David Cronenberg Gives Mia Wasikowska a “Map to the Stars” With Robert Pattinson

May 8, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 4 Comments

mia-wasikowska David Cronenberg continues to build an impressive cast for his next feature, and today has added Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams and “The Killing” kid actor Evan Bird to “Map to the Stars.” The trio join previous cast members Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson and Sarah Gadon for the LA-set drama.

Bruce Wagner wrote the script on the long-gestating project, which involves Hollywood characters like actors, agents and managers, with both Cronenberg and Pattinson using words like weird and absurd to describe the tone of the piece. Deadline also gives us our first hint of the characters that will populate this world, with Bird as a troubled child star, Williams as his mother and Wasikowska in apparently a very juicy role as his “disfigured, schizophrenic, fame-obsessed sister.” “Map” will be Canadian director Cronenberg’s first time shooting in the US, Los Angeles, specifically. Filming will begin in July.

After breaking out in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”, Aussie Wasikowska has stuck solely to small, interesting films like this one, earning raves for her portrayal of “Jane Eyre” and most recently in Park Chan-wook’s “Stoker.” She has wrapped filming on a few more intriguing projects, including Jim Jarmusch’s Cannes-bound “Only Lovers Left Alive” opposite Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, Australian outback set survival tale “Tracks” and Dostoyevsky adaptation “The Double” with Jesse Eisenberg.

Mia Wasikowska Joins Juliette Binoche in Olivier Assayas’ “Sils Maria”

March 25, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

mia-wasikowska Australian rising star Mia Wasikowska has joined Juliette Binoche in French director Olivier Assayas’ newest, “Sils Maria”, according to IonCinema (via The Film Stage).

The “Carlos” director had been developing the film for a while, and once described it as “[a] Juliette Binoche movie about Juliette Binoche with Juliette Binoche”, making Binoche’s involvement, um, pretty crucial here. Sils Maria refers to a region of Switzerland, where the film will be set and where Maria Enders, the Binoche-based actress character (played by Binoche), will sojourn and reflect back on her life and career. Wasikowska will play an assistant and most of the action in the film will take place in one room. The English-language film will shoot this summer in Germany and Switzerland.

Wasikowska, who broke out when she played Tim Burton’s titular “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010, has been earning acclaim for starring in the opposite of mindless popcorn films ever since. She can currently be seen opposite Nicole Kidman in Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut “Stoker”, and has wrapped filming on a few intriguing projects, including Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” opposite Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, Australian outback set survival tale “Tracks” and Dostoyevsky adaptation “The Double” with Jesse Eisenberg.

REVIEW: Creepy And Twisted “Stoker” Ultimately Plays It Safe

February 20, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Reviews Leave a comment

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With “Stoker”, Korean horror director Park Chan-wook makes his long-awaited English language debut, and fans of his highly stylized, stunning visuals and ability to bring out a certain poetic beauty in violent imagery will be satisfied with this dark and twisted tale of family bonds that run a little too deep.

Set in the aftermath of a funeral, Mia Wasikowska plays India Stoker, an introverted teen who has just lost her beloved father (Dermot Mulroney) and can’t stand to be touched, not even by her flakey, needy mother (Nicole Kidman). When India’s father’s handsome, creepy younger brother (Mattew Goode) arrives in town, meeting his niece for the first time after having spent his entire life traveling the world, things begin to get really weird. With hints of magical realism, the film flirts with slightly supernatural elements but does not cross over into it, intriguing and horrifying further, as the atrocities this family inflicts upon each other are wholly human.

Sundance 2013 Preview: 13 Films We’re Excited For

January 15, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Features 4 Comments

We are just about 48 hours away from the kick-off of a brand new edition of the Sundance Film Festival, where many rising stars begin their year and perhaps their career. Exhibit A: newly minted Oscar nominee Quvenzhane Wallis, whose “Beasts of the Southern Wild” performance was first given its stamp of approval by the Sundance audience last year. Exhibits B & C: her Best Actress category competitors, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chatain. Both of them got their big break via Sundance in recent years too – Lawrence in 2010 with “Winter’s Bone” and Chastain in 2011 with “Take Shelter” – and have clearly leveraged those moments into successful and promising careers with longevity.

