Movie Nation

Golden Globe winner Eddie Redmayne had to come up with a few more surprised and “incredibly honored” remarks when his Oscar nomination for “The Theory of Everything” was announced Thursday. He’s trying to keep his head about him, even as the acclaim piles up for his portrayal of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in the film.
“There’s an alchemy in film that you can never gauge or control,” Redmayne explains. “Lovely scripts that don’t turn into lovely films, or good films that people don’t see. And then there are the shoddy scripts that turn out to be wonderful films. So there’s this strange alchemy, this odd mixture of art and science, that sometimes happens to a film. I wonder if that’s happened, here.”
His 13 years of experience in the movies helps him not get too carried away. He recognizes “that it’s rare when all these things connect and a movie becomes what this one did. Felicity (Jones, nominated for best supporting actress) and I, when we took one on these parts, felt this amazing mixture of privilege and trepidation. We knew Jane and Stephen Hawking would see it and pass judgment on it. And since they’ve seen it and enjoyed it, and audiences have found it, that’s our real reward.
“All the buzz and hype, you can’t put one foot in front of the other, if you listen to that too much. But you do let yourself hear just enough of it to realize that this is a rare and wonderful thing to have happen to some bit of work you’ve done.”
Redmayne, 32, had made a mark in such hits as “Les Miserables” and such critically-acclaimed movies as “My Week With Marilyn.” “Theory,” which has him depicting Hawking from his college years, through his ALS diagnosis, his first marriage and his later life scientific triumphs, may be the most difficult piece of acting of last year.
First, he had to learn about Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the disease that killed baseballer Lou Gehrig and has crippled Hawking.
“What was so brutal about going to this clinic (National Hospital For Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London)
is that what the doctors were doing were just trying to manage the illness. There is no cure. That has emotional ramifications for any patient, including Stephen Hawking.”
Redmayne had to back-engineer the illness, “working out how he might have been to get to that particular point” in the script. Yes, Hawking ended up in a wheelchair, and there is little footage extant of him before the disease had taken hold. “I got at as many photographs of Stephen as I could. I showed them to the specialists at the ALS clinic to see if they could decipher what sort of hand gestures, how his body might shift, what sorts of movements would be upper neuron and lower neuron. Which parts of his body were stiff, and which were soft, and when this or that set of muscles stopped working.”
“The emotional side of the character I developed through talking with his children, reading both Jane’s book, and Stephen’s latest book, ‘My Brief History.’
Michael Keaton, who won an acting Golden Globe in the comedy category for “Birdman,” is considered the Oscar favorite. But it’s obvious that the physical journey Redmayne made — he also won a Globe — was an equally impressive screen transformation. Redmayne “transcends the eerie physical impersonation” and “reveals both Stephen’s grand resolve and his peculiar blind spots” Time Magazine’s Richard Corliss wrote. Getting across Hawking’s sense of humor, the “twinkle” that gives away “that extraordinary mind” was paramount, to Redmayne. For that, he used a meeting with the great scientist (“The power, the command he has over a room, just on entering it, is extraordinary”). And he relied on a couple of props, each day, to get his Hawking on.
“His look shifted and changed. Those Buddy Holly glasses that he wore, slightly askew, would throw me into Stephen World. And in the early scenes, there was one velvet jacket that the character wears that feels academic. Finding my hands in his pockets would shift my gait. There was something physical in putting my hands in there that made me feel something Stephen might have felt, and transformed me.”
One gift this awards season attention has given Redmayne is the chance to finally allow the awe to set in, to appreciate just who he was playing in “The Theory of Everything.”
“As someone who gave up on science as a kid, this was quite the job, forcing myself to learn about it, think about it and realize what Stephen did — that thanks to him, we can get our minds around it, we can tackle these amazing concepts. That’s what he means to the world, I think. That gift of passing on his understanding of the universe.”

