titilating -- Richard Jenkins will play a Texan she befriends at the ashram, so it can't be all bad, can it?
Valentine's Day Movie To Feature More "Names" Than ...
Filed under: Comedy », Romance », Casting », New Line », RumorMonger », Newsstand »
For a business that is notoriously slow to develop groundbreaking creative projects, the film industry can be remarkably quick when it comes to cashing in on proven success. Thus, when the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You -- timed for release to capitalize on Valentine's Day earlier this year -- grossed an estimated $94 million for New Line Cinema / Warner Brothers, the company decided to prepare something similar for Valentine's Day next year, reports the New York Times.
Since He's Just Not That Into You featured an ensemble cast of notable actresses (Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston), the new project, imaginatively titled Valentine's Day, hopes to pack Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, and Shirley MacLaine into a storyline about "would-be romantics working their way through a tangle of circumstances in Los Angeles." None of the women have signed on yet, nor has the company's director of choice, Garry Marshall, nor has Ashton Kutcher, whose name has also been floated, but potential Green Lantern Bradley Cooper has agreed to play a man in the movie.
Lionsgate has sown up Halloween with the Saw franchise, so, strictly from a business perspective, this makes good sense. Of course, just packing "names" into a movie for the sake of names won't necessarily work. Still, if Valentine's Day is successful with big stars and establishes a new franchise for New Line, they could populate sequels with less-expensive stars and turn a decent profit for years to come.
Should Hollywood Keep Aging Actresses?
Filed under: Fandom », Newsstand »
Why do so many women get stuck playing characters older than they are? While watching Duplicity, for example, I was thinking, "Wow, Julia Roberts really looks her age." (She's 41.) I don't mean that in a negative way -- she's still a fine-looking woman -- but it's rare to see an actress in her 40s or 50s playing a character who's in her 40s or 50s.
More often than that, we see younger women playing older characters, as Hadley Freeman points out in The Guardian: "It is all too easy for a female actor to find herself cast as the mother of someone who once played her boyfriend as soon as she blows out the candles on her 35th birthday cake." She cites various examples:
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Sally Field as Tom Hanks' mother in Forrest Gump. Age difference: ten years.
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Glenn Close as Mel Gibson's mother in Hamlet. Age difference: nine years.
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Anne Bancroft as Dustin Hoffman's matronly seductress in The Graduate. Age difference: five years.
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Elizabeth Taylor as Dennis Hopper's mother in Giant. Age difference: four years.
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Angelina Jolie as Colin Farrell's mother in Alexander. Age difference: one year.
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Lea Thompson as Michael J. Fox's mother in Back to the Future. Age difference: none.
Freeman concludes: "Quite why film directors are so averse to having middle-aged roles played by middle-aged women comes down to male insecurity and misogyny ... The sense of disgust of older women is so deeply entrenched in Hollywood that even when the role is specifically for an older woman, no one wants to see an actual older woman on screen." All of the directors of the films cited above are men.
Do you want to see more "actual older women" on screen? Or would you prefer that older female characters be played by younger actresses?
Does Anyone Like Julia Roberts?
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy », Fandom »
I have a confession to make: I like Julia Roberts.
Boy, it feels good to get that off my chest, even if admitting it makes me the kind of girl that the Guardian's Jeremy Kay sees as lining up for Duplicity to remember being as "touched [as] after watching Pretty Woman for the very first time." I've always found her appealing and rather funny -- enough to even rewatch The Mexican when it was on cable a few weeks ago. (Mary Reilly, however, will forever be a no go.)
But liking Roberts seems to be a shameful thing unless you're David Letterman. Every pre-Duplicity review and article I read was prefaced with a gleeful "I've never liked Julia Roberts!" Many seemed to be rooting for her "return" to fail so they wouldn't be faced with having to type her name again. Roberts doesn't even attract pure girl hate, as many actresses do -- it's split right down the gender lines, with men proud of the fact that they find her unattractive.
I'm really perplexed by it. I just don't get what she's done that inspired such delighted dislike. Maybe it's the whole "America's sweetheart" label that was stuck on her in the 90s -- coupled with the fact that she actually starred in a film called America's Sweethearts. Perhaps she's not the greatest actress, but there's dozens who fit that bill. Sure, she's done a lot of romantic comedies, but as chick flicks go, they're pretty watchable. They're nowhere near as offensive as the ones Jennifer Aniston has in the pipeline. She's had a messy personal life, but again, that's hardly unique, nor are the sneering rumors that she's not very nice off screen. Steven Soderbergh stamp-of-approval be damned, because Steven Spielberg won't work with her again.
So, I'll borrow a page from Peter Martin and Nicolas Cage, and demand an explanation from the Cinematical readers. Love Roberts? Hate her? Explain yourselves in 100 words or less. Bonus points if you reference Notting Hill in some way.
Review: Duplicity
Filed under: Action », Comedy », Thrillers », Mystery & Suspense »
For someone who made his name in Hollywood as a crackerjack screenwriter, Tony Gilroy seems, with Duplicity, far more adept with the camera than the written word. With his directorial follow-up to Michael Clayton, Gilroy returns to the world of corporate espionage, though this time he plays his spy-thriller material for fun, his characters' use of champagne corks to send secret signals proving apt for a film aimed at delivering fizzy thrills.