This looks to be another strong year filled with potential breakouts and we can’t wait to be introduced to them. Here are 13 films playing at the festival beginning next week that we are very excited for.

Start Here: The Spectacular Now >>

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Lucas Till, Jeremy Irvine and Alex Pettyfer vying for “Divergent” male lead opposite Shailene Woodley

January 8, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 6 Comments

Shailene Woodley is still searching for her Four. Two months after she tested opposite a quartet of young leading men, director Neil Burger and the filmmakers behind “Divergent” are still looking for the perfect male lead. Variety reports today that a trio of guys will test opposite Woodley later this week, and the contenders are Lucas Till, Jeremy Irvine and Alex Pettyfer.

Till is the only holdver from the guys who tested in November, so it seems fair to say Brenton Thwaites, Luke Bracey and Jack Reynor did not make the cut, while Variety is careful to point out that Till may have a slight advantage over his new competitors but there are no clear frontrunners just yet. Woodley plays Tris Prior, whose futuristic dystopic world is one in which society is divided into factions (Dauntless, Abnegation, Amity, Candor, and Erudite), and each person is sorted into each faction based on a personality test that determines their dominant character traits. Born into the selfless faction Abnegation, Tris shocks her family when she opts to join Dauntless, the brave, instead. There she meets Four, a fellow Abnegation defector who has now taken on a leadership role in their new faction. Four is stand offish, mysterious and super hot. Well, of course. In any case, they discover they have bigger problems to worry about than their burgeoning romance. The film is scheduled to begin shooting in Chicago this spring for a March 21, 2014 release.

Till is perhaps best known for his role as Havok in “X-Men: First Class” (he’s not yet confirmed to return for its sequel, and scheduling conflicts would surely arise if he landed “Divergent”). He will next be seen Chan-wook Park’s “Stoker” opposite Mia Wasikowska and recently wrapped up shooting on “Paranoia” opposite Liam Hemsworth. Irvine was hand-picked by Steven Spielberg to star in his Oscar-nominated “War Horse” and also recently played Pip in a new adaptation of “Great Expectations.” He recently wrapped up shooting “The Railway Man”, in which he plays the younger version of Colin Firth. Pettyfer, who’s had YA adaptation experience thanks to his starring role in “I Am Number Four”, most recently headlined Steven Soderbergh’s sleeper hit “Magic Mike” opposite Channing Tatum. He recently wrapped up shooting on Lee Daniels’ “The Butler.”

Up And Comers Presents: 13 Films To Look Forward To In 2013

January 3, 2013 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Features, Lists 2 Comments

It’s always difficult to determine which of the upcoming slate of films to get excited for. It may star your favourite actor or actress, and an award-winning director may be attached, but that can never guarantee a good film. And you’re also often woefully underinformed. There may have been early festival reviews or a teaser trailer but a lot of 2013 releases – and a lot of the films on this list – have given nothing away yet, and may even still be filming.

But that’s what makes it exciting. Can your favourite actor pull off a new genre? Will the intriguing plot and acclaimed director come together to actually give you a great film? In a year’s time we may be raving about some of these films, or we may have forgotten about them completely, but that’s what makes film journalism so fun.

So in no particular order, click below to discover which films we think could light up the big screen in 2013.

Sundance out of competition premieres announced; first look images from “The East”, “Stoker” and more

December 3, 2012 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis and Linda Ge in Images Leave a comment

Just last week Sundance Film Festival announced their 2013 picks, the films that will be competing against each other to win the coveted Grand Jury prizes and hopefully go on to bigger box office and critical success. Now today Sundance have announced the Out of Competition premieres and there are a lot of familiar and exciting rising stars in attendance.

