Author Topic: Sundance: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore wow the fest with Gay Marriage drama  (Read 9748 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/01/sundance_annette_bening_and_ju.html

Sundance:
Annette Bening and Julianne Moore
Wow the Fest With a Gay Marriage Drama

By: Logan Hill
1/26/10 at 2:00 PM



Photo: Antidote International Films, Inc.

Last night, Sundance welcomed its next big hit — at exactly the right time. Lisa Chodolenko, the director of High Art  and Laurel Canyon,  returned with her new film The Kids Are All Right,  starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple who are unwillingly reunited with the biological father of their two teenage kids, a sperm donor played by Mark Ruffalo. So far, the deserved buzz is overwhelming. Now the only questions left are: Which distributor will acquire it? And after they do pick it up, which actress will they push for Best Actress: Moore or Bening?

Introducing the film at its surprise Monday-night premiere, fest director John Cooper worried aloud that the theater was so packed with film executives that a fire could wipe out all that's left of independent film. It wasn't an exaggeration: After the lights went down, late arrival Harvey Weinstein was still lumbering along the aisle, searching for a seat in the dark as ushers asked him to turn off his BlackBerry.

It's hard to imagine Harvey — and plenty of others — weren't writing up their bids immediately after the raucous applause died down. The film boasts a whip-smart and witty script that left the audience howling, and allows Moore and Bening to be funny like you've rarely seen them before — and it features a seductive turn by Mark Ruffalo, as an overgrown, hipster man-child.

But Bening and Moore are the real treats. Bening plays an uptight, wine-slurping doctor and Moore plays her wife, a compost-loving free spirit. They have two kids, an 18-year-old girl (Mia Wasikowska, who will soon play Alice in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland ) and a 15-year-old son (Josh Hutcherson) who both reach out to the sperm donor (Ruffalo), who gave his DNA to each mother. Chodolenko shows a warm, funny side and crafts some brilliant chemistry between her two leads, who make an extraordinarily believable onscreen couple. This may turn out to be one of the most significant lesbian films yet made — especially because it's premiering in the long shadow of Prop 8. But straight marrieds will have little trouble identifying with the undermining, bitching, nagging, teasing, and reconciling, either: Lighthearted and uproariously funny, it's not at all a gay-marriage film, but just a great film about marriage. Now, back to that question: Who to push for Best Actress?
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Brown Eyes

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Most excellent!  Thanks for pointing this out Bud!  :D

the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline Ellemeno

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Wow.  I tend to really admire both those actresses, so I'm excited by this.  Thanks John!

Offline Ellemeno

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I think of The Who when I hear the title "The Kids Are All Right."

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmowtt9vhLY[/youtube]

Offline Front-Ranger

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Sounds like a winner!!
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Lumière

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Ooh!

Thanks for posting this, John!  :)

I too admire both Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as actresses and it would be amazing to see them together as an onscreen couple.
I'll definitely be on the lookout for this one.  I hope it gets good distribution and exposure.


Offline Lumière

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I just found this bit of news on Imdb:  :)





Julianne Moore and Annette Bening's 'The Kids Are All Right' goes to Focus


The second big acquisition of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival occurred today as Focus Features acquired U.S. rights to Lisa Cholodenko's acclaimed dramedy "The Kids Are All Right" for reportedly just under $5 million.

Focus and Summit were the most intense bidders for the picture which centers on a  Los Angeles lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julian Moore) dealing with their children's introduction to their sperm donor, aka biological father (Mark Ruffalo).  The film drew raves after its Monday night screening and could be a strong commercial and awards season player depending on when Focus decides to release it.

While Summit was extremely interested in the film it appears they weren't willing to go as high as Focus to win the rights.  Additionally, Focus has had a tremendous amount of success with gay-themed films such as "Brokeback Mountain" and "Milk" which give them insight how to market it broadly.  That was no doubt a reassurance to the producers and the filmmakers that they would be in good hands.  Other reported suitors included Fox Searchlight, The Weinstein Company and Sony Pictures Classics.

It should be noted Focus hasn't picked up any films at Sundance since they paid $10 million for "Hamlet 2" in 2008.  That film was a commercial disappointment and the mini-major has been very careful on the festival circuit since then.  Considering the company's weak 2009 (where only "Coraline" was a true break out hit), taking a chance on "Kids" may have been just what the NBCUni division ordered.

Other films still working on closing deals include "Catfish," "HappyThankYouMorePlease," "The Company Men," "The Tillman Story," "Splice" and "Winter's Bone."  The first big deal of the festival occurred when Lionsgate bought the Ryan Reynolds thriller "Buried" for a little over $3 million on Sunday.



http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2010-1-27-julianne-moore-and-annette-bening-s-the-kids-are-all-right-goes-to-focus


Offline southendmd

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Focus is all right! 