For all its intricate plot machinations, however, there's little here that hasn't been done before, and better, by the likes of David Mamet and even Steven Soderbergh, whose Ocean's Eleven capers are clearly an inspiration for Gilroy's jazzy-cool approach. Stylish to the hilt, it's a saga coated in sumptuously sleek hues that are in tune with the story's zippy verbal interplay. Yet for all its razzle-dazzle aesthetic flair, there's not much going on beneath the striking surface, as the writer/director's tale is an unnecessarily knotty one, masking its shallowness of theme and characterization with narrative loop-de-loops that, by the third act, are revealed to be insufficient window dressing for a rather pedestrian, hollow cat-and-mouse contest.
Julia Roberts Finds Jesus H. Christ
Filed under: Comedy », Deals », Shorts », Remakes and Sequels »
Now that the fireflies have flown through the garden, Julia Roberts wants more Dennis Lee. More specifically, old Dennis Lee. The Hollywood Reporter posts that the actress is reteaming with Lee to morph his short film Jesus Henry Christ into a feature film. The short, which won Lee a Student Academy Award, focused on a scholarship student (Henry) in a Catholic school who gets sent to the headmaster's office. The feature, however, will play out a little differently. The new take will follow Henry's search for his father. See, he's "a boy conceived in a petri dish and raised by a loving, left-wing feminist. At the age of 10, he decides his mother's love is not enough and begins to follow a trail of Post-It notes stuck around town hoping it will lead him to his biological father." (Post-Its have broken through the small screen of Rube and Berger!)
Right now, Roberts is only producing the feature and is not planning to star, but I'm hoping that she'll change her mind. Many might love her romcoms and mainstream fair, but I've always thought that Roberts thrives in the less typical halls of cinema. Becoming a left-wing feminist would do her good! Although I bet if she stays behind the camera, all eyes will turn towards Toni Collette.
And if you want to check out the short, it's available over here, for a price.
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Some Juicy Nuggets of Forgotten Oscar Lore
Filed under: Oscar Watch »
With all the presenters' banter heavily scripted and a lot of the winners easy to guess beforehand, the only truly unpredictable part of the Academy Awards is the acceptance speeches. Those Hollywood types -- especially actors, who love being the center of attention and looove the sound of their own voices -- might say anything in a rush of excitement and emotion. Over at Esquire, they've compiled an amusing list of the various types of Oscar speeches: the Crusading Blowhard, the Weepy Babbler, the Short-and-Sweet, and so forth. Then, for added fun, they've dug up historical precedents for each of them. For example, Rita Moreno was the "Adorably" Bombastic Foreigner, cha-chaing up to the podium and shrieking into the microphone, long before Roberto Benigni embarrassed everyone with his antics. And while Juila Roberts was definitely a Meddling Presenter when she gave Denzel Washington his trophy, she was nothing compared to the way Frank Sinatra hogged Cary Grant's spotlight when he gave him his lifetime achievement award.
It's a fun list, presented in the ever-popular slide-show-with-occasional-ad-interruptions format. As a bonus, consider that each of the labels they've come up with for the types of speeches could also serve as the name of an obscure sexual maneuver. The Meddling Presenter indeed!
Julia Roberts & Clive Owen Sneak and Spy in 'Duplicity' Trailer
Filed under: Romance », Mystery & Suspense », Universal », Trailers and Clips »
Reuniting after 2004's Closer, it appears that stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, along with Bourne writer Tony Gilroy, are all out to have a bit more fun with Duplicity; the trailer just went up over at Apple.If anything, it comes off as more of a zippy heist film of sorts than the thriller I took it to be from the earliest synopsis on, even though corporate espionage remains the name of the game. Then again, maybe we're overdue for another Thomas Crown Affair-like outing, and between the cast (which also includes Tom Wilkinson, who was in Gilroy's Michael Clayton, and Paul Giamatti, who shared the screen with Clive in Shoot 'Em Up) and the crew, I'm pretty much sold.
(If Billy Bob Thornton is still in this, though, as Monika reported last January, he sure isn't showing up here, and IMDb remains mum.)
Duplicity opens on March 20th of next year -- about a month after Clive's bang-ier espionage efforts in The International.
A Depressing, Star-Studded Trailer for 'Fireflies in the Garden'
Filed under: Berlin », Distribution », Trailers and Clips »
Let's see: a serious, multigenerational, semi-autobiographical family drama starring Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson and Julia Roberts -- it sure sounds like Oscar buzz for Fireflies in the Garden should have gotten turned up to 11 by now. There hasn't really been any; the bad reviews from the film's out-of-competition premiere at Berlin probably didn't help. Still, that cast is tough to beat (there's also Ryan Reynolds, Carrie Anne-Moss and Hayden Panettierre), and the movie should be able to land with at least a minor splash if its eventual US distributor puts in a bit of effort.There's now a full international trailer up at one of the film's websites. If the movie does indeed suck, the trailer doesn't telegraph the suckage -- it makes the film look solid, respectable. The reviews, on the other hand, make it sound embarrassing, with the sort of logistical difficulties (Texas failing to stand in for Chicago; implausible casting of younger and older versions of the same characters) that shouldn't really plague a production this high-profile.
Director Dennis Lee is making his feature debut after directing a well-received short film called Jesus Henry Christ. It's a heck of a pedigree for a first film, though the scenario and the reviews (and the director's last name) make me think of Jieho Lee's The Air I Breathe -- a feature debut by a director with a strong short on his resume, and a spectacular cast, that turned out to be completely unwatchable.
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