Some of our most anticipated films of 2013 are included in today’s released line up, including Park Chan-Wook‘s English language thriller “Stoker” starring Mia Wasikowska, and “Breathe In“, the second directorial effort from Drake Doremus. Doremus, who hit the 2010 festival with “Like Crazy” which won him the Grand Jury prize, reunites with Felicity Jones in this new film – which again stars Jones as a foreign exchange students in America.

Brit Marling and writing partner Zal Batmanglij are back again with “The East“, starring Marling as an operative whose loyalties are tested when she goes undercover to infiltrate a mysterious anarchist collective attacking major corporations. The pic also features Alexander Skarsgård, Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell and Shiloh Fernandez.

Noir film “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman” with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood will also premiere at the 2013 festival, as will the Amanda Seyfried-starrer “Lovelace“. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who starred in the 2012 festival hit “Smashed“, will be back again in “A.C.O.D“.

For Brie Larson and Elizabeth Olsen, Sundance 2013 will be especially busy, as both have films in and out of competition – “The Spectacular Now” and Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s directorial debut “Don Jon’s Addiction” for Larson, and Beat pic “Kill Your Darlings” and the Naomi Foner helmed “Very Good Girls“, also starring Dakota Fanning and Boyd Holbrook for Olsen.

Click below for the first images from these films and the official synopses for the featured films.

Innocence Ends: Mia Wasikowska on new poster for Park Chan-wook’s “Stoker”

November 28, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images Leave a comment

The footage and imagery that emerges from Park Chan-wook’s English language debut “Stoker” continues to be mind-blowingly beautiful and the new poster, unveiled today by Empire, is no exception. Mia Wasikowska, as troubled and abused teenager India, gets the close-up this time around, with the ever-ominous phrase “Innocence Ends” seemingly tattooed across her forhead.

Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, also wonderful is the way this new poster links thematically and visually with the last poster released, which in turn was linked to the promo reel/music video, which built upon the first two trailers. It’s a web that’s becoming as beautiful and subtly sinister as the movie appears to be. India not only has to deal with the death of her father, but her mother (Nicole Kidman) is a bit off her rocker, to say the least, she’s being bullied at school by the likes of Lucas Till and Alden Ehrenreich, and a creepy uncle named Charlie (Matthew Goode) has arrived on the scene to make things worse. Yup, can’t wait.

“Stoker” will be released on March 1, 2013 and the new poster can be viewed below.

Lucas Till joins Haley Bennett and Ashley Greene in horror “Kristy”

November 19, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting Leave a comment

Lucas Till has joined horror flick “Kristy” (also working under the title “Satanic”), according to Variety. Haley Bennett and Ashley Greene are already part of the film that follows a girl who leads her friends on a quest of survival and answers after being targeted by a mysterious gang of attackers over Thanksgiving break on a desolate college campus. No word if Till will play a friend or foe. Oliver Blackburn begins filming in New Orleans this month, and the shoot is expected to last through December.

“Kristy” shouldn’t affect Till’s chances of starring opposite Shailene Woodley in “Divergent”, for which he’s currently shortlisted for the male lead role of Four. However, his commitment to “X-Men: Days of Future Past”, in which he’ll reprise his role of Havok, just might, as it also films in the spring of 2013. His completed projects include corporate espionage thriller “Paranoia” opposite Liam Hemsworth and “Stoker” opposite Mia Wasikowska.

Stunning first poster and new promo video for “Stoker” starring Mia Wasikowska

October 30, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images 1 Comment

We described the first trailer for Park Chan-wook’s English language debut, “Stoker”, as beautiful and spooky, terrifying and intriguing and today more marketing materials from the film released only further cement this as one of our most anticipated releases of 2013.

There’s no floating heads against a generic background on the first poster for this creepy family drama that sees Mia Wasikowska as th bullied daughter of Nicole Kidman and object of something sinister from Matthew Goode’s Uncle Charlie. The hand-drawn, detailed and elaborate sketch of a poster adds to the mood of the first footage from the film nicely, and the promo video blends the two worlds together. “Stoker” will be released on March 1, 2013 and the new poster and video can be viewed below.

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