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| Mia Wasikowksa and Henry Hopper in Restless |
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| Gus Van Sant |
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The latest Gus Van Sant movie, Restless was screened at the recent Toronto International Film Festival. A new movie by the Kentucky director Van Sant is always noteworthy. However, it seems the two young adult leads, Mia Wasikowksa and Henry Hopper, both 21, are stealing the thunder.
Wasikowska starred in Alice in Wonderland, The Kid's Are All Right, That Evening Son, and as Jane Eyre in the remake of the same name. All were filmed last year and early this year. She was nominated for a number of awards.
Henry Hopper -- son of late actor Dennis Hopper and his last wife, actress Katherine LaNasa -- makes his screen debut in Restless, if one discounts the low-budget ($100,000) independent movie, Kiss and Tell, 1996, in which he had a very small part under the name of Henry Lee Hopper.
In Restless, Van Sant applies his directorial acumen to the surprising acting chops of both Hopper and the impressive wispy Wasikowska, to shape a story of two young teens fascinated with death. They find themselves drawn to each other because of that fascination, and Van Sant creates ". . . a profoundly moving account of two lost souls whose union becomes a marvelous affirmation of life. Reminiscent, inevitably, of Hal Ashby’s classic Harold and Maude . . . ." That quote courtesy of the Toronto IFF. See bottom of this post for Restless links.
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| Roman Planski |
Director Roman Polanski's latest, Carnage will open the New York International Film Festival (NYC, September 30th - October 16th). Polanski, a Swiss citizen, will not attend, but he will attend the Zurich FF (September 22nd - October 2nd).
At Zurich, Polanski will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award he was scheduled to receive in 2009, but didn't because he was arrested for having sex with a minor at actor Jack Nikolson's house in the late 1970s and skipped bail shortly afterward. He has been unable to return to the U.S. since 1978. That's why he will not be attending the New York IFF.
He was under house arrest in Switzerland after his 2009 arrest in Zurich. Only recently has he been able to travel freely in that country. Carnage, which stars Jodi Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Watlz and John C. Reilly, will be released in December.
For more about the Zurich Film Festival, click title of this post.
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| Jeremy Renner |
Mike Fleming writes on Nikke Finke's Deadline Hollywood that Jeremy Renner, who received Oscar nominations for his roles in The Hurt Locker (2008) and The Town (2010), will star in and co-produce King of Heists, an adaptation of the J. North Conway nonfiction book about a great bank robbery of nearly $3 million in cash and securities from the Manhattan Savings Institution in 1878, and that was a hefty amount of cash in the late 1800's. You will be hearing more about this one. Renner's MySpace Page.
Restless:
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