Anne Hathaway didn’t sing in “Interstellar,” but she does croon a tune in her latest. When the movie’s titled “Song One” and is set in the lively indie music scene of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, it’s to be expected. But it’s not like she’s dying to cut a record or tackle more musicals.
“I love music and I’ve always really loved singing, but I never had the fire in my belly for performing music that I did for acting,” she says. Sure, she won an Oscar for singing and acting in “Les Miserables,” and “If something comes up, a musical that’s offered, that will be a lovely thing to consider. But I’m not looking for more chances to sing.”
Still, her heart-tugging cover of that ’70s pop ballad “I Need You,” in “Song One” suggests there could be a new hobby, if she’s game. Surely some band that covers the hits of pop-rockers America is looking for a vocalist.
“I’m WAITIN’ by the phone!” she cackles.
Hathaway took on “Song One,” first as a producer, thanks to her “Margot at the Wedding” director, Jonathan Demme. The filmmaker who put Hathaway on the “serious actress” track and re-launched her career suggested she look at Kate Barker-Froyland’s script. Barker-Froyland wanted to direct, too, “and I KNEW her! She was (director) David Frankel’s assistant on ‘The Devil Wears Prada.'” Hathaway and her husband, Adam Shulman would produce. And the more Hathaway thought about the lead role, that of Franny, a harsh, judgmental scientist who rushes home because her estranged dreamer/musician younger brother is in a coma, the more she wanted to play the part.
“I didn’t, as a producer, want to say ‘Cast me!’ I wanted to give her the option. She’d worked on the script for years, and she’d always imagined Franny as 24,” Hathaway, 32, says with a chuckle. “I am many things, but I am NOT 24. Audiences wouldn’t buy me as 24.”
“Song One” gave Hathaway the chance to dive into the indie music scene that the movie captures. Franny’s way of coping with her brother’s circumstances is to read his journal, visit the clubs he haunted and places the aspiring singer-songwriter played. Along the way, she meets her brother’s idol, a British folk rocker played by Johnny Flynn.
“I got to play this wonderful woman who…thaws,” Hathaway says. “It’s always surprising to find a character like this one — so young and already so closed off, to people, to experiences. Her brother’s in a coma, but she gets to go through her own awakening here.”
Franny, and Anne Hathaway, got to see this twangy, confessional and intimate music scene through “her brother’s 19 year-old eyes. That’s just MAGICAL. It was hammered home to me, pursuing acting, as I am sure it must be for musicians, that doing this has to feel as important to you as breathing, for it to be worth it.
“This music world, it is so hard and there are no guarantees that you’ll make it…So your wanting to go into it has to come from a place of true passion, and even having that passion is no guarantee that it’ll work out. If you know that, and your heart and your gut still compel you to do it, you do it.”
Making movies is Hathaway’s passion. And while “Song One” won’t open as wide as an “Interstellar,” and reviews of the indie film have been indifferent (“Twee for two,” Henry Barnes said in The Guardian, with Variety’s Peter DeBruge praising “the grief-stricken authenticity Hathaway shows” as Franny), she still has hope :”Song One” finds its audience.
“It’s a film for people who believe in the magic of music. I know how that sounds, but it’s true. There are people in the world who feel that way, that music is as important as the next breath you take. And as a film audience, they’re under-served. Until now!”

Paramount and the black business community in at least 25 cities has arranged to give away over a quarter million student tickets to see “Selma” for free. Since young people are the ones who need to know this history (adults could stand a reminder, too), this is a righteous bit of outreach by the studio and a ringing endorsement of the film from people most directly impacted by the events depicted in the movie, civil rights movement marches of the mid-1960s.

Theaters all over Orlando, in Bradenton and other locales in Florida, are participating.

Here’s where you go to see if your city has theaters and business owners signed up to do this.
Great thing to do, sending kids to the MLK movie on MLK weekend.

