Five Favorite Films with Whit Stillman (75 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Thursday, Apr. 05 2012, 03:31 AM

Back in the 1990s, Whit Stillman wrote and directed what might be regarded as three modern American classics. While independent cinema grew saturated with dysfunctional Sundance dramas and pop culture solipsism, Stillman's so-called "yuppie trilogy" -- Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998) -- instead offered comedic portraits of hyper-literate, obsessive preppy types negotiating a world of social etiquette that felt extracted from another time. Fourteen years (and several aborted projects) after Disco, Stillman at last returns with Damsels in Distress, which opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles this week. While on the press rounds for the film this week, Stillman took some time out to write about his five favorite films. "These are just five of a possible 55 faves -- or more," he says. "But one has to start somewhere."

Five Favorite Films with Lucy Liu (108 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Friday, Mar. 30 2012, 03:22 PM

In a busy career across movies, stage and TV, Lucy Liu has played all kinds of roles: fashionistas, Charlie's Angels, animated snakes and -- perhaps most memorably -- sword-wielding, scalp-collecting bosses of deadly assassination squads. She's currently appearing in this week's The Trouble with Bliss, an independent New York comedy co-starring Dexter's Michael C. Hall and 21 Jump Street's Brie Larson. With the movie opening in New York, LA and across VOD, Liu called in for a conversation about her role, while also sharing some stories from the Chinese set of The Man with the Iron Fists. Read on for more of the chat, but first up -- her five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Lily Collins (86 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Tuesday, Mar. 27 2012, 04:49 PM

Lily Collins was born into fame -- her dad, Phil, could bang a drum and write a hit tune or two -- but she found her own way into an acting career, performing in stage productions as a kid before working as a teenage Hollywood reporter and scoring small roles in movies like The Blind Side. This week she steps into the limelight as the star of Mirror Mirror, director Tarsem's visually energetic remix of the Snow White fairytale -- the first, and likely funniest, of this year's adaptations of the classic story. We sat down with the English-born Collins recently in her adopted home of Los Angeles, where she talked about the movie, working with Tarsem and her thoughts on Kristen Stewart's not-really-a-rival take on Snow. First up, she talked us through her five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Elizabeth Banks (42 comments)

by Alex Vo on Friday, Mar. 23 2012, 01:19 PM

In our final Hunger Games Five Favorites feature, we present Elizabeth Banks, who plays the vapidly effervescent, Effie Trinket. Trinket is the Reaping Day host for district 12, the one who pulled the names out of the lotto and sent Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark on their way to the Capitol where they, and 22 other tributes, fight to death in the Hunger Games arena. We spoke to Banks for illumination into her movie viewing history.

Five Favorite Films with Woody Harrelson (68 comments)

by Tim Ryan on Thursday, Mar. 22 2012, 04:34 PM

Woody Harrelson is no stranger to eccentric characters; he's played serial killers, pornographers, vigilante superheroes, and stoic zombie hunters. In The Hunger Games, he's Haymitch Abernathy, an alcoholic former Hunger Games winner who mentors two young participants in the fine art of gladiatorial survival. In an interview with RT, the Oscar-nominated actor shared his favorite movies, and discussed his aversion to movie franchises and hi-jinks on the set of Hunger Games.

Five Favorite Films with Jennifer Lawrence (145 comments)

by Ryan Fujitani on Thursday, Mar. 22 2012, 02:42 PM

A little over two years ago, Jennifer Lawrence was a talented yet relatively unknown young actress with a handful of television roles and a few small indie films to her credit. All of that changed when, at age 20, she turned in a powerhouse performance in Debra Granik's bleak 2010 drama Winter's Bone and earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination (the second youngest ever to get the nod) for it. This week, Lawrence takes the next big leap forward, starring in the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' sci-fi novel The Hunger Games. RT was fortunate enough to speak with Lawrence about her career thus far, her training regimen for The Hunger Games, and whether she approaches all films, both big and small, the same way, and of course, her Five Favorite Films.