Sorry, but Hamlet2 and Coraline were pretty awful.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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 :-*

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh56_10itJ0&feature=PlayList&p=3659927D5F6A56FC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=18[/youtube]
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/movies/29sundance.html?8dpc


Don’t Smirk, Sundance’s Roots Do Show

(....)

Mr. Ruffalo, who plays a priest in “Sympathy for Delicious,” also shows up in “The Kids Are All Right,” from Lisa Cholodenko, the director of “High Art” and “Laurel Canyon,” who returned to Sundance with her best work yet. Pitched between drama and comedy, the movie centers on two lesbians, exquisitely played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, whose world is rocked, with equal amounts of dread and pleasure, when their children (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) contact their biological father, a sperm donor turned restaurateur (Mr. Ruffalo, as excellent as the rest of the cast). With characters who are as honest as the movie’s Los Angeles locations, Ms. Cholodenko has created a generous, nearly note-perfect portrait of a modern family that is, as its title suggests, political and insistently independent.



Also re: from the same NYT  Sundance article:



THE RUNAWAYS Kristen Stewart, right, as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie.

Ms. [Tamra] Davis’s intimate knowledge of the art and music world of that legendary scene gives her documentary the authentic tang missing in a fiction movie about a different 1970s legend, the rock band the Runways. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, “The Runaways” traces the rough and ready days of this all-girl band, primarily through the relationship between its two star teenage attractions, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart, very fine) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning, often just as good). While the movie opens on a suitably punk note with a close-up of a drop of menstrual blood hitting the ground, a hopeful sign of some bad-girl attitude, it soon settles into a middle-of-the-road groove turning down the volume when it should go to 11.



Also, looking very, very  good:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/01/21/movies/0121-sundance_index.html


Inside Sundance


The 2010 Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 21-31 and opens with the Allen Ginsberg biopic "Howl,"
with Aaron Tveit and James Franco.



"8: The Mormon Proposition" focuses on the role the Mormon church played in the the passing of
California's Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriages.



Cool!
 8)
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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http://nymag.com/movies/features/63418/

The Sundance Seven
A film festival known for stunning breakout performances produces its latest batch.

By Logan Hill & Bilge Ebiri
Published Jan 31, 2010


(excerpts)

Our [other] favorite twosome, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, play a lesbian couple who finally meet the sperm donor for their two adolescent children (Mark Ruffalo) in The Kids Are All Right.  Moore, too, got her big break at Sundance in 1995, in the harrowing Safe.  Though she’s no stranger to funny, her career is heavily weighted with repressed, intense women. What a shame. “Her scenes—especially her sex scenes—were supposed to be kind of heightened and out-there,” says director Lisa Cholodenko, who co-wrote the hilarious, at times jaw-dropping screenplay (the film was picked up by Focus Features). “I didn’t know how she’d respond once we got on the set. But her readiness was stunning.” The Kids Are All Right  feels invigorating and fresh in other ways, too. “It’s not like an eighties or nineties gay-festival film about politics,” she says. “It’s just a family is a family is a family. I said, ‘Let’s have some fun, weird romp with this new era.’ ”

http://nymag.com/arts/articles/10/02/sundance/index2.html


Julianne Moore
The Kids Are All Right


The problem with The Kids Are All Right  is determining who will, finally, get the Oscar nomination: Annette Bening, the bitchy half of a lesbian couple, or Moore, who plays her goofy partner. We’ll give Moore the edge, thanks to a spastically hilarious sex scene you won’t soon forget.


Also:  Kate Mara!

http://nymag.com/arts/articles/10/02/sundance/index6.html


Kate Mara and Josh Radnor
happythankyoumoreplease


Not only did the star of How I Met Your Mother  make a crowd-pleasing debut as a writer-director, but he showed terrific instinct in casting the underused Mara (a TV regular and the daughter in Brokeback Mountain ) as his cabaret-singing Lower East Side love.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Brown Eyes

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Thanks neat to have news about Kate! :)  Maybe a tidbit to add to the "Kate, Kate, Kate" thread...

the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline serious crayons

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I think of The Who when I hear the title "The Kids Are All Right."

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmowtt9vhLY[/youtube]

Poor Roger Daltry looks so dorky and awkward in that video. Not for long, though -- he actually looked cool before Mick Jagger did.


Quote
Lisa Chodolenko, the director of High Art  and Laurel Canyon,

I've heard really good things about this movie and am looking forward to it. I liked Laurel Canyon.



Offline Lynne

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I also like both of these actresses - something to look forward to in the coming year!
 8)
"Laß sein. Laß sein."