“The Wedding Ringer” is “Wedding Crashers Redux,” a “Hangover Lite” that softens manic funnyman Kevin Hart’s persona into someone almost as funny, but more sentimental than abrasive. That helps “Ringer” work as a bromantic comedy that feels like a romantic comedy.
Like “Crashers,” it’s built on a killer conceit. It’s about a guy who hires himself out as a rent-a-best man. Jimmy Callahan (Hart) rescues grooms who have failed to create and hang onto long-term friendships. In our overworked and digitally-isolated culture, who has time for a “posse,” “my boys,” or a BFF close enough to stand up with you at the altar?
First-time feature director and co-writer Jeremy Garelick flips through scenes of Jimmy wearing a yarmulke or a wig, the life of the party at weddings of all races and genders. He does his homework and gives a tender, moving wedding reception toast. He’s so good at pretending to have been in someone’s life for decades, at knowing the groom’s heart, that he leaves the room in tears — every time. Occasionally, a client is so overcome he suggests they pal around afterword. But Jimmy keeps his distance.
“You know the rules. No contact after final payment.”
Sure, that can make for a lonely life. But Jimmy’s a professional.
Enter sad sack Doug, played by Josh Gad (“Jobs,” Frozen”) in a breakout role. Doug is about to marry the bombshell, Gretchen (Kaley Cuouco-Sweeting of “The Big Bang Theory”). Doug knows how lucky he is, but he’s so hapless he doesn’t just need a best man, he needs a team of groomsmen — groomsmen named for assorted famous athletes, the only names Doug could think of when grilled by Gretchen about his half of the wedding party.
And he’s rich enough to afford “The Golden Tux” — that’s Jimmy’s full service treatment. Jimmy proceeds to hire a motley crew that includes a stammering stripper, an ex-con, a TSA agent (Affion Crockett) and a Roto-Rooter man (Jorge Garcia). Jimmy coaches one and all about Doug and his background, stages fake boy-bonding photos and teaches tricks — blurting out “random words,” questions or compliments — for avoiding awkward conversations that will give away their con.
Hart cranks up his R-rated bug-eyed comic bark a few times. He amps up the energy and makes Gad, a funny guy, funnier. Gad, in term, brings out Hart’s sweet side. Cuouco-Sweeting has only a single scene that allows us to think she wasn’t hired for the short-shorts/tight tank top that have been the keys to her TV success.
There’s a a disastrous first-meeting dinner in which granny (Cloris Leachman) has to catch on fire to keep the bride’s grumpy-wary dad (Ken Howard, hilarious) from uncovering the ruse. The show-stopping moment might be when Jimmy discovers Doug’s hidden skill — think “Napoleon Dynamite.”
And there’s a touch football game with the family of the bride that doesn’t quite one-up the “Wedding Crashers” version of that gimmick.
So there’s not much new here. But a savvy, sassy script, smart casting and genuine “I feel sorry for this white boy” chemistry between Hart and Gad make “Wedding Ringer” an R-rated bromance that will touch you as often as it tickles you.

MPAA Rating: R for language

Cast: Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Ken Howard, Olivia Thirlby, Cloris Leachman

Credits: Jeremy Garelick, script by Jay Lavendar and Jeremy Garelick. A Screen Gems release.

Running time: 1:41

“Timbuktu” is a picturesque nightmare, a quiet, beautiful and chilling account of a city under the rule of Islamic jihadists. They briefly seized the ancient city in Mali a couple of years back, but the conflict and events depicted in this fictional tale could be set anywhere across Islamic Africa. Racial strife between Arabs and Africans and arguments over whose interpretation of the Koran are moot when one side of the argument has guns.
The foreigners come armed with AK-47s, piled into Toyota pickups and on the back of motorbikes.
One has a bullhorn.
“Smoking is forbidden,” he announces, in Arabic and local languages. “Music is forbidden!” “Women must wear gloves!” “Women must wear socks!”
The fashion police are literally in charge, and remember, they have guns.
These backward redneck fundamentalists, an Islamic answer to Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, instantly push this backward backwater into some fantasy Islamic State past. Sharia law applies, but not the same to everyone. They’re armed hypocrites who change the rules to get the women they want and the world they want to live in.
Because as remote as it is, Timbuktu makes for a perfect crucible for Islamic Arabs to impose their values on Islamic Africans.
Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako (“Life on Earth”) lets his camera stroll through random postcards of life in this place under these conditions — the fishwife who gets into a shouting match over being forced to wear gloves, the Imam (Adel Mahmoud Cherif) who chastises the militants who stomp into the mosque during prayers.
“You cause harm to Islam and Muslims,” he preaches. “Where is leniency? Where is forgiveness? Where is God in all this?”
The polyglot of languages in Sissako’s film hints at the conflicts raging from Sudan to Nigeria — armed Arabs who don’t speak the local tongue (Tamasheq), forced to use translators in French and English to get their edicts across to the stunned locals.
The central story is that of Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed), a rural cattle farmer whose wife, Satima (Toulou Kiki) is desired by one of the hypocritical jihadists. Abdelkerim (Abel Jafri) may ban soccer (kids continue to the play the game, without a ball) and enforce bans on music and smoking, but he’ll sneak off to take a few puffs when he thinks no one is looking.
“Timbuktu” depicts an odd clash of cultures, even without the intra-Islamic squabbling. Barefoot shepherds with cell phones, video-savvy propagandists who administer an ancient decree’s 40 lashes to a single woman who dared be in the same room with men. There’s a langor about the place, and an air of oppression hanging over the locals (most have fled) that does little to prepare you for the moments of violence — shocking, brutal and sudden.
And when it’s over, there’s nothing more to take from the film than the uneasy feeling that what we’ve seen is either intolerant and biased, or a warning. It’s not Islamophobic to fear the spread of this primitive oppression, be it in Syria or Nigeria.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence and thematic elements