Five Favorite Films with Liam Hemsworth (72 comments)

by Ryan Fujitani on Thursday, Mar. 22 2012, 02:41 PM

If things had gone just a little differently for young Australian actor Liam Hemsworth, it might have been his steely grip -- as opposed to that of his brother Chris, who ultimately got the role -- clasping the hammer of Thor. At the same time, if things had gone just a little differently, he also might not have worked on The Last Song, the Nicholas Sparks adaptation in which Liam starred opposite his girlfriend-to-be, Miley Cyrus. The youngest of three Hemsworth brothers -- actors all -- 22-year-old Liam decided to pursue acting at 16 and, after a few stints on Australian television, made the leap to Hollywood in 2009. Though his career has thus far been somewhat overshadowed by those of his brother and famous significant other, this week he embarks on an epic new adventure as one of the central characters in The Hunger Games, which will certainly thrust him into the spotlight. RT spoke with Liam recently about his involvement in the film, his strong family ties, his favorite actors, and the career he'd like to craft for himself, but before we get into all that, here are Liam Hemsworth's Five Favorite Films:

Five Favorite Films with Josh Hutcherson (65 comments)

by Tim Ryan on Thursday, Mar. 22 2012, 02:41 PM

Josh Hutcherson is only 19 years old, but he's already amassed an impressive resume in Hollywood, delivering strong performances in big mainstream fare (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) and critically-acclaimed indies (The Kids Are All Right). He stars in the hotly-anticipated The Hunger Games, playing the good-natured, protective Peeta Mellark. In addition, Hutcherson stars in the forthcoming Red Dawn remake, and acts as an executive producer on the high school horror/comedy Detention. In an interview with RT, Hutcherson shared some of his favorite movies; in addition, he discussed his excitement about bringing the Hunger Games to big screen life and why the movie's action scenes reminded him of his childhood in Kentucky.

Five Favorite Films with Genesis Rodriguez (69 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Friday, Mar. 16 2012, 11:19 AM

In the odd chance that you happened to be watching Mexican telenovelas sometime in the last five or six years, you may have locked eyes upon Genesis Rodriguez, a young actress who was a regular cast member on several shows before moving to Los Angeles for an arc on Entourage. You're also likely to enjoy her performance as Will Ferrell's absurdly radiant paramour in this week's Casa de mi Padre , a movie that riffs heavily on the telenovelas of Rodriguez's past. We sat down with Rodriguez for a chat last week, in which she reflected on working with Ferrell and his intentions behind playing a Mexican. Plus, she talked a little about working with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the forthcoming Last Stand. First, though -- before we ran out of time -- she ran through her all-time five favorite comedies...

Five Favorite Films with Ewan McGregor (96 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Friday, Mar. 09 2012, 12:24 PM

In addition to being immeasurably charming, the rather talented Ewan McGregor has been a mainstay of interesting performances on film for the better part of two decades now. In this week's Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, McGregor takes up the piscatorial mantle of one Dr. Alfred Jones, a Scottish fisheries boffin reluctantly convinced by an angling-enthused sheik (Amr Waked) and his feisty investment adviser (Emily Blunt) to assist them in their crazy desert scheme. Not too many actors can wear a khaki fishing vest and make it look good, but then not too many actors get away with impersonating Sir Alec Guinness, either. We spoke to McGregor recently about the movie, during which time he was also happy to talk about some of his favorite films. Read on for more of the interview.

Five Favorite Films with Megan Fox (186 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Friday, Mar. 09 2012, 12:11 PM

It wasn't too long ago that Megan Fox found herself at the dizzying center of the celebrity maelstrom. Through no particular fault of her own, she was teetering on the brink of media overexposure -- the kind that comes from the usual perception of someone (and more often an actress) suddenly becoming too big, and too fast. Fox's well-publicized (and rather humorous) feud with her Transformers director Michael Bay lead to her being dismissed from the third installment (quick: try and remember the name of her replacement), while her would-be star vehicle -- the hopelessly misunderstood Jennifer's Body -- bombed with critics and audiences. Yet Fox's career is taking an arguably more interesting turn now that the white light of scrutiny has subsided: she's got roles in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up sequel This is 40 and Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator on the way, and this week stars as part of the ensemble cast of Jennifer Westfeldt's Friends with Kids. In the well-received comedy-drama, Fox plays Mary Jane, the much-younger girlfriend of single-dad-with-a-twist Adam Scott, while getting to act alongside a cast that includes Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph.

