Thanks to Little Miss Sunshine, we know Abigail Breslin has some dance moves… kind of. But since when can she sing? Her Janie Jones co-star, Alessandro Nivola, already had some musical ability having sung in Laurel Canyon, but Breslin was going in cold. Well, as quickly as this young actress adapts from character to character is as quickly as she picked up on singing and guitar-playing because she and Nivola successfully take their performances one step further in David M. Rosenthal’s Janie Jones, creating not only compelling characters, but a fantastic soundtrack, too.
Nivola plays Ethan Brand, the front man in a band whose tour is interrupted when an ex-fling decides it’s time to introduce him to his daughter, Janie Jones. When mom splits and leaves Janie behind, Ethan’s left with no choice, but to take her in and let her hit the road with the band. Trouble is, not only is Ethan incredibly uncomfortable with playing dad, but he’s harboring an alcohol problem as well. When everything boils over and he teeters on the edge of losing everything he’s worked for, the only one capable of grounding him is the loving and talented daughter he never even knew he had.
As nerve-racking as it was for Breslin to adapt to singing and playing the guitar, one of the most jarring changes was that of the actor playing her dad. Nivola stepped in just days before shooting began and only met Breslin the day before the camera rolled. (Or so they claim. It could all be CGI, couldn’t it?) Anyway, in honor of Janie Jones’ US Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Nivola and Breslin sat down to tell us all about their roles, experience working together, their next projects and much more. Check it all out for yourself in the video interview below and keep an eye out for the film, which is due out in theaters and on VOD this summer.
Click here to watch the interview.
Saint has two things working against it; it’s subtitled and foreign. No, there’s nothing wrong with requiring an audience to read some text or with a film coming from another country; the problem is the subtitles are often illegible and a number of the jokes are geared towards a Dutch audience. What the rest of us end up with is a confusing and unfunny, albeit visually stimulating, horror comedy.
We all know Olivia Wilde for her work on House, the monster hit Tron: Legacy as well as a slew of other noteworthy films, but what’s the actress up to when she’s not in front of the camera? Ever since last year’s earthquake, Wilde donates a significant amount of her time to working with an organization called Artists for Peace and Justice in an effort to restore Haiti’s hospitals, schools and orphanages. Even while she’s helping get these essentials back up and running, though, she wants to make sure they have a source of entertainment as well.
When you specifically take note of a fly landing on a rice krispy treat, you know a film is lacking big time. Well, that rice krispy treat sat on a buffet table at a party in the movie Prom and the thought of a student eating that tainted treat was the most emotionally stimulating point of the film. Think that was intentional?
Autism is a tough topic to tackle on film. Not only do you run the risk of upsetting folks by misrepresenting the condition, but if you take it too far, drowning the viewers in the severity of the disorder, the film loses its entertainment value. Well, writer-director Janet Grillo has found a happy medium and that makes her first feature film, Fly Away, not only an honest and moving telling, but an enjoyable one, too.
Yes, we want our horror films to be scary, but being too scary is a major genre pitfall. Often this stems from a film being exploitative and dousing us in incredibly gory or disturbing visuals, but sometimes we get the beautiful juxtaposition of a film being so well done that it feels too real. What can be more genuinely horrifying than that?
Think you’re a found footage expert having seen everything from The Blair Witch Project to Paranormal Activity? Well, this might blow you away; not only does this year’s Tribeca Film Festival boast two fictional found footage-style films, but a non-fiction one, too! It’s a documentary called The Miners’ Hymns.
As much as going to the theater should be an enjoyable experience, there’s nothing wrong with checking out a sad piece. However, nobody goes to the movies to just wade around in a character’s problems; you need to experience the person’s emotional range in order to understand and appreciate their hardships. Unfortunately, in Angels Crest’s case, there’s no variation of sentiment in the least, just one long depressing note.
In the wake of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, many were left without food, water, shelter and other vital necessities. However, while working to restore fundamental essentials, Bryn Mooser and Adam Darg also fought to bring some fun and entertainment back into the local population’s lives. The quake took down the last of the country’s few functioning movie theaters so, with the help of Sun City residents, Mooser and Darg worked to build a new one, the Sun City Picture House.
Hopefully you’re ready to see Jeremy Piven’s serious side because in one of his latest films, Angels Crest, Piven really turns on the drama tackling some rather troubling subject matter. The film stars Thomas Dekker as Ethan, a young father who opts to leave his sleeping three-year-old son in the car alone for a matter of minutes. When Ethan returns, his little boy is gone and soon found dead in the snow. Piven steps in as a local district attorney with zero sympathy for Ethan’s grief, looking to prosecute him for his negligence.