Cast: Ibrahim Ahmed,Abel Jafri, Toulou Kiki, Adel Mahmoud Cherif, Cheik A.G. Emakni, Layla Walet Mohamed

Credits: Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako, screenplay by Abderrahmane Sissako and Kessen Tall. A Cohen Media release.

Running time: 1:36

The Golden Raspberry Awards, trashing the worst in cinema in a given year, and once an amusing antidote to Hollywood’s self-celebration, pretty much totally jump the shark this year, turning their “announcement” into a video event, their website into an ad-overloaded click-bait temple.

Even so, there’s something to be said for beating poor Kirk Cameron’s hate filled latter day career into the ground. “Saving Christmas” seems like some sort of early favorite for worst picture and worst actor.

They’ve added a “Redeemer” award, too, which suggests they’re trying to get movie stars to regularly show up for their presentation.
So yeah, the Razzers have sold out and kind of suck, in their own way. Their website is cursed with Comingsoon.net and Mapquest disease — “improved” until it’s infuriating, time consuming and unusable.

But here are the nominations, culled from Digitaltrends.com, because they had the time to sit through all that self-congratulatory garbage and advertising on razzies.com.

WORST PICTURE

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas
Left Behind
The Legend of Hercules
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Transformers 4: Age of Ex-STINK-Tion

WORST ACTOR

Nicolas Cage / Left Behind
Kirk Cameron / Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas
Kellan Lutz / The Legend of Hercules
Seth MacFarlane / A Million Ways To Die in the West
Adam Sandler / Blended

WORST ACTRESS

Drew Barrymore / Blended
Cameron Diaz / The Other Woman and Sex Tape
Melissa McCarthy / Tammy
Charlize Theron / A Million Ways to Die in the West
Gaia Weiss / The Legend of Hercules

THE RAZZIE REDEEMER AWARD (New Category!)

Ben Affleck (From RAZZIE “Winner” for GIGLI to Oscar Darling for ARGO and GONE GIRL)
Jennifer Aniston (From 4-Time RAZZIE Nominee to SAG Award Nominee for CAKE)
Mike Myers (From RAZZIE “Winner” for LOVE GURU to Docu Director of SUPERMENSCH)
Keanu Reeves (From 6-Time RAZZIE Nominee to Critically Acclaimed JOHN WICK)
Kristen Stewart (From RAZZIE “Winner” for TWILIGHT to the Art House Hit CAMP X-RAY)

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Cameron Diaz / Annie
Megan Fox / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Nicola Peltz / [Transformers: Age of Extinction]
Brigitte Ridenour (Kirk’s Sister) / Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas
Susan Sarandon / Tammy

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mel Gibson/ Expendables 3
Kelsey Grammer / Expendables 3, Legends of Oz, Think Like a Man Too and [Transformers: Age of Extinction]
Shaquille O’Neal / Blended
Ah-Nuld Schwarzenegger / Expendables 3
Kiefer Sutherland/ Pompeii