We got a chance to chat with Fox about the experience recently, as well as her thoughts on doing more of this kind of comedy in the future. Read on for that, but first, she reeled off her five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Elizabeth Olsen (121 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Tuesday, Mar. 06 2012, 03:54 PM

In this week's horror release Silent House, Elizabeth Olsen again gets to flex her talent for freaking the hell out, only this time with more of the shocks, splatter and lurid psychology favored by the genre crowd. As Sara, a mysterious young woman trapped and fighting for her life in a dilapidated old property, Olsen has the difficult task of carrying the movie -- made to resemble one queasy long take -- from off-kilter beginnings to its shrieking, full-blown conclusion. We sat down with a much calmer Olsen recently to talk about shooting the film and the pressure of following up the acclaimed Martha; but first, she took a moment to run through her five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Emily Blunt (85 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Monday, Mar. 05 2012, 03:17 PM

Emily Blunt arrived proper for most audiences as Meryl Streep's sarcastic, binge-dieting assistant in The Devil Wears Prada -- in which she stole many a scene from the Oscar legend -- and since then has proved a versatile star across all kinds of genres, be they comedy, drama, sci-fi and most things in between. This week, Blunt co-stars opposite Ewan McGregor in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, director Lasse Hallström's picturesque comedy-drama about a fisheries expert enlisted by an eccentric sheik to bring a river to the Arabian desert. We had the chance to speak with the actress recently about the movie, her friendship with McGregor, and some of her forthcoming projects. Read on for that, but first -- here are her five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Boy Director Taika Waititi (39 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Wednesday, Feb. 29 2012, 01:56 PM

Multi-talented New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi established himself on the local comedy circuit and scored an Academy Award nomination for his 2004 short, Two Cars, One Night, though chances are you'll be most familiar with his behind-the-scenes work on TV's Flight of the Conchords, where he collaborated with friends Jemaine Clement, James Bobin and recently-minted Oscar winner Bret McKenzie. Waitiki's first feature, Eagle vs Shark, earned cult notices, but it's with his follow-up, Boy, that the director really comes into his own. With the movie opening in the US this week, we sat down for a conversation with Waititi about making Boy, his experiences with Hollywood (he appeared in last year's Green Lantern) and his plans with Jemaine Clement to make a vampire comedy. But first, here are his five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Daniel Radcliffe (141 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Wednesday, Feb. 01 2012, 10:01 AM

"It's actually a thrill to be talking about something else," Daniel Radcliffe chuckles, pausing to consider a question about his new movie The Woman in Black. He is, of course, referring to the ubiquitous presence of a certain blockbuster franchise that has consumed almost half of his life on the planet. Radcliffe was just an untested 11-year-old when cast as the eponymous hero of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone way back in 2001; now, having triumphantly wrapped the series with last year's Deathly Hallows, he's a seasoned 22 and ready to spirit himself into the realm that lies beyond Hogwarts. Audiences will have their chance to see Radcliffe's transformation (and marvel at his dashing new accoutrements) when The Woman in Black opens in theaters this week. In the meantime, we asked him to talk through his all-time five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Gina Carano (127 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Wednesday, Jan. 18 2012, 01:27 PM

History is littered with the corpses of sports champs whose bids for movie immortality have been dubious at best; for every Hong Kong martial arts superstar and Austrian bodybuilder there are scores of straight-to-video beefcakes lacking the onscreen charisma to match their real-life skills. Rarer still is the successful female action hero crossover, but this week -- with the somewhat unlikely help of genre-shifting filmmaker Steven Soderbergh -- a new one arrives in the shape of Gina Carano, former Mixed Martial Arts fighter and now star of her very own spy thriller, Haywire.

The story goes that Soderbergh caught one of Carano's fights on TV one evening and couldn't believe the talented -- and visually striking -- fighter wasn't headlining her own movie. So, with the help of screenwriter Lem Dobbs (The Limey) and a supporting cast of thespian eye-candy that includes Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum and Michael Douglas, he set about putting together an action vehicle for Carano, in which the fledgling actress plays a CIA-trained assassin on the loose and out to avenge those who double-crossed her. With its minimalist plot, punishing (yet expertly-staged) fight choreography and throwback thriller cool, Haywire is the kind of film that seems almost too good to be true in the movie release graveyard of January -- and, if fate smiles upon it, should make a new action hero of its leading lady. We had the chance to chat with Carano about the movie recently; but first, she ran through five of her all-time favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Michael Biehn (101 comments)