WORST DIRECTOR

Michael Bay / [Transformers: Age of Extinction]
Darren Doane / Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas
Renny Harlin / The Legend of Hercules
Jonathan Liebesman / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Seth MacFarlane / A Million Ways To Die in the West

WORST SCREEN COMBO

Any Two Robots, Actors (or Robotic Actors) [Transformers: Age of Extinction]
Kirk Cameron & His Ego / Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas
Cameron Diaz & Jason Segel / Sex Tape
Kellan Lutz & Either His Abs, His Pecs or His Glutes / The Legend of Hercules
Seth MacFarlane & Charlize Theron / A Million Ways To Die in the West

WORST SCREENPLAY

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas, Written by Darren Doane and Cheston Hervey
Left Behind, Screenplay by Paul LaLonde and John Patus,
Based on the Novel by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
Sex Tape, Screenplay by Kate Angelo and Jason Segel & Nicholas Stoller
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Written by Evan Daugherty and Andre Nemec & Josh Applebaum,
Based on Characters Created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman
[Transformers: Age of Extinction], Written by Ehren Kruger, Based on Hasbro’s Transformers Action Figures

WORST REMAKE, RIP-OFF OR SEQUEL

Annie
Atlas Shrugged #3: Who Is John Galt?
The Legend of Hercules
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
[Transformers: Age of Extinction]

As focused as the blurred, often random moments of unsteady steadicam shots and as coherent as co-star Wei Tang’s indecipherable Chinese accent, Michael Mann’s “Blackhat” is a classic January fire sale thriller.
Mann’s worst film since he transitioned into the pantheon of “major directors,” the best reason Universal had for rolling it out at all must have been some misguided attempt to pander its way into Chinese favor. Is there a theme park deal we haven’t heard about that was at stake here?
A hacking thriller starring Chris “Thor” Hemsworth, it would seem can’t-miss, just from its timing. The villains might not be North Koreans, but that’s not obvious as we see a Chinese nuclear power plant cyber-hijacked into a near meltdown, and the U.S. commodities market manipulated to a near crash.
Somebody’s behind both incidents. The lone Chinese investigator, Capt. Chen (Leehom Wang) insists that the U.S.  Justice Dept. get his former M.I.T. roommate (Hemsworth) out of prison to help crack the case. Hathaway co-authored the RAT (remote access tool) code that compromised the targets and now threatens world stability.
Viola Davis, the movies’ Queen of No-Nonsense, is the F.B.I. agent in charge of the ankle-braceleted Hathaway, someone trying to give the Chinese just enough cooperation to crack the case. Anything more, it is NOT said, would compromise national security. Because the Chinese have massive hacking efforts all their own.
Chen has a willowy, computer-savvy sister (Wei Tang) and she falls, hard, for the chiseled, buff convict hacker with a lock of hair always draped over one eye. Even that fails to generate friction in Mann’s movie, a film where the villains are unseen for the first hour, and seem designed by a political correctness committee when they do arrive.
The Chinese are all stoic cops or intrepid investigators, with Hathaway the lone American who has a clue about what’s happening, and why. Mann makes tension-killing mistakes dating back to his “Miami Vice” days — wasting long sections of screen time on people traveling by car, boat, helicopter or private plane, losing himself in dialogue as banal as “Cash money doesn’t have a trail,” lines he cares so little about he lets his actors swallow the last words, adding to the sense of missing information.
It’s not that “Blackhat” is hard to follow. The extreme close-ups of computer info traveling down circuits, brooding shots of Hemsworth thinking, sometimes with his shirt off, the shoot-outs where agents with pistols out-shoot bad guys with automatic weapons, tell us enough. And if you’ve ever wondered what a keyboard looks like, inside, looking up at the keys as they’re struck, this is the movie for you.
Davis has little to do, the Chinese players are set-dressing and Hemsworth isn’t much without his hammer.
Maybe that theme park deal will materialize, and Mann taking one and making one for the team will pay off. Otherwise, “Blackhat” will serve no purpose other than deflating the “Heat” director’s reputation and the star’s chances of ever starring in anything that doesn’t involve a helmet with horns on it.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and some language

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang, Leehom Wang

Credits: Directed by Michael Mann, screenplay by Morgan Davis Foehl. A Universal release.

Running time: 2:13