by Ryan Fujitani on Wednesday, Jan. 11 2012, 02:38 PM

It's one of life's great mysteries why Michael Biehn isn't a household name, considering he starred in some of the most iconic action films of the 1980s. If the picture on the left doesn't trigger any memories for you, perhaps the name Kyle Reese will, as Biehn portrayed the original time traveler who helped to thwart a robot apocalypse in The Terminator. In fact, Biehn was a favorite of James Cameron, who tapped him twice more for the roles of Corporal Dwayne Hicks in Aliens and Lieutenant Coffey in The Abyss. This week, Biehn appears in The Divide, a bleak, post-apocalyptic psychological thriller helmed by Xavier Gens (Frontier(s)) and starring Lauren German, Milo Ventimiglia, and Rosanna Arquette. RT was fortunate enough to sit and chat with him, and we were spontaneously joined by his lovely wife, actress Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, who also has a brief cameo in the film. Biehn gave us his Five Favorite Films, then went on to talk about the mounting tensions on set, Xavier Gens's fluid, anything-goes directorial style, and his own first outing in the director's chair.

Five Favorite Films with Emile Hirsch (94 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Tuesday, Dec. 20 2011, 12:04 AM

Whether he's piloting futuristic racing cars around a kaleidoscopic funhouse or perishing earnestly in the North American wilderness, Emile Hirsch has been steadily building a solid acting resume that surely hints of some great work to come. And though he's been relatively quiet since roles in Gus van Sant's Milk and Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, the young actor is set to return with a bunch of new films, the first of which -- opening in theaters this week -- is the sci-fi action thriller The Darkest Hour, the debut feature for visual effects expert-turned-director Chris Gorak, produced by Timur Bekmambetov. Hirsch stars, alongside Olivia Thirlby, as a young American traveler in Moscow who finds himself pitted against a deadly, literally electric invasion by power-hungry aliens. Well now, that's not good for tourism, Timur. We had a chance to chat with Hirsch recently, where he obliged us with his five favorite films... and an impromptu exegesis of Terrence Malick.

Five Favorite Films with Roger Corman (111 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Thursday, Dec. 15 2011, 09:23 AM

Movies as we know them just wouldn't be the same without Roger Corman. Sure, filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron and Joe Dante probably would have found their way into the game eventually, but the fact remains that they all got their start under the tutelage of Corman and his low-budget genre factory -- a tireless B-picture production line that also gave early breaks to unknown young actors like Robert De Niro, Sylvester Stallone and Jack Nicholson. Perhaps more significantly, Corman was one of the pioneers of the independent movie model, cranking out scores of exploitation and genre films (and distributing foreign titles by Truffaut, Bergman, Fellini and Kurosawa) that turned profits even as they flaunted the traditional studio system. (Not to be discounted: he also directed a handful of genuinely fine movies, like the Edgar Allan Poe adaptation The Masque of the Red Death.) This week, Corman is celebrated in Alex Stapleton's documentary Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, a career-spanning look at his work that gathers together exultant testimonials from many of his most famous pupils. We caught up with Corman earlier this week for a chat about his career and his "graduates," his thoughts on independent film, and how the Lucas/Spielberg blockbusters spelled doom for genre pictures. First, here are Corman's five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Gary Oldman (121 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Tuesday, Dec. 13 2011, 04:23 PM

As the movie industry plunges into the annual self-congratulatory farce of awards season, pause to consider this: Gary Oldman has never been nominated for an Academy Award. No, really -- we checked. Not even a lousy Golden Globe. That may be about to change for the great British actor, however, whose unusually quiet (and seemingly effortless) performance as John le Carré's enigmatic George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has critics finally predicting a Best Actor nomination. Not that he needs it. Over a nearly-30-year career Oldman has delivered some of cinema's most electrifying performances, in films like Sid and Nancy, Dracula, Prick Up Your Ears, True Romance, Léon and State of Grace, plus given invaluable supporting turns in blockbusters (Harry Potter, Nolan's Batman) that would be all the poorer without him. We sat down with the surprisingly soft-spoken actor recently for a chat about playing the "jazzy" Smiley versus his "rock-n-roll" characters, why it's conventional industry wisdom not to make adult dramas -- and how the success of this particular one is so satisfying as a result. First up, here are Oldman's five favorite films.